ASUS Crosshair V Formula AMD AM3+ Motherboard Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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ASUS Crosshair V Formula AMD AM3+ Motherboard Review - The Crosshair V Formula is ASUS' ROG-based answer for the next generation AMD silicon, codenamed "Bulldozer." Built with all the bells and whistles you've come to expect from a Republic of Gamers' motherboard, the Crosshair V Formula looks to be the perfect companion for any AMD processor.
 
DarkStryke said:
Board is primed, hopefully BD makes use of what it brings to the table.
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I think you will be happy with it. Not ultrafuckingblown out the water with it, but after OCing I think you will be good with your purchase.
 
nice review.. still going back and forth between getting this board or the sabertooth.. i guess i'll wait to see if there are any deals on them when bulldozer comes out.
 
Ah-Ha! So, it is true!
BD will be (I guess the operative word is "hopefully") released in October by our good friends @ Advanced Micro Delays.

Thanx for the tip Batman!
 
I like the review and love the features, but damn, Intel boards are looking better for that price.
Im still holding out for the bulldozer, so I hope it doesnt dissapoint.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
doesn't MSI have a blue and black 990FX board? now if only their bios were as nice as asus's bios..
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I wish MSI would go back to the Red PCB boards they had a few years back. It would look nice in my PC-P50R

Although my Crosshair IV Formula looks pretty nice in there.
 
After seeing this review and reading the gigabyte 990 fx ud7 review it seems to me it would only be fair to revisit the 990 fx ud7 board again. The bios has been updated 3 times since the review which was done only days after the board was released. Gigabyte boards have been very good in the past and that review was quite a supprise to me. The Asus 0506 bios was released by Asus to improve stability so it is possible the asus board was having the same issues gigabyte was back when the gigabyte board was reviewed.

Please Kyle can you guys revisit the gigabyte board with the latest bios? I am very interested to see your findings. I am looking to purchase and am3+ board very soon.
 
The first BIOS on the Crosshair V Formula wasn't that hot and I did like 0506 and 0038.

BIOS 0705 is now official and may be had under the download tab below.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/Crosshair_V_Formula/

I haven't been updated to it long and it seems fine. It does enable ECC by default. Most folks do not need that on unless they're running something like a server. I turn it off because it may gimp OCing a tad and reduce performance a little. Also if your ram doesn't support it, it's likely pointless.

Raja's guide is a darn good thing to read, particularly if you've plans to OC.

http://www.asusrog.com/forums/showthread.php?2585-ASUS-Crosshair-V-Formula-BIOS-Guide-Overclocking

Good article [H]ard, and I hope AMD get BD out to us soon.
 
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Own this mobo, would give it a thumbs up even with a 955BE. Have had zero issues with this to-date.
 
Gotta love Asus and especially Hardocp doing the review. With my SB running at 4.9Ghz, I doubt I will upgrade anytime soon but if I do, this will be the board to go along with a BD if I do upgrade.
 
I have a ASUS Sabertooth 990FX and it has been a really great board so I would imagine that this board was more of the same.

I hope Hardocp has time to take a second look at these 990FX boards they review with a BD CPU when they come out.
 
I think the article would look better without this:
1313347981KZ3SMp5YAP_1_1.gif


Or at least use a PNG. The image is pretty badly degraded.
 
digital_buzzard said:
Ah-Ha! So, it is true!
BD will be (I guess the operative word is "hopefully") released in October by our good friends @ Advanced Micro Delays.

Thanx for the tip Batman!
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Whaaaaat?!?!?:eek:

I thought they said mid-September. Oh boo.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Gotta love Asus and especially Hardocp doing the review. With my SB running at 4.9Ghz, I doubt I will upgrade anytime soon but if I do, this will be the board to go along with a BD if I do upgrade.
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Yeah, walking away from SB at 4.9GHz is a really hard sell that I don't think will happen.
 
fairlane said:
Whaaaaat?!?!?:eek:

I thought they said mid-September. Oh boo.
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soft launch will be mid september then the processors will hit shelves a week or so later.. standard release practice for all hardware companies.
 
fairlane said:
The article at PC per, says that the "rumors" are that Bulldozer has not much to write home about
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Bulldozer-First-Release-and-State-32nm-AMD-Parts

I hope they are wrong, otherwise I agree with them saying that AMD has to get this right, and quick.
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has some good info however. Bulldozer 8 core B0 at 2.8ghz was equal to the 3.3ghz (3.6ghz turbo) phenom x6 1100T . With a 800mhz increase in speed with B2 for a release chip and most likely alot of bugs worked out from B0 steppings it should be a good contender . Much faster than the x6 1100T
 
Kyle wrote "I think you will be happy with it. Not ultrafuckingblown out the water with it, but after OCing I think you will be good with your purchase."

