ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme Review

Overclockers.com · 11-08-10, 09:12 AM

ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme Review
by Jeremy Vaughan (hokiealumnus)

Quote:

A few months ago we looked at the Crosshair IV Formula, what was then ASUS' top of the line AMD motherboard. Now they've out-done themselves with the Crosshair IV Extreme. This one is definitely designed for extreme benchmarkers, so take it to extremes we did!.

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MattNo5ss · 11-08-10, 10:59 AM

Looks like the CIVE and CIVF are the way to go. Great job

QuietIce · 11-08-10, 12:12 PM

cold.nut · 11-08-10, 10:29 PM

yay! after all of the struggle with that damn pot you finally got the article pumped out.

great stuff jeremy!

glad it all worked out.

hokiealumnus · 11-08-10, 10:32 PM

Thanks for the compliments guys!

It took a while, but it ended up making it. Thanks for all your help cold.nut. Very, very sorry how that worked out.

Voidn · 11-10-10, 01:12 PM

Excellent review hookie. You made it on the front page of the bot too!

Not sure that cpu pot is tall enough, might need a bigger cup

.

hokiealumnus · 11-10-10, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voidn

Excellent review hookie. You made it on the front page of the bot too!

Thanks! I saw that and was flattered Massman put it up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voidn

Not sure that cpu pot is tall enough, might need a bigger cup

.

It's the one, the only...Giraffe Pot.

gallinka · 11-11-10, 12:31 AM

I appreciate the great review on this ASUS MB. This MB is definitely one I would have to take a hard look at. I am actually glad it came out now and not before I built a new computer. It has all the features I was looking for and a few more. The one caveat I have is the brand.
I abandoned ASUS in the pentium III days when I had a motherboard die on me at the end of it's warranty (it failed in warranty, but was the end of year, I could not find the invoice, I was not sure at the time if I had owned it a year, I HATE calling technical support). The motherboard used the notorious Intel 815 chipset and may have been more to blame than anything. However, AOpen offered a three year warranty at the time and I switched to them for a while.
If I was still in the market for a motherboard I would take a serious look a this one. The specs and added features alone are worth it (I may still have a working Abit NF7-S if I could check north bridge voltages via a test point). I have been eying another offering by ASUS, the AT3IONT-I (Deluxe version), and have to say that I think I will try ASUS again on my next purchase.

hokiealumnus · 11-11-10, 12:34 PM

Well, the Crosshair IV Extreme has a three year warranty, FWIW.

I so miss abit (used to be a mod at their forums), but ASUS has very much impressed me with the boards I've reviewed so far.

Dooms101 · 11-14-10, 10:10 PM

The Formula and Extreme boards are sooo cool. I don't understand why they all the sudden switched to black and red instead of the typical black, white, blue color scheme. I guess it's to match the ATI colors... I really wish we could have seen some game FPS results with an nvidia and ait card using that hydra chip. I wonder if that thing actually performs well. It'd be cool if it did and they started putting on them on lower end boards eventually. Didn't Gigabyte have a similar feature on a board not too long ago?

hokiealumnus · 11-14-10, 10:17 PM

MSI had them on the Big Bang Trinergy IIRC. This is the first one to my knowledge on an AMD chipset. There was a guy at XS that did a little Hydra testing; check out the thread here.

hokiealumnus · 11-29-10, 09:45 AM

Please note, this article has been updated from its original form with the changes below:

Regarding the Hydra chip, a note was added for clarification:

Author's Note: Please note for clarity, the Hydra chip offers "N mode" rather than "SLI". This is a good thing, in that you can combine different generations rather than being tied to identical cards as with SLI. So while you can run multiple NVIDIA cards, it is not "SLI".

The following paragraph had the bolded item added:

Not only are there two BIOSes to choose from, ASUS also gives you a BIOS Flashback option. You load a BIOS onto a USB thumb drive and push the ROG Connect button for two seconds and you've got a fresh-flashed BIOS chip. Even better, not only can you flash as easily as that, you can do it with no CPU, no memory and/or no graphics card; all you need is standby power. Nifty!

