14 DAY TRIAL // A little less than a day after we disclosed the first information about the Maximus IV Gene-Z motherboard, Asus went ahead and made this latest micro-ATX ROG solution built on the Intel Z68 chipset official.
Just as it is the case with all the other Republic of Gamers series motherboards, the Maximus IV Gene-Z will include an important number of advanced features like AMD CrossFireX and Nvidia SLI support, ROG Connect support and an on-board Supreme X-Fi sound chip.
In addition to the two PCI Express x16 slots that are required for dual-GPU setups, Asus has also included a PCI-E x4 slot.
Right next to it, users will find the on-board Power and Reset buttons as well as a BIOS debug LCD.
Storage is provided by six SATA ports, two of the 6Gbps variety, and Asus has also included a USB 3.0 header which allows for two such ports to be routed to the front of the case.
Another two USB 3.0 ports can be found on the rear I/O panel along with an impressive number of USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA connectors, 7.1-channel audio with a digital S/PDIF output and a Gigabit Ethernet port.
Since we are dealing with an Intel Z68 board, the Taiwanese company has also included an HDMI video output, which is placed right below the S/PDIF connector.
This means that the Maximus IV Gene-Z is fully compatible with the LucidLogix Virtu on-the-fly graphics switching technology as well as Intel's Quick Sync technology. Smart Response is also supported.
Asus hasn't stated when the Maximus IV Gene-Z becomes available for purchase or for just how much the motherboard will retail, but it seems like this could be officially launched at Computex 2011.
Outside of the Maximus IV Gene-Z, Asus is also expected to release an Intel Z68 version of the Maximum IV Extreme.