14 DAY TRIAL // Just a few weeks ago, Asus officially announced the Maximus IV Extreme Intel P67-based motherboard, this enthusiast model being designed to be used together with the upcoming LGA 1155 Sandy Bridge processors that are going to be launched on January 5, and now a Chinese website brings us the very first pictorial of the board.
Brought to our attention by the Expreview website, this pictorial shows the Maximus IV Extreme in great detail, managing to expose some of its secrets before the motherboard gets launched.
Starting from the beginning, inside the big red box that is common to all ROG motherboards, we find all of the accessories that someone is to expect from a top of the line model, including three temperature sensors and two ROG Probe It voltage sensing lines.
Taking a look at the box also reveals that in addition to CrossFireX compatibility this also comes with Nvidia SLI support, as the Maximus IV Extreme employs a NF200 chip that splits the PCIe lanes in order to allow for up to three Nvidia GPUs to be used in SLI in a x8/x16/x16 configuration.
In addition, Asus' motherboard also comes with eight USB 3.0 ports thanks to the inclusion of two NEC D720200F1 USB 3.0 controller chips that are split via the VIA VL810 controller hub.
Apart from these options, we get all the features that everybody has now come to expect from a ROG motherboard, including ROG Connect, ROG iConnect, RC Bluetooth, a dual BIOS design, onboard Power and Reset buttons as well as the EFI BIOS that will be common on all of Asus upcoming P67 motherboards.
Moving on to the board's layout, I can definitely say that Asus has done a great job yet again providing ample room around the CPU socket area for even the largest cooling solutions available out there, the design being kept clean and simple although the motherboard is packed with features.
Finally, I'll leave you to take a look for yourself at the enclosed high resolution pictures, further images being available on the XFastest website that posted this pictorial online.
