14 DAY TRIAL // At the Republic of Gamers Unleashed event in San Francisco, ASUS made sure that gamers would get a bunch of goodies from what's considered the most successful gamers-oriented hardware manufacturer in the world. Besides two gaming displays and a new ROG GTX 980Ti, ASUS launched one of the most powerful mini-ITX mainboards on the market.
The Z170 is probably the current star of the show among performance mainboard chipsets, and having one means that there's a powerful Skylake under the bonnet, so it's no wonder the two Intel standards support each other in fame and admiration. ASUS is currently one of the most popular Z170 chipset mainboard manufacturers, including mini-ITX ones, and one example is the previously launched Z170I Pro Gaming.
Although very similar to the Pro Gaming card in many ways, including aspect, the new ROG Maximus VIII Impact Z170 looks beefier and more powerful thanks to a new right-angled daughterboard at the top that provides a larger power subsystem, which will help minimize power losses involved. The new card also comes with a new rear metal guard and gives extra rigidity and PWM cooling.
An extra neat feature of the Impact ROG series of motherboards is that connectors are placed on the right side of the board, exactly behind the DDR slots, making cable accessibility much easier and helping keep things infinitely tidier and more tightly packed than casual models, which is perfect for the small mini-ITX tight spacing. Underneath the IO panel is also a fan header and a USB 3.0 header from the chipset.
ASUS equips its mainboards with Intel Alpine Ridge controllers as well
However, DRAM availability is limited, as expected, being a mini-ITX board, so the new Impact mainboard comes with two DDR4 slots, as usual, with single-sided latches and support 32GB and DDR4-4133. The latches are, however, placed strategically near the PCIe, since the power delivery daughterboard might make installing and removing large GPU adapter a problem.
For storage connectivity, the Impact Z170 offers four SATA 6 Gbps ports and a U.2 connector near the rear panel.
Connectivity-wise, there's an HDMI there but no 2.0 and no DisplayPort or mini-DisplayPort, so here's a disappointment with the new card. However, there are USB 3.1 ports at 10 Gbps with type-A and type-C support, including two shiny Intel ICs next to the USB 3.1 ports. As WiFi modules, there is an I219-V network controller and a 2x2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi Go.
However, the cherry on the cake is the fancy full EM shielding, with LED-illuminated audio daughterboards that light up each audio port for better detection in the dark. Jacks and headphone impedance detection/adjustment is up to 600 ohms.
Asus says that the Max VIII Impact will hit retail stores for around $249 (€219) this week in North America.
