A True Gamer Board

[Indybird]

I was checking out some of the top-of-the-line motherboards and found this:
ASUS Crosshair (http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=261&page=1) socket AM2, nvidia 590 northbridge.
Check out the whole article, this motherboard has some friggin nice features 8) .

[MitaPi]

That is pretty nice. Now if they had one for the conroe.... lol OMG

[simon275]

The list of featuers was endless when I first read through them I just said a silent wow in awh of the number.

Now this I like!

2 x PCI Express x16 slot with NVIDIA® SLI™ technology support, at full x16, x16 speed
1 x PCI Express x4
3 x PCI 2.2
SLI

and

* 2 x External Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s port on back I/O (SATA On-the-Go)

Finally as added in software apart from driver disks it comes with

Futuremark ® 3DMark® 06 Advanced Edition

Holy S**T

And then

http://www.amdzone.com/pics/motherboards/asus/crosshair/soundmax_small.jpg

"The Mic Array has been designed to eliminate microphone noise or buzz during multiplayer games, or perhaps Skype sessions."

There must be something they haven't thought of.

The BIOS is amazing aynthing that can be OC' voltage or freq wise there is an option for it.

Start saving kids.

[.Maleficus.]

I think you mean "CrossHair", but man that looks nice.

[Indybird]

I think you mean "CrossHair", but man that looks nice.
oops :D , I changed it...

My three favorite things on the board are:
The onboard blue LEDs
The LCD screen in the I/O Panel
The fancy north/southbridge heatsink

Yeah if that board was conroe (and crossfire ready), I'd get that in three seconds!
Hopefully they'll make a conroe Crosshair...

[Silenced_Coyote]

I am pretty sure that they are starting a new line/series called the "Republic of Gamers" and that is the first board. I am sure they are going to come out with more later and ones that support Conroe too!

[.Maleficus.]

Wow, $231 for something like that is not bad... Not bad at all...

[Cevinzol]

I'm impressed
it would be cool if you could mouint the I/O LCD on the front of your case

[dgrmkrp]

..very nice board.. wouldn't need all those +es, but it sure is cheap if it is 231$

it would be cool if you could mouint the I/O LCD on the front of your caseas long as you have patience and steady hands.. hihi.. nothing is impossible :)

[Redundant]

The link isn't working for me; it gives me the message:
"Problem in Database Connection"

Is anyone else having this problem?

[Indybird]

The link isn't working for me; it gives me the message:
"Problem in Database Connection"

Is anyone else having this problem?
Here try this one (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=285&type=expert);)
Its a different article but the same board...

[Kaky]

The board screams buy me but i set my hearth on this rig :
amd athlon fx-62
wd raptor
m2n32 sli deluxe
2 X 7950gx2 --- yes it is quad sli
audigy soundblaster
tagan 770w power suply
zalman cpnsomething the newest for am2 procs
24" lcd monitor
4 gigs o corsair ddr2 ram
thermaltake armor case

[Silenced_Coyote]

I don't know why you can't just buy this motherboard instead of the M2N32 SLI Deluxe.

[Indybird]

On Newegg:
The M2N32 SLI is $198.99 and is very good.
The Crosshair is $269 and has way more features, better performance, better looks and comes with 3DMark06 full!
If I were you I'd go for Crosshair and have better looks, performance and options.
Ohh btw, If you do get it please give us all a review!

[Silenced_Coyote]

Looking at Kaky's setup, it doesn't look like money is a probelm for him. Unless he has a budget and he hit it with that setup. If that is the case, I would rather drop the 2 gigs of RAM and spend it on the Crosshair motherboard.

[Redundant]

Thanks Indy for that link.

[Kaky]

I will look into that lads as i have said i have got 3 k on lotto and will put a little bit from my savings (it seems that i might as well go wit the crosshair -- the only problem now is to find it here in croatia :twisted: :mad: )

[qoou]

thats a cool board, i've gotten to look at it. My friend owns AMDzone.