Regarding the RC Bluetooth option, this was added:

When not engaged for the overclocking tool, the Bluetooth module also allows normal Bluetooth connectivity to use for things like headphones, keyboards, mice, etc.

This was added in the power section:

Regarding the chokes, ASUS points out "The chokes used on the board are our new design which we have been using on our current ROG boards these offering significantly higher power performance which is important for sustained power delivery to the CPU when under load and extreme temperatures." By higher performance, they mean each choke has a 40 A current rating. This is quite a substantial increase over conventional chokes, which are rated for only 15 A. Photos of the parts side-by-side will help show what they look like (comparison photo.)

magisterco · 01-22-11, 04:22 AM

do you happen to know how to disable fan alert beep (internal speaker) on that motherboard?

I installed water blocks on my CPU and Mobo and ever since the mobo speaker constantly beeps from startup one solid continuous beep.

I tried disabling it from Bios and no luck, i think its because of the mobo fan.

just to make sure i plugged in my stock heatsink cpu fan to rule out the posibility it could be the cpu fan alert (maybe bugging out or something).

so i think its the NB fan being unplugged due to waterblock.

just to make sure, i went to hardware in bios and disabled fans so there wouldnt be any alerts.

please help me out if possible!

thanks

QuietIce · 01-22-11, 08:21 AM

There's an AMD board with a FAN on it?!?!?

hokiealumnus · 01-22-11, 09:13 AM

I'm sorry magisterco, I haven't tried. Typically it should be in hardware monitor / fans. You may be able to set the chipset fan to 'ignore'. That's what works on the CPU fan on a CIVF anyway (I use a controller and don't have a fan plugged into the header, so it beeps telling me that). I've only used the CIVE for sub-zero benching after the review, so I can't boot up to it now unfortunately. Try the hardware monitoring / fan ignore route and see if that gets you anywhere.

Yep QI, it actually has a NB fan on it!

gambz · 04-08-11, 03:12 AM

hi
i have a crosshair iii formula and a pair of sapphire 6870 and i really wanted to set up the eyefinity with 3d monitors, but i live in portugal and the 3d monitors for ati 3dhd must be well hidden

so, i was wondering if i can connect both 6870 and a nvidia gtx on this board. that way i could use both 6870 for processing and the nvidia gtx to 3dvision and physics.
is that possible with this mobo?

hokiealumnus · 04-08-11, 07:43 AM

Good morning. It's certainly possible to run the two cards together with the Crosshair IV Extreme (due to the Lucid Hydra chip).

Unfortunately all I can speak to is that the cards will work. Whether having the GTX + 6870s combination working in NVIDIA's 3DVision & Physics the way you want is a wild card. I don't know enough about Lucid's functionality to determine whether the 6870s would actually be able to assist with processing 3D.

Oh, and welcome to OCF!

gambz · 04-08-11, 02:01 PM

hum thats too bad

cause i just cant find any ati 3dhd monitors....
thanks anyways

hokiealumnus · 04-08-11, 02:04 PM

You could always sell your two cards and get a single GTX580.

gambz · 04-08-11, 02:07 PM

and that would be good enough? i mean, idk nvidia very well but that single card can handle 5760x1080 res plus the 3d engine?

11-08-10, 10:59 AM	#2
MattNo5ss b4n4n4 dr4g0n d00m3d m0d3r4t0r Overclockers.com Editor Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: AL	Looks like the CIVE and CIVF are the way to go. Great job __________________ i7 3770K \| Asus Maximus V Gene \| 4x2GB Dominator GT DDR3-1600 6-6-6-20 \| eVGA GTX670 SC \| 50GB OCZ Vertex 2 \| SeaSonic SS-1000XP i7 2700K \| Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 \| 4x2GB G.Skill Eco DDR3-1600 7-8-7-24 \| eVGA GTX680 \| 256GB OCZ Vertex 4 \| SeaSonic X750 E8700/E6750/P4 631 \| Rampage Extreme & EP45T-Extreme & Commando\| Whatever I Can Find Laying Around... O/C Author Profile \| HWBot Profile \| Heatware (89-0-0) \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ Projects: Copper-Framed, MDF Station \| PVC-Framed, MDF Station \| Custom Cascade Cart/Case \| Untitled TJ07 Build
	QUOTE Thanks

