ASUS MAXIMUS III Formula Review

[Roger_D25]

That is a great question Hampti, I simply flashed to 0902 because it was the most recent but I have no idea how it compares to 0801?

[sacha35]

Real big scores here. But i have two questions. First what is the fastest and stablest bios? The 0902 or the 0801? And the other one.....your cascade reach -130°C ???WOW! tripple or quad?

It's a triple stage cascade but as said I have to use copper spacers to make the temperature warmer when running P55

That is a great question Hampti, I simply flashed to 0902 because it was the most recent but I have no idea how it compares to 0801?

902 is more stable than 801

[SephirothSK]

Hello Sacha,

Pretty damn nice review you got there. i bought my self that board but the GENE version of it. Im planning to do a review about it, as soon as I receive my new memory. I am the manager of a small specialized PC shop, so Im planning on doing some review's as well. My partner also have a Maximus Gene 2 with a I-7 920, gonna do some test with both machine's soon.

[Ming@s]

180x20=3600
Load line enabled
PLL 1.85500
IMC 1.200575
PCH 1.04675
DRAM 1.64300
CPU 1.2

[/URL]

Edo and this??

CPU Clock Amplitude
PCH Clock Amplitude
CPU Clock Skew
Pch Clock Skew
??????

I have so:

CPU Clock Amplitude - 800mV
PCH Clock Amplitude - 800mV
CPU Clock Skew - AUTO
Pch Clock Skew - AUTO

183x22 - 4026Mhz
Load line - enabled
PLL - 1.85500
IMC - 1.200575
PCH - 1.04675
DRAM - 1.64300
CPU - 1.4

[Hampti]

Ah thanks a lot for your answers. So now i must make a s1156 mounting for my ss and then lets fetz.

@Sacha. Please could you send me a PM with the contacts of the builder of the tripple stage? And maybe points like power and price ;-) This would be great.

[sacha35]

Ah thanks a lot for your answers. So now i must make a s1156 mounting for my ss and then lets fetz.

@Sacha. Please could you send me a PM with the contacts of the builder of the tripple stage? And maybe points like power and price ;-) This would be great.

The cascade was built by myself, doing something like this takes a lot of time and money to build, if it is your first time I recommend you to look at the Phase section here on XS as there are loads of people willing to help you get started or recommend someone who will build a unit for you.

I don't build any units due to the problems associated with phase change so sorry will not be able to help you, but as said take a look at the phase section hear on XS.

[Hampti]

Ok Thanks.

[sacha35]

Ok Thanks.

no probs and good luck with the phase but remember for P55 it likes to be around -60c to -85c

[damir]

Hi,

hey Sacha, what is ur max screen with Core i5 750 on airecooling ? and what is the max Vdimm in bios?

ty

[stuffme]

Can you sacha tell us, is that supremeFX sound card any good? I was wondering that is it based on AD1988B chips just like the older asus supreme line soundcards, or is it based on creative chips?

Maybe CA0110?
CA0110 datasheet

[sholvaco]

The bundled audio module uses either the ADI AD2000B codec (depending on whether they have stock left since ADI left the codec business) or more probably the new VIA VT2020 codec.

It's not a true X-Fi card since most of the X-Fi features are performed in software even if it comes with some Creative X-Fi hardware (crystalizer). It also comes on a separate PCB with dedicated filtering and EMI shielding so it should sound better than pure onboard stuff on that fact alone. By how much though and does it even matter... I guess it depends on how much of an audiophile you are.

[dctokyo]

Anyone tested the "ROG has introduced GameFirst" ?

[GuitarCrazyo]

Dont like it at all. dont like the color scheme or the fixed height. really hate the ghosty transitions on the right. And youd be better off having don sitting back in his seat rather than just his face showing at the start. sorry its a bad review.

[Roger_D25]

Welcome to the forum GuitarCrazyo, nice to have you aboard! Despite my best efforts I couldn't figure out what you meant by "And youd be better off having don sitting back in his seat rather than just his face showing at the start", can you explain in more detail what your referring to? I went back to the first page but didn't have any luck? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this......

[JH_man]

Is there any problems with this board and the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler? Thinking mainly about the backplate, and if it will interfere with the cooler backplate...

