ASUS Maximus III Gene Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals (Cont’d)

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with keyboard PS/2 connector, nine USB 2.0 ports, clear CMOS button, optical SPDIF output, FireWire port, eSATA-300 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port, ROG Connect button and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel.

No mouse PS/2 connector is available, thus you have to use a USB mouse
or a wireless mouse with a USB receptor with this motherboard.

The ROG Connect feature is quite interesting. It allows you to use the seventh USB 2.0 port of the rear panel (the one near the ROG Connect button) to connect your PC to another computer (a laptop, for example) through a cable that comes with the motherboard for overclocking and diagnosing your computer from the second computer.

Speaking of diagnosing, instead of a POST display Maximus III Gene has a series of four LEDs that indicate which component is failing when the computer is not turning on.

There are several other smaller features targeted to enthusiasts. For example, all the four connectors for auxiliary fans support PWM technology in order to automatically control the speed of each fan, and on two of them the motherboard supports the installation of a thermal sensor in order to control the fan speed according to the temperature on where you installed the corresponding thermal sensor.

In Figure 6, you can see all accessories that come with this motherboard. Besides the standard accessories (manual, driver DVD, case backplate, cables) it comes with an SLI bridge, a big sticker for you to place on the side of your case and a USB cable for the ROG function. There are also some stickers that you can use to label SATA cables.

Figure 6: Accessories.