The ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme Review: The Other $500 Option
by Ian Cutress on April 7, 2016 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gaming
- Asus
- ROG
- Skylake
- Z170
- Thunderbolt 3
CPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We leave the BIOS settings at default and memory at JEDEC (DDR4-2133 C15) for these tests, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v0.9.9: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
Compression – WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7: link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
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Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
$500 for +1% fps? Sounds like a really smart buy.extide - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
No... that's not why you buy this board...Gunbuster - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
Same as $700 phones when a $200 or even $30 handset does the job 95% as well...Gastec - Thursday, September 22, 2016 - link
But if the phone is gold plated and encrusted with diamonds it does the job A LOT better. Now I dare you to name the job ;)dreamcat4 - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
Given that this ASUS board has no PLX chip, might as well get the ASRock Z170 OC Formula instead. It doesnt have the Alpine Ridge / TB3, or the 3x3 Wifi. But then few people use such things anyhow.It seems no review of the OC Formula here because at the time it wasnt out yet, and also because you reviewed the ASROCK Extreme 11 instead... yet the OCF is a great board.
dreamcat4 - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
... Extreme 7+ was what I meant to say at the end there.extide - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
Yeah the Asrock Z170 Extreme 7+ is my fav Z170 board out right now. Dual (good) nic's, 3 m.2, no other extra BS, reasonable price, etc etc.HideOut - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
There are no new astons for under 100K, not USD. You might find a stripped one for less than 100K British pound, but since you referenced USD thats a no go.HollyDOL - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
Ok... and now somebody could make a mobo for me:2x U.2 NVMe + 6x SATA-3 (able to run all 8 ports simultaneously, SATA-3 needs to be able to run RAID-5 or 5e)
No wifi, no integrated sound (waste of cash for me)
integrated Intel NIC (1Gbps+)
2+ USB 3.1 type C ports
6 USB type A ports (2 of those USB3.0)
4x DDR4
1xDisplayPort, 1xHDMI 2.0
3-4 PWM for fans (ideally at least one powerful enough to drive water pump)
2x PCIe 16x (can be in 8x/8x mode)
1x PCIe 4x
1-2x PCIe 1x (one should be sound card low latency friendly)
LGA 1151
That would fit exactly my requirements for currently ideal mobo.
extide - Friday, April 8, 2016 - link
Best bet is the ASRock Z170 Extreme 7 -- it has 3x M.2 ports which you can get the adapters and convert them to U.2 -- there are no boards out with more than one U.2 built in right now.Also, can't believe there is SATAe on this board. WHEN WILL IT DIE!!