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ASUS ships the Maximus III Formula in a great looking and seemingly solid dark red box, complete with a handle so you can carry it around everywhere you go. Just as the out of place sticker claims, the board indeed works perfectly under Windows 7. Other than that, it obviously support Core i5 and i7 processors using the LGA1156 socket. Both CrossFire and SLI are supported, but only in dual-card configuration due to platform limitations.
On the opposite side, ASUS highlights some of the main features including ROG Connect, Go Button and Speeding HDD. If those sound a bit mysterious to you, don't feel bad, I didn't know what they were either. I'll elaborate on them later on. The board also comes bundled with a discrete SupremeFX X-Fi audio card, which should sound better than onboard audio.
The board definitely looks awesome. The black and red color theme with some white scattered here and there gives it an attractive look. Most importantly, the layout is excellent as well. Most connectors are exactly where we like them to be and the low profile heatsinks leave us with plenty of space to install hardware without blocking anything. There isn't anything exciting on the back of the board. I like to see heatsinks using screws instead of simple push-pins and the Maximus delivers exactly that.
The whole area around the processor socket is totally free of obstacles and the memory are far enough not to interfere with most heatsinks. The top right side of the board is home to the four dual-channel DDR3 memory slots, which can handle memory running at up to 2133 MHz assuming your processor's integrated memory controller can also handle it. The 24-pin ATX connector is right on the edge of the board, exactly where it should be. There's also one of the eight 4-pin fan headers right behind as well as two vertical SATA ports. It's an awkward location, but at least there are eight more ports, so it shouldn't be an issue for nearly everyone.
The Maximus has three full length PCI-Express slots, although only the topmost one is actually running at 16x and only if there's a single video card installed. Once you add a second one, they fall back to 8x. The white slot at the bottom is connected to four PCI-Express 1.0 lanes and is meant to be used with a PhysX card. The first PCI-E 1x slot is designed for the bundled audio card and then you are left with another PCI-E 1x slot and two legacy PCI ports.
At the bottom there is, from left to right, a FireWire and two 4-pin fan headers, handy start and restart buttons and three USB headers. Continuing at the bottom, there is yet another 4-pin fan header, eight more SATA ports, six of which belong to the P55 chip, and the header for front panel LED's and buttons. Under the large but thin heatsink is hiding the cool running P55 chip, which barely gets warm.
On the I/O side, there is a single PS/2 keyboard connector, eight USB ports, a single FireWire and eSATA port as well as a button to clear the CMOS in case the board refuses to P.O.S.T like it can sometimes happen after a failed overclock. The button and the USB port on the left are for the ROG Connect feature which I will discuss shortly.
Finally, ASUS includes a fairly generous bundle with their Maximus III Formula. Six SATA cables are bundled as well as the USB cable necessary for ROG Connect, a SLI bridge and a USB/eSATA bracket. There's also the ever useful Q-Connector that makes front panel connections so much more easier. The I/O plate is very well built and labeled and the manual provides all the information you need to get started and then some. They also provide stickers to identify SATA cables which can be somewhat useful if you have lots of drives. The disc contains a whole bunch of software including drivers for that neat 8 channel sound card.
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how did u get the X-FI soundcard working under Windows 7?
I have Windows 7 64-Bit running and the driver and software from the driver CD won´t install on it. Getting the error no hardware was found on system. The Card is plugged in the black slot above the graphics card an lights up blue at system start.
Currently I am running the soundcard with the Windows 7 generic HD Audio Driver Windows installs on firstboot.
I would very much appreciate your help on this matter, for I have already searched the internet for solutions to this problem and spent almost 30 hours with no result so far.
Thank you.
Download the audio driver (under Audio) and the X-Fi (under Utilities)