Crosshair IV on the bench!

[Daveburt714]

Hi Folks,

I got my new board today, right before I had to leave for work (sucked)..
Oh well, all's good now! I'm home and will have a chance to play with it for a few hours before I need to go to bed...

I'm not going to install it in the main rig until this weekend, but I just couldn't resist getting a little play time with it tonight!

Overall I'm pretty impressed so far. The build quality seems excellent!
One of the things I was impressed with was the fact that all the heatpipes were actually attatched with screws (no goofy plastic clips here ).
I read that the board has 10+2 power, but I'm not really sure, it only has 10 chokes on the pwm area which would lead me to believe it's 8+2 but I could be wrong.

Here's the rig specs as it sits on the bench:
Asus Crosshair IV Formula
AMD 555 X2 (unlocked)
4Gb Crucial (cheapo) 1333 9-9-9-24-33 @ 1333 7-7-7-18-26 (know good)
Seagate 80Gb (SATA 1) drive with Vista HP 32bit (both VERY old and used)
Visiontek 3870

I basically just shoved all my old available parts on here to get it up and running.

Heres a few pics/SS's:







This drive doesn't have enough space for alot of benches, but really the only ones I'm concerned about are Clockability and Mem Bandwidth.
Let's face it, not alot of point to running 3D benches on this settup...

The only bench I have on the drive that stresses the system at all right now is WinRAR. I let it run the benchmark test for about 5 minutes on the unlocked 555 and it didn't error, so at least thats something.
It would seem to be reliable at unlocking an X2 (more tests to come)...

Oh well, I'm off to flash the newest bios (0602).

[richierich]

damn that's a sexy board.

[crazydiamond]

nice dave, looks good! lookin forward to some more results.. im trying to decide if i should get formula or some dominator gt's, i think im getting one of the 2 in the coming days

[TheBlueChanell]

nice dave, looks good! lookin forward to some more results.. im trying to decide if i should get formula or some dominator gt's, i think im getting one of the 2 in the coming days

If you're looking to bench I'd pick up the dominator's. You'll probably see better results with new ram than moving to a new board (unless these boards hold something special ). The boards new so you'll probably see the price fall in a little bit.

I am in the same situation though, and I guess it all depends on what you're looking for. I've got a GD70 and I'm going to be picking up a 1090T in the near future. I still love my board and it obviously supports thuban but I'm also going to be picking up some Vertex 2's for RAID and I'd be infinitely bottle necked by SB750. I'd like some dominator's but for the time being picking up the 1090t/890FX makes sense for me because once I finally install my loop into my case it'd be a huge pain in the ass to upgrade my motherboard, especially if it's only a few weeks after I get everything finalized. Swapping out 2 sticks of memory is a much easier, and a much less painstaking upgrade for me.

Good luck and I'm interested in hearing your feedback from whichever route you wish to take.

[TheBlueChanell]

Congrats on the upgrade Dave, I'm excited to see more. When are you gonna pair that board up with Thuban?

[crazydiamond]

appreciate the input bluechanell.. i will also be getting thuban too so i guess it might not hurt to wait until i hear from some people who have x6 on msi 790fx once they get turbo sorted out in bios. also interested in msi's 890fxa, but have been leaning toward formula, i like the idea of black & red theme i think i will probably go w/ ram soon & wait for a board because i currently have 790gx am2, 790fx am3, 890gx am3 boards here, 8gb ddr2 ballistix, 4gb ddr3 ocz here, 2 am2 phenoms, 2 am3 phenoms and soon x6 i think getting some more ddr3 would be better idea right now.. having 3 am3 boards & only 1 set of ddr3 wouldnt make much sense maybe ram & thuban soon, formula down the road when i sell some hardware, and upgrade gpu's when ati brings out refresher card

[Daveburt714]

I'm loving this board!

My biggest complaint about the GBT 790XT-UD4P was the lack of detail on the voltages. You were pretty much stuck raising V's by .25 a pop on almost all components...

The finese on this board is amazing! I can change voltages down to .00125 on almost all the components..

