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Ladies and gentlemen, the P45 chipset has arrived. Enthusiasts everywhere have jumped on the bandwagon and taken advantage of the affordable prices and fantastic performance that this chipset has to offer. Seeking to satisfy demand at all price points, motherboard manufacturers have several offerings on the market ranging from budget models to high end products. And when it comes to motherboards, ASUS leads the way in almost every aspect you can think of. Their reputation exceeds them and for good reason - they make some bad ass boards.
The Republic of Gamers line represents the best of the best that ASUS produces and always features cutting edge specs. The latest ROG product to hit the streets is heavily anticiapated Maximus II Formula motherboard. This board makes its presence felt quickly in the enthusiast market by bringing the heat in every possible way with the new P45 Express chipset, 1600MHz front side bus support, CrossFire compatibility, PCIe 2.0, eSATA, 16GB of DDR2-1200 support and an X-Fi sound card. Very nice! Keep reading as I throw the Maximus II Formula on the test bench for some sexy time and to see if this is one motherboard that can live up to the hype.
| PRODUCT | |
| CPU SUPPORT | Socket LGA 775
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| CHIPSET |
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| MEMORY |
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| EXPANSION SLOTS |
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| STORAGE | Intel ICH10R Southbridge
Marvell 88SE6121 Controller
Silicon Image SIL5723 controller (Drive Xpert Technology)
|
| AUDIO | ADI AD2000B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC
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| LAN |
|
| REAR I/O PANEL |
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| INTERNAL I/O HEADERS |
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| SYSTEM BIOS |
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| FORM FACTOR |
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| WARRANTY |
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| CURRENT PRICING |
Bundle
| ACCESSORIES |
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| CABLES |
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| APPLICATION DVD | Asus Motherboard Support DVD
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| DOCUMENTATION |
|
As with any ROG motherboard, the bundle included is extensive. The SupremeFX sound card sports 8-channel with X-Fi features and the LCD Poster provides easy to read POST information on an external display. My favorites, the Q-Shield and Q-Connector kit, are included and make an excellent addition to any bundle. ASUS packs the support DVD with neccessary drivers and very useful utilities. Use PC Probe II to monitor your voltages and temps in a windows environment and ASUS Update makes flashing BIOS a piece of delicious cake. They even included 3DMark 06 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus, sweet! With that said, I was looking for a couple more SATA cables since there are eight ports and only six cables included. Maybe they don't count the black, Speeding HDD ports but I think there should be a couple more cables included.