Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give the reader a feel for the Maximus VI Impact's overclocking performance capabilities, we attempted to push the board to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. I was able to push the board to a 4.67GHz CPU speed, a 1780MHz memory speed, and a 4.0GHz ring bus speed at a 167MHz base clock speed easily, running stable for well over the 4hr target time. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with FurMark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 2x MSAA in stress test mode.
Note that this is is meant only as a quick preview of the board's performance potential. With more time to tweak the settings to a greater extent, pushing to a higher base clock and ring bus speed may have been achievable, in addition to an overnight stability run without issue.
Performance
ASUS again proves why they are a tier one vendor with the superior design of the Maximus VI Impact. This mITX board performs as well as any full-size ATX board with the feature set to match. Performance-wise, the board easily kept pace with the other test boards no matter what was thrown at it.
Pricing
As of March 7 25, the ASUS Maximus VI Impact was available at Newegg.com for $219.99. The board was also available from other retailers such as Amazon.com for $219.99 with Prime shipping and TigerDirect.com for $229.99.
Conclusion
Before continuing with our final thoughts on the Maximus VI Impact, we would like to take this opportunity to give our friends at ASUS a hearty “Thank You” for allowing us the opportunity and pleasure to review their ROG mighty-mite. The Maximus VI Impact may be a small board, but embedded in its silicon is the heart of a champion. ASUS' design prowess shines through on multiple levels with the Maximus VI Impact, from the armored daughter board to the space saving use of the add-on SupremeFX Impact add-on card for sound handling. Further, ASUS integrated the diagnostic display as well as several on-board buttons into a riser card located in the board's rear panel, freeing up even more space on the top surface of the board. The board integrates elements from many of the other ROG motherboard's including use of the SupremeFX sound, Digi+ III power, and mPCIe Combo II card technologies. While the board space is limited by the its physical size, its performance is not inhibited by its mITX stature in the least. The Maximus VI Impact performed on-par with other full-sized solutions at both stock and overclocked settings, so no worries there. Further, ASUS made full use of the chipset SATA controller device ports with four SATA ports, one NGFF mPCIe-based port, and one eSATA port, meaning that all six 6Gbps ports can be used simultaneously without the risk of port sharing or deactivation that normally comes with port-sharing designs.
The one minor fault I have with the board is the amount of components that are present on the back side of the board. While this is almost unavoidable because of the board's size, ASUS could have been more careful concerning component placement directly beneath the CPU socket area. However, as long as you are careful with installing your CPU mounting bracket, you should not run into issues..
Strengths
- Stock performance
- Overclocking performance
- Board layout and design
- Space saving features such as CPU power circuitry daughter card, add-on sound card, and diagnostic led/button placement intergration into rear panel
- UEFI BIOS design and usability
- Motherboard manual information on base features
- Intel GigE NIC
- Quality of included power circuitry
- SupremeFX Impact add-on sound card
- mPCIe Combo II card with support for 802.11ac wireless and M.2 SATA device
Weaknesses
- Outside of case accessible CMOS reset button in rear panel
- Power components in close proximity to under-board socket plate
Just think the incredibly
Just think the incredibly tiny gaming machines possible combining this mobo in a specially designed case that has no optical drive and no hard drive mounts and uses one of the super tiny 400 watt mini itx power supplies. To cool the cpu use a low profile horizontal downward blowing cpu cooler with a thin profile fan and build the case with a single 120mm intake and 120mm exhaust. Use a 512GB m2 SSD for your storage right on the mpcie combo card that is why no hard drive space added inside case. For graphics card you can either go super super compact with a low profile gt 750ti maxwell gpu that doesn’t even use a pci-e connector or a gtx 670 direct cu mini or gtx 760 direct cu mini (but the previous gtx 670 mini is actually a bit faster) normal height but same length as the mini itx mobo if u dont mind a slightly bigger case for a large increase in gpu muscle. Low profile low voltage ram as well of course.
Combining these parts together would allow the use of an extremely tiny mini itx case. Due to the tiny space you would most likely have to run the system at stock to keep it running cool and quiet but thats a fair trade off to get a tiny system that weighs less then 10 pounds and can play every single game out at 1080p resolution ultra details and 40+ fps with probably 95-99% of games hitting 60+fps.
Also forgot to add if you use
Also forgot to add if you use a taller case to fit the full height gtx 670 direct cu mini you can use that gained space to put a taller cpu cooler with normal thickness fans to improve the cpu cooling and allow lower fan speeds or some minor OC room. If going for absolute tiniest space and still decent gaming for a majority of titles and using the low profile gpu’s like the new 750ti maxwell you’re stuck with a very small low profile cpu cooler but that will still get the job done at stock.
I’d love to carry around my tiny little gaming pc with the power of full atx cases in the palm of my hand.
Silverstone Sg05 + Asus
Silverstone Sg05 + Asus Maximus Impact VI + i7 4770k + Nvidia GTX 780ti + watercool of your choice is an even better possibility 😉
OMG BBQ Awesome
http://www.overclock.net/t/1394314/build-log-watercooled-sg05-haswell-omgbbq
Would the Silver Arrow SB-E
Would the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler fit on this board?
It should. We had no
It should. We had no problems with the fit of the Noctua NH-D14 (which is a dual tower air cooler)…