Asus Maximus V Gene (Z77) Motherboard Sandy Bridge Review

Like we found with the box, take away all the branding and this is with no doubt a ROG board, its famous black PCB with red highlights show off the boards key areas. Like the Maximus Iv Gene-Z, this a mATX form factor board, but this is not to mean that it drops a few features from its full fledged bigger brother.

Packed around the top and side of the socket 1155 processor, we find all the VRMs and MOSFETs needed to provide as smoother power supply to the CPU as possible, naturally as we know on a higher end board, these components generate a lot of heat and a 2 part passive heatsink joined together by a heat pipe keeps everything under control. With all of this going on, there is still plenty of room left for large coolers to be fitted.

Support for memory comes in a dual channel format with upto 32Gb allowed. The board allows for XMP profiles to be used and speeds of 1066 / 1333 / 1600 / 1866 (OC) / 2133 (OC) / 2200 (OC) / 2400 (OC) / 2600 (OC) and 2666 (OC) can be achieved with compatible memory. Next to the DRAM slots we find the 24-pin ATX power connector, GO button and voltage check points.

Looking at the expansion lanes, its business as usual with two red PCIe3.0 x16 lanes which will allow for the full power of PCIe3.0 capable cards to be unleashed when a 3rd Generation CPU is installed. Along side these there is also a single PCIe x4 lane for other various add-on cards.

SATA wise, the two SATA ports to the left are controlled by an ASMedia controller and run at 6GB/s. The remainder of the SATA ports are run by the Z77 chipset with the two red ports in the middle of the bank running at 6Gb/s and the two grey running at 3Gb/s. The Intel controller supports RAID 0, 1 5 and 10 configurations. To the right of the SATA ports, there is a native USB3.0 header.

Moving further down towards the Front panel headers, we find audio headers, a start button, reset button and debug LED as well as USB headers and the general front panel switches and LED headers.

Before we move onto the rear I/O panel, if we look back to the last page, ASUS have the new addition of the mPCIe and mSATA combo card. This simple slots onto the 26-pin header which is found here above the rear I/O panel. a single screw then slots through the board holding it in place.

Another feature that we see new on the Maximus V Gene is with regards to the audio. Integrated audio has always been seen to be a slight downfall on motherboards due to its lack of clarity and crisp sound plus the feeling that it could be that bit better. To combat the interference that the motherboard can pass on to the sound card, Asus have clearly segregated the audio from the board. To signify and enhance this feature, we can see that there is a red line from the rear of the audio jacks that works its way down the board to the base. This is not just a coloured line. Underneath the board are a number of surface mounted LEDs, and with the board powered, these light up and shine through the board.

Starting from the left hand end of the rear I/O, first we find the CMOS reset and ROG connect buttons, then a bank of four USB2.0 ports. The bottom one of these is white rather than black as we know to signify that it is for ROG connect use. Moving on we also have four USB3.0, eSATA, HDMI, a full size DisplayPort, optical S/PDIF and 8ch analogue audio output.