Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give a feel for the overclocking performance potential of the Maximus VIII Formula motherboard, we attempted to push it to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. The board was able to hit a maximum base clock speed of 267MHz with a CPU speed of 4.5GHz, a matching 4.5GHz ring bus speed, and a 2490MHz memory speed. With the base clock rolled back to 167MHz, we were able to push the CPU to 4.67GHz with a 4.5GHz ring bus and 3340Mhz memory speeds. With the base clock rolled back to its stock 100Mhz speed, we pushed the CPU to 4.6GHz with a 4.5GHz ring bus and 3333MHz memory speeds. The memory has run faster in other boards, but wouldn't go much above 3340Mhz in this board. All overclocking sessions remained stable for over 4hrs. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with EVGA's OC Scanner X graphical benchmark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 8x MSAA in stress test mode. Note that 16GB (2 x 8GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666 and 16GB (4 x 4GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 memory modules were used for the overclocking tests.
267MHz Base Clock Stats
167MHz Base Clock Stats
100MHz Base Clock Stats with 3333MHz Memory
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
The Maximus VIII Formula motherboard performed well at both stock and overclocked speeds with no oddities seen in testing. Its peripherals and subsystems all performed well within spec as well.
Pricing
As of September 02, the ASUS Maximus VIII Formula motherboard was available at Amazon.com for $369.00 with Prime shipping. The board was also available from Newegg.com for $364.07 and from B&H for $369.00.
Conclusion
There's really only one word that describes ASUS' Maximus VIII Formula board – fierce. ASUS was able to take a winning design with their Formula and improve it to the point of perfection. The board's aesthetics and features are a well-balanced synthesis meant to appeal to a wide variety of enthusiasts and gamers alike. The over-engineered design and overclocking tools integrated give enough tools to hang with just about any board out there, while the RGB LEDs, redesigned aesthetics, and stellar integrated sound system are enough to satisfy any gamer. Further, setting up and overclocking the board were an exercise in simplicity, making for a well-rounded experience out of the box. The true feather in the board's cap was in the integration of the EK VRM liquid cooler, giving any liquid-cooling enthusiast a basis from which to build an exquisite cooling solution.
Strengths
- Stock performance
- Overclocking performance
- Board aesthetics, layout, and design
- Motherboard manual details and quality
- UEFI BIOS design and usability
- Intel GigE network controller performance
- CMOS battery placement
- M.2 port placement
- EK designed VRM hybrid cooling solution
- Configurable RGB LEDs
Weaknesses
- None
It needs ground effects.
It needs ground effects.
I have the V formula. I
I have the V formula. I wouldn’t buy again, no matter how much this seems to be upgraded. Poor build quality and I dont trust ASUS’ software.
$400 for a motherboard??? no
$400 for a motherboard??? no thanks
Just completed a build for a
Just completed a build for a customer and he was very satisfied with the performance and aesthetics of the MB especially the Aura. Personally i’m a fan of Asus products even though software sometimes buggy and all but overall good.
I’ve had this board for a few
I’ve had this board for a few months and I will probably never buy another “gaming” motherboard again. Here are my impressions:
– The included software is lackluster and clunky. All of it has a “tacked-on” feel. Fan Xpert is all I ever really use.
– The onboard audio is really not very good (I ended up using the optical output to connect to an external DAC).
– Overclocking performance (6700k on custom water with Dominator Platinum RAM) hasn’t been terrible, but also hasn’t been great. The silicon lottery strikes again, perhaps.
– Overall system stability was not very good at first, though it seems much better after the last couple of UEFI updates. Kudos to ASUS for the continued support.
– The onboard LED lighting is not very even at all. The armor does look super nice, though.
– The start-up status LEDs are covered by the 24-pin power supply cable and thus unreadable.
– No Thunderbolt? At this price point?
Honestly, my next build will probably be based around a workstation board. Going into the purchase, I was expecting the gaming features to be useful. Not really.
Agree with the AISuite
Agree with the AISuite software, the only really useful feature that works is the fanxpert, but this can all be set in UEFI. AISuite is buggy, support on it is very bad. some features dont work well, and had issues with anniversary update and compatibility. It also pings IP addresses in taiwan, probably update feature.
Agree with onboard audio, its “OK” but dedicated sound card to same crappy speakers, you can hear the difference, big time
Had the previous gen formula, no stability issues, but didnt overclock much with it, had it on water as well
Agree that Asus does a great job with keeping UEFI updates for their products
Their workstation motherboards are less gimmicky, and there really isnt a performance delta at all
Even FanXpert is rather
Even FanXpert is rather spotty sometimes. What I’d REALLY love to see is the CPU/VRM/PCH sensor voltages tied directly to headers so that you could skip all the flaky software altogether!
If there’s not a performance delta between the gaming boards and the workstation boards, I wonder if there’s a stability/longevity delta. If not, the extra cost of the workstation parts might not be justifiable.
Maybe the Sabertooth boards are a good compromise between the gaming and workstation lines?
Couple general questions
Couple general questions about your motherboard tests.
1. How do you go about testing the audio?
2. Do you test the board to see if the claims of the PCB isolation are true?
3. Are all the ports checked to see if they were grounded properly?
4. What amount of noise do you normally see on a board?
Thanks.
audio testing is done using a
audio testing is done using a 5.1 speaker system and headphones with MP3 tracks through Media Player for output tests and the headphone microphone for input tests. Testing is normally done using the ports integrated in to the rear panel.
Thanks for the reply. I
Thanks for the reply. I wanted to check to see if Pcper had any other way of validating the manufacturers claims after I recently discovered that ASRock had a defect in at least one of their board designs from a few years ago.
For most users (gamers and
For most users (gamers and otherwise), the integrated sound stuff is good enough or better. For the super audio-philes though, probably should go the add-in PCIe card route…
Sure, if someone wants higher
Sure, if someone wants higher fidelity audio a sound card or external DAC is always an option. However, as you said, if the motherboard manufacturers have done things right, the onboard sound should be good enough for the average user. When things aren’t done right, manufacturers end up with problems like noise on the ground because they cut corners and don’t have any tests in place to catch these problems.
This was the case with ASRock, and why I’m looking into how much scrutiny reviewers give onboard audio.
$360 uhhhh no thank you
$360 uhhhh no thank you
I like Asus MoBos but the
I like Asus MoBos but the current one I have the is IV Gene with z68 chipset. The thermal sensors that FanXpert uses were terrible. Way off the mark. I use HWMonitor to check temps and the UEFI’s fan profiles to set fan speed.
My question is this: Do the latest Asus boards use the more accurate temp sensors nowadays or the same old outdated ones like on my board?
Who pays 400 dollars for an
Who pays 400 dollars for an AMD motherboard right now? Why?
Intel*
Intel*
The same people who buy any
The same people who buy any overpriced sh!t made by Foxconn thanks to marketing pro from Apple.