Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z Z68 Motherboard Review

OverclockingThe joy about this board is not so much based around how far it can go, but of course that is one key element. Though the main point behind this board in terms of overclocking is how simple it is to do. It’s one of those processes that even your elderly neighbour could do and that mainly comes down to the UEFI BIOS that we looked at a couple of pages back.

The UEFI BIOS allows for a simple yet effective overclock, thanks to the ROG team. The ROG engineers have implemented a vast array of auto settings but unlike no other. Auto for most would define complete automatic instructions, whereas this board has had many sets of auto instructions pre-defined, based off of which other settings you chose. Imagine having an auto setting for 4.6GHz but the auto setting for 4.7GHz had a slightly increase Vcore voltage. It’s still auto but of a slightly different nature.

That said, we mainly used automatic settings where possible, and also downclocked our memory to a slower speed than its stock rating so that it can be taken out of the equation and wouldn’t end up being a limiting factor in any way.

From testing this board with our i7 2600k we cranked the voltage right up and tried to work back on ourselves and decided to go straight in using a multiplier of 50 to give us 5GHz (validation here). After many various tweaks and changes to the settings, voltages and load-line calibration, it seems that 5GHz was our maximum. Going back and forth to Asus in the hope of squeezing more out, it seems that nothing was possible.

Without being beaten straight away, I was keen to find out what was limiting us, as if the board was to blame, it would seem that from a first glance it offers no more than any other board in the overclocking department. We then tested the processor in another three boards from various manufacturers which involved getting the same result and nothing more, yet requiring slightly increased voltages.

Due to this, it shows that the Maximus IV Extreme-Z can push our i7 2600k to the limits and also maintain a fairly low voltage at the same time which is what this board is all about. Stability, even when being pushed to its limits and it most certainly did that.