ASUS ROG Maximus XII Apex Preview

Up Close

The black with red accents of the Republic of Gamers packaging is now very familiar, and the APEX doesn’t change the formula at all. You even get the same accessories pack that we saw when we previewed the Maximus XII Extreme, so those of you with a slight fetish for opening dozens of plastic bags of cables and kit will be satisfied.

  
  

Starting at the top you can see the curvaceous nature of the power heatsinks and blended heatsink/IO shield combo that has become such a staple of modern motherboard design. Only two DIMM slots, as well as the ASUS DIMM.2 storage expansion.

  

At the bottom end you find two PCI Express 3.0 slots and the very X-shaped heatsinks that connect the chipset heatsink to the VRM modules.

  

At the top left we have the braced pair of 8pin EATX 12V inputs alongside another fan header.

  

At the top right we find the CPU AIO pump and fan headers – fan header just out of shot behind the heatsink – as well as the ubiquitous ASUS white RGB LED strip headers in both regular and addressable formats. Onboard buttons help you overclock with the minimum of fuss, and the fact there are only two DIMM slots might assist you in reaching peak RAM performance. There are DIP switches for those of you seeking sub-zero cooling efforts, just above the voltage monitoring points.

  

The Maximus XII Apex party piece is undoubtedly the SATA port design, in the shape on an X no less. It certainly looks interesting with the board naked like this, but how much of it will be visible once you have your whopping GPU installed is another matter.