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

I had one BSOD during our UN-incubated portion of Torture Testing; the system gave me a "Internal Power Error" message identifying the BSOD. So I went on with Torture Testing for another day without fail, then I incubated the ASUS Crosshair V Formula. Given that I had seen the earlier BSOD, I really wanted to hammer on it to see if I could get it to fail again. I ran incubated Torture Testing for another 96 hours. Components on the boards surface were reading over 170F with the infrared thermometer. The ASUS Crosshair V Formula ran perfectly throughout the incubated testing. So maybe the previous BSOD was a fluke, or we had some bad power. Again, an issue that I cannot blame on ASUS.

This is why I read Hard|OCP, keep up the quality testing guys.

Well, that and you guys also have the most expansive CPU's out there.
 
Thanks for the review Kyle and Morry. I had been eyeballing this board since ASUS first announced it roughly a year ago. I just ordered one today from NewEgg, can't wait to play with it.
 
I owned a Crosshair V motherboard for about a week. I kept experiencing random issues with it while running a 955BE CPU and 12GB of G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1333. SLI would not work, even with the latest official nVidia driver pack at that time (280.26 I believe) with two GTX 460s. I tried updating to the 0506 BIOS and it failed, rendering the motherboard completely useless. I ended up shipping it back about a month ago. I am still running my M4A79T Deluxe which has served me well for the better part of 3 years and I have even been able to get SLI working on it with the two 460s using SLI Patch 1.5 along with the modified nVidia release drivers. I was really looking forward to Bulldozer and a seamless upgrade, but it didn't happen. Not all new technology is as good as its supposed to be.
 
Hey guys, i'm new here, but i'm been lurking around for quite some time.

I wanted to ask something about the review.~

In the review its said that the board was bootable up till 350fsb, and stable at 325fsb.

Problem is... how did you guys do that?

I cant even get in to windows at 265 fsb....and yes i did lower all the other multipliers to be as close as stock as possible.


System: Phenom II 955
CHVF
3xHD6950
4gb ddr3 1333mhz
TX950W
3240x1920 res.

Thanks.
 
Hey guys, i'm new here, but i'm been lurking around for quite some time.

I wanted to ask something about the review.~

In the review its said that the board was bootable up till 350fsb, and stable at 325fsb.

Problem is... how did you guys do that?

I cant even get in to windows at 265 fsb....and yes i did lower all the other multipliers to be as close as stock as possible.


System: Phenom II 955
CHVF
3xHD6950
4gb ddr3 1333mhz
TX950W
3240x1920 res.

Thanks.


Your Phenom II has an unlocked multiplier. Basically, don't even touch the FSB. Just up the CPU multiplier and the Vcore and you're set. I have my Phenom II 955 at 4.0ghz stable.
 
I know that, i got 4ghz stable-ish, but i feel with fsb OC i get more stable.

And i want 2800+ cpu-nb oc, but 3000mhz no-post, so i want to try 2900, 2850, and i need some high fsb to play with the frequencies.
 
hi. i've started having some problems with my latest set up.

worst part is, the graphix cards in xfire. hopefully i've posted in the correct section.

my set up is chv f rev1.xx / 1102 bios . fx8150 @stock 2 x xfx4890 grafix cards. these cards are factory overclocked, so there is no more headroom.

first thing is; using AOD i can see that there is a temperature difference of 3c - 6c. as far as i can remember it has always been that way. because even that is quite annoying, i would mess about with switching xfire off and on and usually the temps would even up, even with my old chlll.

just now i am running windows media player with a visualisation and only one card is performing. if i test with vantage the fans are spinning too fast which means temps too high. not sure if that's 1 or 2 grafix card as i won't run AOD with vantage.

is it the cause of the motherboard ? i have read that earliest chv boards need the bios chip replacing and have also read xfire has some issues with the new am3+ set up.

i think my cards are okay, but i just can't use anything like games or benching til i get this sorted.,... thanks for any help.

something else i noticed with this board is that vdda voltage and others, i get a warning sign saying the voltage has dropped to zero or thereabouts. it doesn't seem to affect performance as yet so may be a false reading,.

about the FSB. WITH this new am3+ setup, has the fsb gone from am3's 2000 mhz to am3+'s 2500mhz. sorry about the noobiness, but i'm wondering if my grafix cards are being overclocked.
 
