Asus Crosshair IV Extreme
5 expert reviews - 0 user reviews
Follow
0
0
Want it
0
Have it
0
Had it
0
We have collected 5 reviews of the Asus Crosshair IV Extreme. Experts rate Asus Crosshair IV Extreme 8.5/10. Reviewsor.com helps you find reviews, best prices, user reviews of the Asus Crosshair IV Extreme and Asus Motherboards.
- Writh a review
- Say something
- Ask a question
- Get support
Asus Crosshair IV Extreme Reviews
Asus Crosshair IV Extreme AMD 890FX Motherboard
One of the unfortunate consequences of AMD's inability to match Intel's performance at the ultra high-end of the CPU market over the past few years is that there's been a substantial decline in the number of high-end AMD motherboards. NewEgg presently stocks just two AMD motherboards in the $200-$300 price range compared to 36 Intel products. That's not to imply that you have to pay $200 or more for a quality motherboard but it clearly implies that when motherboard manufacturers are thinking about enthusiasts, they're also thinking about Santa Clara. Both of the $200+ AMD boards are built by Asus and the company recently sent us its top-end AMD offering. The motherboard's retail price point of $299 dwarfs anything else anyone offers in an AMD flavor these days, but Asus has packed the Crosshair IV Extreme with every goody you can think of. The Crosshair IV Extreme isn't actually an E-ATX motherboard, but its width of 10.6" is one inch wider than the official ATX spec supports. To determine if the board will fit in your case, measure one inch from the last set of mount spacers on the right and add at least a few tenths of an inch for wiggle room.
ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme: Running SLI With the Lucid Hydra Chip
Nvidia's SLI technology gives hardcore gamers the power they need by pairing up multiple graphics cards. To run SLI, not only must the cards be of the same family, the motherboard must also support the SLI technology. When SLI was launched, only boards with Nvidia's own nForce chipset SLI. The story changed when Intel refused to grant a license allowing Nvidia to make chipsets for Intel CPUs with integrated memory controllers. Despite this, Intel has worked out a deal with Nvidia where latest Intel chipsets (X58, P55, and P67) all support SLI natively (in addition to their CrossFire support). AMD users are not as lucky, because AMD's 2006 buyout of ATI essentially halted any further support for SLI on AMD systems. We are not sure whether AMD is actively preventing Nvidia from developing chipsets for their processors, but there is no doubt that AMD wants to sell their brand of graphic cards and promote CrossFire. So it just makes more sense for them to have Nvidia competing for their business. The last motherboard for AMD platforms that supports SLI is based on the Nvidia 980a chipset. There are few motherboards on the market with the 980a chipset that support the AM3 socket, and they are already becoming outdated due to the lack of SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 support.
Asus Crosshair IV Extreme Motherboard Review
A few months ago, we reviewed a handful of budget AM3 motherboards and were surprised at the quality offered by sub-$100 products. Since AMD owns the entry-level CPU market, it only makes sense that there are plenty of affordable motherboards, but with the Phenom II X6 range gaining popularity, users are once again looking to invest big in the AM3 platform. The Asus Crosshair IV Extreme is set to sell for $300, easily making it the most expensive AM3 product around and costing considerably more than the already opulent Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD7. With most high-end AM3 motherboards priced below $200, you have to wonder what is so special about Asus' offering. Without beating around the bush, what separates the Crosshair IV Extreme apart from the pack is Asus' CrossLinx 3 technology. This allows users to mix and match multiple graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia, including models of different GPU generations. CrossLinx 3 uses the Lucid HydraLogix engine, which bridges various graphics cards to enable their simultaneous usage.
ASUS ROG Crosshair IV Extreme
The ASUS Crosshair has a long legacy of being one of the best high-end motherboards for AMD systems. One of the trademarks of the Crosshair series is support for multi-GPU. While the first and second generations Crosshair motherboards support Nvidia SLI, the third generation only supports AMD CrossFire due to chipset limitation. Since there is currently no Nvidia chipset that will work with latest AMD processor, ASUS relied on a third party solution, Lucid's Hydra chip, in order to bring SLI to the AMD platform. Including the Lucid Hydra chip on the AMD motherboard also adds extra PCI-E lanes to the board. Currently, only Intel's latest X58 and P55 based board will support both CrossFire and SLI. While AMD's own board will support CrossFire, it only supports pairs whose cards are based on the same architecture. For example, users can pair the HD5870 with HD5970, HD5870, or HD5850 but not with the HD5770 because it is based on a different architecture. The Lucid chip also lets users mix and match cards from different generations. Astonishingly, users can also mix and match cards from AMD and Nvidia in the same system.
Asus Crosshair IV Extreme review
Another week brings with it another motherboard toting Lucid's HydraLogix 200 (nee Hydra 200) mix-and-match graphics technology. This time, however, it comes not from MSI, but from archrivals Asus. It's taken Asus a while to launch a board based on the technology, but one's now a reality in the form of the Asus Crosshair IV Extreme.The Crosshair IV Extreme is the latest addition to the AMD branch of Asus's RoG (Republic of Gamers) family and – just like the rest of the RoG motherboard lineup – has all the bells and whistles you expect from a top-end Asus motherboard. Like its brethren, it also comes in a box that's pretty much crammed with hardware.It's worth noting that the Crosshair IV Extreme is the new flagship of the Crosshair range and hence is aimed at the higher end of the market, carrying a price tag to match. The last high-end board to carry Lucid's technology, MSI's Big Bang Fuzion, was also the first mainstream board to use it. Ultimately, it suffered from a combination of a high price tag and early-to-market technology.Asus, by allowing the technology to mature a little and putting it on a RoG board, are hoping they can entice high-end users back to give the technology another try.
-
Asus Crosshair IV Extreme : (8.5/10)
5 expert reviews
0 user reviews
-
Asus BW-12B1LT : (9/10)
1 expert reviews
0 user reviews
-
Asus B43J-A1B : (6.7/10)
3 expert reviews
0 user reviews
-
Asus Ares : (10/10)
2 expert reviews
0 user reviews
