ASUS Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial Preview

ASUS Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial Review

Introduction

It’s fair to say that there are plenty of options when it comes to choosing your new Z590 motherboard. Indeed, if you’re a regular reader of OC3D then you’ll know we’ve covered a raft of models on the launch day. However, what if that isn’t good enough for you? What if you want a motherboard which is designed to not be as good as the rest, or even the best of the rest, but the best of all of them?

Enter the ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial.

Clearly we don’t know yet if it will be the actual best, although our results will soon be on hand and by the time you read this we will have a full review on hand. Right now though, all we know is what we’ve got from the box. It’s a gigantic box, but that’s because as well as a full EATX PCB the Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial has a full cover EK waterblock included too. This is the first motherboard from the Maximus range since the 9 to have a waterblock included in the package, so it’s a great opportunity to not only discover if a much more capable cooling solution will help to tame the toasty Intel Core i9-11900K, but also to seewhat four years of development has done to the EK waterblock design.

With a built in RGB OLED Livedash, 9 Teamed power stages giving 18 100A stages in total, AI Overclocking and 14 fan headers, the Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial promises to be the blend of power and control that you would expect from a product sitting at the top of the ASUS ROG range, and particularly one with this price tag.

There is a lot to cover besides that, and we’ll highlight the important bits as we go through the photographs, so grab your first born and the number of a bodysnatcher and let’s do it to it.