 So this is a fairly exciting new product from ASUS. This is the latest edition or one of the latest two editions in their Republic of Gamers line of motherboards. This is the Maximus 3 Extreme. So the other one that's launching at the same time is the Rampage 3 Extreme, which is the X58 version and then this is the P55 version. So that means that it is compatible with... I'm gonna... I discarded my remote there, which was a bad move. Okay, so that means it is compatible with Intel Core i7 and Core i5. So those are the LGA 1156 variants. It is SLI ready, Crossfire ready. And let's see what ASUS has to say for themselves on the back or on the inside, I should say, of the motherboard box. So first of all, it has ROG Connect. ROG Connect allows you to plug in and overclock, tweak it the hardcore way. Okay, that's not very explanatory. I think it's a little module though that you plug into the board. Okay, so USB BIOS flashback. No worry of BIOS crash anytime. So rather than having a dual BIOS feature like their competitors, what they've done is they've actually worked in a way to just plug in a USB thumb drive and recover your BIOS that way. Clever, because then you can recover whatever one you want. Extreme Engine Digi Plus. This one I've never heard of. Say hello to the next generation design. And then they have a picture of the CPU socket area. So I'm guessing it's something to do with power delivery. Okay, and then PC Bluetooth. Overwhelm your acknowledgement with wireless overclocking experience. Let me read that again. Overwhelm your acknowledgement with wireless overclocking experience. Okay, it includes a copy of 3D Mark Vantage as well as a copy of Kaspersky antivirus, which may or may not be a trial version. I don't know. All right, and then we have a window into the board itself. So you can see that it has their typical excellent look, which you always expect from their Republic of Gamers line. It's always gonna look awesome. On the back, we find most of the same information we found on the inside there, except for a couple other things. It gives us a big list of specs, and I'm not gonna bother to tell you that. And like what's included because I'm about to open it up and tell you about it. So let's get this box opened up and have a look at the board. So I'm gonna pull out, there's two boxes inside here. There's two black boxes side by side. So I'm gonna pull out the accessories one first, and we'll have a look at that to start with here. All right, so I'll just put the board aside for a minute, and let's see what we find inside the accessories box. I'm gonna have to figure out how to get it open first, and then we'll be good to go. Wow, lots of accessories. That's the thing about these high-end boards is you get a nice big accessory package with them that you don't typically see on the lower end models. So first of all, we have an IO shield. All right, typical looking IO shield. It has Asus' fluffy shiny metal thing on the back. All right, then we have a USB cable. USB A-mail to A-mail. Then we have a USB and eSATA bracket that you can install in your case if you don't already have those enough of them at the back. Then we have the Maximus 3 Extreme User Guide as well as a couple things. Okay, first of all, you've got the driver CD, which also includes a copy of 3D Mark Vantage on it. The key is on the back, so I'm obviously not going to show you that. And then on in here, we have a bunch of stickers to label your SATA cables. So you can label them with hard drive 1, hard drive 2, optical drive 1, optical drive 2, and then you can write a little descriptive thing for it. That's pretty nice. Then you've got a huge Republic of Gamers case sticker. This thing is enormous. There's my hand for scale, so you could throw that on like your side window if you so desired. Although, most people probably wouldn't desire, but for those who do desire, it is there. That's the thing about, you know, a big accessory packages just in case it's there. All right, you've got an optional fan for cooling the MOSFETs. Next thing we find is the... I think this is the ROG Connect module or something. Well, maybe this is the Bluetooth thing. You know what? I don't know. Okay, next we have a three-way SLI bridge. Looks just like that. Looks like any other three-way SLI bridge. So I guess that answers that question. This board does have support for three-way SLI, and then you have just a normal flexible SLI bridge for two-way SLI. They include a couple of zip ties as well as the ASUS Q-Connect in case you have a really old chassis that doesn't have the block of connectors. They've included a wide variety of SATA cables here, so you've got one right angle and one straight in each of these four packs. So ASUS has included eight SATA cables for you with this board. They're black, so they'll look good. Then you've got three temperature probes, which I'm assuming you can plug into the board somewhere, and then finally a crossfire bridge. So they've included... it looks like a... it might be a little bit longer than a standard crossfire bridge, although it's hard to tell because I'm doing that off memory. Yeah, it's atypical for the motherboard manufacturer to include a crossfire bridge, but I guess it doesn't cost them a whole lot because most manufacturers actually include the crossfire bridge with the video card, not with the motherboard. So I mean, I guess the last thing they want you to do is buy a Maximus 3 Extreme, you know, high-end motherboard for your build and, you know, not have some part that you're going to need to put together your computer. So ASUS has kind of thought of everything on this one. Let's get the motherboard itself out of the box here. Just taking off the