ASUS Maximus V FORMULA LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: -USB 3.0 is nice to have, but all new boards have it now...
-You can plug in some GPUs an SLI/Xfire them, just like all other ATX boards, really nothing special here...

Cons: The biggest issue with this motherboard is that it is using the new UEFI bios. This makes it an incredible pain to get any GNU + Linux OS installed on your system. In fact, it makes it a huge pain for advanced computer users, to the point where some have not even been able to install an OS due to UEFI bugs(there's plenty of them).

With all that's been going on with the NSA and PRISM in the last few years, there are plenty of reasons to avoid using proprietary and malicious programs such as Microsoft Window, yet this board seems to only want to support the interest of Microsoft by making it hard to install any fre(as in freedom) software such as GNU + Linux.

Other Thoughts: Stay away from this board at all costs, it does not respect your freedoms. It also doesn't even have a firewire port. There are much cheaper boards that can do a lot more than this one, especially of those boards don't have the new UEFI bios.

Pros: Was good while it worked

Cons: After 2 months of working fine, yesterday it would not go past the bios entry page with a A2 code on the motherboard. After 45 min on the phone with tech support they RMA the board.
Its just such a hassle, and now I will get back a refurbished board that has already had problems but supposedly is fixed.

Pros: Packed with more features than I had ever felt possible. Board overclocks my I7 3770K with ease.
There are plenty of SATA ports, as well as USB 3.0 ports.

Cons: I haven't encountered any serious issues yet. While it is an EATX board,

Other Thoughts: I not only love this board, but I highly recommend it to anybody looking for an EATX board in this price range.

My current rig contains the following components:
Asus Maximus V Formula
Intel I7 3770K OC'd to 4.8 Ghz
Coolermaster HAF X
16GB Corsair Vengeance (4x4GB)
2 EVGA 660ti with 3 GB GDDR5 RAM in SLI
Custom Swiftech liquid cooling system
Coolermaster 1200W Silent Power Gold Power Supply

Pros: I've had this board for like a year now look to cons.
even after A LOT OF PROBLEMS IT STILL WORKS.

Cons: board came with some,lose parts inside
the back plate on the usb ports was not attached
i didn't think it was a prob so i just put it back on.
later on 3 of the 8 SATA ports DO NOT WORK
they wont recognize any HDD or ssd.
also the integrated sound has been acting funny
it stops working randomly and give static blips every few seconds.
then everything works for a while.
so i cant run RAID 0 because some of the SATA ports don't work.
CANT USE MOBO WATER BLOCK BECAUSE NO ON USES 3/8IN TUBING LOL.
WOULD HAVE BEEN JUST AS CHEAP TO PUT 1/4 THREADS SO WE COLD USE ANY FITTING WE WANTED.
most of the programs that came with it don't work.
the USb boost is a joke doesn't work
the virtual evo boost thing is also a joke.
when the SATA PORTS ACTUALLY WORKED I HAD RAID 0 array AND THE RAID 0 PERFORMANCE WAS AWFUL, WORSE THAN A SINGLE SSD.

Other Thoughts: i think i just rolled a bad one.
i should have RMA'd it when i got it.
to late now.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear that you have so many issues with your board. If you want to send the board in for service we can repair all that is listed to resolve your issue. Our motherboards come with a 3 year warranty so your warranty is still valid.

Please provide me your serial number so I can see how much warranty you still have.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at cl-jeffrey@asus.com which I reside in the U.S

ASUS strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy.

Regards,

Jeffrey

Pros: -Looks great
-Packed with features
-Great at overclocking
-SupremeFX is excellent

Using headphones with this board is a huge improvement over my last. I hooked this one up with an optical cable and the audio quality is crystal clear. Overclocked my 3770k with ease. Updating BIOS with a flash drive was was the easiest BIOS date I've ever done. Everything was very easy with this board. Highly recommended.

Cons: can't think of any... didn't buy this sooner?

Other Thoughts: Board size is Extended ATX so I was not sure if it would fit in my case, but it was fine. Uses the same standoffs as regular ATX, just slightly wider. Great board for gamers that want to overclock. Would buy again.

Coolermaster Storm Trooper Case
ASUS Maximus V Formula
Intel i7 3770k @ 4.5 GHz
Radeon HD 7950
GSkill Trident X 16GB 2400
etc

Pros: Awesome looking board packed with features I was looking for on my new build.

Cons: Unfortunately, the board arrived DOA. It would just light up when plugged in but would not post or turn on. None of the case fans or anything else will turn on. No error messages on the QLED either...just blank.

Other Thoughts: RMA in process. Hopefully will have better success when the new replacement board arrives.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear that you received a board that didn't work right out of the box. If you are still under the return policy with Newegg, I suggest you exchange it for another.

Did you already try to update the bios to see if that will resolve your issue. Here is a link below on how to update the bios to see if this will resolve your issue.
http://event.asus.com/2012/mb/USB_BIOS_Flashback_GUIDE/

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at cl-jeffrey@asus.com which I reside in the U.S

ASUS strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy.

