Drive and Audio Performance Results

Our drive- and audio testing differs a bit from the rest of our testing for several reasons. First of all, when it comes to drive-performance comparisons, nearly every platform on the market is very close to all the others because most provide external drive controllers, making the numbers offered very platform agnostic. And finally, with audio, we do not list any numbers except for those reported by the product we are testing. This is to provide the most information possible, as each audio CODEC will behave quite differently. Many boards also employ a different CODEC. As such, there is no standard we can use other than the numbers themselves. You can always check our other motherboard reviews to make direct comparisons in audio performance.

We tested each drive interface separately in order to provide you with numbers that are as complete as possible. Employing HDTune Pro for all of the testing, we tested each drive outside of the OS environment through a separate OS on a separate drive. However, we put a fair amount of data on both the Crucial M4 and the Corsair F60 (60% full) to simulate performance in real-world situations. Also new is that all USB 3.0 testing is done via the provided front-panel ports rather than the ports on the rear of the board since front-panel ports are more likely to be used. I also no longer test SATA interfaces using a SATA 3 Gb/s drive since SATA 3 Gb/s functionality is now a legacy item.

HDTune Pro (SATA 6Gb/s)

HDTune Pro (USB3.0 Front Panel)

The ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT's drive performance was one of the best I have seen lately, beaten only by another ASUS board. Both SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 drive performance numbers were quite obviously ahead of all other boards.

RightMark Audio Analyzer

The audio provided by the ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT is decent, but I expected slightly better from the SupremeFX audio solution since recent ASUS products have provided stellar audio performance and this audio card is nearly completely isolated from the rest of the system because of the way it connects to the IMPACT, although given the small nature of the ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT, I have to tip my hat to ASUS for providing very respectable performance since you really can only ask for so much, right?