ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex Review
Category : Z370
Published by Luca Rocchi on 08.02.18
When it comes to high-end overclocking motherboards, the ASUS Republic of Gamers Maximus series motherboards have always been amongst the very best products money can buy. With the Maximus X Apex, ASUS certainly doesn't want to break with this tradition. At a first glance, this E-ATX motherboard with X-shaped PCB comes with an armada of features that are really interesting. ASUS is trying to making overclocking a little bit more handy. At this point we are curious to find out what's it exactly that should make this a great motherboard. 
Specs and Delivery
| Chipset | Intel Z370 |
| Memory | Dual Channel DDR4, 2 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB DDR4, 4500 OC, Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory |
| Slots |
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| Audio | SupremeFX Impact Audio 8-Channel High
Definition Audio
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| Storage | Intel Z370 chipset
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| Network |
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| Internal Connectors |
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| Extrenal Connectors |
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| Forfactor | Extended ATX Form Factor (30.5cm x 27.2cm) |
Features
Digi+ |
ASUS has been using digital power designs for almost a decade now and with this particular board they're not making an exception. A closer look reveals there is a PWM controller that has been labelled ASP1405I, which is in charge of regulating ten phases. These phases are based on Infineon OptiMOS BSG0812ND, micro fine alloy inductors and 10K capacitors. Together they make for a high quality power design. |  |
ASUS Fan Xpert 4 |
ASUS Fan Xpert 4 provides customizable settings for fans that have been attached directly to the onboard fan headers. It allows you to tune your fans automatically or manually, easily allowing you to either configure a silent or a high-airflow system. |
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AURA RGB Lightning |
Aura is an ASUS software tool to control the onboard RGB lighting or RGB LED strips that have been connected to the onboard AURA headers. It allows you to select any color which is in the RGB spectrum and therefore enables users to individualize the looks of their motherboards. |  |
SupremeFX |
SupremeFX is ASUS's interpretation of high quality onboard audio. Supporting up to eight channels, the SupremeFX solution received shielding from other onboard components. Apart from that there are high quality Nichicon capacitors, gold-plated connectors, an ESS9023P digital-to-analog converter as well as a RC4580 buffer. |  |
ROG DIMM.2 |
One of the most unusual features on this board is the "third" DIMM slot. In combination with an adapter card (which is included in the bundle) it's possible to put two M.2 SSDs into the DIMM slot. In addiation you can install a small fan above the DIMM.2 card. |
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OC Toolkit |
This motherboard is loaded with features to help extreme and novice overclockers take down records. On the PCB you will find several additional buttons like the standard power and reset buttons, the retry button in white and a safe boot button in red. In addition there are voltage read points and LN2 jumpers. Last but not least, there are three switches that allow for the slow mode, pause the system and fix the cold boot bug. |
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Customizable Nameplate |
On the motherboard there is a customizable nameplate that could be useful for professional overclockers. Sometimes there are too many overclockers with the same motherboard and in this way you can put your name on it. In addition the customizable nameplate can be a great add for modders. On the official ASUS website you can download a small template and customize your nameplate in few steps. |
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Layout
ASUS decided to give the Maximus X Apex a color scheme that's kept in black and grey. The PCB is matte black, the aluminum VRM heatsinks are silver-greyish and the PCH cooler is black with a sheet metal cover that's received the ROG logo in silver. Apart from that there is the RGB lighting, which ASUS calls AURA. It allows you to make the board shine in your preferred color. The layout itself is well thought and since ASUS is always taking Intel's reference specifications regarding socket clearance into account, there is enough space to install large aircoolers. The fact that there are angled SATA connectors allows for easy installation of oversized graphics cards.
The ASUS Maximus X Apex comes with a digital 8+2 phase power design. The power design on this board is pretty solid and it's good for extreme overclocking. Digging a little bit deeper into the details we find a PWM controller that's been labelled ASP1405I, which might be an IR35201 fully digital PWM controller that offers up to 8 phases. Each PWM phase from the digital PWM is doubled by an IR3599. On the PCB there are four of these chips. Furthermore there are ten IR3535 chips on the backside of the motherboard. The MOSFETs are Infineon OptiMOS BSG0812ND and they are rated for 50A.
