Yeah I was hoping for something similar, left most of the testing and analysis till this CPU since it allows eradicating external clocks form influencing any performance, but it's just a no go situation here. You really can't do jack (sorry, not you Jack ) if it fails bootup or reboots at max>min volt/vid settings.

ASUS' board is pretty good from what I've heard, came out late around here, hasn't achieved a higher HT ref./oc than Gigabyte 790FX boards that I've seen but has good stability all round, and IIRC it allows you the option to change CPU NB volts through the BIOS, which is a very good addition if the CPU is limited by IMC volts for higher oc. Although many reviewers used the ASUS board (for whatever reason, I'm unaware) I'm no fan of ASUS motherboards, pricing and support, apart from one or two Intel and older AM2 boards they have in every chipset lineup.

I've not tried the ASUS board. Was willing to try it straight after this board and this BIOS I'm testing had this CPU not funnelled out sub 2.5GHz. There's just no point me doing anything with it if it can't consistently, repeatedly bench >2.5GHz.