ASUS Maximus Extreme Question?

[LegendofJubei]

Hello all,

I'm new to the community but value all of your wisdom as it has helped me out greatly in the past.

I am currently in the process of building a new computer from scratch and have run into a bit of a problem.

It is going to be a liquid cooled system, an integrated style from Koolance. Their ATX case design I was looking at says it will support up to a maximum motherboard size of 12" x 9.6" which is standard for ATX.

The motherboard I am purchasing is an Asus Maximus Extreme. On their website it indicates the form factor as being ATX, but the dimensions of the board are 12" x 10.6" which results in this board being too big for the case.

What would your recommend as a possible solution, and any ideas why they would list this as ATX? Is it still considered an ATX board even if it won't fit in an ATX case? If so, will I need to purchase their E-ATX case design, and if I end up doing that, will this board be ok in that case. Also with the E-ATX case, will I need to pick up an E-ATX power supply, or will the "ATX" classified Extreme board be ok with an ATX PSU...

I'm very sorry to ramble on but it's been giving me a headache. Everything was going well until I noticed this 1" size difference. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to E-ATX as I've never worked with it before...

My solution so far is to order an E-ATX case, put the mobo in it and just buy an ATX PSU...the Mobo is a 24 pin/8 pin 12V style...would you be able to recommend a quality PSU for this style that will accomodate my needs? It needs to be greater than 800W, no more than 1000W.

Thanks for any advice you all can give.

Best regards

[LegendofJubei]

Further to my original post...

This mobo supports ATI's crossfire, however, I am purchasing an 8800 Ultra for now until the ATI cards improve a bit...with the Mobo saying it "supports" Crossfire, that doesn't mean it won't support Nvidia cards right? It just means it won't support SLI?

Also...has anybody experimented with multi-card setups? This board supports up to three graphic cards at once. In dual mode, they each receive x16, but with three cards, the main card receives x16 and the two remaining receive x8 lanes. What would happen if you put an 8800 Ultra in the main slot, and two ATI cards (Such as HD 2900XT or HD 3870) in the remaining two slots?

I don't see why the two ATI cards would have trouble communicating to each other with the crosslink and crossfire tech, but do they need to communciate with the main video card (being the Nvidia) or not? I know you're not all
clairvoyant but if you have any ideas let me know.

I really have my hearts set on the 8800 Ultra for the performance...but if you think that 3 high end ATI cards would perform better than a single Ultra, or even dual ATI cards in crossfire, let me know. From what I hear though the Ultra can't be beat right now.

Thanks all

[Babrbarossa]

Crossfire is ATI only- 16X, 8X, 8X with three cards in, but catalyst doesn't support it yet.

Looks like you'll have to get a larger case to hold the mobo- 800W is mopre than enough to run the system as well.

[frosty]

my brother just had his system built with that motherboard and he has a 8800 Ultra OC on it. It ran 3dMark @ 12000 right outta the box..... havne not heard anything bad about it form him yet... I can ask him soem questions if you like??

[Babrbarossa]

I'd love to have one, but I can't bear to fork out for ddr3 yet on top of it

[LegendofJubei]

Thanks for your replies, much appreciated :)

I will adjust my case now to accomodate the larger size of this motherboard. Is it unusual for it to be an inch bigger than a standard ATX mobo?

My only other question is what type of PSU to use? Just a regular old ATX? I don't think the board is classified as E-ATX. Will a regular ATX PSU fit in an E-ATX case design and will all the necessary wires be able to reach HD, OD, etc?

This is my current build just for information purposes. Please feel free to let me know if you have any compatability concerns so I can make the necessary adjustments.

Case: Koolance PC3-736SL, E-ATX
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus Extreme
CPU: Intel QX9650
RAM: OCZ Flex XLC DDR3 PC3-12800 1600 FSB
Video Card: Nvidia 8800 Ultra
HD: Western Digital Raptor X
PSU: Silverstone Zeus ST85ZF 850W (based on review from jonnyguru.net)
OD: Undecided (Please recommend quality ones)
OS: Vista 32-bit or 64-bit (Undecided only because of hearing about various issues with 64-bit? Can anybody confirm which would be better. I had read that 64-bit really helps out with programs like Crysis level editor etc.)


That's all I have for now. The CPU, video card, northbridge and memory will all be liquid cooled. I am intending to do some overclocking with this. Will be used heavily for gaming.

If you have any concerns then please let me know. I'm not 100% sure about everything I've picked in here (Hard driver...is the 10,000 RPM worth it or would a higher capacity modern SATA II drive be better? I've hard the Raptor X is better for gaming so that's why I chose to list it for now).

Sorry for the long posts...I just want to be sure everything I receive will be compatable. Once the system is built I will post overclock results if you would like also for anybody curious.

Feel free to help me design this system to be better.

[Babrbarossa]

PSU Recommendations for High End Gaming PC's - jonnyGURU.net Forums Here is a link to jonnyguru's list of recommended psus for high end systems- he is a very smart man who test them all rigorously so if you pick anything in the first two tiers, you'll do very well

[LegendofJubei]

Thanks kindly for that site for the PSU.

I have now adjusted the build to include a Silverstone Zeus ST85ZF 850W. This should be more than sufficient to support this build. Does anybody have firsthand experience with this PSU? It looks like it should be compatable with the Asus Maximus Extreme board. It seems pretty reliable to me based on that site's review.

Any other recommendations please?

[LegendofJubei]

Also,

With the silverstone PSU it is "quad-sli ready", but obviously the Asus board does not support SLI due to conflicts between Intel and their X38 chipset and NVIDIA not wanting to support it with their SLI tech.

If I do end up purchasing this PSU, and sometime in the future ATI comes out with a card that can top the 8800 Ultra and I would be interesting in using Crossfire with them, will this PSU support Crossfire or would I need to get the 750 Watt one that is "crossfire ready". Is it simply that they are optimized for SLI and Crossfire, or will those technologies simply not work without the corresponding PSU?

Thanks again

[Babrbarossa]

All of those "XXX Ready" designations are for marketing purposes for the most part- there's even SLI ready memory which is totally foolish