With the Crosshair V Formula-Z, ASUS has expanded their profolio for high-end AMD motherboards by a new flagship model. This board features AMD's 990FX Chipset and AMD's SB950 southbridge. Using this board one should not only be able to squeeze the maximum out of an AMD CPU and thanks to the SB950 southbridge, there are no less then six SATA III ports. 
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The Crosshair V Formula-Z is ASUS' most recent high end motherboard regarding AMDs 990FX chipset. Therefore we're very curious what this thing is capable of from a layout, design and performance perspective.
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Specifications / Delivery
| CPU | AMD AM3+ FX/Phenom II/Athlon II/Sempron 100 Series Processors |
| Chipset | AMD 990FX/SB950 |
| Memory | Dual Channel DDR3, 4 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB DDR3 2400 (OC) / 2133 (OC) / 2000 (OC) / 1800 (OC) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz |
| Multi-GPU | Supports NVIDIA 3-Way SLI Technology Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX Technology |
| Slots | 3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (dual x16 or x16, x8, x8) 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode) 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 1 x PCI |
| Audio | SupremeFX X-Fi2 8 Channel |
| Storage | AMD SB950 Controller 6 x SATA 6Gb/s port (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10) ASMedia ASM1061 Controller 2 x SATA 6Gb/s port 2 x eSATA 6Gb/s port |
| I/O internal / Connectors | 1 x USB 3.0 connectors support additional 2 USB 3.0 ports 2 x USB 2.0 connectors support additional 4 USB 2.0 ports 1 x TPM connector 8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 2 x CPU Fan connectors 3 x Chassis Fan connectors 3 x Optional Fan connectors 1 x S/PDIF out header 1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector 1 x Front panel audio connector (AAFP) 1 x System panel 1 x DirectKey Button 1 x DRCT header 8 x ProbeIt Measurement Points 3 x Thermal sensor connectors 1 x EZ Plug connector(s) (4-pin Molex power connector) 1 x Power-on button 1 x Reset button 1 x Go Button |
| I/O external | 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port 2 x eSATA 6 Gbps 1 x LAN (RJ45) port 4 x USB 3.0 8 x USB 2.0 (one port can be switched to ROG Connect) 1 x Optical S/PDIF out 6 x Audio jack(s) 1 x Clear CMOS button 1 x ROG Connect On/Off switch |
| Formfactor | ATX (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm) |
| BIOS | 64Mb Flash ROM, EFI AMI BIOS GUI |
| Warranty | 3 years |
Regarding the delivery you really find everything you need. Next to the manual there is a SLI bridge, a triple SLI bridge, a CrossFire Bridge, six SATA cables, a Q-connector, an I/O shield, the USB ROG Connect cable as well as other goodie can be found in the box.
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Features
| ASUS Update | Allows you to check and update the latest available BIOS directly from ASUS website. |  |
| ASUS FAN Xpert | FAN Xpert allows you to adjust both the CPU and chassis fan speeds according to different ambient temperatures and your PC's system loading. The various fan profiles affer flexible controls of fan speed to achieve a quiet and cool system environment. |  |
| ASUS MyLogo | Allow you to change the POST Logo at system startup with any pic you want. |  |
| ASUS TurboV EVO | Allows you to overclock the bus frequency, CPU voltage, IMC voltage and DRAM Bus voltage in Windows and takes effect in realtime without exiting and rebooting the OS. | |
| ASUS DIGI+ II VRM | ASUS is well known for their digital power designs. These day the manufacturer equips their motherboards with the Digi+ II VRM, which is able to handel extremely high loads. Using the the right software, in this case ASUS DIGI+ VRM Utility it is not only possible to adjust voltages whilst being in Windows on can now also control impedances. |
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Layout
The Crosshair V Formula-Z comes with the typical ROG color scheme which is based on black and red. In this case the PCB comes with a black coating and also the northbridge, southbridge and current converter cooling blocks are black. Red are the PCI-Express x16 slots, two DIMM slots as well as all the SATA ports. It seems like everything that symbolizes speed has been kept in red. Everything together ends up in a very nice and homogenous design which you might have been expecting already from an ROG-series motherboard.
