ROG Motherboards
The ROG line of motherboards are designed specifically for gamers and overclockers. Enhanced audio, cooling and gamer centric software are a few of the features available on ROG.
For die-hard overclockers, the Extreme series continues to lead the industry with innovative overclocking functions and hardware tweaks to squeeze every last ounce of performance from the platform.
Maximus VI Extreme
Most of the features above are fairly self-explanatory. We’ll detail the ROG exclusive features below. Let’s start with the new OC Panel:
The new OC Panel
OC panel is a plug in device that provides external control and display of system temperatures, voltages and overclocking. It can be hand-held, stand on its own, or be mounted in the drive bay of a case:
OC Panel connects to the motherboard via a data cable, and needs one SATA power cable to function:
Overview of available functions in “Normal Mode”:
OC panel allows monitoring of system temperatures, speeds together with control of CPU Level-Up overclocking and fan profiles.
For extreme overclockers there’s a host of additional features:
Subzero Sense: Provides a temperature readout for K-Type thermal probes. No need for an additional digital temperature monitor when using subzero forms of cooling.
VGA SMB: Connect your compatible graphics cards to the OC Panel via this header for hardware level control of GPU power functions such as Loadline, Switching Frequency, OCP and voltage. Compatible with CHIL buck controller based GPUs only.
VGA Hotwire: For GPU modders. Connect these headers to each of your GPUs for real-time voltage control.
Slow Mode: Down-clocks the CPU to minimum ratio. A helpful feature to use between benchmark runs and for saving screenshots when system stability may be an issue.
Pause Switch: Halts the system at the hardware level. Useful for heavy load benchmarks where the CPU or GPUs are heavily stressed. Allows the system to be paused so that temperatures can be better controlled during the benchmark.
Every Z87 ROG motherboard is compatible with the new OC Panel. However’ it is only bundled with the Maximus VI Extreme. It will be available to purchase separately for the Z87 Gene, Formula or Hero.
Maximus VI Gene
Maximus VI Gene is back. New gaming oriented software and new hardware additions. We’ll get into the gaming oriented features a little later. It makes sense to cover the new mPCIE Combo II feature now, however.
NGFF Socket II: Is a new socket standard with PCIeX2 bandwidth. NGFF compatible SSDs can be used with this interface, meaning you can plug a NGFF SSD directly into this header on the board (sold separately) and use it as a cache drive to bolster system performance.
In previous generations the ROG line-up was comprised of three models – Gene, Formula and Extreme. Formula will come a little later, but there’s a new model that’s available at launch called Hero:
Maximus VI Hero
Hero fills a void for an ATX size mid-range gaming board. It’s aimed at budget conscious gamers and that want ROG centric features as part of their new build – SupremeFX, GameFirst II and an overclocking oriented UEFI are all standard.
Maximus VI Hero video overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0rHUSQrljs
Gaming Features
SupremeFX
Gene, Formula and Hero have a specialized audio solution called SupremeFX. Based on Realtek’s latest ALC1150 chipset and the Cirrus Logic DAC, the ROG team has optimized the PCB layout of these boards by isolating layers and spacing sensitive traces away from other areas of the motherboard. Shielding is also utilized to minimize spurious noise from entering signal lines. High quality capacitors are used for power supply decoupling to minimize ripple and provide a low impedance at audio critical frequencies.
On the software side, the latest addition to the package is Sonic Radar:
The Sonic Radar GUI
Sonic Radar is a HUD that is useful in FPS games. It shows a visual representation of where sounds are coming from. The location of footsteps, gunshots, explosions and anything else is shown in the 360 degree HUD while gaming:
BF3 – Sonic Radar showing direction of audio effects
The HUD can be made more transparent and its location on the screen changed. Sonic Radar very useful feature when gaming with stereo headsets, where surround effects are simulated and may not be easy to pinpoint.
On the subject of headsets, Perfect Voice has been added to improve the clarity of VOIP calls. It’s a software based filter that uses digital signal processing to remove noise pickup from your mic while making a call:
DSP helps reduce ambient noise for clearer comms
Perfect Voice works with any plug in microphone/headset to clean up voice transmission during calls.
ROG RAMDISK
With high density memory modules and kits becoming the norm, many of us have an abundance of free memory on our systems that never gets utilized. ROG RAM Disk has been coded to take advantage of that free space to help speed up the system.
ROG RAM Disk GUI
Unlike many free RAM drive tools, ROG RAM DISK has no size limitations – up to 80% of the free memory (not used by the OS) can be configured as a RAM drive.
To get you an idea of how fast a RAM drive is, check the screenshot below:
10000 MB/s sequential write speeds
Applications stored on ROG RAM DISK are written to hard storage (HHD/SSD) when the system is prompted for shutdown.
Of course, re-installing games to the RAM DISK would be a painful experience. That's why ROG RAM DISK has a feature know as Junction Mode.
Setting a junction point to a game folder allows critical game files to be transferred to the RAM DISK without interfering with the original installation. Just point the software at the game folder and it will take care of the rest. This way, critical files such as maps can be accessed directly from the RAM DISK, speeding up load times.
UEFI
ROG motherboards are known for having a comprehensive UEFI for overclocking. That hasn't changed for Z87, we’re providing more options than ever. Maximus VI Extreme UEFI pcitured - options will vary according to model.
The Maximus VI Extreme has lots of hardware settings available for tweakers. Many of these require on-board hardware to work – you won’t find these on other boards. This is stuff we tested extensively during platform development that helps to wring out the most from each CPU.
We’ve spent a lot of time refining parameters so that manual tuning isn't needed to get the most from the system. Manual tuning is of course still possible if manual tweaking is preferred.
The ROG boards have been tuned to work with all kinds of memory modules. There are more profile presets than ever before:
There’s multiple types of profile for each configuration and all popular DRAM ICs – and some unpopular ones, too!
To make things easier still, there’s a neat community resource known as ROG Exchange that works with our Z87 ROG motherboards that allows you to share UEFI profiles with friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4OBzSefkiDw
If stuck with UEFI settings, ROG connect allows getting help from a friend who can share settings in a profile that can be downloaded and used by others.
SSD Secure Erase from UEFI
There’s more to ROG UEFI’s than overclocking, however. A neat n+1 feature of the ROG Z87 UEFI is that it incorporates a secure erase tool for SSDs.
Supported SSDs can be secure erased directly from UEFI, restoring them to original performance levels easily.
Stability Tests:
Maximus VI Extreme stability test at 4.8GHz DDR3-2400
Maximus VI Hero stability test at 4.8GHz DDR3-2400
Maximus VI Gene stability test at 4.8GHz DDR3-2400
Overclocking Guides/Videos for Z87 Motherboards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Jq3TE-1whi8
http://kylebennett.com/ASUS/OCingGuidev0.99.zip
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