No doubt he has a BD part on his desk and for sometime. Since he is under a NDA, his above comment is more that telling but avoids any direct talk about BD. Take it as you will.

Since I am not under NDA and have been hanging out on efnet, IRC in #***** and those guys absolutely do have Bulldozer parts, yeah, they aren't impressed. Keep your SB. Trust me.
 
Hmm well if BD does turn out to suck I'm just going to keep my 1055T @ 4.1GHz in my AMD rig and forget about it.
 
eastmen said:
has some good info however. Bulldozer 8 core B0 at 2.8ghz was equal to the 3.3ghz (3.6ghz turbo) phenom x6 1100T . With a 800mhz increase in speed with B2 for a release chip and most likely alot of bugs worked out from B0 steppings it should be a good contender . Much faster than the x6 1100T
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I certainly hope it would be faster! :eek: :D Question is how it fares against the 2600k Intel's
that are out there, and for how much. If the reviews are a thumbs down, I have to start from square one again and possibly rethink Intel, which I'd rather not being that AMD is usually cheaper. I think at this stage, seeing as right now AMD gpu's are what to get, I just may get a BD anyway. Hell, gaming doesn't really rely on cpu's anymore anyway. Don't know wtf I'm waiting for....
 
fairlane said:
I certainly hope it would be faster! :eek: :D Question is how it fares against the 2600k Intel's
that are out there, and for how much. If the reviews are a thumbs down, I have to start from square one again and possibly rethink Intel, which I'd rather not being that AMD is usually cheaper. I think at this stage, seeing as right now AMD gpu's are what to get, I just may get a BD anyway. Hell, gaming doesn't really rely on cpu's anymore anyway. Don't know wtf I'm waiting for....
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Depends on how much faster i7 2600k is than a p2 x6 at 3.3/3.6ghz.


Remember 2.8ghz on bulldozer is not final clocks . The high end chip is clock 800mhz faster at 3.6ghz and with turbo it goes up to 4.2ghz which is 1.2ghz faster.

So I'm sure we are back to where we started , some things the i7 2600k will be faster and some the high end bulldozer.
 
eastmen said:
Depends on how much faster i7 2600k is than a p2 x6 at 3.3/3.6ghz.


Remember 2.8ghz on bulldozer is not final clocks . The high end chip is clock 800mhz faster at 3.6ghz and with turbo it goes up to 4.2ghz which is 1.2ghz faster.

So I'm sure we are back to where we started , some things the i7 2600k will be faster and some the high end bulldozer.
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I don't think a 2.8Ghz Bulldozer matching a 3.3Ghz Phenom II is really a huge problem. the problem is we don't know what the comparisons were, and if they took into account multithreading the two extra cores, or if the comparisons to the X6 Phenom2 were on a core for core basis.

We also don't know if those tests at 2.8 are with or without turbo.

If we assume that they were on a core for core basis and disregard any turbo for the moment, some quick and really really sketchy calculations based on this comparison above to a 1100T suggest as follows:

BD has ~17.9% IPC improvement over Phenom II.

BD only trails Sandy bridge by about 5.3% in IPC

If these really sketchy calculations are anywhere near accurate, this means that at 3.6Ghz a bulldozer ought to just about tie a 3.4Ghz 2600K in single threaded performance, and ought to be about 25% faster than a 2600K in multithreaded performance.

I have to admit, this is significantly better than I was expecting (I was preparing for somewhat of a letdown)

Now, this doesn't take into account overclocking, and the fact that Intel can turn around and release a higher clocked SB chip in no time to one up Bulldozer, but it really isn't that bad.

Now, these assumptions could - of course - be way off.

The comparison of a 2.8ghz bulldoxer to a 3.3Ghz Phenom II, could be on a multithreaded to multithreaded level, in which case BD needs two extra cores at this lower speed to match the x6 at its higher speed. This paints a much more grim picture. If this is the case, it suggests that bulldozer has taken a step backwards in IPC, at least from a multithreaded perspective.

This might be expected due to the shared FPU's of the bulldozer cores, but it still paints a darker picture.

Time will tell. I guess its close enough now that there really is no point in sketchy calculations like this, as we will know the real thing soon enough.
 
ecmaster76 said:
If thats the case you could save yourself some time by putting the a pic of the retail box there or even just use HTML for the lettering if thats what you want there. Making sparkly gold letters only to ruin the effect afterwards seems an exercise in futility.

