ASUS Maximus III Formula @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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ASUS Maximus III Formula - ASUS brings us yet another Republic of Gamers branded motherboard, this time in the new Intel P55 Express chipset flavor. The ASUS Maximus III Formula promises not to disappoint with its robust feature set, solid design, and excellent pedigree.

The ASUS Maximus III Formula is a heck of a nice motherboard. And it comes with a heck of a price; about $245. Quite simply, if you find some the motherboard’s exclusive features a "must have," then you will likely see a good value in the ASUS Maximus III Formula.
 
Nice Review as usual.

Which CPU holder did this board have? I remember it having the Foxconn and had problems. Have they switched to Lotes?
 
If nothing else, Asus gets high praise from me for ditching the a lot of legacy components. For some reason the wasted space and ICs that go along with including an IDE port on motherboards marketed to overclockers/gamers really grates me.
 
I'm going to pass on this board only because what my P5Q-Deluxe gives me is comparable in terms of performance without taking the ddr3 hit.
 
I'm not sure I understand Dan's issue with the 3rd PCIe x 16 slot.
Since the slot is x4 electrically, you wouldn't normally use it for a graphics card.

I'm not sure why any board makers use x16 connectors for slots that are x4 anyway, but like he mentioned in regard to the x1 slot, a lot of the board makers do this as well.
I guess they figure that even if it cannot run at x16 or even x8 in that slot, at least it would run.

I also wonder if anyone has ever asked a board designer why so many of them block the x1 by placing it next to the primary x16 slot.
 
I started reading this and couldn't continue. I've been reading hardocp for 10+ years and the first paragraph has two errors that just made me stop...what's going on with the quality of writing over there?

There are 6 usb ports, and 14 usb ports?

There's the probelt, along with other features like the probelt?

Anyway, I'm sure the rest of the article is good and I don't mean to be picky here as I'm not the worlds best writer I was just very unimpressed with the writing for the first time that I can remember.
 
You judge the whole article based on 2 errors you found in the first paragraph...

If you have been reading for 10 years, you should know that despite some errors here and there, [H] articles are still far better than most sites.

Thanks for the review!
 
Hi,

I might be a lucky bastard, but I've managed to get this board to 212BCLK (the same you reached with completely different settings...) with only adjusting VIMC to 1.33V and Vcore to 1.3V to get 4.04GHz (19x212) stable (24h OCCT and 24h Prime95 x64 both running on all 8 threads - separate of course)... Memory running at 2126 8-9-8-24 1T 1.7V netting me a nice 26.5GBps in sandra.

I've noticed you needed a lot higher VCore (1.44) but your IMC voltage (1.2) was much lower than mine... Did you try similar settings as I did or did you opt for your settings straight away?

So far I'm on air but my waterblock arrived today so I'm going to play around with it at the weekend.

edit: sorry, I've just noticed you used an i5 750 and not an i7.... Does it make such a difference in settings???
 
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Nice Review as usual.

Which CPU holder did this board have? I remember it having the Foxconn and had problems. Have they switched to Lotes?
The board I picked up uses the Foxconn socket, no issues so far. I'm not sure if they have switched manufactures like they have on some of their other boards.

Overall this board has been great! It really lets you milk the performance out of your hardware if you're willing to spend the time tweaking it. Got a i7-860 to boot on air at, just over 4.3ghz, and currently run it 24/7 at 3.9ghz @ 1.39v. The biggest disappointment for me has been the speeding HDD connectors which I was hoping to use for a pair of X25-M G2s, but would have taken a performance hit due to its bus limitations.
 
Speeding HDD was a disappointment for me too...
I've tried two WD15EADS 1.5T 5400rpm drives in both RAID 0 and 1 configs and the performance was simply BAD... the HDTach graph looked like a comb... dropping back to 15-20MBps too often...

But the ICH10R controller is just fine, giving me 180MBps average on the RAID0 system drive (100GB at the beginning of the two disks) and a fine 80MBps average and 60MBps minimum on the rest mirrored.

Foxconn socket unfortunately ;( Had to reseat the processor once to get the first memory channel to work properly :(

I hope that it will not kill my CPU if the socket melts eventually! (seems like I got a really good one :D)
 
the most compelling opinion I find is Kyle's and while I don't mean to take away from the other reviewers I was dissapointed not to hear more form Kyle on the board.
 
Thanks for the review, a really nice motherboard. This one was also on my list of considered boards, though I still got the P7P55 Deluxe. I don't really need all those exclusive features, but I want quality stuff and possible headroom.
 
I started reading this and couldn't continue. I've been reading hardocp for 10+ years and the first paragraph has two errors that just made me stop...what's going on with the quality of writing over there?

There are 6 usb ports, and 14 usb ports?

There's the probelt, along with other features like the probelt?

Anyway, I'm sure the rest of the article is good and I don't mean to be picky here as I'm not the worlds best writer I was just very unimpressed with the writing for the first time that I can remember.

I too found errors, not only the ones you pointed out but also he states that there are 10 total USB ports on the back, yet the picture only shows 9 including the ROG panel port, unless the eSATA port is a combo USB one as well though he does not state it as such. it would also be nice to have the [H] logo in different spots in the pics if there is a component that is something you want to see, like the backplane with the usb ports, or if it covers up writing on the board.

otherwise it was a good artical and made me interested in the board, though being out of work since jan really puts a crimper on purchases at the moment.
 
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Initial description also says dual gigabit, and the BIOS section introduces AMI twice. [H] has been my #1 source for years before I joined the forums, and I too was surprised at the errors. I'm quite sure that Kyle and Dan are just too busy with everything else going on lately (ATI/nVidia for starters), so I really can't chalk any of it up to slacking/slipping/etc because I know it's not true.:) Beyond that, another solid review from [H]!

I really need to build a new computer, and LGA1156 is hardly more money than a decent C2D E8400 system (maybe $50cdn with sale items), but I've been kind of weary of the socket pin issues and the IMC limiting overclocking (when they came out, is this still an issue?).
 
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