ASUS Maximus V Gene Micro-ATX Motherboard Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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ASUS Maximus V Gene Micro-ATX Motherboard Review - We’ve had a lot of experience with ASUS’ Republic of Gamers branded boards. ASUS’ latest entry in the brand aims to prove that good things come in small packages. If you are looking for an Ivy Bridge board, don't discount the small Micro-ATX form factor as being less for the enthusiast.

(Edit: I had a typo on the benchmark sheet and we have updated the LAME score to show the correct value.)
 
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Had a flawless experience with this in a SFF build when it was released. Hoping the V Formula follows suit.
 
Anyone have any links to a step by step guide to setup a cache drive on this board? I've got a non technical friend I'd love to send that to, and I don't have any screens to look at since I'm still sitting on my old Q9500 since I've been holding out the Maximus V Formula.
 
These are my favorite Intel boards. I loved the Max IV for Sandy and read a review or two where they claimed it was the best overclocker they've used. Looks like the Max V is just as good. This would be my board of choice if I were going to build an Intel rig.
 
I have the Gene-z Rev 2 and I love it. Getting my i5 OCed was super easy, and its been stable ever since.
 
What a great board. So in my next build - this would be a good choice even if I was putting into a full size case. There would be tons of extra room. Not sure I would gain anything I really need or want by going with a full sized board.
 
If you don't need the expansion slots, you don't need them. The Gene V is a hell of a board for the price if you are wanting to take advantage of the features and will be pushing it clock-wise. As for putting it in a normal ATX size case, no real downsides to that at all. Just make sure you pay attention to airflow like you would with any other system.
 
Thanks for the great review, as usual!

I have recently replaced a Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H for a Gene V and I can't complain. This BIOS is much better and a lot less finicky that the one on the Gigabyte (I realize that this is somewhat subjective). And like Kyle said if you don't need the extra expansion slots, it's a non issue. It's a nice way to get a ROG board without breaking the bank! :)
 
Sounds like this is just as good as the ASUS Maximus Gene III. I'm extremely happy with that board and the RoG brand.

Now, if anything can actually push the great overclock that the 920 has on that I know I can just straight upgrade to V.

Thanks for being awesome HOCP!
 
I may be missing something due to lack of sleep as a new parent, but in page 4 subsystem testing there is this paragraph:

Despite being a fairly stripped down model, the Z77X-UD3H has a lot going for it storage wise. Though Gigabyte doesn’t have any UASP or USB 3.0 boost technologies like we’ve seen from ASUS and ASRock. So there are no such tests conducted on the Z77X-UD3H. But when I say that the board has a few things going for it storage wise, I mean it. Mainly it supports eSATA III 6Gb/s and RAID 0 or 1 via the eSATA ports. This is actually really nice to see on a board found at this price point. For this feature Gigabyte turned to the Marvell 9172 controller. Firmware is well implemented on this controller as it allows operation of both it and the Intel controller in RAID mode.
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I also noticed that the graphs/charts seem to highlight the gigabyte's performance.

Again, I'm a proud new dad of a baby girl so maybe I'm just delusional =)

I really like how this review gives a rundown of all of the bios features with screenshots. This board seems incredible and a great example of what the current generation of technology can offer.

With all of the fine tuning options available on this board, I was a bit surprised that the overclocking section did not explore them further. Is it your opinion that the additional tuning options are not particularly useful for an ivy bridge overclock?
 
Why no reporting on the msata and mini-pcie daughtercard? I can't even tell where it is supposed to plug in, and I was hoping to see some results for throughput on the msata port using one of the many msata drives out there. Either one of the smallish (20-40GB) drives intended for caching, or one of the bigger drives (240GB or more) would at least give some sort of feel for how this feature is implemented.

And a picture of the daughtercard attached to the board would be nice... Does it block anything else?
 
flenser said:
Why no reporting on the msata and mini-pcie daughtercard? I can't even tell where it is supposed to plug in, and I was hoping to see some results for throughput on the msata port using one of the many msata drives out there. Either one of the smallish (20-40GB) drives intended for caching, or one of the bigger drives (240GB or more) would at least give some sort of feel for how this feature is implemented.

And a picture of the daughtercard attached to the board would be nice... Does it block anything else?
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asus_maximus_v_gene_02.jpg

asus_mximus_gene_v_ports_101623297420_640x360.jpg


The thing on the left. It's not too big but it can block some big CPU coolers. In my FT03 it touches my Corsair H60 rad.
 
