![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , October 29, 2009
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS Crosshair III Formula Motherboard Review
ASUS releases yet another Republic of Gamers motherboard, this time for our AMD users. The Crosshair III Formula is the latest incarnation of the ROG series which means that it comes from excellent pedigree. The Crosshair III Formula has some big shoes to fill. Is the Crosshair III AMD 790FX chipset motherboard is up to the challenge?
BIOS
As is typical of ASUS they chose the American Megatrends Inc. BIOS for the Crosshair III Formula. BIOS version 601 was used for all screen captures. Testing was initially conducted with version 601 while overclocking tests were conducted with version 702. 702 is the latest official BIOS release for the Crosshair III Formula at the time of this writing.
The AMI Megatrends BIOS is laid out pretty much like every other BIOS on every board intended for the do it yourself or enthusiast market.
ASUS is a bit unusual as they like to put their overclocking and performance settings right up front as the first thing you'll find when you go into the BIOS. The "Main" settings are actually the second page of information and settings. Unfortunately due to the color scheme ASUS uses in the BIOS menus some of the settings appear yellow or white and bleed into the background. So not everything showed up as well as I would have liked. In any case you'll find CPU configuration, FSB settings, CPU ratio settings, DRAM frequency settings, HT link settings, and more. The CPU configuration, DRAM controller configuration and DRAM Timing/Driving Configuration menus are all sub-menus that bring up additional options related to their respective categories.
The CPU configuration menu shows CPU information and has options for Microcode updates, Secure Virtual Machine Modes, Cool 'n' Quiet, ACPI SRAT table, C1E Support and Advanced Clock Calibration. DRAM controller configuration menu contains channel interleaving settings, memory hole remapping, and other settings. The DRAM Timing/Driving Configuration menu contains CAS latency settings. The list of adjustable latency settings is quite large to say the least.
The voltages can all be adjusted from the Extreme Tweaker menu. Virtually everything imaginable is adjustable in regard to voltages. CPU voltage, CPU/NB voltage, CPU VDDA voltage, DRAM voltage, HT voltage, NB voltage, SB voltage, DRAM Ref voltages, etc. Current voltages are also shown which gives you a baseline for adjustment. The Main screen has a listing of SATA drives, time and date settings as well as basic system information. Also there is a storage configuration menu which is where you can change the SATA controller modes between IDE, AHCI and RAID modes. There is also a system information screen which shows basic processor and memory information.
The Advanced menu has several settings all of which are accessed via submenus. CPU configuration, chipset, onboard device configuration, PCI/PnP, LCD Poster and LED control as well as iROG configuration menu settings. The advanced chipset settings contains two additional sub-menus. North bridge configuration and RD790 configuration. Onboard devices of course allows for the enabling, disabling or configuration of integrated hardware. The LCD Poster menu allows you to enable or disable the back light for the LCD poster, setup the LCD poster to display the time and you can configure the volt-minder LEDs. The iRog configuration menu has the iROG Time Keeper settings. By default its set to "Last State." The Power menu has APM and Hardware monitor controls.
The hardware monitor is another sub-menu which has several monitors for voltages, temperatures, fan speed monitor and fan speed control. The purpose of these menus is really self-explanatory as their titles really give away their functions. The voltage monitor allows you to monitor voltages, the same is true of the temperature and fan speeds. Fan speed control allows adjustment of fan speeds for various fan headers.
Next is the boot settings menu which is again self-explanatory. This menu allows you to control boot device ordering and determine which devices the system can boot from. The tools menu contains the EZ Flash software for updating the system BIOS as well as OC profile control and Tweak It batch file use. In addition the AI Net2 menu allows for network port/cable testing. The BIOS looks more complicated than it really is. Many of the settings are very easy to understand and most of them rarely if ever need any real adjustments. The tools included are actually surprisingly useful for diagnostic and configuration purposes.