ASUS Maximus VI Impact - Performance Test



Introduction:

The Maximus VI Impact (M6I) is ASUS’ first Republic of Gamers (ROG) mini-ITX motherboard (mobo) based on Z87 chipset. Offering strong performance with pure stability, impressive power delivery efficiency and state-of-the art thermal solution, the M6I fits in mini-ITX cases while retaining ROG’s gold - being an overclocking champion more flexible than ever. Recently, I had opportunity to test the M6I and now I am sharing the overclocking results to your attention. Let’s see what this little monster has to ofter.

Overview of M6I:



Specifications:



Full specifications of M6I can be found HERE

Unboxing:


Like other ROG mobos, the M6I is packed in a red box. Not too big, not too small. Just about the size of the tiny board.


With a black and red color scheme, the M6I houses an LGA1150 socket and supports Intel 4th Generation Core i7, i5 & i3/ Pentium/ Celeron processors. The mobo is a mini-ITX with a dimension of (17.0 x 17.0) cm and comes with four SATA3 ports to provide adequate storage. There are two RAM slots supporting up to 16GB of of DDR3 Dual Channel as fast as 3000 MHz+.


The M6I is powered by a unique Impact Power consisting Digital 8 Phase Power Design (8 Phase VCCIN) with ASUS CPU Power Utility & FIVR Control. Additionally, there are also 2 Phase Digital Power Design with Asus DRAM Power Utility to deliver sufficient power for extreme memory overclocking.


There is one mini-PCIe II connector sitting between the I/O Panel and PCIe slot, providing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and even supporting a new M.2(NGFF) Solid State Drive (SSD). Due to limited space of this tiny board, ASUS decided to put the SupremeFX Impact audio as a daughter PCB, to provide high quality sound output. Also spotted, a PCIe 3.0 16x slot which supports the latest graphics card.


The rear I/O panel packs one DisplayPort (DP), one HDMI, one Optical S/PDIF out, one Clear CMOS button, one DirectKey button, one MemOK! button, a Q-Code LED, four USB 2.0 ports (one port can be switched to ROG Connect), four USB 3.0 ports (blue), one eSATA port, one LAN (RJ45) port, as well as three audio jacks from the SupremeFX module.

This post has been edited by owikh84: Aug 7 2013, 07:43 PM

The back side of the board is very simple, a CPU socket backplate is used to provide retention to the CPU cooler on the top of the board.


The CMOS battery is placed like this to save the space. What a brilliant idea by ASUS designers.


The accessories bundled in the package are plentiful:
4 x SATA 6 Gbps cables
1 x I/O Shield
1 x 12-in-1 ROG cable lable
1 x Q-Cable
1 x Optional 4-in-1 washers for CPU cooler backplate
1 x SupremeFX Impact Audio card
1 x mPCIe Combo II card with dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac + Bluetooth v4.0/3.0+HS module
1 x 2T2R dual-band Wi-Fi moving Antennas
1 x ROG Motherboard support DVD
1 x User guide

Test Setup:



CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K
MB: ASUS Maximus VI Impact, BIOS 0401, 0038
DRAM: G.Skill TridentX 2800 C11 2 X 4GB, G.Skill TridentX 2666MHz C10 2 X 4GB, Corsair DominatorGT GTX4 2533MHz C9 2 X 2GB and G.Skill RipjawsX 2133MHz C8 2 X 2GB
GPU: Gigabyte HD7970, MSI's special BIOS, Driver Catalyst 13.8 beta
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB, FW 040H
ODD: LiteON DVD-RW
PSU: Corsair AX1200
Monitor: Dell U2312HM
Cooling: Custom watercooling kit - EK Supreme HF plate #6 CPU waterblock, 2x XSPC RX360 radiator, Swiftech MCP655 pump, EK FC7970 GPU waterblock, EK Multioption X2 Advanced reservoir, XSPC 1/2" ID 3/4" OD white tubing, 12x Scythe GT AP-15 1850rpm 120mm fan + Aerocool Shark 120mm fan, Coolaboratory Liquid Pro thermalpaste etc.
Casing: DimasTech Easy Dual V2.5 Bench Table
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

The UEFI BIOS:

Main page with LN2 jumper off:


RAM timing settings:


Memory profile presets:


DIGI + Power control:


Tweaker’s Paradise:


SPD Information:


BIOS flashing via USB drive:


SSD Secure Erase:


EZ-Mode:


Software & Tools:


AI Suite III - An OC tweaking application for overclocking in the OS.
MemTweakIT - Display the memory timings in the OS. Unfortunately, due to Intel’s lockdown it is unable to adjust timings real-time in the OS for now.

Stability Tests:

Basically, Haswell was born hot due to inefficient heat conductivity between the internal heat spreader (IHS) and the die. Under water, the 4770K is overclocked to 4.5GHz HyperThreading (HT) @ 1.25v passed LinX without an error in 20 loops. One of the CPU cores hit 97C during loading but it's still lower than TJmax of 100C. At the same time, the memory is overclocked to 2933MHz 12-14-14-25-2T @ 1.65v on air.