ASUS provided their latest Crosshair V Formula-Z motherboard with a digital power design, whereas the CPU gets eight phases and the memory gets two phases. Looking at the capacitors themselves you'll find high quality caps around the CPU socket. These multilayer polymer capacitors offer advantages over other caps. Therefore super ML caps remain stable under regular as well as AC voltage, doesn't have an aging mechanism and are resilient under thermal shock.
Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z. Officially supported are DDR3 2400 (OC) / 2133 (OC) / 2000 (OC) / 1800 (OC) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz with up to 32 GByte capacity. There is plenty of space to install even big aircoolers and they shouldn't interfere with memory.
The current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. The southbridge got a passive cooling block which has not been integrated into the heatpipe loop of northbridge and VRM. The fact that the cooling blocks around the CPU socket aren't too big makes it comfortable to install a big aircooler. We also noticed the very high manufacturing quality of the cooling blocks and their weight which is quite immense.
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Connectors and I/O
Totally ASUS equipped the Crosshair V Formula-Z with eight angled SATA-III connectors which should be enough for any office PC or gaming system. You also find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons as well as a debug display which is very useful if you should ever have issues with one of the components in your system. A closer look at the last expansion slot reveals that it is a physical PCI-Express x16 slot that is electrically a 8x but only working at x4 speed. Although one could install a dual slot graphics card in this slot we would recommend to not do so and only install single slot expansion cards.
Totally you'll find eight fan headers on the ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z which is more than enough, to provide a well equipped midrange or even a high-end-system with fresh air. The fanheaders are located around the CPU and their also spread over the whole board which makes them easily accessible from any position in an enclosure.
Looking at the externl connectors directly at the back-panel ASUS equipped the Crosshair V Formula-Z with four USB 3.0/2.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA 6 Gbps ports, one gigabit ethernet port, an analogue audio panel as well as an optical out and a Clear CMOS buton.
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BIOS
What you're meanwhile getting with every single board that can be use for overclocking is the feature to save and afterwards reload different BIOS profiles. Once again ASUS succeeded in creating another very well structured BIOS. Furthermore all the new ASUS boards come with a graphical UEFI-BIOS which allows a navigation via mouse. These day one can undoubtedly say that ASUS is setting the standard when it comes to BIOSes which can be configured easily. Other manufacturers can only try to catch up at the moment.
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Test Setup
Hardware |
|
| Motherboards |
|
| Processor
Cooling
System Thermal compound |
AMD Phenom II 1090T BE Noctua NH-D14 Artic Silver Ceramique |
| Memory | 4 GB Mushkin Redline PC3-12800
6-8-6-24 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 (Default) |
| Graphic card | nVidia GTX 285 |
| Hard Disk | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500 Gigabyte |
| Power supply | Corsair HX850 (850 Watt) |
Benchmarks:
- 3DMark06: Default settings
- 3DMark Vantage: Default settings
- SiSoft Sandra: Sandra Lite 2011a (17.20) Default settings
- SuperPi: 1M and 32M
- WPrime: 32M and 1024M
Crysis (Benchmark CPU and GPU) |
|
| Quality | Low |
| Resolution | 800x600 |
| Demo Loop | 3 |
| Time of Delay | 9 |
| DX9 | Enable |
Street Fighter IV |
|
| Display FPS | Disable |
| AntiAliasing | Without |
| Resolution | 800x600 |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| V-Sync | Disable |
| Frame Rate | Variable |
| Aspect Correction | Auto |
| Brightness | 50 |
| Parallel Rendering | Enable |
| Texture Filter | Disable |
| Model Quality | Low |
| Background Quality | Low |
| Soft Shadows | Disable |
| Self Shadows | Disable |
| Motion Blur | Disable |
| Particles | Low |
| Extra Touch | Disable |
Resident Evil 5 |
|
| Resolution | 800 x 600 |
| Display Mode | Full Screen |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| V-Sync | Disable |
| Frame Rate | Variable |
| AntiAliasing | Without |
| Motion Blur | Disable |
| Shadow Detail | Low |
| Texture Detail | Low |
| Overall Quality | Low |
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Futuremark
3DMark06
3DMark 06 is getting older these days. Therefore if you are using really powerful graphic cards you will hit CPU limitation which means that the graphic card isn't the bottleneck in the system. This is also the reason why in recent high-end desktop systems 3DMark 06 scales nicely with the CPU and the graphic card has much less influence on the scores.