Dont get me wrong, it doesn't stop me from reading the article, I've just never really understood the point of that pic in MB reviews and the low quality of the version in this article really left me scratching my head.
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Thanks for your input, it is noted.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037746302 said:
That's about as good as can be expected :)

On a side note, - Maybe I'm just not that excitable anymore, but I don't recall being "ultrafuckingblown out the water" by anything since I was six years old and we got our 8bit Nintendo :p

Closest I ahve come in recent years was probably back in 2001 when I saw the tree/grass/water scene from 3DMark 2001 on my Duron 650@950 and my Geforce 2 GTS. I remember being pretty impressed by the light shining through the tree and the waving grass and thinking "the next few years of games are going to be awesome". Then - of course - nothing looked like that for some time :p
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First time I was ultrafuckingblown out of the water with a computer upgrade was when I got my 3dfx Diamond Monster 3D add-in card and fired up MechWarrior2 with the 3dfx patch installed. I was giddy as a schoolgirl when I saw the screen.

Other time was when I went from a craptastic FX5700 card to an x800xt - was blown away by how fast it ran through some benchmarks where the 5700 was painful. Allowed me to up the resolution I played at in a lot of games, but wasn't the blow you away upgrade in image quality.

Beyond that, not much blows me away now. My 2500k at 4.5ghz was seriously easy to get to that overclock, but that didn't blow me away.
 
Mackowitz said:
First time I was ultrafuckingblown out of the water with a computer upgrade was when I got my 3dfx Diamond Monster 3D add-in card and fired up MechWarrior2 with the 3dfx patch installed. I was giddy as a schoolgirl when I saw the screen.
Click to expand...

I had a similar experience with a Miro Highscore 3D (6MB Voodoo 1, it was a European market re-branded Canopus Pure 3d, I was living in Sweden at the time).

For me, the first game I fired up was GLQuake, and I was astonished! this was probably about 1997.

I don't get excited like that much anymore. Must have something to do with getting old.

That wasn't even my first 3D Accelerator though. About a year earlier I bought a Matrox Mystique. As I recall not many titles took advantage of its pre-DX proprietary API, but there was one bundled motorcycle racing game that impressed me with its high framerates, and MechWarrior II, Destruction Derby also had patches to make them work. I'm trying to remember if the original Carmageddon took advantage of it as well, but I can't seem to figure that out.

The Mystique burnt up on me right before the expiration of my 1 year warranty. (not due to overclocking, I don't think there even were overclocking utilities for those cards) so i returned it to the retailer and got a full refund, which I applied towards the Miro Highscore 3d :p

That Voodoo 1 board went into my pre-MMX Pentium 150Mhz system (overclocked to 200) and lasted me much longer than it should have (I was broke for a long time). For a while I improved it by attaching an old 486 HSF to it with old school white paste and rubber bands (It had neither a heatsink nor a fan stock) so I could overclock it more.

I have some great memories from that time. That rig was what I played through Half Life and Deus Ex on, as well as the rig I had when I first discovered Counter-Strike.

p1000660dpx.jpg


I went straight from that rig to a Duron 650@950mhz and an overclocked Geforce 2 GTS (running at Ultra speeds) which is why I was so ultrafuckingblown out of the water when I saw the Trees/water/grass scene from 3Dmark2001. That was a huge upgrade.
 
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The PCI-E layout on this board is pretty disappointing if you want to run two video cards and anything else.

The way I understand the layout is:

PCIE_1 : x16 only
x1
PCIE_2 : x8 only
PCI
PCIE_3 : x16, unless #2 is populated, then x8
PCIE_4 : x4

Putting that x1 slot under the first x16 slot is the biggest killer because it's going to be blocked in pretty much every configuration. So, to run two video cards and one pci-e sound card, you're stuck putting it in between both cards which will block airflow, and knock the second video card down to x8. While that won't have a huge performance impact, it just sucks because it wastes a bunch of pci-e lanes. Not to mention, you cannot add any other pci-e cards in that configuration.

Using a card like the 590 or 6990 opens up the other slots for additional expansion, but isn't very cost effective (which is what I had to do in my current setup). I'm not sure if it bothers anyone else, but this PCI-E layout is fairly common and I'm just not sure how they came up with this as it's not very practical for many common setups. Video card overhang wastes slots, and then you're stuck putting x1-x4 cards in x8 slots and wasting a bunch of pci-e lanes.

