Z97 based hardware is pretty much upon us and now we have found our first look at the brand new Republic of Gamers (ROG) Maximus VII motherboard series from ASUS that we can expect to see on the market this year. There will be three models in the new series, starting with the Maximus VII Hero, then the Maximus VII Ranger and further down the micro-ATX Maximus VII Gene. So far only signs of the mid-to-high-end models, so expect them to be pretty darn expensive overall, but perhaps Asus plan to follow in the near future with their more high end models such as the Formula and Extreme editions.
The Ranger is expected to clock in at around $150, the Hero at around $200, but we expect any future Formula and Extreme editions will be about on par with current offerings, so expect those prices to reach from $250 – $300.
The Ranger comes with 2 x PCI-E 3.0 x 16 slots direct to the CPU (x8/x8 with two cards installed), with a third on wired to the Z97 PCH at 4x. It features an 8-phase CPU VRM, 6 x SATA 6 Gb/s ports, M.2 slot, SupremeFX audio and gigabit Ethernet. The Hero has a bigger CPU VRM, 8 x SATA 6 Gb/s ports and M.2 slot, with a little bit better improve connectivity on the back. Finally we have the Gene, which has a similar VRM to the Hero, but with 2 x PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots and the addition of a PCI-E x1, M.2 slot, 8 x SATA 6 Gb/s ports and a 902.11ac WLAN card.
All the boards come with the usual ROG bells and whistles, so expect new features such as Gamerfirst III packet prioritization, LANGuard, SonicRadar II sound enhancement, KeyBot macros, TrueVolt USB power stabilization and a whole lot more.
Thank you TechPowerUp for providing us with this information.
Image courtesy of TechPowerUp.
