Pretty awesome looking board again. I´m personally a huge fan of the ROG Hero series. Its one of those boards that i can allways highly recommend as an upper tier midrange board for gamers and overclockers. The reason for this is mainly the vrm implementation of those boards. Which come with a fully digital IR pwm. Thats one of the reasons why you get such advanced tweaking paradise menu, to give even more overclocking control then a similar board with an ISL pwm. As soon as i have more details about the vrm, i will put a post in here.
The only few complaints i have about this board for its price point.
No ps2 combo port.
6 sata ports allthough you could argue that a general gamer / enthusiast overclocker would really need more.
Bottom pci-e slot not re-enforced.
Additional mentions:
No sata express
No U.2.
But honnestly i´m personally not really a believer for those 2 standards in the desktop market. Server and Enterprise market is a diffrent story though.
I personally dont really see sata express to become a thing. Infact i even think that it allready is pretty much abandoned silently. And i personally think that u.2 will also not really going to be utilized on the mainstream user market. i dont think that its really a miss on this board. Simply because i dont believe in both u.2 and sata express to ever become a thing in the desktop user market. But in the Enterprise world its of course a very popular standard for some time.
For the mainstream market m.2 is pretty mucht the new golden standard. And i´m really currious to see what that will bring in the future.
I was considering this board for my very near future build, however i was planning on going for the Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD as my primary storage. Eventually i planned to expand onto m.2 as well. and just use m.2 for games and the ssd for boot and general storage.
The problem is i dont know much about u.2/m.2/sata express/ pcie
All those words kind of get thrown around depending on what source im reading/watching so i dont really have a concrete definition from which to formulate my build decisions.
So basically, will i be able to use the z270 maximus ix board with my desired SSD? Please explain why so that i can better understand.
Ah. I get it. Now, i did watch a linus tech tip video which seemed to ALMOST put it into prespective.
The only questions i have now are:
1) Is sata express what is known as PCIE express (the expansion cards)?
2) Which functions better PCIE express expansion cards or M.2 ssd's
3) If neither, is the difference purely aesthetic, i.e form factor?
4) wtf is u.2 and why isnt it ever talked about?
5) Lastly, what i learned is that m.2 takes a while to boot since there are more lanes to initialize before it, versus simple sata 6Gb/s ssds like my 850 evo. Does this still hold true for this board?
Great videos on all these boards, thank you wendell!
I have an old Maximus VI Hero running with an I7-4770K that has been rock solid @ 4.4 GHz since I built the system. For me, I don't really see any reason to upgrade yet. If I did it would be more for the new stuff Z270 can offer or if I built a completely new system of course.
One thing I am curious about is how much of the fan and RGB light stuff can be controlled directly from UEFI? I always prefer to set things there rather than having to install Asus software. On my old system I only used it during initial testing and then removed all of it after settings were saved to uefi.
Keep up the excellent work!
Oh, and if you really want to try something nice for a PGP stream then try open a can of Swedish Surströmming (sour herring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming ). But do it outside or under water and then be prepared to burn all your clothes after. ;)
I just got this board paired with the I-7 7700k. This is an upgrade from an 8350 and Crosshair Formula-Z. A couple of questions:
1) In an air 540 case I have a corsair h 100i up top push/pull. I have AIO power in its respective header up top with the 2 fans pull (came with corsair) in CPU and CPU opt fan headers. I have Thermaltake Riing rgb fans in push and rear exhaust. These three fans connect to the rgb controller unit then that unit is connected by one cable 4 pin to MB. Do I have to connect this into the H amp slot because it is powering 3 fans? I overclock.
2) I have an Kraken x60 up front to cool card(push into case). I have the 2 fans on separate MB headers. AIO power in w pump+ header because of cable management. This header I know is more power than needed but it will not hurt right?
Thanks in advance for your help and keep up the good work.