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AOD shows the hyper transport link speed as 2200mhz and the pci-e is 100mhz. i was thinking that with the crosshair lll that the hyper transport linkj speed would have been 2000mhz.
so has the grafix cards been overclocked with the 2200mhz

i've tried swapping the cards over and results are similar. running furmark the temps are shooting up past 100c on one of the cards. either one.
 
i don't have any experience with BD tho i do have the asus CHV with a 1100T. from a quick read of your posts sounds like you are describing 2 separate issues.

with thubans the HT link should be at 2000MHz at stock. not sure if it's the same with BD chips. in either case the HT link speed should be as close to 2000 (+/- 100MHz).

the CPU-NB freq (basically the speed of the integrated memory controller) is different and has a lot of wiggle room (2000-3000MHz). i only mention this as i'm not sure if you are confusing the HT link frequency with the CPU-NB frequency.

the FSB or HTT will affect both the HT link & CPU-NB frequencies so raising the FSB/HTT will raise the HT/CPU-NB. that's fine as they motherboard has dividers to drop the HT/CPU-NB back closer to stock if you are FSB/HTT overclocking.

touching any of these settings (FSB/HTT, HT link, CPU-NB) shouldn't affect the PCIe link as this is usually locked at 100 unless you've manually adjusted it yourself.

for tweaking your MB highly recommend looking at links below. it's specially written for deneb/thubans but much of its still applicable for BD.
http://www.overclockers.com/step-guide-overclock-amd-phenom/
http://www.overclock.net/amd-general/777378-official-gappos-little-deneb-thuban-overclocking.html

regarding your xfire set up i can't really comment as i don't use dual GPU's myself. sounds like a cooling issue. either a remount of the heatsink or perhaps you have a wonky fan(s).

you could also try hitting up the ROG forums as well if you're not getting the help you need here (tho you may need to start a new thread to get more people to have a look at your problem(s) either here on H or at ROG)
http://rog.asus.com/forum/
 
thanks v much. i'll have a look into all that ....

i was not able to connect to the rog site until today in actual fact.,

would you happen to know tho if the earliest of the chv mobo's have a glitch in "a chip". if yes, would that be the bios chip or the IT8271 chip. is the bios chip soldered in ? i have found some on ebay which might be a suitable replacement. i'll dig the manual out and check see what chips i am talking about.

^[ANSWER]: BIOS Chip, and it is not soldered.

as for now i have removed one of the cards and it still overheats when running vantage or furmark.

thanks for now

Edit; found this on overclock . net

Just wanted to show you guys. With the new bios chip the cpu and cpu/nb llc is working correclty. Also, my system is a lot more stable. I can run 5.0Ghz at 1.55v which i couldnt do without at least 1.575v. Also my temps are a lot lower than before too. I dont know how a bios chip could do so much by i am very pleased. I have class at 7:30am tomorrow so I got to get to bed but heres a screen shot of what i just ran. I know its not that long of a run but before with these settings it would last a minute. Definitely much more stability and temps are like 8C lower. Boggled my mind. I will do more testing tomorrow and let you know how it goes. But this is it for now. I did a quick run in cinebench and didnt see a change but I will do some more tomorrow. Thanks guys. Hope this helps some with this chip and board.
 
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Has everyone moved to Intel? I figured this thread would of had like 50 pages by now. Anywho, I ended up picking up this board to replace a Sabertooth 990fx.. only because I like the layout and it comes with a 3 way SLi Adaptor. I can't wait to fire her up!
 
I don't suppose you still have that Crosshair V kicking around and a spare pair of 680 GTX cards eh?

With mine, and several other 990fx users, adding 2 of these vid cards plummets fps to just 5fps !!
Crossfire'd shader unlocked 6950's were flawless.

I added the details to my issue, and what I have tried so far in the post linked...
1 other thing i didn't mention, i tried stock settings as well on my cpu just to eliminate any possibility of the overclock causing troubles. It has been rock steady for a year, no crashes, no bsod's, prime95 stable for 24 hrs etc ...

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1038652216#post1038652216
 
Just bought this bought and I absolutely love it. Highly recommend (Using the newest BIOS upgrade to-date)
 
I love my Crosshair I just wish it was blue and matte black like Gigabytes boards so it would match my color scheme lol
 
Some reviewers did test the FX 8350 in this board with BIOS 1605. Just an alert. You don't need to buy the Z version if you already have the Formula in order to run PD.

I'll be testing PD in mine soon. I've heard some say 1605 is good with DDR 3 2400. I'll be testing that soon too.

BTW one guy at OCN said he was able to boot up with an 8350 in his board using BIOS 1402. So you should be able to boot and update with that BIOS or later.
 
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I really wish they didn't use the same name on the "Z" version of this mobo. It makes searching a PITA on Google. Anywho, I know we are able to use this board with the 8350 but read that it can't achieve overclocks as high as the Z version. Does anyone know if this board will work with the 9590? I'm just curious...

I am still running my 1100T and it suits me fine. I just wanted to know later down the road when the 9590 is like 100 bucks. LoL. Someone try it.

Oh yeah... if you can get it to work. What has to be done? Thanks.
 
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