Asus Crosshair V Formula Motherboard Review

We doubt that there will be a mass adoption of 990FX motherboards until Bulldozer hits the market later this year, however whenever you plan to upgrade, we think this Crosshair V Formula is a great option.

The bundle supplied with the Crosshair V Formula contains everything you could possibly need (and more), from SATA cables to a USB Cable for RoG connect.  Asus also supply a full compliment of CrossfireX and SLI bridges for those who want to use 2-way and 3-way SLI setups.  Unlike the Sabertooth 990FX board we reviewed, the Crosshair V Formula doesn't support Quad SLI and CrossfireX but we can't imagine there are many people out there that will be put off by this, after all, only very few users will make use of a triple card setup.

We managed to achieve a stable 25% overclock with the AMD Phenom II 1090T which resulted in a decent performance boost in all of our tests.  The overclocked clock speed was 4.00 GHz.  Even if you don't have the expertise to overclock the motherboard yourself, the Automatic OC function managed a respectable clock speed of around 16% which would also boost performance in the benchmarks.  If you combine the Crosshair V Formula with AMD's top end 1100T model, we expect that you would be able to achieve a higher stable clock speed of 4.1 or 4.2 GHz.

The Crosshair V Formula can be yours for a shade over £180 at YOYOTech.  At this price we don't feel that it makes sense to upgrade from a previous generation 890FX motherboard, as you aren't really going to notice a performance improvement until it is combined with the upcoming Bulldozer CPUs. But, for those who are looking for their first AMD system or are upgrading from an earlier AMD system, we would definitely recommend this product.  We expect that this motherboard will still be one of the finest models available when Bulldozer launches, so we expect them to start flying off the shelves then.

Pros:

• Distinctive black and red design
• Great Bundle
• RoG Software
• Supports 3-way SLI and Crossfire
• Overclocks very well

Cons:

• A little pricey
• Current AMD CPUs can't compete with Sandy Bridge

KitGuru says: Another impressive motherboard from Asus that offers the whole package.

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