Regards,

Jeffrey

Pros: -Spacious, extremely well organized board
-Lots of fan headers for cases with a lot of air cooling
-I actually really enjoy the UEFI and all of the extra software that comes packed inside.
-6 SATA 6GB/s Ports - Really great for paranoid people like me who raid their main and extra drives. Also really great if you have more then one SSD
-I know this isn't a main feature but i really dig the led from SupremeFX and other lights on the board, mixed with the other red and white LEDs in my case it makes the board stand out.
-The audio on this is absolutely amazing, I have 7.1 speakers hooked to it and the sound quality is amazing
-Optical audio in port, Allowed me to run my XBOX's audio to it and out the 7.1 speakers. Which is great for people that don't have recievers and use their computers as a hub for their tvs
-The wifi card built in with a bluetooth card, my last PCI card only got up to 300kb/s, this one is topping 2.5mb/s
-I'm recommending this board to all of my customers, I build gaming machines for my community.

Cons: -Had a problem with the UEFI EZ Settings, for some reason when i would set it to performance it would set my ram (G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB DR3 2133) to 2134 and it would cause a memory dump BSOD.
-After a BIOS update and all software updates still got the BSOD when trying to play games.
-Finally had to go into the UEFI advance mode and change the profiles.
*-This isn't really a con at all cause i wouldn't take an egg off for it. The board is still amazing, but this might be a problem for people who don't know what really to do.-*

Other Thoughts: I really am impressed by this board, I upgraded from an old Phenom to this with and i5 3579K and Ares 2133 8GB ram. Matched with my MSI Geforce 670 card im ready to start 3dMark11 testing soon to see how much more powerful it got.
Like i said this is a definate buy if you can afford it, I will be putting these in all of the systems i build from now on.

Pros: I'm not quite sure where to begin on this MB. It is one of the most feature packed MBs that you can get. It has just about every type of connection internally and externally that you would want. It also has one of the best onboard audio chipsets of any MB.

The system software that is included is very nice. The ASUS Ai Suite II software suite is very well put together. Some of my favorite features in it are the ASUS Wi-Fi Go!, ASUS Fan Xpert 2, and CPU Level Up.

I also have to say that I love the color scheme and the LED lighting. People are blown away with how cool this MB looks in my setup. The light up logo, audio chipset, and audio chipset LED separation look great.

Cons: First MB had a defective SATA port and had to be exchanged.

Connecting the Wi-Fi antennae was a huge pain.

Install of all the drivers and system software was a bit of a pain. Some of it requires you to go in a very specific install order for the next install item to be able to be installed. This isn't listed anywhere and took a bit of trial and error to finally get everything installed and running.

The water block rubber caps fall out very easily.

ASUS tech support is quite subpar and very hit or miss.

Other Thoughts: This MB is amazing. This would have been a five egg board if I didn't have to dock an egg for the first MB being defective.

My entire system has an amazing red and black them that revolves around this MB that looks so good that everyone who sees it comments on how great it looks.

System Information:
ASUS Maximus V Formula
Intel i7-3770K
Zalman CNPS9900MAX
Arctic Silver 5
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti FTW+ 3GB
2 x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 1866
Mushkin Atlas mSATA 60GB SATA3 MLC SSD for SSD Caching
2 x Seagate Constellation ES.2 2TB SATA3 HDD in RAID 1
2 x ASUS Blu-ray Burner
Thermaltake Black Widow 850W PSU
Cooler Master HAF XM Mid Tower Case
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit
2 x ASUS VS247H-P 23.6" LED Backlit Monitor

Pros: Looks
Cooling
Features
Expandability

Cons: Sound (read for more details)

Other Thoughts: This is my first ROG board, I was torn between the Gigabyte G1 Sniper 3 and this gem. Alot of people rant over the color scheme, but I for one enjoy it. I ended up getting the ROG because it had more of the features I wanted.
It has been a rock solid board with no issues other then faulty USB 3.0 rear ports. Had to disable them completely in BIOS as I kept getting windows errors despite the fact I've installed the usb 3.0 drivers. The USB 3.0 ports on my case which are connected to the USB 3.0 header on mobo work great though, so I just keep the rear ones disabled. Even the Dual band WiFi and antennas work flawlessly.

The only gripe, which really isnt that much of a gripe was the disappointment in sound quality from the Supreme FX IV chip. Not as great as I had hoped for. The sound quality IS acceptable but no where as good as my roomates Maximus V Gene's Supreme FX III, but I think alot of that has to do with Creative's bundled sound software package. It also would dim and stutter a bit if listening to music as well as another sound source like listening to Pandora AND playing a game at same time. I guess we still have a ways to go int eh integrated area. I have higher standards for sound as most people so I just ended up disabling it and purchasing a Xonar Essence STX card with Sennheiser HD 598's.

Pros: Feature packed, stable, looks awesome

Cons: eATX requires a larger tower

Other Thoughts: There's a good chance that this MoBo will do more than you will ever want it to do. I took one egg off because you end up paying for a lot of features you probably don't need. If you want a MoBo that will not limit you or your system and don't mind paying a little more, this is your board.