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One of the highlights of ASUS&rsquo; ROG Computex Press Event was the announcement of the Maximus VII Impact, the successor to the popular mini-ITX ROG Impact range of motherboards.&nbsp; Today the motherboard is officially released from ASUS HQ, with stock coming to regions shortly.&nbsp; We reviewed the Maximus VI Impact last year and was appropriately impressed by the effort to include so many features in the mini-ITX platform &ndash; ASUS is hoping that this Z97 upgrade kicks it up a notch.</p>
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Similar to the Maximus VI, the order of the day is extra PCBs in order to add features.&nbsp; The power delivery is upgraded to the ROG 9-series design, and the audio add-on SupremeFX card moves up with fewer filter caps in a more optimized output.&nbsp; The mPCIe Combo moves up to revision four which includes a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot and a mini-PCIe slot with a bundled 802.11ac dual band WiFi module.&nbsp; Note that when the M.2 slot is occupied, the PCIe slot will reduce to PCIe 3.0 x8, although our previous testing of a similar feature shows no frame rate difference at 1080p.</p>
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The Impact Control on the rear panel uses the same two-digit debug as the previous version, along with ROG Connect and a Clear CMOS button, but the two buttons included are for the KeyBot and SoundStage functionality introduced with the Maximus VII range.&nbsp; KeyBot is a feature to enable macros with any keyboard with the ASUS software, and SoundStage acts as a configurable op-amp that modifies various aspects of the audio output to be more suited for various styles of gaming.</p>
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Interestingly enough the rear of the Impact Control is another PCB, holding two 4-pin fan headers to compliment the 4-pin CPU fan header on the top left and the chassis header on the right of the motherboard.&nbsp; Also of note is the rear panel, where a single block of USB ports uses two USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports &ndash; this configuration I have not seen on a motherboard before and could pave the way for something on most motherboards for the future.</p>
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The DRAM slots use single side latches on the power delivery side, and the power connectors are gladly on the outsides of the motherboard. This follows the start button, a fan header and a USB 3.0 header.&nbsp; The front panel header is also on the right side of the DRAM slots.&nbsp; The SATA 6 Gbps ports are unfortunately just inside the DRAM slots and all in the same direction, perhaps causing issues with trying to remove locking cables.</p>
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The socket area is up against Intel specifications, suggesting that CPU coolers might be up against the power delivery or tall memory modules.&nbsp; The audio is buffeted by Sonic Rader II, an onscreen representation of directional audio, and networking comes via the 802.11ac WiFi and an Intel I218-V with GameFirst III.</p>
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We are awaiting information from ASUS&rsquo; US office for pricing and availability.</p>
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Source: AnandTech
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