Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Want to talk about one of the articles in SPCR? Here's the forum for you.
Post Reply
Lawrence Lee
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 1115
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 9:07 pm
Location: Vancouver

Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by Lawrence Lee » Mon Dec 14, 2015 5:14 pm


Gadgety
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2012 1:03 pm

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by Gadgety » Wed Dec 16, 2015 4:04 am

Interesting mobo. A comparison to the ASRock X99E-ITX/ac would be nice.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by Abula » Wed Dec 16, 2015 6:15 am

Thanks Lawrence for the review.

I have a couple of questions on the bios fan control,

1) Did you tested the tuning? is it like fanXpert and overrides the minimum preset values of the bios?

2) Can you change the curve for the SYS_FANs, i mean not the presets but like breakpoints?

merlyn
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 149
Joined: Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:14 pm
Location: Jersey, UK

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by merlyn » Wed Dec 16, 2015 3:54 pm

What is the 802.11ac performance like?

OverZerg
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:10 am
Location: Samara, Russia

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by OverZerg » Wed Dec 16, 2015 10:27 pm

I can't get why they not using sodimms instead? They twice smaller. Also it would be much better with M.2 on board.

nagi
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:48 pm
Location: Outside the box

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by nagi » Thu Dec 17, 2015 2:08 am

Thanks for the review.

I am actually looking into building a mini-ITX work machine with specs in the same ballpark right now. (i7, board with integrated bt/ac wifi, ssd, 16GB RAM)

I have to say, I find the fan control lacking. My current AsROCK board (which is a few generations behind) has 5+1 points I can define in the BIOS. (5 with % setting and an emergency full tilt temperature.) The extra fan controller board is very nice, although in most small ITX cases, you won't find an extra 5.25" drive space. :)

Rebellious
Posts: 322
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:53 pm
Location: EU, USA

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by Rebellious » Thu Dec 17, 2015 10:34 am

How come Asus put only an HDMI port? Their high-end boards usually have DVI, HDMI and Displayport.

Also i7-6700K iGPU is a step down from the previous gen Broadwell C-series. Why did Intel do that?

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by Abula » Thu Dec 17, 2015 11:15 am

Rebellious wrote:Also i7-6700K iGPU is a step down from the previous gen Broadwell C-series. Why did Intel do that?
Broadwell desktop CPUs are more like a special edition, its not the usual tick tock that we have seen from intel in the past generations, these are more CPUs with best iGPU sacrificing CPU clocks (compared to 4790K) and $150 more for this sort of speak trade off.

But these are great CPUs for someone that will really benefit from the iGPUs, although the jump from Haswell to Skylake is decent upgrade in the iGPUs, so i would say the curve of improvement is sustained, just that Broadwell is a very peculiar different offering from intel than the usual upgrades we have been getting.

Personally i would prefer the K series to remove the iGPUs and lower the price $50, or what the hell remove the iGPU in exchange of soldier instead of paste for these high end mainstream cpus. Looking on how the 6700K is getting close to $500, the 5820K at $399 is starting to look like a better buy overall.

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by edh » Thu Dec 17, 2015 1:45 pm

The lack of M.2 and instead having U.2 is unusual. Not sure I see the point of this when M.2 can be rear mounted on a small motherboard.

In terms of value I am definitely not convinced of the worth of ultra highend motherboards like this. What advantages will it really have over the next motherboard down? As it happens I have the Z170i Pro Gaming which is the next model down and I only see this motherboard as worse for the lack of the M.2 and more compatibility concerns.

baii
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:32 pm

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by baii » Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:31 pm

I think for asus board, you typically really want to use speedfan for silent, unless you run 100% pwm fan.

Any chance the check if lastest speedfan can controll the header on the addon card?

Btw, is ASUS still the only board manf that offer pwm/dc fan switching?

wayner
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 190
Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2004 10:46 am
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by wayner » Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:33 am

I agree that M.2 would be good but I don't agree that you shouldn't have IGPUs. A Mini-ITX mobo with an M.2 means that you could have a very small case, and even a passive case like a HD-Plex H1.S or even smaller since you don't need room for a SSD as long as you have the M.2. That makes for a great HTPC with pretty impressive performance.

Lawrence Lee
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 1115
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 9:07 pm
Location: Vancouver

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by Lawrence Lee » Sat Dec 19, 2015 8:22 pm

Abula wrote:1) Did you tested the tuning? is it like fanXpert and overrides the minimum preset values of the bios?
2) Can you change the curve for the SYS_FANs, i mean not the presets but like breakpoints?
I did not test the tuning but yes, Fan Xpert usually overrides minimum values in the BIOS.
Yes, you can change the curve of the SYS_FAN and all EXT_FANs.
Rebellious wrote:How come Asus put only an HDMI port? Their high-end boards usually have DVI, HDMI and Displayport.
Seems like they wanted to include their enthusiast features (power/reset switches, error code display, CMOS/flashback) and could only fit them on the rear panel. They expect you to use a video card so they ditched the other video output options.
baii wrote:Any chance the check if lastest speedfan can controll the header on the addon card?
Sorry, board is packed away. I doubt the latest SpeedFan works at all. I haven't gotten working on any Skylake board as of yet.

vishcompany
Posts: 96
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:46 pm

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by vishcompany » Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:54 am

Lawrence Lee wrote:I doubt the latest SpeedFan works at all. I haven't gotten working on any Skylake board as of yet.
Beta 4.52 works well with my Asus Z170-A

fwiler
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 6:20 am

Re: Asus Maximus VIII Impact Mini-ITX Skylake Motherboard

Post by fwiler » Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:08 pm

Lack of m2 is more than glaring omission, it's a nail in the coffin for this motherboard.
No enthusiast, which are the only people that would buy this, would look past that.

Post Reply