ASUS Maximus II Formula LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

What do you really want?

Reviewed By: on 7/16/2008

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

Pros: STABILITY, appearence, ease of use from the beginner to the expert, DDR2, exceptional cooling, NOT Nvidia! This board was designed from the ground up to be the new Flagship board from Asus. In doing so Asus had to make it a rock-solid, stable platform which they have done. Asus's reputation has been tarnished quite a bit in the past two years and this board is an honest attempt by Asus to get back on the winning track. For TRUE Crossfire, the Intel X48 chipset is a better choice, but you will have to endure all the headaches as well, not to mention the added cash outlay.

Cons: I really have no cons. The board I own (I bought it before it was available at Newegg) is quite possiblly the best MB I've ever owned--and I am a System's builder and have been for many (over 300 systems) years. I am finished with Nvidia and all the problems associated with their products. I'm getting older and accepting less client orders because I now refuse to build a system that I know will be nothing but headaches.

Other Thoughts: What do you really want? Bragging rights? With today's extrme GPU's there is really no sane reason for SLI or Crossfire. This board does NOT offer 2 x 16 PCIe for Crossfire--but who cares? I have gone both routes many times--SLI and Crossfire, and I will forever stick with a single Graphic's Card. With this board and an ATI HD4870, I have the best graphics I have ever seen and I can play ANY game to the fullest. What else do you want? I gave up bragging rights a long time ago when I cooled with Freon. Now, I am only interested in ultimate speed COMBINED with stability and this board gives me that. I turn the system on, do whatever I want, for as long as I want and then shut it down--with no headaches. It does what I want it to do---every time, with no problems. It simply can't get any better than that! This is how I build systems now. Be SMART!

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Reviewed By: corpsejockey on 8/10/2008

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

Pros: Very solid board. Achieved higher clocks at lower votages than my p35 board. Limitless bios options that cater to the tweaker.

Cons: North Bridge sink was not making good contact. After a couple of shut downs due to NB thermal protection, I had to rip my rig apart to re-apply thermal paste and reseat the heatsink. This cut the NB temps in half - 70's c load @ stock before and low 30's @ stock after. I had to knock off an egg for the irritation.

Other Thoughts: It may be wise to check the NB sink before installing as this is not an isolated incident. Check the 2 screws holding down the HS on the back of the mobo. You may get away with snugging them up, but I had to add nylon washers to help get the pressure needed to properly seat the HS. Otherwise, this is the best board I have owned to date.

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asus maximus 11 formula mother board

Reviewed By: stumper on 2/2/2010

Tech Level: low - Ownership: less than 1 day

Pros: Not sure Yet

Cons: Cant find a power supplie to run the board

Other Thoughts: Cant find a power supplie 800 -850watts, to run the board, It needs to have the -5v white wire to fire the board up, The vid card needs the 800 watts, Help Please

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Fast, but audio not compatible with Linux

Reviewed By: degrees on 1/16/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: more than 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: If you want a virtual machine server, this motherboard is very good. Add a quad-core CPU and 16 GB RAM, and it can run four virtual machines easily, or up to seven 2 GB virtual machines without too much lag.

Cons: Creative Labs, which makes the SupremeFX sound card, does not support Linux. So if you want a high-end Linux desktop, don't get any motherboard with Creative Labs sound hardware. This m/b has it, which was a huge disappointment. This motherboard is not cheap, but it didn't work out for what I wanted.

Other Thoughts: I wish the Newegg reviews would have warned me that this motherboard's audio is not Linux compatible. I get to use it as a server though, so it's not all bad.

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And then it died!

Reviewed By: the86r on 1/11/2010

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: This motherboard is loaded with BIOS configuration features and has tons of hardware options and advancements. 8 SATA ports, 6-12 USB 2.0 ports, AI Overclocking and so on. Once setup, this motherboard has absolutely phenomenal performance. My boot time on Windows 7 64bit was 6 seconds!
My system build (detailed below) had no issues with cooling or air flow. The only BIOS setting I modified was to clock memory at DDR2 1200 (which I had installed, but whatever). The ASUS BIOS auto overclocked my CPU to 3.6Ghz (temps of 18-30C) with no voltage fluctuations or temperature spikes. My system hardware was running on this motherboard as was Windows 7 64bit without a single problem.

Cons: A) Don't install all the ASUS software since there is really no functionality beyond BIOS updating.

B) The Creative X-Fi... Not to beat a dead horse, just install the drivers. Creative offers nothing to the end user since after you register the card there is no software beyond the 30-day limited trial stuff that does not recognize the SupremeFX card.

I purchased this motherboard after reading all the reviews and understanding that there could be "issues".

Other Thoughts: Um, if I could boot the system I could swear the Silicon Image Sil5723 is really a Marvell SATA Controller.

After 3 months of ownership, while smashing on alliance my system blinked off. Literally. My system instantly lost all power and then fans ramped up and no POST. No boot sequence, just the hum of the fans. This motherboard is proverbially dead in the water. I am not very happy about it.

-Antec Nine Hundred
-Asus Maximus II Formula MB
-Intel E8400 Wolfdale C2D Processor
-4GB G.Skill DDR2 1200 (PC 9600) Memory
-2xWD RaptorX 150GB HDD's in RAID 0 (on Speeding HDD)
-Corsair CHCWH50 Water Cooler (CPU)
-HIS Radeon HD 4890 Video Card
-Corsair Modular 750W Power Supply
-LG CD/DVD Lightscribe Burner (SATA)

I will be starting the RMA process.

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