ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme Review

erek

erek

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"The ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme is the quintessential top-tier motherboard. Name a feature and the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme has it: Thunderbolt, optional active VRM cooling, even an OLED screen. Even the standard features are taken a step further with four M.2 slots, extra USB ports inside and out, and no less than 20 fan headers (14 onboard and 6 on the Fan Extension Card II). When it comes to looks, the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme is classically ASUS by featuring an excellent RGB implementation as well as a design that is neutral enough to make for easy parts matching—all while looking interesting enough to still catch the eye.

Out of the box performance was excellent for the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme in our testing. Memory overclocking was top-tier as well, as I reached 4000 MHz CL16 stable with my Trident Z Neo kit. For CPU overclocking, I was able to achieve 5.2 GHz on all cores. The largest limitation to overclocking with Z490 is going to come down to dealing with the heat produced by the incredibly dense Intel Core i9-10900K. VRM thermals were very good as well, barely exceeding 55 °C even during my VRM torture testing.

The ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme has it all, with top-tier features and aesthetics, performance, and overclocking. Of course, with top-tier features comes a top-tier price. At US$749.99, the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme could be a great choice for extreme overclockers or those for whom money is no object. But for most users, the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero would be a more sensible option with the same great aesthetic at almost half the price.
Discuss(6 Comments)"

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asus-rog-maximus-xii-extreme/
 
Why in the world would anyone drop $750 on a motherboard that will be "obsolete" in 3 weeks with the launch of Z590?

Furthermore, why would anyone drop $750 on a platform that Intel itself will abandon in 2021 with the move to LGA1700 and Alder Lake? Do people really not remember the Z270 non-support of Coffee Lake fiasco?
 
My ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha has that OLED screen.

When I first heard of it I thought the idea sounded really dumb, but it is actually quite useful.



I don't know why it has to be OLED though. I double anyone is worries about the deep blacks on it...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
My ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha has that OLED screen.

When I first heard of it I thought the idea sounded really dumb, but it is actually quite useful.



I don't know why it has to be OLED though. I double anyone is worries about the deep blacks on it...
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that's your channel?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
If you want to call it a "channel". I just post clips.

You know. What Youtube was made for. :p

Most of my stuff is "unlisted" just used to share videos of stuff on forums
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You got a new subscription. Those zenith boards seem like the real high end...
 
erek said:
You got a new subscription. Those zenith boards seem like the real high end...
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I wasn't going to buy the $800 Christmas Tree Light edition motherboard, but after a year of fighting my Threadripper build, and finally concluding that despite having RMA's my Gigabyte TRX40 Aorus Master and having it returned with "no problem found" the motherboard was definitely the culprit, I just wanted something right away I could find locally. After some searching, th eonly board I could find locally was this ROG board, so I went for it, and instantly everything works.

I have all the on board audio and networking disabled. I don't take advantage of the crazy power stages on this thing, or its m.2 expansion card, and I have all of the christmas tree lights disabled, so a lot of what people are using this board for when they buy it, I'm not :p

I don't want to detract from this news post though. My thread on the subject is here.
 
kirbyrj said:
Why in the world would anyone drop $750 on a motherboard that will be "obsolete" in 3 weeks with the launch of Z590?

Furthermore, why would anyone drop $750 on a platform that Intel itself will abandon in 2021 with the move to LGA1700 and Alder Lake? Do people really not remember the Z270 non-support of Coffee Lake fiasco?
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What's weird is why they bothered to still put 2x USB 2.0 ports on a $750 mobo. Certainly they could have made those 3.0 at least?
 
Furious_Styles said:
What's weird is why they bothered to still put 2x USB 2.0 ports on a $750 mobo. Certainly they could have made those 3.0 at least?
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Maybe for compatibility purposes?

I've definitely had installation troubles with some OS:es whose install media refused to boot off of the USB3 ports on a motherboard.

Also, tons of internal devices use internal USB 2.0 headers to connect to the system, like my Aquacomputer Aquaero's.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I wasn't going to buy the $800 Christmas Tree Light edition motherboard, but after a year of fighting my Threadripper build, and finally concluding that despite having RMA's my Gigabyte TRX40 Aorus Master and having it returned with "no problem found" the motherboard was definitely the culprit, I just wanted something right away I could find locally. After some searching, th eonly board I could find locally was this ROG board, so I went for it, and instantly everything works.

I have all the on board audio and networking disabled. I don't take advantage of the crazy power stages on this thing, or its m.2 expansion card, and I have all of the christmas tree lights disabled, so a lot of what people are using this board for when they buy it, I'm not :p

I don't want to detract from this news post though. My thread on the subject is here.
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im not a fan of gigabyte. never have been. my old gigabyte rtx 3090 vision had issues. nvidia fe = solid though
 
erek said:
im not a fan of gigabyte. never have been. my old gigabyte rtx 3090 vision had issues. nvidia fe = solid though
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Having worked in manufacturing most of my life, I understand that even the best company has an issue every once in a while. What sets the good aside from the bad is how they handle it when you have an issue.

The fact that I suspected the motherboard (but couldn't test that theory because I only had one TRX40 CPU and one TRX40 motherboard) , RMA'd it, had it sent back as "no problem found" only to later confirm that the motherboard was the issue all along makes me really grumpy.