NickJames said:
The thing on the left. It's not too big but it can block some big CPU coolers. In my FT03 it touches my Corsair H60 rad.
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Ah, thanks! I totally missed that, never saw the headers or anything. Didn't expect it to be way up there. I guess it explains the blank spot in the back plate.

Now we just need some msata benchies :)
 
flenser said:
Ah, thanks! I totally missed that, never saw the headers or anything. Didn't expect it to be way up there. I guess it explains the blank spot in the back plate.

Now we just need some msata benchies :)
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Yeah it's supposed to be in case you want to put a wifi/BT card in there and punch out some antenna's.
 
What is with their bloody driver disks? I thought my drive was broken until I noticed it didn't play in anything.
 
These Maxim us Gene boards are turning into quite the winner streak. Hopefully the folks at Asus keep it up. Love my M4Gene-Z/G3.
 
Thorough job on the review as usual. It's hard to nitpick when Asus keeps improving the details with each generation (intel nic, enhanced audio, etc.). I'm glad to see Asus has started implementing the turbo usb, and the numbers here are very comparable to other sites, but there still seems to be room for improvement when comparing to their Asrock counterpart 1155 boards. I'd love a review of the P8Z77-I Deluxe itx to compare the gene with, because for itx it looks like a monster of a board. Keep up the good work
 
You guys rock!! Great review - I felt like I was reading a review of my own Maximus IV Gene, these little things are only small in stature, the experience of running one is a wierd excellent - I can't help but look @it sometimes and wonder, and if you know the movie ROCK, n.ROLLA(not sure on the spelling) you will know it - 'BUT I'M ONLY LITTLE!!" I normally hate cheesy branding but the ROG line deliver, maybe not on the support side which is very important to a large section of DIYers, agree with Kyle there, it's been Asus' only real achilles. Website/tech support aside, my last 2 main mobos have been ROG, I like them so much I don't want to sell my RE3, even though I did make a feeble attempt to do so. Instead, I pulled the ad and built an Rfactor/Dirt2/3, basically a racing PC(last machine in sig)- even bought a Playseat Evolution to go with the G25 I already have. My times @Bathurst have improved a lot!!!
Anyway, it's obvious by my ranting I have been awake too long - thnx again for the validation, oops I mean review on these excellent Gene motherboards..:):):)

BTW, my Gene can do 5.1ghz, all 8 threads, mostly on auto (my 2700k seems a good one??), havent benched it, that would stress me more than the components but it seems to be stable, the H100 with help of a big-arse fan, plus the fact room temp is about 10C(middle of winter), ran it one time to see if I could for about an hour before I remembered it was doing 5.1ghz, said to self wake up, quickly rebooted, went WHOOO, and pulled up back to 4.2 quickly ;) Could probably go higher than 5.1 especially if I pissed H/T off but Everest was never my plan...gl all!!!
 
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Skripka said:
These Maxim us Gene boards are turning into quite the winner streak. Hopefully the folks at Asus keep it up. Love my M4Gene-Z/G3.
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Champion boards - I just posted my own rant about my Gene IV z/G3 - if mine was in a case I would not even think about it's size, except when I noticed the lower temps. When it was warm a few months ago, this board/cooler never got over 30C when @4.2 and now it rarely goes over 14C. This is definately a case of big things in a little package!!!
 
ivansoze1 said:
Champion boards - I just posted my own rant about my Gene IV z/G3 - if mine was in a case I would not even think about it's size, except when I noticed the lower temps. When it was warm a few months ago, this board/cooler never got over 30C when @4.2 and now it rarely goes over 14C. This is definately a case of big things in a little package!!!
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Catch being, IIRC the M4Gene did not have a MOSFET thermostat...so the temps can be misleading though it does run cooler. That being said I do wonder if Asus cheapened out the VRM on the M5Gene like they did M4Gene...The M4gene didn't actually have 8+2, rather it used a doubler to make the extra phases...would a been nice for H to pull off the VRM heat sink and see what was under there.

Just because the Gene has the same VRM sink as the Formula and Extreme doesn't mean the chips are the same underneath.
 
Why didn't you illustrate how the mPCIe daughter card secures to the motherboard?

This is the second review to not do this, and I'm pretty disappointed guys.
 
ive got the gene iv and it rocks - glad to see them doing well with the next gen, i think ill pick up another when haswell comes out
 
Thanks very much Daniel & Kyle, nice review.

I've owned this board since it was released, and have to say that in all my many years of building enthusiast rigs, this one had to be the most easy, and stable. It just kind of dialled right in, and made the most of my existing CPU & GFX card. Rock solid, and dependable.

