Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z Z68 Motherboard Review

A Closer LookBeing a ROG board, we find the black and red colour scheme used throughout, and in all honesty ends up looking much like the Crosshair series, but obviously based on Intel instead. The general layout is what you’d expect from a high-end board and manages to pack a lot into the ATX form factor.

Moving in closer to the CPU socket, we find a typical 1155 socket clamp surrounded by black and red passive heatsinks of which one features a Republic of Gamers glossy coin shaped emblem which lights up red when the board is in use. All of the heatsinks are joined via heatpipes and sufficient room is around the socket for larger coolers.

Four memory slots are situated in their usual location, based upon the dual-channel architecture. Memory support is up to 32GB of DDR3 21330MHz and supports Intel XMP based modules but faster modules can be used by overclocking.

Taking a look at the expansion slots on this board, we find they are in full swing and include FOUR​ PCI-Express x16 slots, a single PCI-Express x1 slot and a single PCI-Express x4 slot. The board having four PCI-Express x16 slots allows for Tri-SLI or triple CrossFireX depending on your preference. It features the patented NF200 chip on this board which gives the extra functionality involved with using the likes of Tri SLI so that more bandwidth can be delivered where needed.

Moving around the board, we can see a total of eight SATA connectors, the four grey connectors are for use with SATA II devices, whilst the four red support SATA III. The six ports on the left all use the Intel Z68 chipset to power them, whilst the two on the right use a Marvell 9182 controller to add that extra two ports. A good decision by Asus and obviously appeals to users needing more storage options as standard.

Just down from the SATA ports, we find a whole host of front panel connectors including front panel audio, four USB 2.0 headers and front panel connectors for your power and reset buttons as well as activity LEDs. There is also a small red switch located in the bottom right corner for switching between the two BIOS editions that this board has, and a corresponding LED to show which BIOS is in use.

Towards the back of the board is a USB 3.0 header as well as a Molex power connector for additional power to the PCI-Express expansion slots if using a multi GPU setup like Tri-SLI.

Another Molex connector is also situated by the front panel connectors, towards the bottom of the board. This is in addition to the one at the top of the expansion slots, and also provides extra power to the PCI-Express lanes when in use with multiple GPU configurations.

Sticking with the power connectors, the top of the board includes an eight-pin CPU connector, which comes with four of the pins blanked off, though we recommend that if your power supply has the 8-pin connector, to use this as opposed to a 4-pin.

Also in its usual location, we find the ATX 24-pin but with a few other features that are worth talking about. There are some specially made voltage points for reading relevant voltages on the board which Asus have branded as Probelt which in conjunction with a good digital multimeter, can be a real godsend. Other key features include the ability to switch from x16 mode on the independant PCI-Express x16 lanes, power and reset buttons, debug LED and another switch for LN2 mode for the extreme overclockers.

Finally moving towards the back of the board and the rear I/O we find that they’ve really gone all out in terms of connectivity with a whopping eight USB 3.0 ports, PS2 mouse/keyboard combo port, clear CMOS button, optical SPDIF, two eSATA ports, dual Gigabit LAN, ROG connect button and port and 8-channel audio supported by Realtek.