ASUS Maximus III Formula LGA1156 Motherboard Review‏

BIOS Rundown

A well designed, feature-rich motherboard can easily be rendered mediocre by a subpar BIOS. Thankfully, as we have become accustomed to on Republic of Gamers series motherboard, ASUS has outfitted the Maximus III Formula with an intuitive, user-friendly BIOS.


Here we have full screen logo that appears everytime the system is powered on. Thankfully, it can be disabled for those who want to shave some seconds from the bootup time.


Upon entering the BIOS we are automatically presented with the Extreme Tweaker section, which is where all the fun happens. Once the manual option is selected in the Ai Overclock Tuner setting, the BIOS opens up to reveal all of the essential system clock control options: CPU multiplier, BLCK frequency, PCI-E frequency, memory frequency, QPI frequency, OC Tuner utility, memory timing options, and all the voltage options.


The CPU Level Up and Memory Level Up menus allow novice users to automatically overclock those components without having to mess around with clocks speeds, multipliers, and voltages. These two features do work, but they do tend to set voltages a bit higher than what would otherwise be needed.


Unlike most other motherboard brands, you can disable SpeedStep with ASUS P55 motherboards and retain access to the unlockable CPU multiplier(s). You will want to disable Turbo Mode if you're overclocking, because the constantly varying CPU multiplier adds an extra level of difficulty in determining your's core clock ceiling.


Once you select the DRAM Timing Control option, you enter a seperate sub-menu where the abundant primary and secondy memory timings are revealed. There's no option missing to our eyes.


Continuing down the Extreme Tweaker page, we reach the clock amplitude and clock skew settings. the CPU Clock Amplitude is particularly useful when attempting to reach a high BLCK, you can set it to 1000mV without worry.


As we have come to expect, this motherboard has Load-Line Calibration (LLC), which is a terrific feature that eliminates droopage on the CPU vCORE, and which we will take a closer look at in our Voltage Regulation section.

We like the fact that ASUS have given users an option when it comes to changing the CPU vCore. You can either manually enter the vCore directly (1.20V, 1.30V, 1.40V, etc) or simply use an offset mode (+0.10V, +0.20V, +0.30V, etc) depending on your personal preference.

All the main system voltages are present and accounted for: vCore, CPU PLL, IMC, PCH, DRAM, and even DRAM Reference.


The ASUS O.C Profile feature gives users the option to save and switch between BIOS profiles, for example an everyday profile and a benchmarking profile. Not only is this infinitely quicker than manually inserting every setting, but the profiles can be saved and shared among other Maximus III Formula owners.


The next tab in the BIOS is the Main section, which displays the standard storage devices and some basic system information. This System Information section lists some rudimentary specification info, including the BIOS date & version, the type of processor and the amount of memory installed.