ASUS RoG Maximus III Formula Lynnfield Motherboard Preview

The Maximus III Formula: A Whirlwind Tour cont.

As we already mentioned, the expansion slots on this board are perfectly placed with more than adequate space allotted for any dual slot GPUs you may have. Starting at the top, there is a PC1-E x1 slot which is dedicated for the SupremeFX audio add-in card that comes with the Maximus III. Below this we have the two PCI-E x16 slots which are color coded in red and are separated by another PCI-E x1 slot and a legacy PCI slot. When two cards are used, these two PCI-E x16 slots will run at x8 speeds due to the limited number of PCI-E lanes available from the controller on the CPU.

At the bottom of the board is another PCI slot and a PCI-E 1.0 x4 slot that can be used for a dedicated Nvidia PhysX card as we detailed in a previous section.


The Maximus III Formula includes an incredible 8 fan headers for all of you who run multiple fans in your system. All of the headers are of the 4-pin variety so if you use compatible fans, you will be able to have complete control over the rotational speed of the fans.

It should be noted that ASUS has not stated the maximum output of these fan headers and there is a good chance if you attach a number of high powered fans, the board will not be able to supply enough power to run them.

Above the lowermost connector in the picture above, you can also see one of the three thermal sensor connectors located throughout the board.


Our final stop in this whirlwind tour of the ASUS Maximus III Formula is the backplate. There are a total of nine USB 2.0 ports with one being dedicated to the RoG Connect interface along with lone Firewire and eSATA ports. The almost-defunct PS/2 keyboard connector makes a comeback since enthusiasts often find issues with using the USB ports while troubleshooting an unstable overclock. There is also a single LAN connector as well as illuminated buttons for clearing the CMOS and the RoG Connect activation. Conspicuously missing is any type of audio connectors but this is due to the fact that they reside on the dedicated SupremeFX X-Fi audio card.


That concludes our tour of the ASUS Maximus III Formula and we hope it covered as much as possible for an article which was constrained by NDAs. In the coming weeks we hope to give you a full review of this board and all of the features it has to offer.