It would be really sweet if they would just put pci-e slots in and let you dynamically allocate lanes to the slots of your choosing, or at least be more flexible with the lane assignments. For instance, just doing x8 on everything would be fast enough for current video cards and still allow higher end raid or 10GbE cards. Not sure why more desktop boards don't have configurations like this.
 
Abit667 said:
The PCI-E layout on this board is pretty disappointing if you want to run two video cards and anything else.

The way I understand the layout is:

PCIE_1 : x16 only
x1
PCIE_2 : x8 only
PCI
PCIE_3 : x16, unless #2 is populated, then x8
PCIE_4 : x4

Putting that x1 slot under the first x16 slot is the biggest killer because it's going to be blocked in pretty much every configuration. So, to run two video cards and one pci-e sound card, you're stuck putting it in between both cards which will block airflow, and knock the second video card down to x8. While that won't have a huge performance impact, it just sucks because it wastes a bunch of pci-e lanes. Not to mention, you cannot add any other pci-e cards in that configuration.

Using a card like the 590 or 6990 opens up the other slots for additional expansion, but isn't very cost effective (which is what I had to do in my current setup). I'm not sure if it bothers anyone else, but this PCI-E layout is fairly common and I'm just not sure how they came up with this as it's not very practical for many common setups. Video card overhang wastes slots, and then you're stuck putting x1-x4 cards in x8 slots and wasting a bunch of pci-e lanes.

It would be really sweet if they would just put pci-e slots in and let you dynamically allocate lanes to the slots of your choosing, or at least be more flexible with the lane assignments. For instance, just doing x8 on everything would be fast enough for current video cards and still allow higher end raid or 10GbE cards. Not sure why more desktop boards don't have configurations like this.
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This is exactly why I got the MSI 990FXA-GD80, despite its initial poor reviews. (luckily enough, with recent bios revisions, I haven't had any of the issues reported in the original review)

The layout is perfect for me, and allows me to have a sound card in the 1x slot without bumping down either of my 6970's to 8x mode.

PCI 1x (off of the chipset)
PCIE_1 : x16 only
PCI 1x (off of the chipset)
PCIE_2 : x16/x8
Legacy PCI
PCIE_3 : x16/x8
PCIE_4 : 4x?

Not entirely certain about the max number of lanes above, but I have two 6970s in crossfire both running at 16x in 1 and 3, and my sound card in the first PCIe 1x slot without bumping either card down to 8x.

Since I wound up with ASUS DirectCU II boards, they each take up 3 slots, so now the only slot I have available is the legacy PCI slot. I wonder what fun stuff I can put it to use for :p

5978233316_ee4a00e74a_b.jpg
 
Abit667 said:
The PCI-E layout on this board is pretty disappointing if you want to run two video cards and anything else.

The way I understand the layout is:

PCIE_1 : x16 only
x1
PCIE_2 : x8 only
PCI
PCIE_3 : x16, unless #2 is populated, then x8
PCIE_4 : x4
Click to expand...
A card installed in PCIe x16 slot 2 not identified as Graphics will result in that slot running at x1 speed and PCIe x16 slot 3 running x16 speed. If a video card is installed in the second slot then both it and slot 3 run at x8. The board was designed like this so something like a sound card could be used in slot 2 without affecting the speed of slot 3.
 
jkramp said:
A card installed in PCIe x16 slot 2 not identified as Graphics will result in that slot running at x1 speed and PCIe x16 slot 3 running x16 speed. If a video card is installed in the second slot then both it and slot 3 run at x8. The board was designed like this so something like a sound card could be used in slot 2 without affecting the speed of slot 3.
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I'm not concerned personally. Why use a sound card when the onboard audio is just fine? :p

No sound card, no airflow problems
 
I bought this board solely on [H] editor's choice. I've never bought a high end board before. However after seeing what my 1055T should be doing i had to see for myself.

Already i'm disappointed, running 2x RAID 0 with my vertex drives i'm maxing at 650MB, with 2 vertex left i was just expecting more out of it.

I'm hoping to spend some time tomorrow to tweak settings and see if i can get more out of it. The one click OC to follow...
 
enuro12 said:
Already i'm disappointed, running 2x RAID 0 with my vertex drives i'm maxing at 650MB, with 2 vertex left i was just expecting more out of it.

I'm hoping to spend some time tomorrow to tweak settings and see if i can get more out of it. The one click OC to follow...
Click to expand...

There is a issue with SAT3 Sandforce based SSDs and the AMD Chipset when in raid. There are multiple threads about it on the OCZ forums.
 
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