The differences between micro-ATX and ATX boards have now shrunk to the point where you don’t lose much by opting for a smaller board, especially if you buy the Asus Maximus VIII Gene. Aside from having fewer PCI-E slots, it offers all you get from an ATX board and, in some cases, more.
All the goodies of the Z170 chipset are here: an M.2 slot, on-board USB 3.1 ports (in addition to six USB 3 ports), four DDR4 DIMM slots, six SATA 6Gbps connectors, and the same EFI overclocking tools you would expect from ATX boards, with a similarly wide range of supported CPU multipliers, base clock frequencies and voltages. Notably, the rear panel is also completely free of USB 2 ports.
Similarly, there’s been no skimping on the chunky chipset and VRM heatsinks, the latter of which are connected via a small heatpipe, and Asus has still managed to leave plenty of room around the power connectors. There should be few problems with longer video cards as well, as the SATA ports are all rightangled, and even the M.2 slot has space to spare – you’ll even be able to squeeze a 22110 M.2 device in there, albeit obscured by the graphics card – a feature that not every ATX boards offers.
The board also happily accommodates dual-GPU setups, with space underneath both 16x PCI-E slots, although the limited room on micro-ATX boards means you sacrifice upgrade room elsewhere by doing so. There’s a single 1x PCI-E slot underneath the second 16x slot, but it will be obscured if you install a second card. If you’re using two dual-slot air-cooled cards then they will also be positioned right next to each other using this board, which isn’t ideal.
Meanwhile, the I/O panel is quite crowded, with HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, BIOSflashback and clear-CMOS buttons, and USB 3.1 type-A and type-C ports positioned at the top. Asus has even found room for seven fan headers on the board, along with power and reset buttons and a POST code display.
Then we have they comprehensive EFI system, which lacks none of the features of the larger Asus ATX motherboards. BIOS updates can be performed via USB or a direct Internet download, there’s a separate Q-Fan control with customisable fan curves and the highly useful Asus SSD secure erase feature is present. It’s full of features and it also has clear menus and a logical layout, making it a pleasure to use. We managed to squeeze 4.9GHz out of our Core i7-6700k Skylake processor with the other Asus ROG board on test, the Maximus VIII Ranger (see p44), and had similarly good results from the Gene. Again, it hit 4.9GHz, which is a faster frequency than we achieved from most other Z170 boards, and again this result was stable at a fairly low voltage of just 1.38V.
In fact, when overclocked, the Maximus VIII Gene was the overall fastest motherboard on test in RealBench 2015, showing you now lose nothing in terms of performance and overclocking by going for a micro-ATX board. The Gene was very quick at stock speed too, and its small size also helped with power efficiency, with our test system drawing just 128W at load at stock speed – the best result on test.
The Gene betters several ATX boards on test, with great performance, amazing overclocking abilities and a strong feature set.
VERDICT
A feature set that belies its size, and its performance and overclocking abilities are superb too.
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset Intel Z170
CPU socket Intel LGA1151
Memory support 4 slots, max 64GB DDR4 (3800MHz - OC)
Expansion slots Two 16x PCI-E, one 1x PCI-E
Sound Realtek ALG1500
Networking Intel Gigabit LAN
Overclocking Base clock 40–650MHz, CPU multiplier 8–83x; max voltages, CPU 1.7V, RAM 2.0064V
Ports 1 x PS/2, 2 x SATA Express, 6 x SATA 6Gbps, 1 x M.2 , 6 x USB 3, 1 x USB 3.1 type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 type-C, 1 x LAN, 8-channel surround audio out, line in, mic, optical S/PDIF out
IGP display outputs 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
Dimensions (mm) 244 x 244