ASUS has announced the ROG Maximus VIII Impact gaming motherboard. This Intel Z170 Express chipset mini-ITX motherboard is designed to facilitate the best compatibility with compact chassis designs and components whilst providing "ATX-grade gaming power, audio, networking and connectivity," plus game boosting features like overclocking.
A mini-ITX motherboard is certainly quite small at 17 x 17cm square but ASUS asserts that the ROG Maximus VIII Impact motherboard is not "a cut-down version of a full-size motherboard". Rather than a simple chop job we are told that, to bring the same level of performance to a smaller package, ASUS engineers must make use of superior premium components and use tech and imagination to solve miniaturisation problems. For example this motherboard features a full-sized Impact Power III VRM that is vertically mounted. But of course it doesn't have that much capacity for add in boards or components; there are just 2x DIMM slots and 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, for example.
With less room for air circulation cooling is said to be critical. Again this requires high-end components with greater latitude for heat variation. Overclocking is still a big feature of this tiny board with ASUS 5-Way Optimization auto-tuning and Pro Clock technology designed to help you get the most from your Skylake processor / DDR4 memory component combo.
ASUS trumpets audio, networking and connectivity performance of the ROG Maximus VIII Impact motherboard as being the best available in a mini-ITX solution. Audio is handled by the ROG SupremeFX Impact III which uses an ESS ES9023P digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) with Hyperstream technology, ultra-low-jitter clock, Nichicon capacitors, 2VRMS headphone amp, and Sonic SenseAmp. Audio effects are provided by ASUS's Sonic Studio II.
Internal storage is connected via one of 4x SATA 6Gbit/s connectors or the U.2 connector which utilises NVM Express (NVMe) technology to provide data speeds of up to 32Gbit/s. For connecting external stornage and devices the motherboard is equipped with both USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A and reversible Type-C connectors for data-transfer speeds of up to 10Gbit/s.
Intel Gigabit Ethernet is installed with ASUS LANGuard and GameFirst technology to optimise gaming network traffic. For wireless networking ASUS has equipped 802.11ac Wi-Fi with 2×2 dual-band 2.4/5GHz antennas for up 867Mbit/s transfer speeds plus Multi-User MIMO tech.
Pricing and availability are yet to be announced. Full specs are listed below.
|
Processor/CPU socket |
LGA1151 socket for 6th-generation Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 / Pentium / Celeron processors |
|
Chipset |
Intel Z170 Express |
|
Memory |
2 x DIMMs, up to a maximum of 32GB, DDR4 4133 (OC) Intel Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) supported |
|
Expansion slots |
1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 |
|
Graphics (VGA) |
Integrated Intel HD Graphics processor HDMI with maximum resolution of 4096 x 2160 at 24Hz Intel InTru 3D / Quick Sync Video / Clear Video HD Technology / Insider |
|
Storage |
4 x SATA 6Gbit/s 1 x U.2 |
|
Networking/LAN |
Intel I219-V Gigabit LAN with ASUS LANGuard and GameFirst technologies |
|
Wireless |
Dual-band 2.4/5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO support Bluetooth V4.1, 4.0LE, 3.0+HS |
|
USB |
1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A (on back panel) 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C (on back panel) 6 x USB 3.0 ports (4 on back panel, 2 mid-board) |
|
Audio |
ROG SupremeFX Impact III - SupremeFX shielding technology - ES9023P high-definition codec - Sonic SenseAmp - 2VRMS headphone amp (32-600 ohms) - Jack-detection, multi-streaming, front-panel mic jack-retasking - Optical S/PDIF-out port on back panel - Front-panel audio connector |
|
Dimensions / form factor |
Mini-ITX, 6.7 x 6.7in (17 x 17cm) |
