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ASUS Asus Crosshair

80

Very Good

Avg User Rating
6 User Reviews | add yours »

Pros
A tweakers delight, great for overclocking
Cons
Very pricey, especially if you do not need frills

Performance
Pricing	Very Expensive $249 (1/22/07)
Performance	Very Good: 83
WorldBench 5 overall score	Very Good: 134
ACD Systems ACDSee	419
Adobe Photoshop	289
Adobe Premiere	316
Ahead Nero	184
Discreet 3ds Max DirectX	238
Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL	258
Microsoft Office XP	505
Windows Media Encoder	243
Mozilla	295
Multitasking	366
Musicmatch Jukebox	416
Roxio VideoWave	236
WinZip	247
Doom 3 1024 by 768, 32-bit	125
Doom 3 1280 by 1024, 32-bit	122
Doom 3 1024 by 768, 32-bit (with antialiasing)	102
Doom 3 1280 by 1024, 32-bit (with antialiasing)	89
Far Cry 1024 by 768, 32-bit	150
Far Cry 1280 by 1024, 32-bit	145
Far Cry 1024 by 768, 32-bit (with antialiasing)	137
Far Cry 1280 by 1024, 32-bit (with antialiasing)	108
Features	Very Good: 84
Chip set	nVidia nForce 590 SLI chip set
RAM sockets	4
Maximum installable RAM	8GB
Memory type	DDR2 800
Expansion slots	2 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x4, 3 PCI
Dual-graphics support	SLI dual-graphics support (16X)
Storage connectors	6 SATA, 1 PATA ports
RAID support	0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD
Back-panel USB ports	4
Back-panel FireWire ports	1
Back-panel eSATA ports	2
Ports on bundled brackets	2 USB, 1 FireWire
USB ports on optional breakout panels	6
FireWire ports on optional breakout panels	1
Back-panel legacy ports	2 PS/2
Gigabit ethernet adapters	2
7.1-channel (192-kHz/24-bit) integrated audio chip	ADI 1988B
Back-panel digital audio connections	Coaxial/optical out
Parts/labor warranty (years)	Three/Three
Weekday support hours	15.5
Weekend support hours	9
Toll-free support	No
Design	Superior: 91

User Reviews for ASUS Asus Crosshair

Reviewed by: Hugh2

Duration of ownership: 3 Months

Strengths: What do you get when you cross a Corvette with a Cadillac? This Mobo has more bells and whistles than the Good Ship Lollipop! Just what you would expect from any mobo that carries the Republic of Gamers Logo!

Weaknesses: Unfortunately, it is last year's Corvette, and last year's Cadillac! Many problems reported DOA are due to older BIOS! In order to run the AMD Phenom AM2+ Quad Core CPU, or some of the newer released Dual Core AM2 CPU's it is necessary to flash the BIOS to update 0904, or to replace the BIOS chip! NOTE! There is no charge for the BIOS chip, it is covered under the warranty, but you still have to pay the shipping costs! $20.00 for Fed Ex Overnight Delivery!

Overall Evaluation: High quality and workmanship, but even with an AM2+ Phenom CPU, it is still not very futureproof! You are still limited to a maximum of DDR2 800 MHz memory, and the mobo is not compliant with the new PCIE 2.0 specifications so this will be a bottleneck when you try to get the maximum performance out of the latest generation of video cards! If AMD CPU's and nVidia SLI is what floats your boat, I would highly recommend that you save your money! On March 28th nVidia has promised to unveil it's New GeForce 9800 GT, and release the drivers for Quad SLI! They also will unveil many new motherboard chipsets, to include two for AMD based SLI operation! Home this helps, Hugh-MANN
Reviewed by: Inestimable

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Stable performance, reliability, and a lot of extras.

Weaknesses: None to speak of.

Overall Evaluation: Have really enjoyed this MB. I am running an AMD 6000 X2 with 2 Gig Ram, and had it overclocked to 3.15 GHz. I have had it almost a year and a half with no issues. Running a RAID 0+1 set up, with 7600GT Graphics card. While this is no longer cutting edge, it is still a great performer and has been reliable. Have not used SLI, but nice to know I could set it up.