Total
| 3DMark 06 Total | Marks | Percent |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 17'542 | 102.25 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 17'490 | 101.95 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 17'471 | 101.83 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 17'421 | 101.54 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 17'267 | 100.65 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 17'262 | 100.62 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 17'256 | 100.58 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 17'164 | 100.05 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 17'156 | 100.00 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 17'053 | 99.40 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 17'054 | 99.40 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 16'866 | 98.31 % |
| Higher is better | ||
CPU
| 3DMark 06 CPU | Marks | Percent |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 5'839 | 103.11 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 5'835 | 103.04 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 5'803 | 102.47 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 5'802 | 102.45 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 5'792 | 102.28 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 5'781 | 102.08 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 5'746 | 101.46 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 5'693 | 100.81 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 5'663 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 5'663 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 5'657 | 99.89 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 5'647 | 99.71 % |
| Higher is better | ||
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is able to squeeze nearly everything out of a recent system. Therefore the feature liste is also pretty long: DirectX10, FP16-HDR, motion blur, parallax occlusion mapping, GPU-physics simulation and different shader effects are being used to even make recent high-end systems struggle.
Total
| 3DMark Vantage Total | Marks | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 13'009 | 100.69 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 12'960 | 100.31 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 12'979 | 100.46 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 12'969 | 100.38 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 12'945 | 100.19 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 12'924 | 100.03 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 12'920 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 12'884 | 99.72 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 12'862 | 99.55 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 12'857 | 99.51 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12'792 | 99.01 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 12'760 | 98.76 % |
| Higher is better | ||
CPU
| 3DMark Vantage CPU | Marks | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 16'747 | 103.21 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 16'724 | 103.07 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 16'657 | 102.66 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 16'550 | 102.00 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 16'643 | 102.57 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 16'592 | 102.26 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 16'543 | 101.95 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 16'527 | 101.86 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 16'390 | 101.01 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 16'286 | 100.37 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 16'226 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 16'194 | 99.80 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
SiSoft Sandra 1
SiSoft Sandra is a theoretical multi purpose benchmark suite which is able to show differences in CPU architectures. We split the tests with SiSoft Sandra into two parts. Therefore on this page you'll find Arithmetic-, Multimedia- and Cryptography-benchmarks.
Arithmetic Benchmark
| Dhrystone | GIPS | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 76.17 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 75.15 | 98.56 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 75.00 | 98.46 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 74.56 | 97.88 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 74.49 | 97.79 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 74.08 | 97.25 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 72.47 | 95.14 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 70.58 | 92.66 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 68.99 | 90.57 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 65.33 | 85.77 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 65.30 | 85.73 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 63.00 | 82.71 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| Whetstone | GFLOPS | Percent |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 56.63 | 101.51 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 56.59 | 101.43 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 56.00 | 100.38 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 56.00 | 100.38 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 55.86 | 100.12 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 55.79 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 55.76 | 99.94 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 55.74 | 99.91 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 55.62 | 99.70 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 55.56 | 99.59 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 55.50 | 99.48 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 55.35 | 99.57 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Multimedia
| Integer | MPixels/sec | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 83.39 | 100.23 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 83.36 | 100.19 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 83.33 | 100.15 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 83.30 | 100.12 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 83.20 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 83.20 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 83.19 | 99.99 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 83.14 | 99.93 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 83.10 | 99.88 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 83.00 | 99.76 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 83.00 | 99.76 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 82.86 | 99.59 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| floating point | MPixels/sec | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 137.24 | 101.24 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 137.19 | 101.20 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 136.19 | 100.46 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 136.16 | 100.44 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 136.00 | 100.32 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 135.86 | 100.22 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 135.80 | 100.18 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 135.70 | 100.10 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 135.56 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 135.38 | 99.87 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 135.35 | 99.84 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 135.34 | 99.84 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Crytography
| AES 256 | MByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 980 | 101.03 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 979 | 100.93 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 978 | 100.82 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 977 | 100.72 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 977 | 100.72 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 976 | 100.62 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 976 | 100.62 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 974 | 100.41 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 974 | 100.41 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 971 | 100.10 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 971 | 100.10 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 970 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| SHA 256 | MByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 899 | 103.21 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 890 | 102.18 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 883 | 101.38 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 882 | 101.26 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 882 | 101.26 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 881 | 101.15 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 880 | 101.03 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 879 | 100.92 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 878 | 100.80 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 878 | 100.80 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 878 | 100.80 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 871 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
SiSoft Sandra 2
At this point we deliver the values regarding Memory Bandwidth, Memory Latency as well as Memory and Cache Access.
