ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME Motherboard

On Board Peripherals

The Intel Z87 chipset is a single-chip solution, which is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip has six SATA-600 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). The ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME offers those six ports, plus four additional SATA-600 ports, controlled by an ASMedia ASM1061 chip, for a total of 10 SATA-600 ports. One of the ports controlled by the chipset is shared with an M.2 (NGFF) slot at the Combo II card, which we will show later.

Figure 5 shows the SATA ports, rotated 90 degrees so video cards will not block them. ASUS should have used different colors for the ports controlled by the chipset and the ports controlled by the auxiliary chip. As noted above, one of the ports must not be used if the M.2 slot is occupied.

Figure 5: SATA-600 ports

The Intel Z87 chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and six USB 3.0 ports. The ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME offers eights USB 2.0 ports, two located on the motherboard’s rear panel and six available through three headers located at the motherboard; and eight USB 3.0 ports, six available on the motherboard’s rear panel and two available through a header.

The ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME does not support 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 the Realtek ALC1150 codec, which is an excellent audio codec, providing 112 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 104 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. These specifications are good even for the user who wants to professionally capture and edit analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.).

The motherboard comes with an on-board optical SPDIF output. It also has a header labeled “SPDIF_OUT”, where you can install an adapter to have a coaxial SPDIF output or to connect a cable to older video cards that required a physical connection to have audio on their HDMI outputs. The analog audio outputs are independent even if you use a 7.1 analog speaker set.

The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by an Intel I217-V chip.

The MAXIMUS VI EXTREME comes with a Combo II expansion card, which we have already seen in the analysis of the MAXIMUS VI IMPACT motherboard. This card has one Mini PCI Express slot and one M.2 slot. The Mini PCI Express comes with an IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 card installed. The M.2 (a.k.a. NGFF, Next Generation Form Factor) slot is compatible with SSD units that use this format, and replaces the mSATA standard. Figure 6 shows the Combo II card and the Wi-Fi antenna that comes with the motherboard.

Figure 6: Combo II card and Wi-Fi antenna

In Figure 7, you can see the motherboard’s rear panel with the “Clear CMOS” and “ROG Connect” buttons, two USB 2.0 ports, six USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet port, an optical SPDIF output, HDMI output, DisplayPort output, shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, and the analog audio connectors.

Figure 7: Motherboard rear panel