ASUS Maximus II GENE P45 mATX Motherboard Review

Gaming Benchmarks

The Futuremark 3DMark series has been a part of the backbone in computer and hardware reviews since its conception. The trend continues today as 3DMark06 provides consumers with a solid synthetic benchmark geared for performance and comparison in the 3D gaming realm. This remains one of the most sought after statistics, as well as an excellent tool for accurate CPU comparison, and it will undoubtedly be used for years to come.


Continuing what we have seen in the two previous sections, the MIIG is the faster board at stock settings, but the EP45-DQ6 inches by when overclocked. In both cases, the differences are truly miniscule though.



You asked for it, so we have finally included 3DMark Vantage, Futuremark’s latest release in their renowned line of 3D benchmarking software. This latest DX10-only 3DMark comes with a variety of presets, but for our tests will be use the standard Performance preset which is suitable for a much greater range of system specifications than the other more demanding presets.


As expected, in heavily GPU-dependent 3DMark Vantage both motherboards are effectively tied, seperated by fractions of a percentage.


Can we expect similar results in actual games? Let's find out...



Far Cry 2 is the hot new new first-person shooter from Ubisoft's Montreal studio, and the first game to utilize the new visually stunning Dunia Engine, which will undoubtedly be used by numerous future games. Using the included Benchmarking Tool, we ran the Long Ranch demo in DX10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings set to high.


Our Far Cry 2 results are spot-on with what we have observed above, which is to say that both motherboards perform equally well in heavily GPU dependent applications.



One of the most visually stunning real-time strategy games in recent history, World in Conflict can really push systems to the brink, which is what we attempt by running the game in DirectX 10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out. For this test we used the in-game benchmarking tool.


Once again, no difference between the two models. This is a bit repetitive ain't it?



Left 4 Dead is the latest disorienting, fast-paced zombie apocalypse mega-hit from Valve. L4D uses the latest version of the Source engine with enhancements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation. We test here at 1680x1050 with in-game details set to their highest levels, with MSAA 4X and AA 8X. For benching, we used a pre-recorded 20 minute timedemo taken on the No Mercy campaign during The Apartments mission.


Last but certainly not least is L4D, which...surprise, surprise...displays the exact same results as all the above games.


So what can we surmise from these three benchmarking sections? Well despite the fact that we used the very first BIOS release, the Maximus II GENE is at least as fast the much more mature GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DQ6. Clearly, ASUS's BIOS department have done a great tweaking this model for maximum performance right off the bat. Will they be able to extract even a little more speed? Well we will have to wait and see, but we are quite pleased with what we have seen so far.