GIMP Image Editing

Website: GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)


Image editing is exceedingly nippy, and stretches a small but niche two per cent lead over the next best board in the table. Overclocked it still lags a few seconds behind the P7P55D Deluxe, but generally pips competitors to the post by a second or so.

Handbrake H.264 Encoding

Website: HandBrake

Our test uses HandBrake - an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows - to encode a high resolution MPEG-2 video using the H.264 codec. This primarily tests multi-threaded CPU and memory subsystem performance.


While the Maximus doesn't quite compete against the MSI GD65 and Gigabyte UD5 at stock speeds, it's exceedingly fast when overclocked: the extra few hundred MHz CPU clock frequency obviously has a very positive effect here.

Multitasking Performance

Website: MPC-HC
Website: 7-Zip


Unfortunately the performance enjoyed in video encoding isn't replicated when overclocked for the Asus, as it takes a couple of seconds longer than most of the competition and a full 12.5 per cent longer than the MSI here. At stock speeds, it pretty much matches the rest of the table in the linear 145-148 second range.