ASUS Maximus VII Impact Review: Premium Gaming Z97 in mini-ITX
by Ian Cutress on December 9, 2014 10:00 AM ESTASUS Maximus VII Impact In The Box
Being part of the ROG brand, ASUS usually attempts to bolster the experience with a number of extra goodies in the box. With the Impact being filled with daughter boards, some detachable, these become the bulk of the extras. To that reason, we get the mPCIe Combo IV add on card with 802.11ac 2T2R dual band WiFi, the SupremeFX II sound add-in board and the CoolHub with two extra fan controllers off the bat. Added to this is a set of WiFi antenna, the driver disks, manuals, a set of stickers for easy cable labeling, the rear IO shield, four SATA cables and an extension cable for the front panel.
ASUS Maximus VII Impact Overclocking
Experience with ASUS Maximus VII Impact
ASUS’ main auto overclocking feature with the Impact for 24/7 use is the software via 5-Way Optimization in AI Suite 3. For those that are a little more adventurous, the BIOS offers a Gaming OC in the presets which implements a 47/46/45/44 multiplier based on 1-4 core loading. There is also the CPU Level Up options from 4.2 GHz to 4.6 GHz, ensuring that even some of the worst Haswell CPUs can at least aim for a reasonable speed enhancement.
On the manual overclock side, ASUS’ range of overclock options is practically insane. Unless you are a full time overclocking professional, or actually work on motherboard design, chances are slim that all the options make sense. But ultimately the high end overclocking market is where these boards are aimed at, so options for these users should be there. One could argue their relevance when LN2 mode is disabled, however.
Methodology
Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with PovRay and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.
For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (100ºC+). Our test bed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.
Results
One thing I did notice when overclocking was the lowest possible voltage I could manually apply was only 1.05 volts. Typically I start at 1.000 volts and work up, but this was not possible here.
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leetruski - Thursday, December 11, 2014 - link
Mind telling me where you found a bundle? I'm actually looking for one myself. Thanks.krazy_olie - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
ah, it was an overclockers.co.uk bundle on Cyber Monday. I'm in UKmapesdhs - Thursday, December 11, 2014 - link
Interesting to compare to the Z97I-Plus, which is also a very good board. I built an HTPCwith this model, just a G3258 to begin with, 750 Ti, works very nicely indeed. It's also almost
$100 cheaper, money that could be spent on a better GPU, CPU, SSD, etc.
Ian.
krazy_olie - Thursday, December 11, 2014 - link
Most people would be better served by the plus but these types of boards are often in bundles so it was at no extra cost to me. The overclocking features are a bit overwhelming. I've just activated the 2133 xmp profile on my memory and left it as it is for now. From what I can tell is that by default if I do this it activates the "free" 4x4400Mhz boost. I may attempt to do some sort of undervolting at some point.Was able to try out the headphone output and was pleasantly surprised. Bizarrely plugging in to the rear it detects something, gives the option of headphones then sets to speakers but on the front panel it works. Not really an issue but weird, it detected my sennheiser hd598 as needing the middle amplification, >64 Ohm, setting but I switched it down to "performance" as it was loud enough for my tastes.
Subjectively it sounds better than my late fiio e17, excellent soundstage and separation. I can certainly hold off buying a replacement headphone amp for quite some time so I've made my money back there already.
Had a play with the sound add ons and they are potentially useful, but for general use best to turn it all off. The audio visualiser is a curious thing... arguably it's a form a cheating if you can see where the sounds are coming from! I suspect I will have fun trying to get it to play nice with games. 3d sounds is so awkward since direct 3d sound was deprecated
Just hoping that I will have more luck controlling the 3 pin fan with cha_fan1 vs the coolhub, otherwise I will need to resort to resistor cables or a new fan. Will report later on...
krazy_olie - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
Chassis fan header 1 (CHA_FAN1) can control SC fans, seems like either an undocumented restriction on the coolhub or possibly a bug of sorts.Ronald Hummelink - Sunday, December 14, 2014 - link
I bought the same bundle from OCUK, and seems I can control both CHA1 and CHA2(Coolhub) fans fine. I just use custom fan profiles in BIOS, and both fans (and the cpu fan) follow CPU temperature fine.rakesh_hocrox - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
Check out the latest tech news about Google here: http://bit.ly/1yGNZCWSuperVeloce - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
Why are usb3 copy times that much slower on newer z97 chipsets?MajorDizaster - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
So, are you supposed to replace the screws on the CPU Power Daughter card heat sinks with longer screws to mount it to a case? Or do you only need to use the two free mounting holes?iLloydski - Monday, June 22, 2015 - link
i find it odd that nobody has talked about the fact that M.2 shares bandwidth with PCIe 3.0/2.0 X16 slot. Bandwidth on the PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 slot becomes x8 when M.2 device is inserted.i'd like to know the impact of this with the graphics card if decide to use M.2 SSD. Thanks, appreciate the feedback.