ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Extreme and Extreme Assembly Review

Maximus VIII Extreme Up Close

Having established the majority of the hardware, what are the little differences between the Extreme and the Extreme Assembly?

The Maximus VIII Extreme probably comes closest to what you might expect from the top-end ROG motherboard, even down to the black and red colour scheme. It’s aimed squarely at overclockers, or at the very least enthusiasts, as indicated by the included OC Key and a fan extension board to ensure that you have plenty of headers to keep things frosty.

      

      

We loved this heatsink design when we saw it on the Formula and on the Extreme it’s just as attractive. The dark grey colour accentuated by the red flashes is very much ‘classic ROG’. If you ever pay close attention to the area surrounding the CPU socket in our Z170 reviews you’ll spot straight away that the Maximus VIII Extreme has far more capacitors squeezed onto the PCB than we’ve previously, a clear indication of it’s overclocking purpose.

      

Although the majority of the Extreme is in the red we’ve come to associate with Republic of Gamers above all else, the ROG logo on the Extreme is a full RGB number, so you aren’t limited to just red, even if that is the most harmonious option.

      

If the Maximus VIII Extreme supported any more USB ports or SATA connectors ASUS would need to create a new specification of ATX to fit them all on. As it is there is barely a millimetre or two spare. If you don’t like empty PCB space, and we know some don’t, then the Extreme is perfect. About the only element we haven’t mentioned so far is the 3×3 802.11AC WiFi which supports up to 1300mb/s throughput. Enough for even those of you with Fibre Broadband.