Memory bandwidth
| Integer | GByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 14.29 | 145.22 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 14.27 | 145.02 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 14.24 | 144.71 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 13.10 | 133.13 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12.70 | 129.06 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 9.84 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| floating point | GByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 14.26 | 144.92 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 14.24 | 144.71 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12.75 | 129.57 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 9.84 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Memory latency
| Memory latency | ns | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 70.40 | 92.39 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 71.00 | 93.17 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 72.50 | 95.14 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 75.40 | 98.95 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 75.60 | 99.21 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 75.50 | 99.08 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 76.20 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 76.30 | 100.13 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 78.20 | 102.62 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 80.20 | 105.25 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 81.00 | 106.30 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 85.90 | 112.73 % |
| Lower is better | ||
Memory and cache access
| Memory and cache access | GByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 85.84 | 105.84 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 85.19 | 105.04 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 85.00 | 104.81 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 84.48 | 104.17 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 84.40 | 104.07 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 83.87 | 103.41 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 83.00 | 102.34 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 81.70 | 100.74 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 81.30 | 100.24 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 81.10 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 81.14 | 100.05 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 80.70 | 99.50 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Super Pi 1M / 32M, wPrime
Meanwhile Super Pi even in its latest version has become pretty old. Never the less it is able to show scaling to the clock speed nicely. Following we will also run Super Pi with different memory frequencies as well as different latencies. This shows the influence of the memory subsystem.
Super Pi 1M
| SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS 1M | sec | Percent |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 21.319 | 99.00 % |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 21.341 | 98.77 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 21.344 | 98.79 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 21.357 | 98.85 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 21.403 | 99.06 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 21.481 | 99.42 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 21.531 | 99.65 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 21.563 | 99.80 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 21.590 | 99.93 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 21.606 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 21.642 | 100.17 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 21.653 | 100.22 % |
| Lower is better | ||
wPrime 32M
wPrime is based on a multithreaded algorithm to calculate the square root to up to 32 billion digits. Therefore it is possible to put 100 percent load on every core or thread and to see differences between architectures.
| WPrime v1.55 32M | sec | Percent |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 8.126 | 98.65 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 8.143 | 98.86 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 8.237 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 8.269 | 100.39 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 8.341 | 101.26 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 8.344 | 101.30 % |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 8.345 | 101.31 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 8.502 | 103.22 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 8.515 | 103.38 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 8.531 | 103.57 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 8.656 | 105.09 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 8.734 | 106.03 % |
| Lower is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Games
Crysis DX9 800 x 600, low details
Crysis is still one of the games which has very high system requirements. Therefore developer Crytek implemented Direct3D-10-API, High-Dynamic-Range-Rendering, Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Soft Shadows, Motion Blur, Depth of Field as well as Soft Particles. We test Crysis by using DirectX9 to show CPU-sacaling especially which low resolutions. If we look at the high resolutions we are able to spot that the CPUs influence compared to the graphic card becomes much less important.
| Crysis DX9 800 x 600, low details | Percent | |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 120.40 fps | 102.86 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 123.32 fps | 105.36 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 119.21 fps | 101.85 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 119.21 fps | 101.85 % |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 118.78 fps | 101.48 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 118.68 fps | 101.39 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 118.61 fps | 101.33 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 118.30 fps | 101.07 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 117.62 fps | 100.49 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 117.05 fps | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 111.22 fps | 95.02 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 113.25 fps | 96.75 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Resident Evil 800 x 600, low details
Resident Evil uses nearly every modern rendering technology: HDR, Hemisphere Lighting, Soft Shadows, Soft Particles, Field- und Motion-Blur oder auch Alpha to Coverage and static Ambient Occlusion. Furthermore Resident Evil 5 has been optimized for multicore architectures and already comes DirectX11 ready. By using the DirectX9 as well as the DirectX10 benchmark we can again show you CPU-scaling with low resolutions and the compared to the CPU overproportional influence of the graphics card at high resolutions.
