Maximus II Formula Onboard Devices

Three controllers and three x1 slots consume all six of the ICH10R’s PCI Express lanes. Asus does us a favor in the allocation of USB 2.0 headers however, providing three connections to support a total of six front-panel devices or ports.

The chipset’s other six USB 2.0 ports can be found on rear panel, along with an old-fashioned PS/2 keyboard port, dual Gigabit networking ports, IEEE-1394 FireWire, eSATA ports, and a CLR_CMOS button.

Asus’ big new feature is its SupremeFX X-Fi riser card, which uses an ADI AD2000BX HD Audio codec along with software emulation to provide EAX 4.0 effects. This riser card uses a specialized dual-mode slot at the motherboard’s top position, which has been modified to allow either PCI Express x1 cards or Asus’s custom riser cards to work. It may only have a codec, but many users will find that the best thing about the SupremeFX X-Fi riser is that it doesn’t rely on any problematic Creative components.

Hidden under the southbridge ’sink, the Marvell 88SE6121 controller supplies one eSATA port, one Ultra ATA header, and the SATA interface for a Silicon Image “SteelVine” port multiplier. The Sil5723 SteelVine controller is more than just a hub, as it adds advanced features such as drive cascading and RAID modes to the two ports.

Network devices can operate at the Marvell 88E8056 Gigabit network controller’s peak speeds, thanks to its PCI Express interface. A second Gigabit network controller of the same model is hidden under the extended portion of the northbridge sink.

IEEE-1394 FireWire doesn’t need PCI Express speeds, so Asus gets by with an ancient VT6308P PCI controller.