The MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME Motherboard from ASUS is designed to fit in cases that support an Extended ATX form factor. The 12.0 x 10.7" MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME supports 6th Generation (Skylake) Intel Core i7, i5, i3, Pentium, and Celeron processors, the LGA 1151 socket, as well as the Intel Z170 chipset. This motherboard supports Windows 10 (64-bit), 8.1 (64-bit), and 7 (32 & 64-bit), and through its OC Panel, offers real-time monitoring and tweaking.

The Extended ATX form factor of the MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME has 4 x DIMM slots that can support up to 64GB of non-ECC unbuffered DDR4 RAM, as well as dual channel memory architecture and Intel Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules. The supported memory speeds are DDR4 3866 (O.C.), 3800 (O.C.), 3733 (O.C.), 3600 (O.C.), 3500 (O.C.), 3466 (O.C.), 3400 (O.C.), 3333 (O.C.), 3300 (O.C.), 3200 (O.C.), 3000 (O.C.), 2800 (O.C.), 2666 (O.C.), 2400 (O.C.), and 2133 MHz memory modules. All of the O.C. speeds are only available through memory overclocking, with 2133 MHz being the native supported speed. The MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME PRO has a total of 6 x SATA III 6 Gb/s ports (4 from SATA Express), 2 x SATA Express ports, 1 x M.2 Socket 3, and 1 x U.2 port. It also has 3 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 slots (x16 or dual x8 or x8/x4/x4, gray), 1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 slot (x4 mode), 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1 slot, 2 x USB 3.1 ports (Type-A + Type-C), 2 x USB 3.1 ports (Type-A), 8 x USB 3.0 ports (4 at the back panel, 4 at mid-board), 6 x USB 2.0 ports (mid-board), and 1 x PS/2 port. Using the ROG SupremeFX 2015 8-Channel High Definition Audio codec, it can support 8-channel HD audio.

The MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME has integrated Intel HD graphics support with 1 x HDMI and 1 x DisplayPort. Its HDMI port supports a max resolution of 4096 x 2160 @ 24 Hz and its DisplayPort supports a max resolution of 4096 x 2304 @ 60 Hz. It is able to use up to 512MB of shared memory and also supports Intel InTru 3D, Intel Quick Sync Video, Intel Clear Video HD Technology, and Intel Insider. Multi-GPU use is also supported through NVIDIA Quad-GPU SLI and AMD 4-Way CrossFireX.

The MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME has also been designed with UEFI BIOS, 2nd generation T-Topology, DRAM over-current protection, two backplates, ESD guards, a stainless steel back I/O, a black nickel-coated Q-shield, and more. This motherboard is protected by a limited 3-year warranty and includes an ASUS Q-Shield, 8 x SATA III 6 Gb/s cables, 1 x M.2 screw package, 1 x CPU installation tool, 1 x ASUS 3T3R dual-band Wi-Fi antennas, 1 x fan extension card (3 x 4-pin fan out), 1 x fan extension card screw pack, 1 x SLI bridge, 1 x CrossFire cable, 1 x Q-connector (2-in-1), 3 x thermal sensor cable packs, 1 x 12-in-1 ROG cable labels, 1 x 5-pin to 5-pin cable, 1 x OC Panel II, 1 OC Panel II 5.25" bay metal case, 1 x OC Panel II cable, and 1 x OC Panel II screw pack.