[Kaky]

Does asus deliver to your door ???
If it does im ordering it the same secind i get the reply

[onelegout]

I am buying one for a friend's rig very soon. The only thing confusing me is the 8-pin power connector slot. Ive only had 4-pin ones before and he only has a 4-pin on his psu! I CAN buy an adapter though to go from 4pin to 8pin...
I noticed in one of the pics that the 8pin connector slot on the mobo has a black cover over 4 of the pins... can it be used with a regular 4pin connector?
Im confused, somebody please help!
H

[Indybird]

I'm pretty sure there aren't any adapters for that-but don't take my word on that. However almost all new power supplies have an 8-pin connector...

[ForceFedFlesh]

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6593&page=1

after reading the article above(compared the crosshair to the m2n32sli) it doesnt really seem worth the extra money
edit: performance wise is wat i meant

[klingelton]

i got one of these bad boys for £152. it's in the warehouse now waiting for me to pick it up tomorrow night. OOOOOO BABY!!!

i went searching tottenham court road high and low for this bad boy and it retails for £210 on the high street over here (about 380 USD)

i bought it for the overclocking potential and for the light show when you turn it off.

plus that they've done away with beep codes. you don't have to guess what's wrong with your computer now as it has a little lcd display on the back of your pc which if it hangs on boot up, it tells you exactly which device it struggled with.

plus that it's got external sata array and a range of other features.

tomorrow night kids, thats when i get it!!

(p.s. according to a mate, i've got more money than sense, he's prob right!!)

[klingelton]

here she is kids!!

http://www.geocities.com/murray1276/DSC00361.JPG

WOOOOOOOT!

[Indybird]

nice! :banana:
please, more pics and a a review! :bunny:

[onelegout]

yeah man, fancy doing a worklog just about installing and setting it up? That would help me cause im building a rig with one around christmas!
H

[klingelton]

yeah, im gonna be doing it all about the water cooling, so i'll include modding the mobo and installation too. i've already installed one of these things before and i can say it was one of the easiest jobs i've done!

[xdxforever]

About the 8 pin power: it allows the 8 phase voltage regulator to work which makes the board more stable and overclockable, as well as being more efficient. I suspect you can run it with only a 4 pin connector, but then you might as well be running any old regular MoBo.

[Silenced_Coyote]

The "Striker Extreme" will be the next "Republic of Gamers" motherboard series by Asus for Intel CPUs. Not sure when it will be out but Asus mentioned it.

EDIT:
I just found some more stuff about it.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/3784/1fx1.jpg
Specs here (http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/9522/2gj6.png)

Supposed to be a VERY good motherboard for overclocking. Here is the nvidia 680i reference board being tested (http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIwOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA).

[simon275]

All the mobos these days have heatpipes on them. Do they actually help that much or are they more for bling purposes.

[Zephik]

Well...

I dont know if it helps out THAT much. But my bet is that it is certainly better than just a regular square-o heatsink but probably not as good as a heatsink such as a Zalman. But they are silent designed... SO....

They are better than your plain square ones but not as good as fan equipped ones. But that doesnt matter because they are designed to be "perfectly silent". Which fans cant do.

lol did I even get close to the nail with that swing? Or did I just knock out the guy next to me?

-SF

[Silenced_Coyote]

I think you hit the mark. It might not be better (depending on your case) but it is silent. Either way, that is what the marketing is using now. But I like it. I think it would work great with a PC case with the PSU at the bottom so that there can be a whole bunch of fans around the CPU area. But one thing I hear that is good about heatsinks is that it is a move away from the "tiny whiney chipset fans."

[isunktheship]

I was checking out some of the top-of-the-line motherboards and found this:
ASUS Crosshair (http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=261&page=1) socket AM2, nvidia 590 northbridge.
Check out the whole article, this motherboard has some friggin nice features 8) .

I told my roommates that I thought this board was sexy... and they laughed at me.:(

Jerks. This mobo is awesome, from the insane package that the board homes with, to the little build in lcd screen.

