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ASUS Maximus Formula

ASUS brings us Intel’s X38 chipset in the form of the ASUS Maximus Formula. This is also ASUS’ latest in the Republic of Gamers lineup. ASUS touts the Maximus Formula as “The Top of Game Board Today.”

Introduction

ASUS is one of if not the most well known motherboard manufacturer in the world today. Anyone who has been building their own computers for any length of time should be familiar with at least some of ASUS’ products. ASUS is almost always first to market with a product when new chipsets are released (for better or for worse) and they are known for their innovative features and rich motherboard bundles. While the ASUS boards aren’t always tops when it comes to over clocking they are always one of the better choices in this regard. A little more than a year ago ASUS introduced their Republic of Gamers branded motherboards into the market starting with the ASUS Crosshair. The ASUS Maximus Formula is another one in the relatively short lineup of Republic of Gamers branded motherboards. The Maximus Formula comes in two flavors, the Maximus Formula and Maximus Formula SE. The SE version has the integrated Fusion hybrid heat-pipe and water block cooling system for the north bridge. The board we are looking at in this article is the SE version.

The ASUS Maximus Formula supports the latest Intel ® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo / Intel® Pentium® Extreme and Intel® Pentium® D processors. Following industry trends, the Maximus Formula only requires a few components to create a fully functional machine. The required components are: LGA775 CPU, DDR 2 memory, power supply, drives and a video card. ASUS Integrated the following components into the ASUS Maximus Formula: 1 ATA 133 port, 1 floppy port, 6 SATA ports, 12 USB ports (6 ports on the backplane, and 6 ports available via 4 headers supporting 2 ports each), 2 IEEE1394 ports (1 via header, 1 via backplane), 2 gigabit Ethernet supports, 6 mini-headphone jacks, SPDIF out and one PS/2 mouse port. Oddly, ASUS’ more recent boards under the Republic of Gamers brand have PS/2 keyboard ports on them.

Main Specifications Overview:

Detailed Specifications Overview:

Packaging

The packing is virtually identical to the previous Republic of Gamers motherboards differing only in the text and photos on the package. The board is secure inside a plastic shell and there is another box inside the overall package that has all the included accessories which are numerous to say the least. There is one driver DVD, manual, quick start guide, zip ties, hose clamps, LCD Poster, 1 ATA cable, 1 floppy cable, and for good measure they’ve included the hit game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl in the bundle as well.

Board Layout

The layout of the ASUS Maximus Formula is typical of ASUS and avoids any serious flaws. The worst part about the layout, and really the only complaint I could come up with is with the placement of the serial ATA ports. They are placed close to the south bridge, and that’s fine, but with large video cards they might be hard to reach. Other than that, I can’t think of anything to complain about layout wise. I can install or remove memory while the video card is installed, I test fitted a large air cooler and I actually used a Swiftech Apogee GT water block without any problems or fitting issues. So as much as I like to complain about board layouts, I have no negative results regarding the layout of the Maximus Formula.

The CPU area seems a bit crowded at first glance but truthfully the heat pipes are all fairly low to the boards surface and there is ample room for large cooling solutions to be installed.

The board has the usual 4 240-pin DDR2 DIMM slots in a standard two by two arrangement however they are a little farther left than you normally see on ASUS boards. Still there is ample room to install memory while even large video cards are installed.

The north bridge is located to the left of the CPU socket as usual and it’s cooled by ASUS’ own Fusion Block System which is a hybrid heat-pipe/water block cooling solution. Running on air cooling the block always remained cooler than I expected. While that’s not exactly a scientific measurement, it felt much cooler to the touch than previous Intel chipsets with various cooling solutions on previous generation motherboards.

The south bridge is located in front of the secondary PCIe x16 slot. This is cooled by the Fusion Block system as well as the system of heat pipes is all interconnected. Fortunately the block is nice and flat over the south bridge so there shouldn’t be any problems with large video cards in this slot.

The ASUS Maximus Formula has two PCIe x16 slots that operate at full x16 speeds. These slots are also PCI Express 2.0 compliant as well and are backwards compatible with 1.0 and 1.0a standards. There are three PCIe x1 slots and finally two legacy PCI v2.2 slots.

The ASUS Maximus Formula has 1 PS/2 mouse port, 2 RJ-45 ports, 1 IEEE1394 port, one SPDIF out port, six mini-stereo jacks, and 6 USB 2.0 ports on the backplane. There is also a connector for the external LCD Poster module.