ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme Z490 Motherboard Review

How Much Does it Cost?

The ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme Z490 Motherboard launches today, and stock is showing as pre-order from some national retailers before that. However, Amazon stock likely won’t be live until after my review, so I’ll update this later. However, you can check UK stock and prices here and US stock and prices here.

Make no mistake though, this is not a cheap motherboard, with prices expected to sit around £850 here in the UK it’s a real wallet buster. But with ASUS already being a premium brand, their ROG even more so, and them saving the EXTREME range of their absolute best hardware, that’s hardly surprising.

Overview

This motherboard is an absolute monster in just about every regard. However, why is it around £250 more expensive than the last generations flagship? Well, a little bit of everything seems to be the cause of that. Why have enough when you can have it all seems to be the design philosophy and it works, it’s one of the finest boards the world has ever seen when it comes to features, build quality and aesthetics.

Build Quality & Design

Lashings of addressable RGB strike through the motherboard like laser beams, while a built-in OLED display dances animated graphics above the PCIe lanes, while the jet black matte and shiny surfaces contrast to give this one of the coolest looks of any motherboards on the market. It’s fancy, but it’s also incredibly durable too. The motherboard is seriously heavy thanks to the huge heatsinks, which look great, but they are all practical and provide powerful cooling performance to the flagship hardware underneath. Such as the four M.2 mounts on this motherboard, offering you a LOT of ultra-fast storage options.

Performance

Massive power is the name of the game here, with a whopping 16 Power Stage design, armoured ProCool II CPU headers, 10K capacitors, MicroFine Alloy Chokes, and a huge heatpipe array that runs through all three VRM heatsinks and into the lower chipset body. Throwing some serious power into the flagship Intel CPUs is clearly no issue here, and while it’s well made already, I suspect matching waterblocks will be available shortly and this board will be setting some world records.

While performance was great as is, I do think there’s room for improvement though such as the VDroop was far too aggressive in some of our testing while testing overclocks. It’s a simple BIOS thing though, and pre-launch, these sort of issues aren’t exclusive to ASUS and often quickly fixed for consumers.

Added Value

It’s not so much added value with this motherboard but rather you get a lot and pay for every bit of it. Big VRM and power delivery don’t come cheap for starters, but connectivity is king here. The rear I/O alone offers a rediculous 12 USB connections, including two Type C headers.

Networking is insane, with 10 Gbps LAN built-in, but also a 2.5G connector, giving you options for web, home network, NAS configurations and more. Then you also have the blazing-fast WiFi 6 AX201 hardware, and of course, you can use all three in harmony for stability.

I do think it’s odd you only get a few PCIe lanes, but beyond a PCIe M.2 card and two massive GPUs, are enthusiasts really going to need ANYTHING else on here given the built-in features of the board? Unlikely.

The SupremeFX 7.1 audio hardware is one of my favourite features too. With the ESs DAC, EC458 op amp, premium Japanese capacitors, shielding, etc, it’s got one of the best built-in audio setups on the market today.

Should I Buy One?

Most likely the answer is no. This board is far more than your typical gamer needs, and even most enthusiasts would not use the full potential of this board. Sure, it’ll appeal to those with deep pockets and a need for bragging rights too. However, if you need 12+ USB devices, quad M.2 storage, ultra-fast networking, the ability to rag your CPU 24/7 with confidence, ultra-fast RAM, and every moment of your day is a time vs money balance of graphics and rendering, then it may be the right motherboard for you. It may be dressed up for a party, but at its heart, this is a very serious workstation board sitting in the consumer market.