[Silenced_Coyote]

If you thought the Crosshair was awesome, look at the Striker Extreme.

http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=117&l3=0&model=1439&modelmenu=1

[onelegout]

Does the striker extreme have LEDs on the board like the Crosshair?
H

[Zephik]

The Striker Extreme, at a price of around $400 american dollars, gives you it all man. Read that link from Silenced Coyote... it has some of the best features I have ever seen in a board. Such as the one stop performance tuning shop. :up:

-SF

[YoungBlood]

Im sorry to disbute this... But i found out that Higher priced mobos suck! like my mate has a DFI lanparty when it first came out like £150 then he bought 2 x 7900Gtx Found out that the gpu's cover the chipset making it overheat! Same goes for that asus....

me personally i adore my Asus A8N Ali-SE lovely mobo... for £79 atleast ;)

(thats skt 939 tho >.<)

[Zephik]

Im sorry to disbute this... But i found out that Higher priced mobos suck! like my mate has a DFI lanparty when it first came out like &#163;150 then he bought 2 x 7900Gtx Found out that the gpu's cover the chipset making it overheat! Same goes for that asus....

me personally i adore my Asus A8N Ali-SE lovely mobo... for &#163;79 atleast ;)

(thats skt 939 tho >.<)

They suck because they overheat more than others? Well... A. You can't get $200-$400 performance out of an $80-$150 motherboard. In a few cases, such as the Striker Extreme, not even close. Which is why you pay so much more for "nice" motherboards. In my opinion, computers are designed around the motherboard, not the cpu or gpu or anything else. B. You shouldn't buy a nice board without buying adequate cooling supplies to help cool it.

Maybe your friend should look into heat pipe technology to carry the heat out to a different area of the case if not out of the case itself? He can always try water cooling as well! If you are buying nice motherboards just because everyone says they are nice... then you shouldn't be buying them. They are enthusiast boards, not your average user boards. Enthusiasts buy nice motherboards because of what they are capable of. Like extreme overclocking for one example, which in that scenario, you SHOULD have a very nice cooling system.

Your board is actually the board I was looking at, except LGA775. It's a darn good board and deserves boasting rights to most of your friends or soft core geeks. The Striker Extreme is definitely for your hard core geeks and shouldn't be used unless you know how to use it to its full potential. Which isn't really necessary, but for an enthusiast it is. Kind of like a temp freak, they'll do just about anything to lower it if only by one more degree. It's pointless to buy a "nice" board if you are just buying it because everyone says its "nice".

Anyways, I hope some of that made sense! lol. Most of what I say, often doesn't make a whole lot of sense. ^^

-SF

[Silenced_Coyote]

Im sorry to disbute this... But i found out that Higher priced mobos suck! like my mate has a DFI lanparty when it first came out like £150 then he bought 2 x 7900Gtx Found out that the gpu's cover the chipset making it overheat! Same goes for that asus....

me personally i adore my Asus A8N Ali-SE lovely mobo... for £79 atleast ;)

(thats skt 939 tho >.<)

I think it was a mistake on his part to buy "incompatible" components. Like SnowFire said, go with heatpipe cooling instead of active cooling for the chipsets because video cards are getting longer and are dual slot. You shouldn't blame a motherboard because of the graphics card. It would make more sense to complain about the size of the GPU instead. I think if DFI continues to do this after seeing the 8800GTX, then there is a legit problem.

[YoungBlood]

Me personally i have found this on alot of high priced boards... they are only just realising...

[ScWoL]

/WANT /WANT /WANT that sweet thang is deff on my wish list that thing is smoken....Seriously i want to buy that because i've been looking into AMD recently...but what i don't get...AMD bought ATI so why don't they only build ati compatible mobos to get people to buy their mobos and ati gfx cards :X?

:bunny: BUNNEH!

[Silenced_Coyote]

The Crosshair motherboard was released before AMD aquired ATI.

[Omega]

I'm impressed
it would be cool if you could mouint the I/O LCD on the front of your case

Nothing a desoldering tool, wire, a soldering iron, and some time can't fix.

[onelegout]

I'm impressed
it would be cool if you could mouint the I/O LCD on the front of your case

I totaly disagree! :D
If it were on the front it would be exactly the same as any other lcd mod!
Having it on the IO panel is innovative and *cool*.
It's one of those things which is only cool because it is subtle and useful, it's the kind of thing that has to be pointed out for your friends to notice it, and I like that!
H

[klingelton]

ok, i've installed this board in a temp case since i managed to destroy my temp pc. although i havn't fully tinkered with it yet since i'm waiting for adequate cooling before i attempt any over clocking, the features and ease of overclocking looks to be intense!