Asus Maximus VIII Gene Review

Written by Antony Leather

August 19, 2015 | 09:06

Tags: #best-z170-board #gene #lga1151-board #micro-atx-board #rog #z170

Companies: #asus

Overclocking and EFI

Asus Maximus VIII Gene Review Asus Maximus VIII Gene Review - Overclocking and EFI
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We've found the limit of our Core i7-6700K to be 4.8GHz using high-end all-in-one liquid coolers so that was our target with the Maximus VIII Gene. We dialled in a voltage of 1.35V to get started, but once again found that Terragen 3 would crash after a minute of rendering.

We increased the vcore to over 1.4V and played with others voltages too but in the end it was Loadline Calibration that made the difference. With this set to maximum we were able to return all the voltages but vcore to default and even managed to drop vcore all the way down to 1.31V.

This is pretty much the same as the Z97 Gene needed to hit the same frequency with our old Core i7-4770K and Core i7-4790K CPUs. However, it's clear that with our CPU, at least, you'll need more than 1.4V and custom liquid cooling to get any more out of it.

The Gene was generally quite good at recovering from overzealous overclocks, although it did fail to restart properly a few times and required manually resetting, even when we'd otherwise achieved good stability in Windows.

The EFI hasn't really changed much since Z97, with the layout, colour scheme and even the fonts appearing to be identical. It's no bad thing though as Asus holds the top spot here for ease of use and clarity, although MSI's EFIs are also excellent.

One notable inclusion is EZ Flash, which gets an upgrade to version 3 and now allows for over-the-Internet BIOS downloads from direct within the EFI. As with Z97, the Q-Fan control is pretty handy too, and allows you to switch off fans connected to the chassis fan connectors until the CPU reaches a certain temperature - great for allowing your PC to run silently while web browsing and the like. This feature is disabled on the CPU fan, however, for obvious reasons.

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[center]Asus Maximus VIII Gene Review Asus Maximus VIII Gene Review - Overclocking and EFI
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Discuss this in the forums

Posted by SchizoFrog - Wed Aug 19 2015 09:31

Seems to be a good board but nothing too unexpected from the RoG range. What really scares me is that Intel and seemingly the motherboard manufacturers have realised that large numbers of processors and motherboards simply aren't going to fly off the shelves and they are making up the cash shortfall by bumping up the prices. I can honestly see the Impact VIII coming out at the convenient price of £199.99 and then travelling upwards of that as time goes on, much like the Impact VII has increased in price since launch.
With motherboards costing upwards of £150 and often closer to or exceeding the £200 mark, ASUS are certainly pricing themselves out of contention in my opinion. Especially as MSI has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, often matching ASUS for quality, performance and easily beating them on price. I find myself using ASUS as the benchmark of what to look at, but MSI will be the board I look to buy I think...

Posted by bawjaws - Wed Aug 19 2015 13:04

Personally, I'm going to wait until there is a greater range of Z170 motherboards available, because I'm unconvinced that paying the thick end of £200 for a motherboard offers an acceptable performance premium over a board that costs half of that. Obviously there are other differentiating factors, but the majority of Z97 boards (for example) had the same set of core features, so until we see what else is out there in terms of Z170 boards then I'll keep my powder dry.

On the subject of performance, I think it's become a little bit redundant for you to continue to measure motherboard performance in benchmarks and games, given that most motherboards seem to perform almost identically - to within the margin for error. I know that back in the day you may have seen significant differences between boards, but that was a long time ago (possibly even pre-C2D days?).

It doesn't help that a lot of tech sites love to employ hyperbole when comparing products - so a product that is 0.1% faster will be described as "blisteringly fast" whereas it's rival will be "pedestrian" or "sluggish". Bit aren't immune from this type of language, although I have noted a decrease in it's use recently, which is a good thing.

Posted by Parge - Wed Aug 19 2015 13:27

I still can’t find a single reason to upgrade from Ivybridge. The only thing I can really think of that I’d like is M.2 support, but I’m not dropping another £350 for new kit just for that.

Posted by David - Wed Aug 19 2015 14:24

Parge
I still can’t find a single reason to upgrade from Ivybridge. The only thing I can really think of that I’d like is M.2 support, but I’m not dropping another £350 for new kit just for that.
Precisely this!
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