Rumor has it that the official release of Intel’s new Lynnfield processors is right around the corner and from consumers to motherboard makers, everyone is eager to be part of the action. As it stands, we have been previewing Lynnfield-supporting P55 motherboards for some time now and manufacturers just keep on announcing more. Come the officially launch date, the selection of available motherboards will be the most complete we have ever seen; with pricing from around $100 to above $200 and everywhere in between. What surprises us the most is that nearly every motherboard manufacturer will be releasing their high-performance enthusiast boards right alongside their mainstream products on launch date. This will give the consumer an unparalleled selection from the very outset of the Lynnfield release.

ASUS has always been at the forefront of motherboard innovation and their track record certainly speaks for itself. While they are just as well known for affordable solutions, their high-end Republic of Gamers (RoG) series of enthusiast boards have been making waves in the industry since the first one was released. Basically, these RoG boards are designed to be the best of the best in their respective categories and will more often than not carry with them an eye-watering price point.

In today’s preview we will be taking a quick look at the newest board to be graced with the RoG name: the Maximus III Formula. When it came to designing this board, ASUS took many of the lessons learned with the successful X58-based Rampage II series and improved upon a number of aspects. Not only is the P55 / Lynnfield combination quite different technology-wise from the X58 / Bloomfield pairing but ASUS has added some BIOS refinements and unique features to this board as well. Somewhat surprisingly though, the Maximus doesn’t include an nForce 200 chipset for some triple GPU action. Maybe we’ll see an Extreme version somewhere down the line?

As is becoming a usual occurrence with these previews, we aren’t able to show you any performance numbers or BIOS screenshots. With this board however, we are even more limited with what we can show you as there are a number of things that ASUS wants to keep under wraps until it is ready to officially launch it.