ASUS ROG Z390 Maximus XI Gene Review

ASUS ROG Z390 Maximus XI Gene Review

Introduction

The Maximus XI range has a model to suit all budgets and requirements and the mATX Gene is very much for those of you who have a little less space than others. Whilst once upon a time the smaller motherboards were wheezy things with few features and little performance, usually based upon cut-down chipsets, the Gene is a full-fat Z390 that is only really missing the extra PCI Express slots. Given how few of us run dual GPU systems or have PCI Express x1 add-in cards, this might not be as bad a thing as you’d imagine. Plus it really frees up your creativity when it comes to choosing a chassis. Why go for a plain box when you could fit the Gene into all manner of cases built from anything with the room to hold it?

So far in our testing the Z390 range has proven to be almost bulletproof, with every version chucking out extremely similar scores and overclocks. Kudos to Intel for building a chipset that has proven so reliable, even if it makes our job more difficult by ensuring there is barely any performance difference between a premium motherboard and a basic one.

Let’s run through what the Gene brings to the party and then find out how well it stacks up to the competition.

Technical Specifications

Despite the compact form-factor the ASUS Maximus XI Gene has a lot to offer those of us who run single GPU systems and dual-channel RAM. Indeed one of the big benefits of the dual-channel system now is the ability to use double-stacked DDR4, letting you have massive memory capacity even on these two slot motherboards. We have 64GB of dual-stacked RAM on hand and we’ll be testing the Gene using regular DDR4 as well as the meaty type to see if there are any benefits or drawbacks of that setup.

ASUS ROG Z390 Maximus XI Gene Review  
ASUS ROG Z390 Maximus XI Gene Review Â