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Conclusion:
Its clear that the Maximus Series is based on the P5E Series, but with even better results. The power-consumption was especially surprising. While we complained of the high price on the P5E series, the Maximus Series boards do offer much better value for money. The Formula Edition is available for under €200,-. The Special Edition, which we have tested, is fitted for water-cooling and costs about €220,-. You can go for the Extreme Edition, which is only €15,- more expensive because of the expensive IDT PCIe split chip. Available for about €235,- it will cost you much more for the memory modules.
Succeeding the P5E Series this board offers much more value to it's price, we complained the P5E Series is too expensive but the Maximus Series is leveled. You get a fast board with improved VRM, stable operation, high FSB overclocks and lots of BIOS features to tweak your board, so it gets as fast as possible.
The only major complaint left is the analogue VRM, which is still the best ASUS did so far and goes quite near to DFI, but is still a bit away. Especially when you do high overclocking the VRM limits you. With the new Penryn CPUs coming up, this will be no major concern, because the new CPUs will use less energy to run at same speeds. The boards are good and we have to congratulate ASUS for their advances with the Maximus Series.