| Resident Evil DX9 800 x 600, low details | Percent | |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 134.0 fps | 109.84 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 133.2 fps | 109.18 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 130.9 fps | 107.29 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 130.7 fps | 107.13 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 127.4 fps | 104.43 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 130.1 fps | 106.64 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 129.5 fps | 106.15 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 127.9 fps | 104.83 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 124.3 fps | 101.88 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 122.0 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 121.5 fps | 99.59 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 120.4 fps | 98.69 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Street Fighter 4 800 x 600, low details
Street Fighter 4 comes with an extra benchmark version which makes testing you system childrens play. At low resolutions the system requirements are pretty low and we can see CPU-scaling in the results. At high resolution the graphic card becomes more important and the CPUs clock speed has less influence on the fps.
| Street Fighter 4 800 x 600, low details | Percent | |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 596.11 fps | 109.41 % |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 566.52 fps | 103.98 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 544.85 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 530.72 fps | 97.41 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 526.76 fps | 96.68 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 527.78 fps | 96.87 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 518.49 fps | 95.16 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 517.81 fps | 95.04 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 516.37 fps | 94.77 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 515.90 fps | 94.69 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 503.59 fps | 92.47 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 491.83 fps | 90.27 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Overclocking
Bus frequency overclocking
| CPU Overclocking | CPU Freq | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 4'368 MHz | 107.85 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 4'362 MHz | 107.70 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 4'350 MHz | 107.41 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 4'350 MHz | 107.41 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 4'306 MHz | 106.32 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 4'275 MHz | 105.55 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 4'210 MHz | 103.95 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 4'100 MHz | 101.23 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 4'090 MHz | 100.99 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 4'050 MHz | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 4'050 MHz | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| Motherboard | SuperPi 1M | Average % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo OC | 16.209 sec | 93.77 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 16.224 sec | 93.86 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z | 16.228 sec | 93.88 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 16.256 sec | 94.05 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 16.284 sec | 94.21 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 16.380 sec | 94.76 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 | 16.442 sec | 95.12 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 17.203 sec | 99.53 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 17.273 sec | 99.93 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 17.285 sec | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Conclusion
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| ASUS' Crosshair V Formula-Z is an overall very interesting board and at a first glance also a very good board. The ROG color scheme belongs to the nicest the industry offers and therefore there are not many other motherboards that play in a similar league. Furthermore the positioning of the different parts has been well done too. We also like that ASUS equipped this board with a SupremeFX Audio-Chip. In this case you get nice an clear sound from the back panel audio plugs. | - Design - Supreme FX Audio-Chip |
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| Layout | + | - | |
| Generally the ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Zs layout is well thought. Once more very practical are the angled SATA connectors of which you'll find no less then eight 6 Gbps ones. There also are practical power/reset buttons onboard as well as a debug display. The last expansion slots is a PCI-Express x4 slot which which comes in full length. If you should choose to install a dual slot graphics card at this place you're going to cover the connectors at the bottom edge of the board. Nevertheless it would be perfect to place a PCI Express SSD. | - Angled SATA connectors - Onboard Power/Reset Button | ||
| Performance | + | - | |
| A closer look at the performance values shows that on average the Crosshair V Formula-Z ranges in the top span. Most of the time the board ends up in the top-3 without being the fastest. It's a bit disappointing out of the most high-end/expensive AMD motherboard. | - Performance | ||
| BIOS / Overclocking | + | - | |
| Overclocking the Crosshair V Formula-Z is piece of cake but we didn't expect anything different from an ASUS ROG board. Meanwhile all the ROG boards have a very good reputation for overclocking. Therefore it is no surprise that we reached 4'368 MHz with our test CPU which is highest value in our comparison charts. Furthermore the ASUS UEFI-BIOS is very well structured and very pleasant to look at. You'll quickly find the settings needed and even the tool tips provide useful, additional information. | - Well structured BIOS
- UEFI-BIOS - Overclocking - Unlimited BIOS options |
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| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you should be looking for a good and solid gaming PC or an overclocking rig, then the Crosshair V Formula definitely is worth considering. You can get this motherboard for about CHF 240.- (est. EUR 200.-). | - Gaming PC - Overclocking |
- Office PC | |
| Rating | |||
| We give the Crosshair V Formula good four out of five stars. | |||
Discuss this article in the forums
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch : l.rocchi@ocaholic.ch