ASUS Crosshair II Formula

[AMD_Freak]

For all those waiting like me the new ASUS Crosshair II Formula is starting to be listed in the USA at places like the Egg sure cant wait until payday to pick one of these up.

[Grey.Fox]

sweet!! bout time. now to time to wait for stimulus check

[jimmyz]

Also available at Motherboardpro. http://www.motherboardpro.com/ASUS-C...ail-p-646.html

cheaper too!

[aGeoM]

Hi guys

Well mine was to arrive yesterday, but the delivery company send it to a wrong address, I hope, after some calls, thats been resolved, expect delivery for Friday.
Been out of luck lately, let's see what happens next ...

[Rammsteiner]

I'd really love that get that board. But I want Crossfire, so that's a no go sadly. I really dislike the nVidia drivers. Only reason why I dont pick up an nVidia card anymore. They do perform quite nice, but the drivers.

Ill wait for 790GX/SB750 boards, if they're ever coming out.

[dr_drache]

whats wrong with the drivers?
i have both ATI/Nvidia cards, and it seems the ATI drivers are the more horrid (in terms of speed/and bloat they install)

[aGeoM]

I'd really love that get that board. But I want Crossfire, so that's a no go sadly. I really dislike the nVidia drivers. Only reason why I dont pick up an nVidia card anymore. They do perform quite nice, but the drivers.

Ill wait for 790GX/SB750 boards, if they're ever coming out.

I also have 2 3870 my self, to be more accurate ATM only 1, I swaped one with my oldest son for 2 8600GT just to play around with the Hybrid SLI/SLI, you can have Crossfire if you sell yours and buy an 3870 X2.

Untill 790GX/SB750 release, I will be testing this Crosshair board, and that will give some time to decide witch one I will sell, DFI790FX or ASUS CrosshairII.

Has been a long week, and we still are in the middle of it...

Techpowerup have some links to Crosshair II reviews, seams M3N-HT is a good choice also.

Here they are: ASUS Crosshair II Formula @ Elite Bastards – NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI Motherboard Round-Up @ HotHardware - Asus M3N-HT Deluxe @ APH Networks

[Rammsteiner]

I dont like the interface, as how to get into the drivers, change settings etc.

[AMD_Freak]

Nvidia drivers are no where as bad as ATI IMO(for gaming) I have ATI now and really would like to support the underdog AMD 100% (before you flame me Ive been a hard core AMD_Freak since the days when a Pentium 90 was the CPU to have) ATI needs to step it up a little more when it comes to Drivers & updating as far as Nvidia I found out long ago that the best drivers are Omega drivers (google) they support both ATI & Nvidia or did the last iI checked and are tweaked for gaming and DvD play .

aGEOm , you will have to keep us posted on your findings on the New board
Im really looking forward to playing with it myself. Hoping by next friday Ill have mine, and have everything thats sitting in boxes put in the New case I have here waiting.

[Rammsteiner]

Nvidia drivers are no where as bad as ATI IMO(for gaming) I have ATI now and really would like to support the underdog AMD 100% (before you flame me Ive been a hard core AMD_Freak since the days when a Pentium 90 was the CPU to have) ATI needs to step it up a little more when it comes to Drivers & updating as far as Nvidia I found out long ago that the best drivers are Omega drivers (google) they support both ATI & Nvidia or did the last iI checked and are tweaked for gaming and DvD play.

Dont be afraid for flaming, Im not like that. I respect people for their choice of hardware. In the end this is an AMD CPU subforum, so nobody should lame the other over GPU's at all anyway.

Im considering to give nVidia eventually a try again, it was back in the days of the 7900GTX I think (or GT, cant remember). It was 500Euro's so at least one of the top GPU's at that time.

Maybe things improved some from there on. But then I get on the next issue, Ive no clue anymore when nVidia is going to release what card. The current 9800GTX/9800GX2 are roughly almost the same as the 8800 series.

Also there's a lack of support for DX10.1, although Im not running Vista so on the other hand this shouldn't be an issue. But with the new 4870 cards almost being released Ill wait, Ive exams pretty soon as well. If I would buy new hardware right now I can predict my concentration for school would be sub zero

[MusicIsMyLife]

I have a Crosshair II since end of march and I´m happy with this board.

For my review I tested alot of things and I couldn´t find real bugs.

