Intel Z390 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Analyzed

ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme

The flagship ASUS board always has been and always will be the Extreme models and the ROG Maximus XI Extreme is no different in this regard. Often considered as one of the flagship models when one does surface itself, the ROG Maximus XI Extreme offers one of the most unique aesthetical features on the Z390 chipset comes through a cleverly placed LiveDash OLED display which in the below image is displaying a 5.0 GHz overclock on the CPU. The board has tons of integrated RGB with a rear panel integrated with LEDs, with a chipset heatsink focused around the ROG logo also allowing users to customize it and an array of right-edge mounted underside RGB LEDs. 

Not everything is about the aesthetic as the Extreme Z390 offers dual 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs and a dedicated ROG DIMM.2 slot for use with the included M.2 riser card which also includes a uniquely designed ROG heatsink. A total of four RAM slots with support for DDR4-4400 memory and up to a maximum capacity of 64 GB can be installed onto the board. The right-hand side of the board has an overclockers toolkit with a variety of DIP switches designed specifically for overclocking, with a dedicated start and reset switch just below the LED debug. There are rumours of a ROG Maximus XI Apex in the works which will offer much of the same in the way of extreme cooling capabilities, but with support for faster memory. Nothing is confirmed thus far and if the Apex does eventually show its X-shaped PCB on the market, expect me to jump for joy.

A total of six SATA ports and a trio of M.2 slots are present with one having support for SATA drives; all three M.2 slots are PCIe 3.0 x4 capable with one of these being directly fed into the ROG DIMM.2 slot for better cooling support. The board also has three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16, x8 and x4 (x8/x8 or x8/x4/x4) and supports two-way SLI or three-way CrossFire multi-graphics configurations as a result.

Like all of the other Z390 Maximus XI motherboards, a Supreme-FX S1220 8-channel HD audio codec and single Intel I219V Gigabit NIC is featured and in addition to this is a high-performance Aquantia AQC111C 5 Gigabit powered LAN port. A total of ten USB ports is located on the rear panel with these being split into three different flavors; three USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C and six USB 3.0 Type-A ports. The Extreme does include a standard HDMI video output and also features a BIOS Flashback button with a clear CMOS switch located next to it.

The ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme pricing and availablity is currently unknown, and this model represents the cream of the crop for the Z390 product stack from ASUS. The highly customizable ASUS AURA Sync RGB LED lighting is something which draws my eye and its combination of high-end components such as 5 Gigabit LAN and 2T2R Intel 9560 802.11ac Wi-Fi support as being more useful additions. Extreme overclockers will be looking around for the arrival of the Z390 Maximus XI Apex if ASUS has one in the works, primarily for the shorter memory traces to the CPU socket for unmatched memory performance when benchmarking.