Some may say it would have been an incomplete start of the year without another ROG-branded product from ASUS but, sure enough, the company delivered the Maximum IV Extreme motherboard.
ASUS's collection of products bearing the ROG (Republic of Gamers) logo is one that includes many different devices, like motherboards, peripherals and full PCs.
The newest addition to this line is a suitably powerful next-generation motherboard based on Intel's new P67 chipset.
Given the core-logic, this means that the platform supports the Santa Clara, California-based company's newest Core processors, the so-called second generation, codenamed Sandy Bridge.
To complement and supplement, with high memory, expansion and overclocking capacities, even the best Intel consumer CPUs, the board features the Extreme ATX form factor.
There are four DDR3-2200 memory slots, as well as the same number of PCI Express x16 slots, for multi-GPU configurations.
ASUS also implemented four SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, for fast HDDs and/or SSDs, plus a set of just as many SATA 3.0 Gbps ones.
Additionally, Maximum IV Extreme features dual Gigabit Ethernet, two eSATA ports, 7.1 channel audio and what some may call a huge number of USB 3.0 Ports, 10 in fact, eight of which are on the backplate.
Considering that most platforms make do with one or two SuperSpeed connectors, the number 10 is quite massive in this instance.
Other specifications include ASUS's own ROG features, like iDirect, on-board voltage read points, ROG Connect and overclocking buttons (Clear CMOS, BIOS Flashback, etc.)
All of these elements are placed on a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with the now familiar black/red color scheme and, despite what one may expect, passive cooling.
The recommended price tag is supposed to be of 329 Euro, but pre-orders are said to be possible already, for 300 Euro.
