ASUS Maximus II GENE P45 mATX Motherboard Review

Hardware Installation

In the Hardware Installation section we examine how major components fit on the motherboard, and whether there are any serious issues that may affect installation and general functionality. Specifically, we are interested in determining whether there is adequate clearance in all critical areas.


The Thermalright Ultra-120 heatsink easily clears both the northbridge and MOSFET coolers, regardless of whether it is installed in the north/south or east/west orientation. The heatsink does not overhang the memory slots, so memory modules with tall heatspreaders can definitely be used. There isn't exactly a lot of room though, so careful if your chosen heatsink is wider than the Ultra-120 and you also have really tall memory heatspreaders.


As you can see, thanks to the unique clip-less design, there is no contact between the graphics card and the memory slot clips, and therefore installation/removal is not hindered.


As mentioned previously, when two dual-slot graphics cards are installed on this motherboard you do lose on all other expansion slots, which is a heavy price to pay, but there is really no alternative due to the inherent space limitations of the microATX form factor. Thankfully, even when a dual-slot graphics card is installed in the second PCI-E x16 slot, you can still have access to the headers and onboard power/reset buttons at the bottom of the board, but obviously the space is a little tight.


Proving their superiority once again, the angled SATA ports are in no way hindered even when two graphics cards are installed.


Those who use a CPU cooler with a backplate might want to be a little careful with this motherboard, since there is a component fairly close to one of the mounting holes. We did not have any issue with our Thermalright backplate, but just keep this in mind!