@wendell I am doing a custom build right now getting my list in order so that I can start sourcing the required parts. I currently have a media server where I have taken my massive bluray collection and placed them into MKV for streaming with Plex to my teens devices, my devices and my wife's tablet. It is an older i5 that is dying so I was planning a new gaming desktop anyway so decided to do a joint build. In your opinion would the I7 7700K be better in this situation. My current build is current build I have 7 4TB hard drives. 20-30gb per video takes a ton on space - so I intend on rebuilding my movie database over this year too. I already have it scripted with handbrake. Do you see anything you feel needs revision?
Hoping for some guidance from someone using this board. My understanding (also mentioned by @wendell during video review) was that either slot 1 or 2 for the gpu would operate at x16 in a single card configuration.
I wanted to put my graphics card in slot 2 - otherwise the body completely covers SATA ports (not to mention the z270 chipset with the RGB light bling).
In BIOS (Tool\Graphics Card Information\GPU Post), though, there's a graphical image of the PCI slots and I'm getting a red exclamation point next to "Slot: PCIEX8_2 ... Type: running at x8 Native". There's also a note at the bottom of the screen:
"For the best performance of your graphics card(s), use the following configuration according to the number of graphics card(s) you want to install:
To use 1 graphics card, we recommend you to install the graphics card onto the PCIEX16/X8_1 slot. To use 2 graphics cards, we recommend you to install the graphics cards onto the PCIEX16/X8_1 and PCIEX8_2 slots."
I didn't see anything in BIOS that could be tweaked to have slot 2 run at x16. I just assumed it would do it automatically.
If anyone knows how to address this or - conversely - if anyone knows for certain I must use slot 1 to run at x16, I'd be grateful for the input.
Personally, CBA. I took the bump and took the RGB wants and placed them second to the performance of puter. It's my understanding slot one (16x) as you said is the only slot for 1 graphics card. Yes, you can use the second on config's but, it will reduce performance. I understand the sata port set-up also, I ran into that early on. I deal with that possibly with some slims above if needed. I have a power brick running around the corner of my FTW 1080, helps hide the connectors and relocates the 8x8 graphics power supply. They do a good job of explaining the tree in manual on PCI's but do leave it up to us for the configs on graphic card locations. I read yesterday slot one is the only place for 1 Graphics card.
I got mine 2 days ago pair with my 6700K I think we got oc correct. love the audio program, huge improvement. The rgb are very nice strong clear colors. I pair also the asus 1080 but i feel that is running 20C more hot on the idle the card when was on my Z170. still checking that why. The only hardware i change was the cooler from the capt360 to the H115i odd. any way. if anyone have the same config please added to start a nice talk. xmp was perfect. doing 4.7 at 1.392 i can try different approach on that if I was more savvy on the manner. There is so much information to do on Asus Bios. that i do not understand.
I just joined the forum and have watched several of your youtube videos. They are technically some of the best videos I have see on motherboards and overclocking. I am building a new PC as my MacBook Pro is no gaming machine and I want to move to a 4K system. I pretty much have my build plan done with $2000 budget for computer without monitor. Your videos are helping me to make a better decision on the motherboard. I was going to go for the Z270 Stryx but for $20 more I think I will spring for this mobo instead as it is a move up from the Stryx. For now I iwll stick with i5 6700 CPU, and am waiting for the new nvidia 1080ti to go on sale. Thanks again, I look forward to watching the rest of your videos. Glenn
A bit late I know, I'm looking at this board for upgrade and I still do not understand fully the PCIe Lanes principle. So my questions are :
- If I load the board with a graphics card plus two M.2 and a 7700k CPU will I have enough lanes ?
- If I choose to add one or more SSDs, will it conflicts with the M.2 speeds ?
Also since I am up for noob questions :
- If you, yes YOU, have the perfect VR build part list, I'm listening. So far I'm going for the 7700k on this board and 32gb Ram with a 1080ti and 2x M.2.
Just joined up and loved the video on this motherboard/Cpu!!! And I also need to hook up my H115i !!!
Could you please tell me what specific headers you used mragapigc? Im a bit confused because of the names used. I am not understanding the terms, AIO_PUMP, W_PUMP, what they do or if I need to use them in the hookup. Thanks!