ASUS Maximus Formula Special Edition (Intel X38)
ASUS Maximus Formula Layout and Features
There are no complaints about the board's design: there is no blocking of DIMM slots latches by the PCI Express video card, with the power connectors positioned conveniently over the board's edges: 24-pin - on the bottom edge, with a 8-pin on the right-hand.
We note that the board has retained a backward compatibility to the "old" PSUs and allows using them with 20+4 cables. At the same time, the unused pins of the additional connector are closed with a plastic lid:
Near the CPU socket, there is a 4-pin CPU_FAN connector for a matching cooler.
Besides it, there are seven (!) more 3-pin connectors: PWR_FAN - near the rear panel, CHA_FAN1 and CHA_FAN3 - near the north bridge, OPT_FAN1 - near the DIMM slots, CHA_FAN2 and OPT_FAN2 - near the south bridge, OPT_FAN3 - in the upper left-hand corner of the board.
On the north bridge, there is a massive water block connected to the radiator on the power supply module with a heat pipe. Also, using the heat pipe the heat from the south bridge is transferred to the north bridge.
It should be noted that the water block is combined with the massive radiator, which provides a perfect cooling of the chipset using air-driven cooling as well. Such a solution looks much more efficient than the cooling system used on motherboards of the ASUS Blitz series (they used only the water block). At the same time, this radiator takes part in cooling the board's power supply module. Moreover, the additional aluminum radiator is located on the board's rear panel and thus rejects heat outside the CPU housing (some sort of a response to the abit OTES technology).
Therefore, the cooling system of ASUS Maximus Formula SE is pretty intricate and highly efficient at the same time. Moreover, the efficiency can be increased through installation of an additional turbine fan (available in the package bundle) on the radiator of the power supply module.
Under the north bridge, there are four 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR2 memory modules. They are partitioned into two groups, each having two slots. The first two slots refer to the first controller channel, with the other two to the second controller.
The board offers support for DDR2-533/667/800/1066/1200, and the maximum memory capacity makes 8GB. Once voltage is applied to the board, illumination of Power and Reset buttons installed on the left-hand edge of the board lights up.
There are two PCI Express x16 slots onboard (both with latches) which are meant for video cards.
Due to the capabilities of the X38 chipset, 16 bus lanes are allocated for both of the PCI Express x16 slots. Therefore, in using two AMD/ATI video cards they run in the most powerful Crossfire mode.
Besides the above listed slots, ASUS Maximus Formula uses two more "regular" PCI slots as well as two PCI Express x1 slots.
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