The memory VRM uses a two-phase controller with N-channel MOSFETs. The VCCSA and VCCIO take power from a TPS51362 10A converter by Texas Instruments and a single phase VRM controlled by an Anpec and PowerPAK.
This board has been equipped with a total of two DIMM-slots. Officially supported is everything up to DDR4 4500 (O.C.). There is enough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 2.0.
The PCH as well as the current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via passive heatsinks. The heatsinks for the current converters are made from two aluminium blocks which are not linked by an additional heatpipe. The PCH heatsinks are all quite simple and flat. The cooling blocks have been very well made and they've been perfetcly attached to the board to provide enough pressure on the components they have to cool. The aluminium blocks are black with grey sheet metal covers, overall resembling a new and fresh looking design.
Connectors and I/O
In total, ASUS equipped the ROG Maximus X Apex motherboard with four SATA 6Gbps connectors, which have all been natively wired to the PCH and angled by 90°. With this motherboard you get three PCIe x16 Gen 3.0, one PCIe x4 Gen 3.0 slot and two PCIe 3.0/2.0x x1 slots. While the first three received metal reinforcements, the last one doesn't feature any reinforcements. From top to bottom the full-sized PCIe slots have been wired using 16 lanes, 8 lanes and 8 lanes. This means you can build 16x/8x SLI/CrossFire and 8x/8x/8x CrossFireX (3-way). These are basically the standard options you get with any Intel Z370 based motherboard, that does not feature a PLX chip. The placement of the PCIe slots has been well-thought. Having a look around the board we find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons and there is also a debug LED on this board. Furthermore you get a MemOK button, which has proven to be a useful many times.
There is a total of eight fan headers on the ROG Maximus X Apex which is enough, to provide a well equipped E-ATX system with fresh air. The headers have been located close to the CPU as well as spread over the board. Other than that it's a good thing that all of them feature four pins, which allows for rpm regulation in BIOS as well as under Windows. Furthermore there is a plethora of additional headers you find listed below:
Fan headers
- 1 x CPU Fan connector(s)
- 1 x CPU OPT Fan connector(s)
- 3 x Chassis Fan connector(s)
- 3 x 4-pin Full Speed Fan connectors
Watercooling connectors
- 1 x AIO_PUMP connector
- 1 x W_PUMP+ connector
Connectors
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard (purple)
- 1 x PS/2 mouse (green)
- 1 x DisplayPort
- 1 x HDMI
- 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
- 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
- 1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
- 1 x USB BIOS Flashback Button(s)
- 5 x Gold-plated audio jacks
- 6 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 (blue)
- 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (red)Type-A
- 1 x USB 3.1 (black)USB Type-C
- 1 x 5G LAN(RJ45) port(s)
BIOS
The most recent version of ASUS’s UEFI BIOS presents itself with an attractive design, and especially the new interface which called EzMode, where we can not only monitor system information, CPU and motherboard temperature, CPU voltage and DRAM status but also set system and CPU fans as well as directly change the boot priority and tune the system to different profiles, is leaving a good impression. If you wish to go back to the good old times, where you were racing through the menus hammering up and down arrows as well as the enter key ridiculously fast, you just have to press F7 and there you go. Since this motherboard features a very solid power design it is suitable for gaming and high overclocking. The BIOS features all the usual ASUS options, which allow for altering virtually anything when it comes to overclocking. Overall, there is certainly no lack of options in this BIOS.
Test setup
Hardware |
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| Motherboard |
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| Processor | Intel Core i7-8700K @ 3.7 GHz |
| Memory | 16 GB (4x4) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 CL15-15-15-36 2T |
| Graphic card | ASUS GeForce GTX 980 |
| Driver | GeForce Game Ready Driver 385.69 |
| Hard disk |
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| Power supply | Seasonic X-650 |
| OS | Windows 10 x64 Updated |
Preview / Gallery
| Product Picture | Link to Gallery |
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ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac |
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ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex |
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ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero |
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ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-I Gaming |
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Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 3 |
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MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC |
3DMark
Tipe Spy - CPU Test
3DMark is a benchmarking tool created and developed by Futuremark Corporation to determine the 3D rendering performance of GPU and CPU. In this article we only use the Physix workload testing routing to find out how capable a processor is. The score is measured in points where higher is better.
