ASUS Maximus II Formula P45 Motherboard
Features
Other than the usual features found on the current crop of motherboards around today, the Maximus II Formula has a few extra little features that are examined below.
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ATI’s CrossfireX is supported through 2x 8 PCIe lanes on the Maximus II Formula. While not having as many PCIe lanes as it’s X48 brethren current GPU’s do not seem to take full advantage of 16 lanes and so there is little performance drop in using 8 lanes but a massive leap over previous P35 CrossfireX configurations. |
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The Flashback BIOS function allows the user to instantaneously go back to a previous BIOS version acting very much like a ‘Save Game’ function. Two BIOS ROM files can be stored on the motherboard allowing the user to recover a failed BIOS flash (thereby flashing the corrupt ROM with a working version) or it can be used to ave a whole BIOS setup rather than just the overclocked settings. |
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Instead of purchasing the most expensive CPU around you can simply buy a cheaper version and make use of the CPU Level Up feature which will overclock your current CPU to a performance level of a more expensive CPU. This is an excellent feature for those not accustomed with BIOS overclocking. |
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The latest power saving feature installed on the Maximus II is the EPU-6 Engine. This feature detects current PC loadings and adjusts the power requirements accordingly. CPU, VGA, Memory, Chipset, Drives and system fans can all be automatically adjusted (if supported) to save power and therefore money! Another handy feature is you can tell in real time how much power your CPU is using – see below: |
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Speeding HDD allows the end user to setup Raid configurations (0, 1) without the need for drivers or complicated BIOS setups. The graphical user interface is very easy to use and can be used to either setup a quick RAID array once in windows or be used to back up one drive to another. The whole process of setting the drives up is very simple, just plug the drives in, boot up and use the on screen instructions to set the drives to whatever configuration you like. |
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The SupremeFX riser card supplied with the Maximus II features an XFI based chipset allowing the use of almost all of Creatives XFI trickery including XFI Crystallizer, CMSS3D and EAX 4.0 which accurately provides a virtual 3D surround sound and enhancement experience in both games and movies. It is a strange move for Asus considering that Asus now have their own sound solution in the Xonar series but it is a welcome one nonetheless as the XFI card is much better than previous versions of the SupremeFX cards offering greater features and functionality. |
So now you have seen what the Maximus II has to offer in terms of features, let’s see if the ROG BIOS can match this impressive list of software extras…
