ASUS Maximus Formula SE

[binormalkilla]

So after ownership for a while, does anyone recommend this board still?

I say go for it. It's a great board. You may want to have a look at the Abit though.....I know it has eSATA, which is something I value. I have to use a PCI-E x1 card for my eSATA.
A plus for this board is the CMOS clear button.....MAN I LOVE IT!
The heatsink for the NB seems to be of good quality too, even though it's anodized aluminum.

[jonny_ftm]

I´ve been having some strange reboots the last couple of days.
The system is 12h stable in Prime95 both blend+small fft.
Memtest also passed 12h without error.

It happends about 3-4 times / day. The computer just reboots and then its fine for a couple of hours. And I dont get any bsod or error message in event log.

Running bios 0907 if that helps...

My setup is in my sign, and Im running Vista x64

Looking at your sig, your NB/RAM are highly OC. Prime, either in small/large or blend won't stress them as much as some games or F@H
So, use OCCT last beta with slider on RAM, or at least F@H (less efficient though as it needs more time) to test if your OC is stable.

Remember, Prime95 was built with CPU in mind, while OC your board you need to take into account a new chip: the NB (still in 90 nm technology, that's why it su*ks

[jonny_ftm]

So after ownership for a while, does anyone recommend this board still?

Personally I won't (despite my sig, I could play with two of these Maximus -non SE- versions). By March, as you say later, the X48 with native support for 4x400MHz bus on quad cores will give you a better OC headroom on default voltage. Also, ASUS and others will improve the PCB design to correct the so many bugs in this MB. If you have something like a P965 or P35, it is really not worth the extra-money for a low real world performance increase. The PCI-E v2 will just not give you any improvement in most demanding new games (like Crysis)

Later, moving to a X48 will be a better idea as the PCB design would have matured (X38 and X48 won't need from MB manufactures any change, so they can really focus on PCB enhancements rather) and the chip bugs corrected by intel

Now, if you will stick to a 4x400 MHz FSB and don't look to OC more, this board could be a long time investment before the new socket change by end 2008.

[jonny_ftm]

About what was quoted before:

An Unexpected Loss of Performance at Higher Speeds
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3184&p=4

Let me lough please
They just make it a world first when it was described 2 months ago here by many users, also on a Q6600. It is what people were talking about as the Prime95 bug, and many people here sustained it was user errata or Prime software bug.

These people should go work at Anandtech

Anyway, if they sticked their QX chip in a Gigabyte board or P35 board, they would have seen it is not a CPU limit, but an ASUS nasty bug. My Q6600, like other people here, can get a 1.65vcore at 3.6 GHz unstable on my P965 but Priming rock solid while on the two maximus non-SE versions I tested it shows the load bug like other people described at 1.57v... I'll keep my P965 for now

... Maybe the autors there are sponsored by ASUS!!!! They always deliver great notes to ASUS boards, and they never find any of the bugs users discover later!!!

And, ohh, this isn't new, just old story repeating its self, like with the P5B Deluxe, OC queen (but, so so many bugs on early PCBs and Bios revisions)

Again, that bug only was described on new X38 ASUS boards, so Intel giving new hidden indications is rather a poesy than a fact