The bios is a little confusing though, there are so many options it's kind of hard to find your way when it's all new....
I'm trying to take my time, seems like you could kill something if you got impatient, but it also seems like you could really dial things in perfectly if you take your time!

Most voltages change font color in BIOS when your adjusting them.
Green is undervolted, Blue is within Spec, Yellow is pushing it and Red is dangerous...

There seems to be some quirks with CPU-Z compared to BIOS settings, but it's not too hatefull.

I still have alot of testing to do, but this 555 is close to stable @ 1.5125v and 4013Mhz even under P95...
And that's on a Zalman 9700 (decent, but not the best Air cooler)!

I get the feeling this board is going to ROCK when I move it to the main rig and put it under water...

My opinion of Asus just went up about 2 points!

[V0id]

That board looks like a beast Dave! I hope we will be seeing some more benches and a mini review from you in the near future :P

[Titan7171]

I ordered mine from Newegg last night.......cant wait to get it

[initialised]

Thought I'd share mine too:







Repeating with 2GHz Dominators @ 8-8-8-20

[FlanK3r]

nice board, but not problems with BIOS vcore and real vcore? How about diferent version BIOS? Some reviewers had problems with high default voltage at Thuban or crashing. Hm?
Im waiitng for Giga boards, but can waiting max one week. Than ASUS . So, Crosshair IV is on the second place. We have in shop only this Crosshair IV and new MSI. Nothing about gigabates

[initialised]

I got BIOS 0706, it's supposed to make 2GHz RAM work but no joy with Corsair Dominators so far.

OC to 4GHz on first Boot with 4x4GB RAM's a good start.

Update: Gained ~100 points in GPU-P Vantage (31999) with 8GB @ 2GHz 9-10-9-27

[bingo13]

I got BIOS 0706, it's supposed to make 2GHz RAM work but no joy with Corsair Dominators so far.

OC to 4GHz on first Boot with 4x4GB RAM's a good start.

Update: Gained ~100 points in GPU-P Vantage (31999) with 8GB @ 2GHz 9-10-9-27

0707 is the latest BIOS, running 8GB of Corsair GTX2 at 2000 7-8-7-24 here. PM me your Dominator part number please.

[bingo13]

Oh well, I'm off to flash the newest bios (0602).

PM me for the 0707 please. 0602 is not the best performing BIOS due to early AOD beta compatibility code.

[Daveburt714]

Thanks Bingo, SF3D posted a link to it in another thread. Flashed it late last night but didn't have time to test it much.

[Lightman]

Excellent!
Dave, if you're happy with this board I will be happy as well!
Hope to get it tomorrow..

@bingo13 Thanks for sharing all the privileged details

@FlanK3r I was planning on getting GA UD7 but it's not in stock and no ETA for UK in any of distros so ASUS won this round! My 1090T needs a home ASAP and I'm without my main rig since last weekend.

[charged3800z24]

Go Dave... looks like a great board. I am not buying any 890FX boards yet...I want a x6 1090t first. I am looking forward to your testing, enjoy!!

[Daveburt714]

Wow thats a nice settup initialised! Could you run the Heaven Bench for me? (1900x1200 2x AA and 8x AF)

Lightman, I think you'll like this board man.
The bios is a little different, with lots of options but it's starting to grow on me, and it seems pretty darn stable considering it's a new platform...

FlanK3r, the Vcore seems to be fine and runs steady. Pretty sure it's just a quirk with CPU-z and the new chipset.
In fact the new BIOS cleared up what few problems I was noticing.

bingo13: It's not really a big deal, but after I flashed 0707 the "Core Unlocker" button on the mobo quit functioning on the 555.
It still works fine if I set it in bios though.