I had almost a year of main system downtime because of this. Not all of that time is their fault though. It happened in a year I also had to move, so I couldn't spend time troubleshooting, and when I did troubleshoot EVERYTHING took longer, as I frequently had to stop and order parts that were either out of stock due to the pandemic, or took longer to get here due to the pandemic...

Which is why I broke down and bought this crazy expensive motherboard. I was just done waiting. I wanted it to work, and work now before I have to go back to my actual job in January and have less time to troubleshoot.

I may buy Gigabyte again some day, but it will likely be a good long while...
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Maybe for compatibility purposes?

I've definitely had installation troubles with some OS:es whose install media refused to boot off of the USB3 ports on a motherboard.

Also, tons of internal devices use internal USB 2.0 headers to connect to the system, like my Aquacomputer Aquaero's.
Click to expand...

I don't know that I've had a board with rear USB 2.0 in a long time. I know a lot of the recent AMD boards don't have it (5XX boards anyway). Usually if they do it is the top two ports for keyboard and mouse.

Pretty much since Windows 10 there hasn't been as much problem with compatibility during install from the Windows side. Maybe I misremembering early builds though. I don't use a lot of different Linux distributions, but Manjaro and Ubuntu both worked fine for me <shrug>.
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't know that I've had a board with rear USB 2.0 in a long time. I know a lot of the recent AMD boards don't have it (5XX boards anyway). Usually if they do it is the top two ports for keyboard and mouse.

Pretty much since Windows 10 there hasn't been as much problem with compatibility during install from the Windows side. Maybe I misremembering early builds though. I don't use a lot of different Linux distributions, but Manjaro and Ubuntu both worked fine for me <shrug>.
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Yeah, I've mostly had issues with other types of operating systems. Not even Linux.

I'm talking things like FreeBSD based appliances like FreeNAS or pfSense, and I recall having te same issue the last time I tried ESXi.

Granted, most of these consumer/"gaming" boards will never run those operating systems, but I still like having it just in case I ever repurpose the hardware. There is no drawback to having - as you say - two ports that you can use for mouse and keyboard as USB2, just in case.

That said, my new ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha does not have this. They are all 3.0 or higher, I believe.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yeah, I've mostly had issues with other types of operating systems. Not even Linux.

I'm talking things like FreeBSD based appliances like FreeNAS or pfSense, and I recall having te same issue the last time I tried ESXi.

Granted, most of these consumer/"gaming" boards will never run those operating systems, but I still like having it just in case I ever repurpose the hardware. There is no drawback to having - as you say - two ports that you can use for mouse and keyboard as USB2, just in case.

That said, my new ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha does not have this. They are all 3.0 or higher, I believe.
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Might just be a thing Asus is doing. Was working on a Z490 board for the first time today (Z490-A) and it also has 2x usb 2.0 on it.
 
There's nothing wrong with the M12E. I have it. It's a great motherboard and worth the price for what you use it for. You get 4 dimm slots instead of 2, so if you need lots of RAM, you're covered. And 32 GB dimms are just not "there" yet, for 2 dimm slot boards. And you get the thunderbolt 3 card, and a very nice bios of course. The RAM overclocking is extremely good also, but not as good as a 2 dimm board. The only weak point is the Intel Nic issues but I don't know if that has been addressed now. And it won't be obsolete in a few months. Rocket Lake is a drop in upgrade.

The best overall Asus board for Z490 is the Apex, however, since very few people need more than 32 GB, 2x16 GB b-die sticks have some very good clocking on the right bins, and you still get the top tier VRMs and bells and whistles.
 
Furious_Styles said:
Might just be a thing Asus is doing. Was working on a Z490 board for the first time today (Z490-A) and it also has 2x usb 2.0 on it.
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Well, on my Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha I don't have any USB2.0 ports on the I/O panel. (there are two USB2.0 headers though)

On the back I/O panel, the ports are as follows:

1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2
7 x USB 3.2 Gen 2
- 6 x Type-A + 1 x Type-C
4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1
- 4 x Type-A
 
Screen burn is the problem. Had an oled screen on an old Waterblock. Looked like ass after 2 years.

I’ve got that zenith 2 extreme too, old house I couldn’t see my computer as it was underneath my desk. New house it’ll be on a shelf too high to see it.

At least it will help my old knees trying to read lcd error codes
 
Iratus said:
Screen burn is the problem. Had an oled screen on an old Waterblock. Looked like ass after 2 years.

I’ve got that zenith 2 extreme too, old house I couldn’t see my computer as it was underneath my desk. New house it’ll be on a shelf too high to see it.

At least it will help my old knees trying to read lcd error codes
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Yeah, I imagined that might be an issue with OLED in this case where it is repeatedly showing the same images in screen. It seems like a good old fashioned LCD would be a better application in this case.
 
Der8auer had an update video about his rig he built recently and it already had oled burn-in on the dominus board. I do believe you can turn them off though, I recall shamino posted something over on overclock for a user that wanted to disable it but not install the full software for the max 12 ex.

 
$750 for a motherboard is insanity.

I'd like to see a performance comparison of a $750 motherboard to a $150 motherboard.
 
D-EJ915 said:
Der8auer had an update video about his rig he built recently and it already had oled burn-in on the dominus board. I do believe you can turn them off though, I recall shamino posted something over on overclock for a user that wanted to disable it but not install the full software for the max 12 ex.

Click to expand...


Yeah, there is an on/off setting in the BIOS, at least on the ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha.
 
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