I agree that ASUS's web support is crap, it has always has been like this with them (and most other Asian-based companies). It's either a shitty designed website, old downloads because of bad house-keeping, or just a terribly slow download server that cuts you off after 85% of your download! lol

I never understood why ASUS runs their operation like that, as I would argue that most of their customers are located in the west, and if your forced to download from an eastern server... good luck!
 
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Endgame said:
Anyone have any links to a step by step guide to setup a cache drive on this board? I've got a non technical friend I'd love to send that to, and I don't have any screens to look at since I'm still sitting on my old Q9500 since I've been holding out the Maximus V Formula.
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On Z68/Z77 you go into the bios and make sure the hard drive and ssd are RAID.

Install OS on HDD like normal.

Install the Intel RST driver suite. Reboot.

In the Intel RST control panel you'll find the option to 'accelerate' the main the drive with the SSD.

All of that being said - It is better to just use the SSD as your boot/OS drive and not a cache drive. Just spend the extra couple of bucks on a SSD larger then 20GB and you can easily fit windows on there.

It's only worth it if a 20GB SSD is the *only* thing you can get. A quick glance on Newegg shows that the only 20GB drives available are basically $100. For $20 more you can get a last-gen 120/128GB drive. (And by last-gen I mean the first drives to max out SATAIII like the Vertex 3, etc..)

I find the 120/8GB drives to be the perfect size as you can fit the OS plus any other typical applications on there with ease, and with the remaining 70-80GB you can store games on there that you play the most. Then keep around like a 512GB HDD for those other games/applications that don't benefit as much from being on a SSD.
 
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Looks like another winner for the ROG line of ASUS boards. I have had great success with ASUS motherboards and my Gene-Z was my first in the ROG series. Debating an upgrade to the Maximus V Gene, since I can still sell the Gene-Z for a decent price.
 
Skripka said:
Catch being, IIRC the M4Gene did not have a MOSFET thermostat...so the temps can be misleading though it does run cooler. That being said I do wonder if Asus cheapened out the VRM on the M5Gene like they did M4Gene...The M4gene didn't actually have 8+2, rather it used a doubler to make the extra phases...would a been nice for H to pull off the VRM heat sink and see what was under there.

Just because the Gene has the same VRM sink as the Formula and Extreme doesn't mean the chips are the same underneath.
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you're probably right about the cheapening, though I think all companies follow a strategy to save costs, it's just unfortunate that with PC components it's not always a good thing. As for my temps, my board isnt in a case, it sits in the mobo tray of a Lian-li PC60, right next to me. My wife says I glow a bit @night but meh:rolleyes::rolleyes:Anyway, with the smaller footprint it's easier to cool. Whether the board is actually cooler, wouldnt have a clue, not really a thing I care about anymore(too many other hassles going on), same as how many phases or if the TIM is on properly. For those to whom it matters, I agree, pull the fuka apart, lets c what we can c..? Not always a good idea if you like the thing and want to use it..sorta kills ya warranty...unless, if it breaks 4 real people plan to lie and be part of the problem which ails both our great countries...sorry, last bit was too political...ignore it:mad::mad::rolleyes:
 
ivansoze1 said:
you're probably right about the cheapening, though I think all companies follow a strategy to save costs, it's just unfortunate that with PC components it's not always a good thing. As for my temps, my board isnt in a case, it sits in the mobo tray of a Lian-li PC60, right next to me. My wife says I glow a bit @night but meh:rolleyes::rolleyes:Anyway, with the smaller footprint it's easier to cool. Whether the board is actually cooler, wouldnt have a clue, not really a thing I care about anymore(too many other hassles going on), same as how many phases or if the TIM is on properly. For those to whom it matters, I agree, pull the fuka apart, lets c what we can c..? Not always a good idea if you like the thing and want to use it..sorta kills ya warranty...unless, if it breaks 4 real people plan to lie and be part of the problem which ails both our great countries...sorry, last bit was too political...ignore it:mad::mad::rolleyes:
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What rubs me about it is borderline false advertising by major companies. Things like

-"Supreme X-Fi" on RoG boards being advertised....which is actually just a Realtek DAC with a Creative WMP plugin
-Asrock and others lying about whether their PWM area is digital...or the "hybrid digital" stupid label.
-Asus putting a big heatsink on the VRM MOSFETS and lying about the actual number of phases and configuration and using the same heatsink as a more expensive board...as they presume no one will ever look.

