Preview: Maximus V GENE

The Maximus V GENE is the first 5th generation Maximus to launch, from the Republic of Gamers. It combines the new Intel Z77 chipset with the existing socket LGA1155, that's suitable for existing 2nd Generation Core processors, like the i5-2500K, i7-2600K or i7-2700K, as well as future 3rd Generation Core processors. Here we detail its features:

As you can see the board is a square micro ATX, and it will fit in both micro ATX and ATX PC cases. The GENE series' reduced size allows it to be a bit more portable, making it more suitable for travelling to LANs, or just simply if you move your PC regularly.

The Z77 PCH (chipset) is passively cooled by its ROG branded heatsink. On the bottom right is a two-digit LED readout that shows POST codes to help debug boot issues. Along the bottom there are four USB 2.0 pin headers and above the SATA ports a USB 3.0 internal pin header. There are four SATA 6Gbps ports (in red) and two SATA 3Gbps (in black). Two other SATA 3Gbps ports have been wired to the rear I/O to provide eSATA and mSATA support.

The usual Start and Reset buttons adorn the bottom, just about the ROG chip that handles the special features, including BIOS Flashback and ROG Connect. In the corner the sound has been upgraded to SupremeFX III (from II in the Maximus IV GENE-Z), which includes the PCB isolation, EMI shield over the sound codec and the large, 1500uF buffer capacitor.

PCI-Express support includes two 16x lanes that work 16x/1x or 8x/8x, along with an open-ended 4x underneath and a 1x mPCIe via the Combo card.

Along the four DDR 3 slots is the Go Button that flicks to a set of pre-defined UEFI BIOS values at a touch, along with the ProbeIt voltage points and some additional diagnostic LEDs under the 24-pin ATX connector.

The CPU socket is surrounded by heatsinks with a heatpipe connecting the two in a similar style to, but smaller than the Rampage IV GENE. The PCI-Express Gen-3 switches between the CPU socket and top PCI-Express 16x port mean the board has full compatibility with the latest graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia, as well as 3rd Generation Intel Core processors that support PCI-E Gen-3.

The Rear I/O houses the reset CMOS button (the arrow) the ROG Connect button (that doubles up as the BIOS Flashback button when the PC is off), alongside four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports (the white port doubles up duty between ROG Connect and a normal USB 2.0 port), eSATA, Intel Gigabit Ethernet, DisplayPort, HDMI, S/PDIF out and six 3.5mm audio jacks providing up to 7.1 channel surround sound.

As you can see the mPCIe combo card squeezes between the two buttons on the rear I/O. On one side there's the mSATA connector for SSDs such as those from OCZ, or the Intel 311 or 313, while on the other is a standard mPCIe port for anything like a WiFi card, 3G, GPS - anything you'll usually find in a laptop. Placed here it means that the PCI-Express slot space is used for graphics cards and not sacrificed but peripherals. It also means you can build a smaller case that requires one less SDD slot, and drop in WiFi without using a USB port, for example.

 

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