The motherboard was a part of Asus' initial lineup back when Intel launched its sixth generation Core Skylake CPUs, it has taken time to officially announce the Republic of Gamers Maximus VIII Extreme motherboard with its full specifications and details.
Asus' flagship motherboard is based on Intel's new high-end Z170 Express chipset and designed by Asus' own overclocking team and bears the Republic of Gamers tag,. So it is not surprising that Asus has pulled out all the stops with this motherboard, packing plenty of features, high-end components and putting the focus on gamers and extreme overclockers.
The Asus ROG Maximus VIII Extreme is an E-ATX (30.5x27.2cm) form-factor motherboard featuring support for Intel's socket LGA1151 sixth generation Core Skylake CPUs. The socket is surrounded by a high-end Extreme Engine Digi+ VRM and four DIMM slots with support for up to 64GB of DDR4-3866 memory. The Extreme Engine Digi+ VRM features dual PWM controllers, Infineon OptiMOS MOSFETs, MicroFine alloy chokes and 10K black-metallic capacitors. This makes it more stable and providing greater efficiency at high currents. ROG Maximus VIII Extreme already holds six world records and nine global first places for its overclocking.
The rest of the specifications include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, working at x16, x8/x8 or x8/x4/x4 mode, single PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, working at x4, and two PCI-Express 3.0 x1 slots, eight SATA 6Gbps ports, four shared with two SATA Express ports, one M.2 Socket 3 with M Key slot and one U.2 storage slot.
It features Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet, ROG Supreme FX 2015 7.1-channel audio with ESS ES9023P DAC, Nichicon capacitors, 2V headphone amp, and Sonic SenseAmp, four USB 3.1 ports including three Type-A and one Type-C port, eight USB 3.0 and six USB 2.0 ports and one Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port.
The list of standard and ROG-exclusive features is extensive and includes Extreme Engine DIGI+, 2nd generation T-Topology, Subzero Sense, VGA Hotwire, Slow Mode, Pause switch, Pro Clock, Asus' own software addition like RamCache, KeyBot II, AI Suite, Overwolf and more. The Asus ROG Maximus VIII Extreme has anything that you would want and more. It comes with the new Asus OC Panel II, a 2.6-inch display device that can sit inside the 5.25-inch bay or be taken out and used as an external console to monitor temperature, ratio, base clock, fan speeds or use those ROG-Exclusive features.
All those features and high-end specifications do come at a price so we expect the Asus ROG Maximus VIII Extreme to be one of the more expensive Z170-based motherboards on the market and while Asus did not reveal any details regarding the price it can be already found available at Newegg.com with a price set at US $499.99.
