ASUS Maximus IV Extreme Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The Intel P67 chipset is a single-chip solution and is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip supports two SATA-600 ports and four SATA-300 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 5 and 10). The manufacturer added two additional SATA-600 ports, controlled by a Marvell 88SE9182 chip (RAID 0 and 1). The SATA ports are located on the motherboard edge rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer used the same color for all four SATA-600 ports, making it difficult to know which are the ones controlled by the chipset and which are the ones controlled by the Marvell chip. The two ports on the extreme right are the ones controlled by the Marvell chip.

Figure 7: SATA-300 ports (black) and SATA-600 ports (red)

Additionally, there are two eSATA-300 ports on the motherboard rear panel, controlled by a JMicron JMB362 chip.

There is no support for a floppy disk drive controller or an ATA-133 port.

The Maximus IV Extreme has nine USB 2.0 ports, one soldered on the rear panel and eight available through four headers located on the motherboard. It also has 10 USB 3.0 ports, eight available on the motherboard rear panel and two available through a front panel connector. Even though the motherboard has 10 physical USB 3.0 connectors, there are only four ports, as the motherboard has only two NEC (Renesas) µPD720200 chips. The additional ports are actually shared, using a VLI VL810 hub chip. This means th
at performance will drop if you try to transfer files at the same time using ports that are shared. The manual says that two of the rear ports are connected directly to one of the NEC controllers, while the other six ports located at the rear panel and the two ports for the case front panel are shared. It would be great if the manufacturer had used a different color on the two ports that are not shared.

The motherboard comes with an I/O bracket for you to use one of the internal USB 2.0 headers, since it comes with only one USB 2.0 port at its rear panel.

The Maximus IV Extreme doesn’t have FireWire ports.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC889 codec, which is an outstanding solution, providing an impressive 108 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 106 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs. This means you are able to capture and edit analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3 files, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.) with this motherboard without adding any background noise.

The portrayed motherboard comes with independent analog audio outputs, meaning that you won’t need to use the line in or mic in jacks when connecting an eight-channel analog speaker set, and an optical SPDIF output. You also can install a coaxial SPDIF output or route digital audio to your video card to have digital audio in its HDMI connector using the available “SPDIF_OUT” header.

This motherboard has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one controlled by the chipset, using an Intel WG82579V chip to make the interface with the physical layer, and one controlled by an Intel WG82583V chip.

The Maximus IV Extreme comes with a Bluetooth receiver, which must be manually installed on the motherboard. This receiver has an external on/off switch, which can be very convenient.

Figure 8: Bluetooth receiver

In Figure 9, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with shared mouse and keyboard PS/2 connector, eight USB 3.0 ports, clear CMOS button, optical SPDIF output, two eSATA-300 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, the ROG Connect button, one USB 2.0 port, and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

Figure 9: Motherboard rear panel