changes
here and
there. Primary
is the ability to use
your present AM3 cooling
solution. No need to go and
purchase an adapter or worse
a whole new AM4 compatible
AIO. Simply use your existing
water block or tower heatsink-
fan and you’re good to go. It’s
the small things that matter
ultimately and this is one of
them which saves the user
real money. That also means
your present LN2 container
that only has AM3 support
will work on this board just
fine. This is the one thing
that I believe no other AM4
offering has and another
reason why for the competitive
overclocker there really is no
other board besides this one.
Audio wise, ASUS has again
come to the party with a pretty
good solution which isn’t too
different from what other
vendors
are offering,
at least as far
as the CODEC goes.
The difference with the
SupremeFX is that they pair
the ALC 1220 with the ESS
Sabre ES9023P DAC. It’s a
respectable DAC and familiar
as well as it was around as
far back as on the Maximus
VIII (Z170) family. Nichicon
audio capacitors and a TI
RC4580 op-amp complete the
audio portion of the board. On
top of this, Sonic Audio III is
layered and ties it all together
in a simple interface decked
out in the typical ROG RED.
The overall sound is rather
good, actually better than I’d
expected, but
that’s not new
for ASUS. It isn’t
going to match the
USB DAC that you’ll
find on the Rampage
V 10 Edition, but for
what you’re paying,
it’ll be more than fine
for gaming, music and
movies. In the gaming mode,
it is particularly punchy,
accentuating gun fire and
adding a layer of emersion that
is absent otherwise. Definitely
worth using, so don’t ignore
the drivers and utilities section
of the download page.
Networking is provided
courtesy of INTEL’s I211-
AT NIC which has ROG’s
GameFirst IV software
controlling it all. There will be
some differences of course
between this solution and the
typical Killer NIC, but these
are going to be cosmetic for
the most part. Software takes
care of traffic priority and
management. By and large
GameFirst IV is simpler to
use and lighter on the system
while offering much of the
same functionality. There’s
really not much here that can
be done which you’ve not seen
before.
The rest is tons of USB 3.0
and USB 3.1 support (some
via a 3rd party ASMEDIA
controller), but just be careful
when it comes to loading
up all the ports. If you have
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