11-08-10, 12:12 PM	#3
QuietIce Disabled Join Date: May 2006 Location: Anywhere but there
	QUOTE Thanks

11-08-10, 10:29 PM	#4
cold.nut Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Utah	yay! after all of the struggle with that damn pot you finally got the article pumped out. great stuff jeremy! glad it all worked out.
	QUOTE Thanks

11-08-10, 10:32 PM	#5
hokiealumnus Water Cooled Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC	Thanks for the compliments guys! It took a while, but it ended up making it. Thanks for all your help cold.nut. Very, very sorry how that worked out. __________________ Enjoy benchmarks? Join the benching team! \| New to water cooling? Read the Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC. xsuperbgx - "As a wise man once said: "Less talky. More clocky."" \| cyberfish - "When overclocked, it's undefined behavior." I.M.O.G. - "Vaseline on Ivy Bridge is a bad idea. But not so bad of an idea that it can't be fixed with a torpedo heater, a dishwasher, an oven, and a few hours. " \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ - Join Now! - My mITX Build
	QUOTE Thanks

11-10-10, 01:12 PM	#6
Voidn Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Crap Town USA	Excellent review hookie. You made it on the front page of the bot too! Not sure that cpu pot is tall enough, might need a bigger cup . __________________ .........................__ .....__..___.___.____.._..._...... .Celeron.356.@6324MHz....\ \\.../ /// _ \_ _\| ._ \\| \\\| \|\.... .Core.2.E8500.@5796MHz....\ \\./ //\| \| \| \| \|\| \| \| \| .\\| \|\|.... .Core.i7.980x.@5650MHZ.....\ \/ //.\| \|_\| \| \|\| \|_\| \| \|\. \|\|.... .Core.i7.2600k.@5557MHZ.....\ .//...\___/___\|____/\| \|\|\ \|\|.... .Core.i7.920.HT.@5153MHz.....\//..................\|_\|\| \\|\|.... Folding For Team 32 Benching for OCF / overclockers.com
	QUOTE Thanks

ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme Review

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11-11-10, 12:31 AM	#8
gallinka New Member Join Date: Nov 2010	Great review, good looking board, brand lacking... I appreciate the great review on this ASUS MB. This MB is definitely one I would have to take a hard look at. I am actually glad it came out now and not before I built a new computer. It has all the features I was looking for and a few more. The one caveat I have is the brand. I abandoned ASUS in the pentium III days when I had a motherboard die on me at the end of it's warranty (it failed in warranty, but was the end of year, I could not find the invoice, I was not sure at the time if I had owned it a year, I HATE calling technical support). The motherboard used the notorious Intel 815 chipset and may have been more to blame than anything. However, AOpen offered a three year warranty at the time and I switched to them for a while. If I was still in the market for a motherboard I would take a serious look a this one. The specs and added features alone are worth it (I may still have a working Abit NF7-S if I could check north bridge voltages via a test point). I have been eying another offering by ASUS, the AT3IONT-I (Deluxe version), and have to say that I think I will try ASUS again on my next purchase.
	QUOTE Thanks

11-11-10, 12:34 PM	#9
hokiealumnus Water Cooled Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC	Well, the Crosshair IV Extreme has a three year warranty, FWIW. I so miss abit (used to be a mod at their forums), but ASUS has very much impressed me with the boards I've reviewed so far. __________________ Enjoy benchmarks? Join the benching team! \| New to water cooling? Read the Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC. xsuperbgx - "As a wise man once said: "Less talky. More clocky."" \| cyberfish - "When overclocked, it's undefined behavior." I.M.O.G. - "Vaseline on Ivy Bridge is a bad idea. But not so bad of an idea that it can't be fixed with a torpedo heater, a dishwasher, an oven, and a few hours. " \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ - Join Now! - My mITX Build
	QUOTE Thanks