Cinebench R15
Cinebench is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's 3D rendering capabilities. The test scenario uses all of your system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene (from the viral "No Keyframes" animation by AixSponza). This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores.
SiSoft Sandra 1
SiSoft Sandra is a theoretical multi purpose benchmark suite which is able to show differences in CPU architectures. Therefore on this page you'll find Arithmetic-, Multimedia- and Cryptography-benchmarks.
SiSoft Sandra 2
UC Bench
SuperPi 1M
Right Mark Audio Analyzer
Crystal Disk Mark 5
Power Consumption
Performance Rating
Price Comparison
| Model |
Geizhals.eu |
| ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac | |
| ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex | |
| ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero | |
| ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-I Gaming | |
| Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 3 | |
| MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC |
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| A closer look at the motherboard lineup from ASUS reveals that the Maximus X Apex is a high-end model, regarding their gaming branded Z370 based products. Therefore it comes with a bunch of really neat features, like for example ASUS's SupremeFX audio solution, dual ethernet ports and two M.2 slots as well as a great looking design. In addition this motherboard sports several overclocking features that might be a great help if you want try and take down some overclock score. At the moment this motherboard is available on Geizhals for 294 Euro and we believe that is a rather good price. Although the ROG Maximus X Apex is a motherboard designed for extreme overclockers, there is a very good bundle which includes cables, brackets, stickers and ROG DIMM.2 card. | -
Design - Layout - Features - ROG DIMM.2 |
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| Layout | + | - | |
| The layout of the ASUS Maximus X Apex has been well thought - as expected. Once more practical are the angled SATA connectors as well as the power- and reset-buttons and the debug LED. Apart from that we like the placement of the PCI-Express x16 slots. There is a total of four full sized PCI Express slots and two PCIe x1 slots. Three of the four full-size PCIe slots receive metal reinforcements and these slots are two slots apart. This means that there is plenty of space for graphics card in multi GPU setups to breathe.
One of the most unusual features on this board is the "third" DIMM slot. In combination with an adapter card (which is included in the bundle) it's possible to put two M.2 SSDs into the DIMM slot. In addition you can install a small fan above the DIMM.2 card. On the ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex there are only four SATA ports. Since this is a motherboard for overclockers we don't think that is a huge downside, however some enthusiast user might be bothered. However we understand that less ports means less board noise and trace routing. |
- Space around the CPU
socket
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- 4 x SATA3 6Gb/s | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| At the moment our test setup includes only six motherboards but during next weeks we will add more models. Calculating the average of all benchmarks results we ran, we see that this board scores 1st. If we check a bit closer, we see that the ASUS Maximus X Apex is about 4% faster than the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon in Sisoft Sandra - Cryptography - AES benchmark. Furthermore, speaking about 3D performance, we see a good result for the ASUS motherboard in 3DMark Time Spy benchmark. On another note, we had at energy efficiency where this board scores 2nd. | - Sisoft Sandra |
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| Overclocking / BIOS | + | - | |
| The UEFI BIOS gets a black background and there are a few additional red and white design elements. Meanwhile it's almost normal that a BIOS is complete, offering countless features. If you're looking for overclocking options you'll find a great many of them and they are equally practical for novices and extreme overclockers. We always love the pre-defined profiles, which make overclocking quite a bit more efficient. Boosting our CPU to 5 GHz was absolutely no problem at all. | - Sheer amount of
options - LN2 |
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| Recommendation | + | - | |
| Should you be looking for a high-end overclocking motherboard, then the ROG Maximus X Apex is simply a great choice. The motherboard comes with a pretty solid power design and it also sports a long list of overclocking features, some of them unique. With this motherboard you will be able to squeeze both your CPU and memory. Although the ROG Maximus X Apex is supposed to be targeting mainly overclockers and modders, there are several features that might be interesting for gamers as well. Obviously you should have the necessary cash, since this board is no bargain and it's available on Geizhals for 294 Euro. | - Price | ||
| Rating | |||
| We give the ASUS Maximus X Apex excellent 5 out of 5 stars. | |||
