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[O/C]ASUS Crosshair IV Formula Review

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ASUS Crosshair IV Formula Review
by Jeremy Vaughan (hokiealumnus)
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The Crosshair IV Formula is ASUS' top of the line AMD motherboard. Housing the 890FX northbridge and SB850 southbridge, it should be a current-generation powerhouse. So sit back, relax and let's sink our teeth into this beast.

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Nice review! I'll say one thing, that board is visually very appealing. "Purdy!"
 
Thanks guys!

The red thing is why I photographed the system with my 4890 (plus it's what I used for installing Windows & such). The RAM in there is red and black as well (G.Skill Tridents), but they faced the wrong way when installed in the sockets, so all you see is black. windwithme's is definitely great looking!
 
Update to the Review - 9/23/10

ASUS was kind enough to offer input on the review. Due to some email issues they came a bit late, but better late than never. Accuracy and thoroughness is key, so the article has been updated as follows:

In the motherboard tour, this section:
Moving our attention to the bottom of the board, you can see the on-board power / reset buttons as well as the ASUS core unlocker and turbo key. The core unlocker does just that – on AMD chips that have extra cores disabled, you can use this to see if they can be unlocked. Your mileage may vary because only some CPUs can be unlocked. It’s a nice feature to have, but it may as well have been a BIOS setting rather than adding a button. I’d rather have an extra clear CMOS button in its stead.
has been replaced with:
Moving our attention to the bottom of the board, you can see the on-board power / reset buttons as well as the ASUS core unlocker and turbo key. The core unlocker does just that. Controlled by the TurboV EVO Hardware IC, this one is the easiest to use . It's fully automated and will unlock your CPU if it detects cores / cache that can be unlocked.

The second, potentially more useful (but more input required) method is via BIOS core unlocking. This one isn't as automated as just pressing the button. You must set the number of cores you want to unlock as well as adjust any voltage needed to compensate for stability. Your mileage may vary because only some CPUs can be unlocked.

The Core Unlocker button is a nice feature to have, but it may as well have remained solely a BIOS setting rather than adding a button. I'd rather have an extra clear CMOS button in its stead.
This was added in the section about the "Go Button":
Before POST, the "Go Button" also functions as the "Mem Ok" Button. This is quite a nifty feature, especially for overclockers on the extreme end. If you hit it before the POST begins but after a bad overlock, it will automatically loosen the timings, drop the frequency or adjust the voltage on your memory. Or do a combination of two or all three of those things.

The big benefit for extreme overclockers is that this does not require a full CMOS reset. When it lets you into BIOS, you will be greeted with the same settings you had before the overclock failed, so your base settings are still there and ready to rock; you just have to back off on your memory overclock. The less time you're in BIOS with liquid nitrogen, dry ice or even liquid helium since this is an AMD board, the better. You want that CPU doing work, not sitting idle, waiting for condensation to rear its ugly head.
Added in the section talking about ProbeIt:
To the left of the ProbeIt read points are the QLED indicators. QLED is sort-of like a POST code indicator. The benefit is you don't have to look up or remember POST codes. These will light up if there are problems booting due to the CPU, DRAM, VGA or BOOT DEVICE. It's a nice feature to have for easily seeing what's wrong, but I'd still like to have a POST code indicator, if not instead of this feature, at least in addition to it.
 
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