[Roger_D25]

I'm not positive about the Noctua heatsink but I needed to slightly modify my ProlimaTech Megahalem backplate because of the stock LGA1156 backplate getting in the way. Basically I needed to add a washer between the heatsinks backplate and the motherboard so that it would fit over the stock LGA11556 backplate and sit evenly. This was fairly easy to do and now the backplate sits perfectly and works great. I realize I don't have the same heatsink as you but many heatsink backplates are very similar in appearance so I assume you will run into the same problem?

[dysgenics]

Is there any problems with this board and the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler? Thinking mainly about the backplate, and if it will interfere with the cooler backplate...

fits perfect for me

[stuffme]

The bundled audio module uses either the ADI AD2000B codec (depending on whether they have stock left since ADI left the codec business) or more probably the new VIA VT2020 codec.

It's not a true X-Fi card since most of the X-Fi features are performed in software even if it comes with some Creative X-Fi hardware (crystalizer). It also comes on a separate PCB with dedicated filtering and EMI shielding so it should sound better than pure onboard stuff on that fact alone. By how much though and does it even matter... I guess it depends on how much of an audiophile you are.

Yey, my maximus formula III came couple of days ago and I can concur, the audio chip in supremeFX sound card is indeed VIA VT2020. Don't know about the quality of vt2020 and centainly not supremeFX board, but according to techreports test, Asus P7P55D Deluxe which has the same chip isn't so impressive.











One other note too. Has anyone tested this board with NTttcp or other network utilyty? This is very disturbin too, since this board has Realtek RTL8110SC network chip and it performs poorly also in the same techreports review. I found similar results from couple of years old review too. http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3142




So, can this be true that expensive top end board such as this has something so low end silicon as the network chip?

[JH_man]

No matter if some test says its very good or just good sound quality, most ppl that use this board will not have a chance to hear if its uber or not. What does matter is that it supports EAX 4.

[MonkY]

Hi ! Did anyody tested the new bios 1105 from here http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...-ASUS-1105.zip ?
Does it support older bios to be flashed now, or is it the same as 0902 ?

P.S. Btw, does any of you have this problem with Win7 x86 ? Everytime i leave my computer turned OFF for more than an hour, my first boot will end up in a blue screen window. I have to force it to power off then power on again. I've tried everything, but can't find a single error. Prime and LinX stable for more than a day now... What could be wrong on the cold boot ?

[stuffme]

Hi ! Did anyody tested the new bios 1105 from here http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...-ASUS-1105.zip ?
Does it support older bios to be flashed now, or is it the same as 0902 ?

P.S. Btw, does any of you have this problem with Win7 x86 ? Everytime i leave my computer turned OFF for more than an hour, my first boot will end up in a blue screen window. I have to force it to power off then power on again. I've tried everything, but can't find a single error. Prime and LinX stable for more than a day now... What could be wrong on the cold boot ?

Just flashed latest bios.

Sorry to hear about your BSOD problem. I havn't heard anyone else have the same problem. At the time you wrote this forum post, I couln't find that bios in asus site, nor the asus update could find it either. There are couple of new features, like LN2 mode, OC tuner utility and OC tuner limit value. Also I noticed that the motherboar now detects the first voltages, for ram and cpu right on. Older bios did give way too much voltage at default. As a result, the CPU temp in bios was reduced to ~34-35C rather than ~40C. 1105 bios also sets the PCIe frequency at 100 at default, not auto like in the old bios.

[Roger_D25]

MonkY - Thanks for posting about the new Maximus III Formula BIOS file (although like stuffme I also couldn't find or download the file that day)? Thankfully it worked fine today (found file and downloaded it) and after reading your initial thoughts on the file stuffme I'm looking forward to flashing my board ASAP! I will try to post back later with my two cents about the file.

[MonkY]

For me this bios is super stable, except that damn cold boot that makes the whole PC crash. I've tried disabling iROG and other features (that could interfere at first cold boot) but didn't helped. Also increasing voltages didn't help either. I don't really know what else to try...

[TiN_]

Updated 1105 bios from official ASUS site. Using regular EZflash procedure. It flashed ok, told "successful update, reboot automatic 5 sec" and board went dead.
No post anymore.

I've reflashed BIOS with my own programming stuff, from binaries published on ASUS site and no go still. Tried 0603, 0902 and 1105 versions.

[Roger_D25]

Thanks for posting about your experience with BIOS 1105 although I'm sorry to hear about it! With that said did you get the motherboard back up and running (or is it officially dead)! This may be a dumb question but are you pretty sure that the BIOS 1105 caused this to happen or could it have been something else (its certainly making me hesitant to flash to this new BIOS version)!