Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact - RushKit

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The Guvnor
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An MATX Skylake motherboard, well it looks like ASUS have you covered with the Maximus VIII Impact.


Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact
 
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The only issue I have with small hardware (after recently building an ITX based pocket rig) is the prices. Surely less should not equal more.

The last one of these was £200 or more, a complete con. Surely using half the materials and a sixth of the slots costs less to make?
 
The only issue I have with small hardware (after recently building an ITX based pocket rig) is the prices. Surely less should not equal more.

The last one of these was £200 or more, a complete con. Surely using half the materials and a sixth of the slots costs less to make?

The fact there is less is only true to an extent. Increasing the density of anything increases the cost significantly and that is essentially what all tech progression is based on. It's no surprise smaller products which can achieve the same results are more expensive, people will pay a premium for that. The amount of features on an Impact is insane and they really need to be. If your trying to make something genuinely small and portable and there is only one expansion slot everything else needs to be on the board itself, audio, networking, storage and the obvious power delivery. Then even things you don't think about at first like fan controllers. You can't really appreciate how much stuff the Impact has on it until you've done a mad build with one and afterall ROG is ASUS' flagship so you wouldn't expect compromises in any of these areas.

You have to consider them as a package. It's like buying an epic overclocking mATX board, and a sound card, and a fan controller, and some form of network adapter then having all of that packaged into a single piece a fraction of the size. I agree it isn't worth it for everyone, if you aren't going to appreciate everything it does then it is very expensive however it definitely isn't a con.

JR
 
The fact there is less is only true to an extent. Increasing the density of anything increases the cost significantly and that is essentially what all tech progression is based on. It's no surprise smaller products which can achieve the same results are more expensive, people will pay a premium for that. The amount of features on an Impact is insane and they really need to be. If your trying to make something genuinely small and portable and there is only one expansion slot everything else needs to be on the board itself, audio, networking, storage and the obvious power delivery. Then even things you don't think about at first like fan controllers. You can't really appreciate how much stuff the Impact has on it until you've done a mad build with one and afterall ROG is ASUS' flagship so you wouldn't expect compromises in any of these areas.

You have to consider them as a package. It's like buying an epic overclocking mATX board, and a sound card, and a fan controller, and some form of network adapter then having all of that packaged into a single piece a fraction of the size. I agree it isn't worth it for everyone, if you aren't going to appreciate everything it does then it is very expensive however it definitely isn't a con.

JR

I was speaking purely logically. If a board uses 8 phases, for example, then it uses 8 phases. If, let's say, a ITX board does use 8 phases (and is therefore a high end board) then it uses the same as an ATX board (even though some MSI boards have in excess of 16 phases which is electrically pointless).

However, then let's talk about the rest. PCB - nearly a quarter of the amount. Physical PCIE slots - one. I doubt there's any need for me to continue this as you've probably understood my point by now.

Surely, then, by using far less materials (and possibly far less royalties for things like PCIE slots, if they're handled similarly to USB slots) the cost of manufacturing should be far less.

Yes, it's quite difficult to design but then what motherboard isn't?

However, all of that aside my main point is that ITX hardware is over priced. If it wasn't then maybe more people would use it.
 
Yes, it's quite difficult to design but then what motherboard isn't?

Exactly, it's difficult to design and it will sell in much smaller numbers than any other motherboard hence it makes sense that it's more expensive. Also it's not like a Hero where they will remove some stuff, get the cost down and sell it as a Ranger. Everything about it is very speficic, very time intensive to develop and not particularly popular in the grand scheme of things. Cost of manufacture isn't the only factor in the price of anything, if it's more profitable for ASUS and still competitive in its little sector of the market then GG.

JR
 
The only issue I have with small hardware (after recently building an ITX based pocket rig) is the prices. Surely less should not equal more.

The last one of these was £200 or more, a complete con. Surely using half the materials and a sixth of the slots costs less to make?

Nope. It's a niche product so there will be far, far less customers, therefore the price has to be higher to account for that. The last one was about £170 (I got it), and sure, it's expensive, but considering it's the best Mini-itx mobo on the planet (on release), then it's not that much compared to the £300+ you'll be paying for a top-end ATX board.
 
We have an empty Corsair Graphite 380T that has been waiting for this board since the first of June!

Now to get the money to get it...

Seeing the pathetic offerings from the other companies in Z170 mITX, it was going to be this board or the Z97 version... We were holding out for this one!
 
Now that you are back...

Please do a full review on this one?

My wife wants your review on the MSI Titanium Edition that you promised too :cool:
 
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