The ASUS Maximus VIII Impact Z170 ROG Mini-ITX Motherboard Review
by Ian Cutress on December 29, 2015 9:00 AM ESTCPU 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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FelixDraconis - Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - link
Agreed with Mr. Elmore, but let me clarify. I'm a game programmer, myself. No, I do not have a college degree. I started too early for that. Writing clean documentation for others is one of the most important things I strive for. Picking good metaphors is also of vital importance. All things very similar to writing tech articles.Sure, some of my comments may be pedantic, but I'd rather have feedback than silence from my audience. I just hope that Mr. Ian will ponder them and decide to improve. We stop living when we stop learning. Anyway, I really just wanted to help. Anandtech is one of the best websites out there for tech articles and probably a great career builder.
Personally speaking, I stopped reading the text because it was hard to decipher. So, I suspect others would, too. Kind of defeats the purpose of writing it. Good luck, Mr. Ian!
mapesdhs - Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - link
Felix, personally I find your comments most welcome, better writing should be encouraged. Brevity is in short supply these days.SpartyOn - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 - link
I'm waiting for Nvidia Pascal to drop before updating my mini ITX Asus P8Z77-i Deluxe Ivy Bridge system. This review will heavily influence my opinion when it comes time to purchase. Looks pretty good to me.TheSlamma - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 - link
Ugh, Killer network cards SUCK Intel all the way homejasonelmore - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 - link
Asus never use Killer network cards, that's a MSI thing.. All Asus ROG boards use Intelmapesdhs - Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - link
I bought an MSI gaming laptop which has Killer E2400/wifi, works very well IMO. Far better wifi range than I've ever had before with a laptop, good GigE speeds too.mapesdhs - Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - link
Back in the Z97 era, I was pondering a Maximus VII IMPACT, but in the end I bought the ASUS Z97I-Plus instead, and very happy I am with it too. Many of the same features, cheaper, etc.Reading this article, I wondered if there was a S1151 equivalent; well, almost, namely the H170I-PLUS D3. Ian, Iike these top-end miniITX reviews, but it'd be nice to compare to something a bit further down the range. Afterall, the M8I doesn't have M.2, whereas the Z97I-Plus, and the newer H170I-Plus D3 both do have it, so the latter is surely worth of consideration.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - link
(rats, still no edit function! Can we please make that a priority for AT in 2016? I meant to say, I like these top-end miniITX reviews, etc.)legolasyiu - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Ian, I bet your POST time will be better if you upgrade BIOS to 1302,Maximus VIII Impact BIOS 1302
1. Improve system stability
Visual - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Fun times, when "low end" gets to run 30fps on ultra, be it on a "low" resolution (that's still classified as HD, mind you).And the cherry on top is that even IGPs can finally do that, now if only they actually were put into some products... I wonder, why Intel seems to be purposely hiding the good Iris chips?