LinX 0.6.4 w/ AVX:


Benchmark Tests:

The 4770K is overclocked to 4.7GHz (4 cores/8 threads) for benchmarks. Meanwhile, the HD7970 is overclocked to 1300MHz core/7000MHz mem @ 1.3v/1.7v.

3DMark13:


3DMark11:


3DMark Vantage:


3DMark06:


3DMark05:


3DMark03:


PCMark7:


Super Pi 32M/ MaxxMEM/ AIDA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark:


Super Pi 1M:

HyperPi 32M:


Cinebench 11.5:


Unigine Heaven 4.0:


WPrime 1.55/ Fritz Chess 4.3:


Highest RAM OC on Air @ 3337.8MHz 12-14-14-25-2T:


Super Pi 32M Benchmark with Hynix IC RAM:

G.Skill TridentX 2800C11 2 X 4GB @ 3250MHz 12-15-15-25-2T


Super Pi 32M Benchmark with Samsung IC RAM:

G.Skill TridentX 2666C10 2 X 4GB @ 2800MHz 10-12-12-25-1T


Super Pi 32M Benchmark with PSC IC RAM:

Corsair DominatorGT GTX4 2533C9 2 X 2GB @ 2600MHz 8-12-8-28-1T


Super Pi 32M Benchmark with BBSE IC RAM:

G.Skill RipjawsX 2133C8 2 X 2GB @ 2400MHz 8-11-7-21-2T


This post has been edited by owikh84: Aug 30 2013, 10:56 PM

Game Benchmarks:

Metro Last Light:


Bioshock Infinite:



Thoughts & Verdicts:

ASUS Maximus VI Impact is really a strong motherboard for extreme overclocking. If you are looking for a high end mini-ITX board, then the M6I is a perfect choice for you. Overclocking on the 4770K is as good as any other larger motherboard out there. Memory overclocking slightly better than its elder brother, the Maximus VI Extreme (M6E), it is able to push my Hynix-CFR based RAM kit to 3250MHz easily at the very first boot. The UEFI BIOS works flawlessly with all of the memory kits that I have used. It is amazing on how ASUS cramped the tiny board with so many high quality components and features. The M6I is now available locally for RM988 (SRP), which is slightly more expensive than the mATX based Maximus VI Gene (M6G).

I would like to thank ASUS Malaysia especially Sanko for sending me the motherboard for a quick review.

Performance: 5/5
Materials: 5/5
Specifications: 5/5
Appearance: 5/5
Performance/Price Value: 4/5

Pros:
+ Impressive overclocking performance, especially the memory overclocking
+ Beautiful red and black colour scheme
+ Nice motherboard layout and friendly for extreme overclocking
+ Comes with detachable SupremeFX Impact audio module
+ Included the latest all-in-one AI Suite III
+ State-of-the-art UEFI BIOS with lots of overclocking options
+ Useful user guide manual

Cons:
- Price can be lower
- Lack of LucidLogix Virtu MVP software for QuickSync
- Can’t adjust memory timings with MemTweakIT in the OS at the time of writing.

Awesome review from my owsum Kevin honey koko

...good review my bro..

Thank you sis. Your siggy inspired me to go higher

TQVM bro. See you this Friday.

Ayam kambing too this Flyday

yay!!! i can see that it uses c2 stepping of Z87 that fixed the USB S3 bug

This post has been edited by jinaun: Aug 7 2013, 10:39 AM

hmm did u notice that x-talk is only given to m6e.

Cool. See ya soon.

Yeah, according to ASUS rep all retail Impact would be shipped with the latest C2 chipset. The Formula will still use C1 though, unfortunately.

Yes, not only x-talk but other power delivery options also are not available on Impact could be due to the lack of components to do such things.

yeah bro but xtalk is kindda important.

its the deciding factor to maintain high cpu clock, high dram clock without sacrificing vcore.

So AceCombat,owikh84 and ktek is going to have a <insert activites> session this Flyday
Have fun man
Somehow this motherboard remind me of Leica Mx,small but come with big price tag and awesome quality

...good review sifu.

Which small mitx case bundle with this ?

Plus where to buy it

Good point. But too bad we have to pay more for that feature.

Seems like ASUS MY is cutting our throat again this time. The SRP for Impact is $229 USD ~ RM745 but here we have to fork out another RM243.

Thank you for the kind words bro.

There are many mini-ITX cases out there in the market.
I believe the most popular at the moment is still the

Bitfenix Prodigy:


Lian LI PC-T1R (I owned this spidey case before but it was left unused and I sold it already)


More models HERE:

Performance Test for ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO & FORMULA ???

Nope bro. I don't have chance to get a hand on these boards yet.
Perhaps you would willing to lend me for one week for review?

hehe come to my house if this not a big deal..
for review and Raya open house got satay n ketupat..

just for the state of mind, what do you recon to be built with this monster ?
all i think abt is to build this monster with corsair 250D mITX case. lol

Generally any mITX case would fit this board. 250D is a good case for its expansion, flexibility and performance.
But due to its not-so-small volume size it might not be a friendly case for frequent LAN party attenders, as it is inconvenient to carry around egardless of its lightweight build.