Date 2008-08-29
Provider: Asus
Author: Niko Lupala
Editor: Amber Lupala
Asus Maximus II Formula Motherboard Review
Today we look at another DDR2 solution from Asus, they still keep pushing out motherboards for the DDR2 market since DDR3 still might have not got the recognintion it should. This new Maximus 2 board is filled with various new features that might come in handy when overclocking, playing, and even just surfing the net. No more crap talk lets get this review on the road.
Like the Striker Extreme boards this one comes in a grey box with the name printed in a silver color on the front. On the back you can read about the boards main features in various languages.
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Every accessory is packed into a small compartment in a smaller box that is actually packed in the bigger box. Inside of it you will find O-Connectors, optional cooling fan and a display that will tell you what is wrong with your motherboard in case it brakes or bugs for some reason.
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You also get three SATA cables along with a molex to SATA power adapter in case you got a older PSU. In the other little compartment I found the back I/O plate, stripes, extra USB ports and some flat IDE cables, I still can't understand why manufacturers won't use rounded IDE cables even though SATA is slowly taking over.
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You will of course get a manual along with a driver cd that also holds all the necessary software to run the board. Software installation is very nice as you can set it to autorun and install everything without having to do anything major. There is a quite a bit of software but I think most of it comes to use when you actually get everything running.
The board itself does not have a built in soundcard but instead they have included a separate soundcard named SupremeFX which seems to be made together with Creative so it should perform quite well.
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Apparently the soundcard has a X-Fi chip so the sound should be excellent. It also has a SPDIF connector to get a clearer sound according to the professionals.
At a quick first look of the motherboard I see that it has alot of heatsinks on all the chips to keep it cool and stable, I can really see that Asus have focused their efforts to make a overclocker friendly board.
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