11-14-10, 10:10 PM	#10
Dooms101 Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: under a heatsink	The Formula and Extreme boards are sooo cool. I don't understand why they all the sudden switched to black and red instead of the typical black, white, blue color scheme. I guess it's to match the ATI colors... I really wish we could have seen some game FPS results with an nvidia and ait card using that hydra chip. I wonder if that thing actually performs well. It'd be cool if it did and they started putting on them on lower end boards eventually. Didn't Gigabyte have a similar feature on a board not too long ago? __________________ [Dell Latitude E6420]............................[i5-2450M 2.5Ghz, 8GB DDR3, 500GB] Area51 Case Mod - ODD Window Mod - Dolk's Phenom II Guide - NZXT Phantom Triple Rad
	QUOTE Thanks

11-14-10, 10:17 PM	#11
hokiealumnus Water Cooled Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC	MSI had them on the Big Bang Trinergy IIRC. This is the first one to my knowledge on an AMD chipset. There was a guy at XS that did a little Hydra testing; check out the thread here. __________________ Enjoy benchmarks? Join the benching team! \| New to water cooling? Read the Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC. xsuperbgx - "As a wise man once said: "Less talky. More clocky."" \| cyberfish - "When overclocked, it's undefined behavior." I.M.O.G. - "Vaseline on Ivy Bridge is a bad idea. But not so bad of an idea that it can't be fixed with a torpedo heater, a dishwasher, an oven, and a few hours. " \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ - Join Now! - My mITX Build
	QUOTE Thanks

11-29-10, 09:45 AM	#12
hokiealumnus Water Cooled Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC	Article Update 11/29/10 Please note, this article has been updated from its original form with the changes below: Regarding the Hydra chip, a note was added for clarification: Author's Note: Please note for clarity, the Hydra chip offers "N mode" rather than "SLI". This is a good thing, in that you can combine different generations rather than being tied to identical cards as with SLI. So while you can run multiple NVIDIA cards, it is not "SLI". The following paragraph had the bolded item added: Not only are there two BIOSes to choose from, ASUS also gives you a BIOS Flashback option. You load a BIOS onto a USB thumb drive and push the ROG Connect button for two seconds and you've got a fresh-flashed BIOS chip. Even better, not only can you flash as easily as that, you can do it with no CPU, no memory and/or no graphics card; all you need is standby power. Nifty! Regarding the RC Bluetooth option, this was added: When not engaged for the overclocking tool, the Bluetooth module also allows normal Bluetooth connectivity to use for things like headphones, keyboards, mice, etc. This was added in the power section: Regarding the chokes, ASUS points out "The chokes used on the board are our new design which we have been using on our current ROG boards these offering significantly higher power performance which is important for sustained power delivery to the CPU when under load and extreme temperatures." By higher performance, they mean each choke has a 40 A current rating. This is quite a substantial increase over conventional chokes, which are rated for only 15 A. Photos of the parts side-by-side will help show what they look like (comparison photo.) __________________ Enjoy benchmarks? Join the benching team! \| New to water cooling? Read the Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC. xsuperbgx - "As a wise man once said: "Less talky. More clocky."" \| cyberfish - "When overclocked, it's undefined behavior." I.M.O.G. - "Vaseline on Ivy Bridge is a bad idea. But not so bad of an idea that it can't be fixed with a torpedo heater, a dishwasher, an oven, and a few hours. " \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ - Join Now! - My mITX Build
	QUOTE Thanks

01-22-11, 04:22 AM	#13
magisterco New Member Join Date: Jan 2011	north bridge fan alert? =/ do you happen to know how to disable fan alert beep (internal speaker) on that motherboard? I installed water blocks on my CPU and Mobo and ever since the mobo speaker constantly beeps from startup one solid continuous beep. I tried disabling it from Bios and no luck, i think its because of the mobo fan. just to make sure i plugged in my stock heatsink cpu fan to rule out the posibility it could be the cpu fan alert (maybe bugging out or something). so i think its the NB fan being unplugged due to waterblock. just to make sure, i went to hardware in bios and disabled fans so there wouldnt be any alerts. please help me out if possible! thanks
	QUOTE Thanks

