In general, the Crosshair Impact series was created from the desire to “charge” the ultra-compact board to the maximum. Including advanced overclocking capabilities, and this already means at least a powerful VRM node, for which there is not enough space on the PCB.
Read more @ OC Club (Russian)
When ASUS set out to make the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact, they had one goal in mind: take all the features from their flagship X570 motherboard and cram them into the smallest possible package. While it has taken a little while to achieve, the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact is the closest we have ever come to a no compromise SFF motherboard.
Read more @ TechPowerUp
Looking at the performance of the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact in our test suite and it displays a strong and stable showing. In our system-specific tests, the Crosshair VIII Impact posted some of the fastest POST times we have seen from an X570 model, as well as solid results in our power consumption tests.
Read more @ AnandTech
That M.2-like port at the bottom is actually the audio circuitry, and the “heatsink” is just a fascia. Only the custom audio board will work in it, and Asus specifically prohibits using anything else, stating it could damage the board. The audio itself is a typical Asus-tweaked Realtek ALC1220 codec dubbed SupremeFX and sports an ESS Sabre 9023P DAC.
Read more @ Bit-Tech