With very few exceptions, the Maximus IX Formula is another step forward in the evolution of ASUS' ROG brand. The red and black theme never gets old and you can surely stick to it if you want to do so. However, ASUS' AURA Lighting and AURA SYNC technology takes the visuals a little bit further, well, a lot further away from the red and black, actually. Using ASUS' AURA Lighting controls you can set the LED accents on the Maximus IX Formula to any color in the rainbow with up to nine different lighiting patterns. It's interesting just to sit back and watch it. To take the RGB lighting control a bit further, you can connect RGB LED strips to the pair of headers that are also managed by ASUS AURA. If you purchase ASUS SYNC compatible peripherals you can essentially match the LED lighting theme throughout your ecosystem. Built with a decided bent toward gamers, the ROG brand is also the premier overclocking solution in ASUS' product stack. Built with hardware that supports overclocking and the software package, and UEFI BIOS to back it all up, you can get the most out of your installed hardware. In the two comparison boards, my Core i7 7700K is, at best, a 4.95GHz chip that takes about 1.375v to 1.39v to maintain stability at that level. Thanks to ASUS' Extreme Engine Digi+ all-digital VRM, TPU, and Pro Clock chips, this CPU does indeed hit 5GHz for daily use with an applied 1.36v. By manually tuning the clock speeds to 102MHz x 49, 5GHz was easy to reach, with a cache ratio of 45 and memory speed of close to 3700MHz.