[FlanK3r]

dave: thx, maybe it will my next board...Its very hard for choose :-/. Ctross IV or Gigabyt UD5/7? Need some info about max OC with this 2 boards

[chris.y2k.r1]

dave: thx, maybe it will my next board...Its very hard for choose :-/. Ctross IV or Gigabyt UD5/7? Need some info about max OC with this 2 boards

+1

I have a dream machine build coming up and those are the boards I'm looking at. 1090T + 8GB DDR 2000 + 8x2TB Samsung F3s in 4x2TB RAID 01 Configs (Two 4TB Striped Mirrors). So I really need to go with the CH IV Extreme unless the UD has 8 SATA 3.0 Ports and is a better clocker... I'll probably wind up with the Asus. I'm going to need a monster PSU on this too because more than likely I will be putting in my 2 4850x2s until prices on the cards drop. tesselation does nothing for me and DirectX11 performance sucks compared to the visual bonuses.

[Leeghoofd]

Hate to burst ya bubble but 2000mhz might be not 100% warranted... think you need a good IMC to handle that... really thinking this Early sample is holding me back...

Currently fighting to get higher then 1966Mhz Pi32mb... (rams OC far better in the outer slots...)

[Daveburt714]

Alright That's it!!

I'm watching all you folks having so much fun with your new gear and here I am with this shiney new Mobo running old hand me down peripherals and Air cooled (ewww)...

I can't even do any decent comparisons cause all my good gear is in the main rig.
I was going to wait till the weekend and do it right, but I'm moving the board tonight!

Currently fighting to get higher then 1966Mhz Pi32mb... (rams OC far better in the outer slots...)

I've got some Mushkin (BBSE's) in the main rig, I'll try the outer slots first!

It may not be tonight, but at least I'll be able to compare some benchies to things I tested on the 790X-UD4P!

I'm off to tear things apart.

[bingo13]

Thanks Bingo, SF3D posted a link to it in another thread. Flashed it late last night but didn't have time to test it much.

Just one key to this BIOS, be sure to max NB and HT speeds in sync to keep the memory tables at optimum settings. Auto mode will cause them to drop below 2000 if HTT (bclk) exceeds 240 and a weird situation with lower bus speeds and high memory multis might get the two out of sync also. This is due to the current auto rule tables that are tuned for compatibility/stability.

The current AGESA code is stable for Thuban now so we will start to tighten up the tables and offer some additional performance tweaks in the near future. I will have another BIOS release next week (I hope) that will offer additional performance and enhance auto settings.

As a reminder, C1E/CnQ being enabled will slightly affect performance and to maximize drive performance, either operate in AHCI or RAID mode and be sure to use the proper 10.4 SB/AHCI/RAID driver set from ATI.

[Apokalipse]

Besides the two extra SATA ports, and the different PCI-E slot placement, does anyone know what difference there will be for the Crosshair IV Extreme?

[Daveburt714]

Just one key to this BIOS, be sure to max NB and HT speeds in sync to keep the memory tables at optimum settings. Auto mode will cause them to drop below 2000 if HTT (bclk) exceeds 240 and a weird situation with lower bus speeds and high memory multis might get the two out of sync also. This is due to the current auto rule tables that are tuned for compatibility/stability.

The current AGESA code is stable for Thuban now so we will start to tighten up the tables and offer some additional performance tweaks in the near future. I will have another BIOS release next week (I hope) that will offer additional performance and enhance auto settings.

As a reminder, C1E/CnQ being enabled will slightly affect performance and to maximize drive performance, either operate in AHCI or RAID mode and be sure to use the proper 10.4 SB/AHCI/RAID driver set from ATI.

Thanks bingo13, I catch alot of grief for it, but I always try to keep the IMC/HTLink matched (or at least close). If you come up with any decent beta BIOS be sure to shoot me a PM, I'll be more than willing to help you test it...

It's really late here, but I got all my gear moved over to the main rig.
It's not as pretty as some folks, but at least I'm runnning on the good stuff!

Heres a Pic:


I'm going to go to Microcenter this weekend to get some "Blood Red" coolant. I know it's just asthetics, but that green fluid just doesn't do my rig justice...

I'll get some legit comparisons between the 790X and 890FX on the same gear within the next few days too, not sure how much improvement I'll see, but I'm curious myself, and I'll share my results!