- Date:
- Tuesday , March 01, 2016
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
ASUS Maximus VIII Gene LGA 1151 Motherboard Review
ASUS’ Maximus VIII Gene is the latest in a long line of mATX powerhouses from ASUS’ Republic of Gamers brand. This motherboard is poised to offer an amazing feature set, class leading overclocking, and stability in a compact package. We’ve had great experiences with motherboards in the Gene line, so our expectations are high.
Overclocking
Overclocking with the Maximus VIII Gene was pain free and super-easy. ASUS' ROG line doesn't always achieve the best overclocks out there. Some of that comes down to the silicon lottery, but much of it as a fact of design. The ASUS ROG motherboards are nothing if not easy to overclock. The rules that govern automated operation within the UEFI are simply the best in the business. Leaving most settings on automatic can net you results that would take a more seasoned enthusiast to achieve on many other motherboards. One excellent point in the Maximus VIII Gene’s favor I already touched on in the first page. That is the motherboard’s excellent onboard cooling hardware. The MOSFET coolers are some of the coolest running we’ve yet to encounter. Overclocked I saw temperatures of 96F on the heat sink to the right of the CPU, and 103F on the one directly behind it, near the backplane.
4.40GHz@1.38v (100x44) DDR4 3600MHz
Beginning with the AI Suite III software, I set the options to try and shoot for a 4.7GHz overclock. This is really the maximum speed I can achieve with the CPU I have. This CPU likes a voltage around 1.40 to 1.42v and can do 4.7GHz at memory speeds of 2666MHz in most cases. DDR4 3600MHz is possible up to around 4.5GHz. Keep in mind that the voltages shown in CPU-Z are off for whatever reason. AI Suite III configured the system for 4.4GHz at 1.38v and the RAM at DDR4 3600MHz at 1.35v. Essentially it left the XMP values alone and only pushed the CPU as far as it seems to think it can handle going. This isn't wrong necessarily, as the actual capabilities of this processor with the memory at such a high frequency isn't that far off the mark. As an overclock goes, 4.4GHz is fairly pathetic.
4.70GHz@1.40v (100x47) DDR4 2666MHz
On manual control, the Maximus VIII Gene is like any other ASUS motherboard. All one needs to do is set the CPU vCore for manual / override and choose 1.40v. I was then able to increase the turbo frequency ratio to 47x. This netted a result of 4.7GHz @ 1.40v. As usual I tried to go for more than DDR4 2666MHz, but the results were unstable at best. While I could perform most tasks up to DDR4 2800MHz, any Prime95, AIDA64 or Handbrake encoding test results ended up with the system locking up or randomly restarting. Speeds greater than that behaved similarly, but resulted in a sideways frowny face of disapproval thanks to Microsoft dumbing down the BSOD to something less informative than your average Twitter post.
Conclusions
Dan's Thoughts:
My out of box experience with the Maximus VIII Gene was excellent for the most part. Setting up the memory to use XMP profiles went perfectly. The system correctly set the voltage, which took effect immediately on the next restart. The timings were all correct, matching what the SPD/XMP timing tables showed. Even the memory speed was set correctly at DDR4 3600MHz. Setting up the RAID array was a breeze and OS installation went without a hitch. When I started installing the software and drivers from the ASUS driver disc, things went south.
Initially everything seemed to go fine, but after installing the drivers and rebooting the machine the first time, the system became unresponsive. I was then forced to clear the CMOS and set things up in the UEFI again. I didn't have any trouble driver-wise once the system got back into Windows. Unfortunately, my problems didn't end there. I did have an issue with the utilities installation. I told the software installer to only load AI Suite III. Instead it loaded all the utilities on the disc. After cleaning that mess up and uninstalling most of that, I was able to get down to the business of testing the system.
Most everything else went beautifully. The sound worked without a hitch, the networking worked as it should have and drive controller testing went as anticipated. The problem I did have was with regard to UASP/Turbo mode testing on our external BlackX drive dock. This hardware fully supports UASP and the USB 3.1 Boost feature in AI Suite III should allow me to set either turbo or UASP modes. Unfortunately, it didn't. I couldn't use either no matter which ports I tried. This isn't a massive issue necessarily, but if proper UASP support is the defining feature that made someone choose the Maximus VIII Gene over a competing product, they might be in for some disappointment. I am not saying others may have the same issue I did, but it's something to keep in mind. This is also very unusual as the Turbo/UASP feature has worked on most of the boards we've ever tested aside from some Windows 7 compatibility problems with certain modes being unsupported under that dated OS.