All fall into the same camp

VR-Zone pulled of the VRM heatsink and found the funny business with the IV Gene-Z, unfortunately they haven't done the V Gene-Z...and [H] chose not to pull the heatsink, and trust Asus on their marketing...which I don't do anymore.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-rog-maximus-iv-gene-z-review/13491-2.html
 
Would it be possible to get you guys to check the voltage on the chassis_1 fan header? My board doesn't read 12v with a multimeter when I have all the fan speed adjustments disabled in the BIOS. The max it goes to is 9v. The only way to get it to hit 12v is to use Fax Xpert2 in Windows and click the "full speed" button, then it reads 12v out of that header. Chassis_Fan 2 and 3 work as expected. This causes the fan connected to header 1 to spin more slowly. Can you confirm this behavior?
 
Skripka said:
What rubs me about it is borderline false advertising by major companies. Things like

-"Supreme X-Fi" on RoG boards being advertised....which is actually just a Realtek DAC with a Creative WMP plugin
-Asrock and others lying about whether their PWM area is digital...or the "hybrid digital" stupid label.
-Asus putting a big heatsink on the VRM MOSFETS and lying about the actual number of phases and configuration and using the same heatsink as a more expensive board...as they presume no one will ever look.

All fall into the same camp

VR-Zone pulled of the VRM heatsink and found the funny business with the IV Gene-Z, unfortunately they haven't done the V Gene-Z...and [H] chose not to pull the heatsink, and trust Asus on their marketing...which I don't do anymore.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-rog-maximus-iv-gene-z-review/13491-2.html
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Yeh, the so called 'x-fi' i - I have 2 real x-fi and they sound nothing like the tinny Realtek of this board. As for the VRM thing, not really concerned apart from the falseness of Asus' advertising. If they are allowed to get away with such, they may send us empty boxes:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::eek:
 
I'm thinking about moving my AMD board, processor, RAM and SSD that are in my sig into my spare HAF 922 and buying this board along with the stuff that compliment it into my Corsair 600T. One real quick issue regarding possible clearance issues though:

Would a Asus 680 DCII TOP and a Xonar DX fit together without issues? That's what I want to move to this board, as I'll be buying a H100 to cover CPU cooling.
 
mikeohara said:
I'm thinking about moving my AMD board, processor, RAM and SSD that are in my sig into my spare HAF 922 and buying this board along with the stuff that compliment it into my Corsair 600T. One real quick issue regarding possible clearance issues though:

Would a Asus 680 DCII TOP and a Xonar DX fit together without issues? That's what I want to move to this board, as I'll be buying a H100 to cover CPU cooling.
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Well you can fit two dual slot cards in SLI with a bit of room between them, so if you put that in the first slot, and the sound card in the last slot(the x1/x4 slot) then it should be fine.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Well you can fit two dual slot cards in SLI with a bit of room between them, so if you put that in the first slot, and the sound card in the last slot(the x1/x4 slot) then it should be fine.
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The DCII TOP I have is a three-slot monster of a card, hence why I asked whether or not both would fit.
 
I took the plunge and got one of these (tiny in my 600t) but what a board got a mild oc on my 2600k of 4.4gz but had it stable at 4.9. Remember guys it's not the size that counts :)
 
I have one of these boards in an HTPC of all things. I just wanted a nice, small board that I could count on. Working great so far (about a month).
 
Hi guys,

I am looking to build a new gaming rig and I've never had a micro-atx board before but I'm looking for something conservative just for GW2 and Diablo3. My question is, is this board fairly new? My old system had these specs-

i7 920 3.8Ghz|Corsair Dominator 12GB DDR3-1600 CL8 DHX+| Asus P6TD Deluxe|

I want to be current and I'm looking to spend about $500-600 on the board and processor.
Also, can I fit this board on mid-tower cases or just micro-atx cases?
 
boygorge said:
Hi guys,

I am looking to build a new gaming rig and I've never had a micro-atx board before but I'm looking for something conservative just for GW2 and Diablo3. My question is, is this board fairly new? My old system had these specs-

i7 920 3.8Ghz|Corsair Dominator 12GB DDR3-1600 CL8 DHX+| Asus P6TD Deluxe|

I want to be current and I'm looking to spend about $500-600 on the board and processor.
Also, can I fit this board on mid-tower cases or just micro-atx cases?
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"Fairly new" in the sense that Haswell will be out whenever it is out and on a physically incompatible socket. mATX can go in any case within my knowledge. All that being said, I'm no sure I'd pay $600 for the crossgrade if I were you. Because from X58 it really is a crossgrade unless there is some Z77/Z68 feature you find yourself unable to live without like Intel RST.

I only sold my X58 for my Gene setup as I got the board and proc for the cost of the Gene board....For the difference in performance, looking back I was right not to blow the $600 on the crossgrade.
 
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