P45’s, as Intel’s mainstream motherboard for almost the past year or so, superseding the older P35 chipset to hold the LGA775 socket that Intel uses its Core 2 CPU’s. We Normally find one of these mainstream motherboards in most ATX form factors, to firstly compensate all of the space to hold out those dual graphics length cards that we, as gamers usually have, with also the issue when peripherals are concerned, the hard-drive ports, the IDE (if anybody uses them anymore) and any extensions willing and able like soundcards or wireless WIFI. Truly the P45, with 32x lane bandwidth given off by the 65nm Northbridge, and a mix and math of DDR3 and DDR2 memory dual slot config is enough for most usual media and day to day gamers and mutli-threading apps.
With the ASUS however, able to shrink the P45 layout to fit into a micro-ATX form factor, and create another good looking board able to target most consumers who fit in the category of a small case holders or just bored and find something in the game section of a small board. Well, the ASUS Maximus II Gene has the features of a small form factor good for most small media players, but has the P45 chipset with all of the features laid in; the Crossfire support even a DDR3 1600MHz dual DIMM support, making a new products to the market, even if it the same chipset, but still hits the small sweet spot in the price wars. Just only $187US in the net, yes this is still a little bit expensive side when we just at the end of the recession and also the upcoming new P55’s going to replace the Intel’s mainstream stock to Core i5’s now, we can still see a significant drop in prizes.
As much as we like on the money side, if you do, you would look at the more happy side of buying the Gene, you have the P45, with a support of all of the quad core and dual core processors that Intel still has in stock. Dual PCIEX 16x (one full and one 8x electric) configuration when it comes to dual card mode. One PCI slot (the normal) and also the PCIex 1x. As for the rest of the features of the Gene, are the; six full SATA2.0, nine phase power modular regulators, enough back I/O ports to fit in a eSATA port and BIOS reset button, and an included LCD poster for those diagnostics in the BIOS if you are afraid of opening the case of yours.
Board’s categories, as we have seen here, a micro-ATX have some advantages and disadvantages, one of which is the small form for those tight case while the bad side of it is the heat generation problem filled in so small type of space can be a hassle, when overclocked. Performance wise the board excels in most synthesised benchmarks, SISoftware Sandra, while games apps look kind of awful with the stick settings in place, the quad core config find frames in crisis at the low 35fps, even with the GTX275 who could arrive at crisis at 40 tops is a real disappointment. But the overclocking prowess of ASUS and their Maximus II gene is no exception.
Personally, Gene is a daring move for ASUS to find the true potential of a micro-ATX; they did it also to the newer corei7 boards with the X58 chipset. But with the many reviews seen in the X58 for be next generation to succeed core 2 with also the coming Corei5 makes this a not so good option for buyers new to the retail of Intel chips. But not fond on new hardware the LGA775 have still some grunt in them.
