Maximus VII Gene: Upholding The Gaming Legacy In MicroATX

The Maximus VII Gene is ROG's 2014 overclocking-slash-gaming Z97 motherboard aimed at micro ATX, small form factor PC builders. As usual, the smaller board real-estate does not mean 'less' motherboard, as the Gene is a no-compromise design; it overclocks just as far and pack as many features as any equivalent ATX ROG board.

In its usual black and red livery, the Gene's matt black motherboard has a deep-red painted PCB around the heatsink and Extreme Engine DIGI+ III hardware. That power hardware includes 8+2 phase power, NexFET™ Power Block MOSFET, 60A Ferrite Chokes and 10K Black Metallic Capacitors. The whole board is now red and black - no more white clips - and the angular aesthetic design is produced from a single concept that echoes from PCB through heatsink.

Three key layout upgrades feature this generation:

1. mPCIe slot in the corner
2. M.2 socket up to 2280 (PCI-Express x2) between the PCI-Express x16 slots
3. SupremeFX Impact II audio daughter-board slotted above the first PCI-Express x16 slot

All these align with component choice in small form factor design.

The Gene supports 2-way CrossFireX and SLI multi-GPU via its red PCI-Express x16 slots (CPU, PCI-E 3.0), and has an additional PCI-Express x4 slot (PCH, PCI-E 2.0: PCIEX4_1) available for expansion. The eight SATA 6Gbps ports provide considerable expansion opportunity, and as the M.2 slot is PCI-Express only none are sacrificed when populating everything with storage devices.

However the PCI-Express x4 slot shares bandwidth with mPCIe 2.0 x1 and M.2 slots, as this is all provided by the Z97 chipset. The default setting is 'Auto' mode that automatically arranges the PCI-Express lanes between them, but if you install a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 device in the slot, the system will automatically detect and disable mPCIe 2.0 x1 and M.2 slots.

Its four DIMM slots can pack up to 32GB of DDR3 memory up to and beyond 3,300MHz, should you want to install such a high-spec. As always, consult the QVL on the product page (support-->downloads) to check the brands which are compatible.

Next to the onboard power and reset buttons are the new (and ROG exclusive) KeyBot and SoundStage buttons, followed by pin-out for a temp senor and ROG_EXT that supports the ROG Front Base.

There are three USB 2.0 pin-outs (5 ports) and one USB 3.0 pin-out (2 ports), where the TrueVolt USB draws 5V direct from the ATX power cable to reliably power all internal and external USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports.

If we look towards the top, there are 10 ProbeIt read-out points, MemOK button and Q-Code, while dotted around are 5 fan headers to choose from.

On the rear IO there's the CMOS reset and ROG Connect buttons (ROG Connect doubles up as the USB BIOS Flashback button), four USB 3.0, four USB 2.0 (one can be switched for use with ROG Connect), PS2 keyboard and mouse, S/PDIF out, HDMI out, LANGuard RJ45 socket for Intel Gigabit Ethernet and three 3.5mm audio jacks from SupremeFX Impact II sound card. In the box you'll also find a metallic black Q-Shield IO protector as well.

Chat about the Maximus VII Gene and other M7 series boards in the ROG forums.