The Apex model has not been represented among the products of the ROG Maximus series earlier. The specialists of the company considered the release of Kaby Lake-S processors as a good time for updating the assortment. Impact has been considered to be the best model for memory overclocking, and serious system loads has been carried out with the participation of senior representatives of the series like Extreme or Formula. In the novelty under consideration, these features are successfully united. It is worth noting, the price tag for such a product is quite humane, taking into accont the widest possible range of consumers is obvious.


Huge dimensions do not mean the presence of various kinds of auxiliary controllers. The design is more refined than complex. All the features are based on the Intel Z270, only two last-generation USB sockets on the rear panel are required due to the presence of a third-party adapter on the card.


Charactristics

Chipset: Intel Z270

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ID-Cooling, being famous for its cooling systems, has released a Hunter Duet II cooler of large dimensions, which is supposed to transfer heat from the CPU and the graphics engine surfaces. This model is designed with a 360 mm heat sink, which is of great benefit to its efficiency factor.



The construction includes two water units with a base out of copper and built-in pumps, pipes in braided cable, the three-section aluminum 395 × 120 × 27 mm heat sink, three 120 mm fans, and an extraordinary framework with a 90 mm fan to blow over graphics card load-bearing elements and intensive plates for the CPU and GPU.


Though possessing similar construction, water units differ in lids design and the location of holes for liquid flow. At the moment their inner structure details are not available.

A compact fan to blow over VRM consumes 1.2 W. Its rotary speed is not higher than 1,500 rpm. The same ratio of each of the three main fans is not supposed to exceed 1,500–2,000 rpm.

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So far in the budget segment with the NVIDIA graphics card is dominated by the old generation. Presented recently GeForce GT 620, GeForce GT 630 and GeForce GT 640 are designed for the lowest price range. Replacement for GeForce GTX 550 Ti is not found yet. For this role is planed the improvement of GeForce GT 640 version with memory GDDR5. But in the sale, they are not yet available, and advertised prices are a bit high. So the GeForce GTX 550 Ti remains in demand. The choice among these models is still large. On the market there are non-standard versions with an improved cooling systems and high frequencies. Sparkle Calibre X550 Ti DFL belongs to the category of just such products.



The card comes in a long black box. Inside is another cardboard box. For accessories, there is a small separate boxes. The package includes the following: an adapter DVI / D-Sub, adapter cable with a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort, two power adapters from molex 4-pin PCI-E to 6-pin, software CD, …