We tested the Bulldozer: FX-8150 and three 990FX motherboards on the test bench
ASUS Crosshair V Formula
Members of the ASUS Crosshair series are the most beautiful dreams for AMD-minded, tuning and gaming-conscious customers. Crosshair V Formula (and Crosshair V Formula ThunderBolt) seeks to carry on this beautiful tradition. The fresh ROG board, of course, got the latest and greatest of everything currently available. AMD 990FX north bridge, SB950 south bridge, AM3 + socket. He is waiting for the Bulldozer with open arms, but is also willing to work with previous models up to the AM3 socket.
In this case, the power supply is provided by Extreme Engine Digi + VRM, with 8 + 2 phases. Needless to say, the design and style of the ATX standard 30,5 × 24,4 cm printed current follows the usual ROG recipe, true to the material and surface of the ribs, the use of color, and this to the unique ROG properties. In addition to the AM3 + socket, a densely laminated black rib runs along the 990FX chip and in the VRM area, with a heat pipe connection.
DDR3 modules can work in two-channel mode in the four DIMM slots, with a total capacity of up to 32 GB and a speed of 2133 MHz. Beneath the RAM sockets is the south bridge, on which a flattened, ROG-designed rib culminates. The advantage of the 990FX North Bridge is also evident in the Crosshair V Formula, for which we need to look at the area of the expansion rails. This model also wears a total of four full-width PCI Express rails.
This allows you to use up to four video cards simultaneously (Quad SLI and Quad CFX), but since the fourth slot can only work in × 4 mode, this can be a limiting factor for the card. The specification therefore officially includes Tri-SLI and 3-way CrossFireX, the three rails can operate in the following modes: × 16 / × 16, or × 16 / × 8 / × 8. The latest Crosshair also comes with a short × 1 PCI Express and a PCI slot. What is certain is that with a well-tuned Bulldozer and a brutal 3D subsystem, this motherboard will have a chance to break records.
Regarding SATA ports, we can practically quote the other two boards: The AMD SB950 provides native SATA 6 Gb / s ports, six in number, which support RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 modes. A JMicron JMB362 controller has also been added to the board, offering two additional SATA ports, a Power eSATA and an eSATA to its host. Each port is capable of speeds of 3 Gb / s. The network controller in the Crosshair V Formula is no longer an Intel solution, but an Intel solution, and the sound generator is also a much more steep copy in the person of the Supreme FX X-FI 2 8-channel controller, with support for many Creative features.
Legend has it that SupremeFX X-Fi 2 endows games with stunning sounds - the dream of every ROG staff member. EAX 5.0 and OpenAL provide realistic, cinematic sounds. The THX TruStudio Pro branding guarantees that games, music and movies sound even better. SupremeFX X-Fi uses 2 gold-plated connectors and high-quality capacitors to offer the best quality.
The SB950 has already been noted to provide only a USB 2.0 port, in this case 12 (8 of which are on the back, 1 is reserved for ROG Connect). Of course, the Crosshair V Formula wouldn’t be able to afford not to carry some of the newer standard either, so came the good old ASMedia controller, offering six USB 3.0 adapters, four of which are on the back.
Here is the back structure and connectors of the Crosshair V Formula:
In addition to what has been described so far, of course there is much more that could be written, for example about the exclusive ROG "features", but since we have visited quite a few ROG models recently, and we have covered these features in detail more than once, we will not do this again now, but summarize.
Key features summarized:
- Three-card NVIDIA® SLI ™ / AMD CrossFireX ™ technology support
- Extreme Engine Digi + - High-performance combination of analog and digital design elements
- SupremeFX X-Fi 2 - Play with realistic, cinematic, surround sound
- GameFirst - Speed with traffic control
- Intel® Gigabit LAN
- UEFI BIOS - Flexible, easy-to-use BIOS interface
Specification table:
ASUS Crosshair V Formula Gallery:
