Motherboards within the Republic of Gamers brand typically come in three flavors. Extreme, Formula and Gene. Often times a given board name will come in at least two of these flavors. Usually Extreme or Formula. Extreme boards represent the best of the best. These tend to have the largest integrated feature sets and the largest in the box bundles. Formula boards have a slightly more streamlined feature set and smaller bundles. These generally reduce the price somewhat compared to Extreme offerings. Finally we have Gene boards which are always mATX boards. The PCBs on Gene boards are about as packed as these possibly can be.
ASUS went the extra mile with the ASUS Maximus V Formula / ThunderFX. At a glance it is very similar to the more expensive ASUS Maximus V Extreme we reviewed earlier. There are some key differences and even some advantages when comparing the Maximus V Formula ThunderFX to the Extreme board. The Maximus V Formula ThunderFX comes with an integrated water block which ASUS calls the Fusion Thermo system. It is a heat pipe based cooling solution with a water channel integrated into it. Theoretically it should allow for better cooling than the Maximus V Extreme is capable of. That board features the heat pipe based cooling system but without the water channel. Though it remains to be seen which is actually better on straight up air cooling. But those of you who want to water cool it may find the Formula board a better fit. It’s also great for those people with existing loops who may have avoided cooling components on the board due to the cost of specialized cooling blocks designed for their boards.
While the Maximus V Formula does feature a better power phase cooling than the Maximus V Extreme does, the Formula doesn’t have all the same overclocking tools that the Extreme did. It doesn’t come with the OC key onscreen display device, Subzero Sense support, or VGA hotwire support. So naturally I think for LN2 cooling the Extreme is still going to be your best bet in the LGA1155 board market.
Another key improvement we’ll talk about in greater detail later is the addition of the SupremeFX IV audio solution. ASUS has made a couple changes compared to the Maximus V Extreme board and I can tell you that these do make a difference. This is key for the Maximus V Formula board which does not come with the ThunderFX solution. Of course we’ll be talking about both audio options. Speaking of which the ThunderFX simply put is a USB DAC. This is often the recommended route in our audio forums for a variety of reasons. You get a great sound solution and you don’t have to sacrifice a PCIe slot to get it.
As different as these boards are, these are very much the same. Both feature a similar SATA configuration, USB 3.0 implementation, layout, and share a number of features. Both have MemOK support, ProbeIt headers for hardware monitoring of voltages, Integrated Intel networking, and various other similar components. DIGI+ Power control delivers precise control over the system’s integrated power phases.
The Maximus V Formula is based on the Intel Z77 Express chipset and leverages all that this chipset supports. It supports the latest LGA1155 CPUs, Intel's Smart Connect and Rapid Start technologies, SLI, 3-Way SLI, Quad-SLI, and CrossFire support, up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM (up to 2800MHz through overclocking), 2 SATA 3G ports, 6 SATA 6G ports (two via the Z77 and 4 via ASM1061 controllers), onboard graphics, Intel Gigabit Ethernet, 8x USB 2.0 ports and 6 USB 3.0 ports. Wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0+HS/4.0, and mSATA support is provided via the mPCIe combo card.
While it’s easy to think of the "Formula" boards as stripped down compared to "Extreme" models, it doesn’t actually mean the Formula boards aren’t feature rich as the Maximus V Formula has a lot going for it.
Main Specifications Overview:
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