But one thing is worth to be mentioned: I got some beta bios from ASUS and with these versions (0602 and 0604) I can´t run with 4 dimms. 2 sticks in slot 2 and 4 is fine but with 4 sticks I always get a blank screen. Using bios 0502 (first release I think) there was no problem using 4 sticks.

[aGeoM]

I have a Crosshair II since end of march and I´m happy with this board.

For my review I tested alot of things and I couldn´t find real bugs.

But one thing is worth to be mentioned: I got some beta bios from ASUS and with these versions (0602 and 0604) I can´t run with 4 dimms. 2 sticks in slot 2 and 4 is fine but with 4 sticks I always get a blank screen. Using bios 0502 (first release I think) there was no problem using 4 sticks.

Hi

Very good review, extensive but an excellent work , just one note:

As one can see, ASUS is on a AMI BIOS.

The bios I downloaded from ASUS is AWARD:

[MusicIsMyLife]

Hi

Very good review, extensive but an excellent work ,

Thank you very much.

just one note:

The bios I downloaded from ASUS is AWARD:

Oh. Sorry, my fault. I thought it is an ami bios.

Thanks for this info.

[AMD_Freak]

Nice Review MusicIsMyLife lots of detail

[Wiggy McShades]

so i just got this board, does anyone know what the VDDA voltage does? also this is a very odd board there seems to be 2 sets of options for the same voltages for the cpu its very odd. Another thing if anyone is buying this board my nb core voltage is over volted by about 0.05v.

[aGeoM]

so i just got this board, does anyone know what the VDDA voltage does? also this is a very odd board there seems to be 2 sets of options for the same voltages for the cpu its very odd. Another thing if anyone is buying this board my nb core voltage is over volted by about 0.05v.

Hi

Mine arrived yesterday, I'm also try to get comfortable with bios settings, for now I'm running all default except memory timings, all sub-timings are at default. ATM I'm preparing the system to format, since this system had NF4, NF5 and NF7, so things are a little messy , as soon as I got it right, I'll post some feedback.

[aGeoM]

Wiggy McShades

I'm using bios 0502, when I change CPU Voltage, the system boots at 5.5x and 1.05v, did you notice that?

[Wiggy McShades]

Wiggy McShades

I'm using bios 0502, when I change CPU Voltage, the system boots at 5.5x and 1.05v, did you notice that?

yup that happened to me too. i had another odd event, i cant tie it down to one setting but sometimes after changing any setting my cpu-nb voltage will read 1.8v in bios. i don't think it can really be that high or else the cpu would probably be dead. this will happen even when the cpu-nb voltage is set to 1.25v or any other voltage under the sun.

[aGeoM]

BTW if I only change CPU-NB Voltage happens the same thing multi at 5.5.

VDDNB Voltage like this one?

[Wiggy McShades]

BTW if I only change CPU-NB Voltage happens the same thing multi at 5.5.

VDDNB Voltage like this one?

yeah that voltage in that SS goes all the way up to 1.8v randomly for no real reason. thats the cpu nb voltage right?


edit: according to slide 8 on http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r5/denver/ss...08_Searles.pdf from amd it looks like VDDNB is the nb+L3 voltage as i thought, but why on earth is it shooting up that high?

edit: also in those slides it looks like VDDA is the voltage for the PLL's

[aGeoM]

yeah that voltage in that SS goes all the way up to 1.8v randomly for no real reason. thats the cpu nb voltage right?


edit: according to slide 8 on http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r5/denver/ss...08_Searles.pdf from amd it looks like VDDNB is the nb+L3 voltage as i thought, but why on earth is it shooting up that high?

edit: also in those slides it looks like VDDA is the voltage for the PLL's

Thank you very much for the link.
Some guy at ASUS forum normalized the VDDNB by setting it manually to +100mV.
Mine is normal after a CLRCMOS, ~1.28v, all settings at default.

[AMD_Freak]

anyone done any OCing yet curious how well it will OC

[aGeoM]

anyone done any OCing yet curious how well it will OC

Vista x64 SP1(See this Brother Esau )

[Rammsteiner]

Vista x64 SP1(See this Brother Esau )

WTF, very nice! How high could it do before?

[Oldguy932]

Is the voltage correct in cpu-z. My 9500 only did 2.82ghz at 1.3v before needing bumps in voltage, but that was before I figured out that it really helps stability to kep vcore and vnb the same or with 2 settings of each other. And that's x64... which would be around at least 3.05ghz+ in x86 windows. Maybe the board really is all that.