None of the issues I encountered are insurmountable or necessarily deal breakers. I am surprised by this as the ASUS motherboards have usually felt extremely mature this generation, right from the very start. Having problems after Skylake and Z170 have been around for a while is unusual to say the least. Again, the system did do things pretty well minus a couple of hitches. One thing it did very well was handle setting up XMP properly, which many motherboards these days, fail to do with any consistency. I haven't looked at many mATX motherboards this generation, so I haven't a lot to compare the Maximus VIII Gene to in that regard. I think it's fair to compare it to the gamut of full sized motherboards we have looked at, from at least a technical perspective. In that regard it stacks up very well to the competition. This motherboard was the pinnacle of stability. Overclocking was fast and easy. I am disappointed in the AI Suite III automatic overclocking experience netting such poor results, but again this is pretty much the industry standard. Like it or not, this feature doesn't work well on the competitions' offerings either. This doesn't strike me as something that the system can't do, but rather that guidelines in the software only allow for fairly conservative estimates to keep customers from becoming over-zealous with these features and bricking motherboards, increasing the amount of warranty claims.
The Maximus VIII Gene is an excellent motherboard despite one or two minor quirks that are generally easily dealt with. If you are in the market for a high end mATX motherboard, the Maximus VIII Gene is an excellent option and worthy of top consideration.
Kyle's Thoughts:
The ASUS Maximus VIII Gene was well mannered out of the box. I set it up to run at our stock settings of 4.5GHz with 2666Mhz Corsair RAM using our Intel Core i7-6700K at 1.32v vCore quickly without issue. I like the fact that the "My Favorties" menu page is now pre-populated with many of my favorites. I can pretty much do everything I need to do from this page, besides reset the monitor to ignore my absent CPU fan speed since we water cool. I updated the BIOS to version 1302, which was the latest at the time of testing. There is another BIOS out since then, which brings the total number of BIOS updates to 8 since this motherboard's introduction last year, so at least we know ASUS is paying attention to things going on in terms of this particular motherboard model.
I have been watching ASUS slowly but surely bump the BCLK rates up just a hair over time. So at our stock 45 multiplier, this Maximus VIII Gene actually runs at 4.525GHz. I did something a bit differently than I usually do and ran all my benchmarks first before any stress testing. All the testing went exactly as it should with no issues. I ran it through a HandBrake encode test which it passed, which is a good thing at 1.32v with this CPU; sometimes it takes 1.34v. After that I left it running Prime95 overnight. Getting back to it in 12 hours, it was doing fine. From there I went to overclocking, which I will circle back around to, but I want to touch on the rest of my stability testing first. There are times when I get lulls on the test bench. Dan gets backed up in work and there is no reason for me to push things through, and this was one of those times. I ran the ASUS Maximus VIII Gene at 4.5/2666/1.32v running Prime95 with 100% CPU and 100% RAM load, with no airflow across the motherboard for 20 days. Yes, "twenty" days. Dan mentioned the cooling earlier, and between excellently efficient circuitry down on the PCB, and the power component cooling, I was showing 120F/49C on the surface of the heatsinks, and 135F/57C on the surface of the MOSFETs I could get a infrared reading on. I am not really sure what to say about all that, except "Damn, twenty days." And then I turned the thing off to get it over to Dan, it never failed.
When I got to overclocking there was a new DIP5 package on the ASUS website so I downloaded and installed it. The first time I ran it, it ended up setting my BCLK at 4.6MHz. If you recall, the last time I used ASUS' "automatic overclocking" I was met with similar, and disappointing results. I will save you another paragraph of disappointment and just tell you that it did not work at all, much like it did last time. This CPU I am using has some issues with some cut contacts where it would make contact in the LGA socket, but I do not think this is the issue, but will be testing that soon. Overall, you can use the presets in the BIOS to overclock "simply" if you want, but the auto-overclocking with ASUS seems to be getting a bit flaky.
The DIP5 tool still gives you great ability to overclock by hand from the desktop though. Try as I might with the Maximus VIII Gene I could not get a solid 4.7GHz with a HandBrake encode. I tried for a full day to dial it in and even used to vCore voltages up to 1.5v. Although my multimeter and the voltage measuring points down on the PCB never showed me to pull more than 1.38v under load. Maybe this CPU has an issue? I will be finding out this week.
The Bottom Line
Usually when we are talking Republic of Gamers motherboards, we are generally thinking about boards that cost a lot. This ASUS Maximus VIII Gene comes in at $210. While that is not "cheap" in the motherboard spectrum, that is far from expensive for a motherboard with such a list of features. You get an excellent audio solution, you get great cooling, you get FanXpert 3 technology, Intel Gigabit Ethernet, and all on a motherboard that will run Prime95 for three weeks at 4.5GHz. ASUS' faltering auto-overclocking application is not very exciting, but even then it is still better than what else is in the industry when it actually works. And you can still overclock pretty much to whatever your CPU is going to allow you to. And while many still throw their hands up at mATX sized motherboards, you can still install CrossFire of SLI on this one if you care to. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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