ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Apex Encore Motherboard Review

ASUS is well known for its high-end overclocking-friendly motherboards, and while that does often mean they come with a price premium, it’s not like their rival brands haven’t got their wallet-munching solutions either. At around £750 this board is certainly out of the reach of your typical consumer, but as I always say, unless you’re going to use nearly all the features it offers, you’re better off looking further down the product range.

Alas, if you do invest a lot of money on this motherboard, you do get a lot in return, such as the latest PCIe 5.0 M.2 and PCIe 4 M.2, ROG DIMM.2 support, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, a pair of PCIe 5.0 slots, WiFi 7, 2.5GbE LAN, and much more, making it one of the better-connected boards on the market. However, most of your investment is all about robust hardware well suited to maxing out your hardware. There’s a truly powerful 24+0+2 Power Stage design rated at 105 amps, with microfine alloy chokes, SMD capacitors, significantly upgraded VRM heatsinks, a fan kit to cool your RAM, and many more overclocking-friendly features, just check the list below for a taste!

OC Features

• SAFE BOOT BUTTON – Instantly reset the PC and boot directly into Safe mode.
• BCLK BUTTONS – Adjust the BCLK frequency to improve system performance.
• PROBEIT – Includes twelve integrated measurement points for advanced tuning.
• RETRY BUTTON – Instantly initiates a hard reset with just a press.
• SLOW MODE SWITCH – Reduces the CPU ratio to 8X to keep the system stable during setup for extreme overclocking.
• PAUSE SWITCH – Pause the system and fine-tune OC parameters mid-benchmark.
• RSVD SWITCH – Helps the system boot under extreme temperatures (≤ -120°C)
• LN2 MODE – Jumper to enable special options and functions for liquid-nitrogen (LN2) overclocking.
• BIOS SWITCH – Switches between BIOS 1 and 2.

What ASUS Had to Say

The ROG Maximus Z790 Apex Encore boasts a sleek all-black design, robust appearance, upgraded power solution and an onboard PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot for lightning-fast storage. Meanwhile, the ROG Memory Fan Kit offers active cooling to let tinkerers push DDR5 to the limit. And support for Intel Core 14^th generation processors lets users set new benchmarks for the wealth of activities that demand peak performance. This motherboard is the ultimate choice for enthusiasts and overclockers seeking style and power in their gaming setup.

There are a lot of fun gadgets included with this one, such as the flash drive with your drivers, and that you can use for BIOS updates.

There’s a DIMM.2 module, allowing you to squeeze in super fast storage to the motherboard like you would a stick of RAM.

And a funky fan kit for cooling your RAM to push its performance even higher!