plastic cover, and I remember having a bit of trouble getting a motherboard out of one of these Republic of Gamers boxes at some point. I just gotta bend it just right. Yeah, I got it figured out this time. Alright, so let's have a look at the board layout itself. So this is a P55 board, so that means you're going to find an LGA1156 socket, so it means you got support for Core i3, Core i5, Core i7. Something to note about any Core i3s or Core i5 dual cores is that you are not going to have support for the onboard video built in because there's no onboard video ports on the back of the board. The P55 chipset does not support that particular feature, whereas the H55 and H57 do. Okay, you've got your MOSFET cooling here connected by one heat pipe to your Northbridge cooler, and then that goes down via another heat pipe to your Southbridge cooler, and I'm guessing there's probably a SATA6 as well as a USB 3.0 chipset under there somewhere. Actually, the USB chipset might be somewhere else. It doesn't really matter. Okay, over on the side, once again, standard features, you've got your DDR3 dual channel slots, and they use these unique ASUS memory slots where you can see that only one side actually moves back and forth. The other side is just fixed. So what you do is you take the module, you slide it in this way, and then you put it down and then clip it into place. So that's kind of a neat feature that they've built into a lot of their newer motherboards on the very high end. So then up here, we've got a 4-pin, sorry, a 4-pin, an 8-pin CPU connector right where it belongs at the top left of the board, as well as a BIOS reset switch right there. This, there. That is awesome because you don't need a BIOS switch on the back. Well, mind you, you have one, but having one here is so much smarter than all the guys who are putting them... Wait a minute, is that even a BIOS switch? No, I don't think it is. That does something else because, yeah, they've already got one here. They've got one on the back of the board, and then they've got another BIOS switch down here at the bottom right of the board, which is also a fairly good location for it because that's the kind of place that you can actually access even when you've got a couple graphics cards installed, which is what I was about to say about this location. Q reset. Yeah, alright. Okay, so let's keep going down the board. We've got our 24-pin connector right where it belongs on the right-hand edge, and then we have a go button. QLED. Alright, up here we have Probit, so that is where you can stick a multimeter to find out what the voltages are going to the CPU, CPU PLL, integrated memory controller, the RAM, PCH, and then you've got a couple ground connections there. That's pretty nice. And then QLED tells you CPU DRAM VGA boot device. Maybe it's some kind of error reporting. You know what? They've actually included a lot of features with this board that I've never seen before, and I've been caught a little bit off my guard here. Alright, well, why don't we just keep on chugging along? So down at the bottom side of the board here we have 2 SATA 3, so that's SATA 6 gigabit per second, as well as 6 SATA 2, so that's SATA 3 gigabit per second running off the chipset, and then we have the PLX bridge chip, which Asus says is the best solution for running SATA 6 and USB 3.0 because it gives them access to the full bandwidth that they need. Okay, and then we've got down at the bottom, this motherboard has, it appears, all 4-pin PWM fan connectors built in, so it has a ton of them. Actually, why don't I pull back and let you have a look at the whole board, and I'll show you where they all are. There's one here, one here, that's 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 8 4-pin PWM fan connectors, so you could potentially plug a CPU fan, you know, and then 7 case fans if you felt like it. Okay, so let's keep on going here. Here's all your front panel connectors, as well as one more SATA port, and that's probably running off the same chipset as the one powering the eSATA port on the back. You have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 PCI Express 16x physical connectors, but not all of these are actually going to run at PCI Express 16x, because with the P55 chipset, you don't actually have access to that many PCI Express lanes. Down here on the bottom, we have ASUS's stylized start and restart buttons, as well as a Molex connector. So right there on the bottom of the board, you got a Molex connector. I'm going to go ahead and assume that that's for supplementary power for the PCI Express slots. I mean, if you're plugging in, you know, you could potentially do 1, 2, 3, 4 Fermis if you had a... Yeah, if you wanted to turn this into like a folding board, then yeah, you definitely need some supplementary power. Alright, then they've got another supplementary power connector up here. There's another Molex connector right there on the motherboard. And then let's get around to the back panel. So here you're going to find two USB 2.0 ports, a PS2 keyboard port. Then you've got a CMOS reset button, and that actually is one. Then you have a couple USB 3.0 ports, you can tell by the blue color coding. Then you have optical audio out, ESATA firewire, two more USB 2.0 ports, two more USB 2.0 ports. You know, this is actually kind of confusing. They've gone and color coded USB 2.0 black or red, and then USB 3.0 blue. So yeah, that's okay. I mean, as long as you remember blue is USB 3.0, then you should be good. You've got gigabit ethernet, then you have the ROG link, as well as the USB cable that connects to it. Then you have 7.1 audio, and that pretty much wraps up my unboxing and overview of the Maximus III Extreme.