01-22-11, 08:21 AM	#14
QuietIce Disabled Join Date: May 2006 Location: Anywhere but there	There's an AMD board with a FAN on it?!?!?
	QUOTE Thanks

01-22-11, 09:13 AM	#15
hokiealumnus Water Cooled Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC	I'm sorry magisterco, I haven't tried. Typically it should be in hardware monitor / fans. You may be able to set the chipset fan to 'ignore'. That's what works on the CPU fan on a CIVF anyway (I use a controller and don't have a fan plugged into the header, so it beeps telling me that). I've only used the CIVE for sub-zero benching after the review, so I can't boot up to it now unfortunately. Try the hardware monitoring / fan ignore route and see if that gets you anywhere. Yep QI, it actually has a NB fan on it! __________________ Enjoy benchmarks? Join the benching team! \| New to water cooling? Read the Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC. xsuperbgx - "As a wise man once said: "Less talky. More clocky."" \| cyberfish - "When overclocked, it's undefined behavior." I.M.O.G. - "Vaseline on Ivy Bridge is a bad idea. But not so bad of an idea that it can't be fixed with a torpedo heater, a dishwasher, an oven, and a few hours. " \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ - Join Now! - My mITX Build
	QUOTE Thanks

04-08-11, 03:12 AM	#16
gambz Registered Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Portugal	3d vision vs 3dhd hi i have a crosshair iii formula and a pair of sapphire 6870 and i really wanted to set up the eyefinity with 3d monitors, but i live in portugal and the 3d monitors for ati 3dhd must be well hidden so, i was wondering if i can connect both 6870 and a nvidia gtx on this board. that way i could use both 6870 for processing and the nvidia gtx to 3dvision and physics. is that possible with this mobo?
	QUOTE Thanks

04-08-11, 07:43 AM	#17
hokiealumnus Water Cooled Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC	Good morning. It's certainly possible to run the two cards together with the Crosshair IV Extreme (due to the Lucid Hydra chip). Unfortunately all I can speak to is that the cards will work. Whether having the GTX + 6870s combination working in NVIDIA's 3DVision & Physics the way you want is a wild card. I don't know enough about Lucid's functionality to determine whether the 6870s would actually be able to assist with processing 3D. Oh, and welcome to OCF! __________________ Enjoy benchmarks? Join the benching team! \| New to water cooling? Read the Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC. xsuperbgx - "As a wise man once said: "Less talky. More clocky."" \| cyberfish - "When overclocked, it's undefined behavior." I.M.O.G. - "Vaseline on Ivy Bridge is a bad idea. But not so bad of an idea that it can't be fixed with a torpedo heater, a dishwasher, an oven, and a few hours. " \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ - Join Now! - My mITX Build
	QUOTE Thanks

04-08-11, 02:01 PM	#18
gambz Registered Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Portugal	hum thats too bad cause i just cant find any ati 3dhd monitors.... thanks anyways
	QUOTE Thanks

04-08-11, 02:04 PM	#19
hokiealumnus Water Cooled Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC	You could always sell your two cards and get a single GTX580. __________________ Enjoy benchmarks? Join the benching team! \| New to water cooling? Read the Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC. xsuperbgx - "As a wise man once said: "Less talky. More clocky."" \| cyberfish - "When overclocked, it's undefined behavior." I.M.O.G. - "Vaseline on Ivy Bridge is a bad idea. But not so bad of an idea that it can't be fixed with a torpedo heater, a dishwasher, an oven, and a few hours. " \m/ OverClockers mATX L33T Club \m/ - Join Now! - My mITX Build
	QUOTE Thanks

04-08-11, 02:07 PM	#20
gambz Registered Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Portugal	and that would be good enough? i mean, idk nvidia very well but that single card can handle 5760x1080 res plus the 3d engine?
	QUOTE Thanks

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