Conclusion
Asus certainly has the market for top end AMD boards cornered. While other manufacturers have high end AMD boards, none seem to compare well against what Asus brings with their ROG products. The price is not all that bad, considering. $225 US will get you this board at most retailers, but some would argue if it is really worth it to buy this board at this price when the top end CPU for AM3+ is the FX-8350 being sold for $199 US. CPUs are obviously not under their control at Asus, but even so they make an impressive product.
The back is utilized by Asus for extra space when it comes to the VRMs for the CPU.
The Formula-Z takes all that was good about the Crosshair V and then supercharges it. It really is a totally new design from the ground up. There really is no part that Asus left untouched and it truly is a fantastic board. The feature set matches that of the latest Intel boards that easily cost $100 more. The aesthetics of the board follow that of other ROG products, and the red/black motif works very well.
Here we see the Formula-Z compared to the earlier Sabertooth 990FX.
If there was one problem with the board, it is the overall weakness of the chipset as compared to other recent offerings. I honestly wonder why the A85X chipset for FM2 is not used with the 990FX northbridge? The SB950 utilizes the same 4 x PCI-E connections to go to the northbridge as the A85X does to connect to the northbridge portion of the FM2 processor. Theoretically these should be interchangeable. It would be great to see manufacturers given the option of using this, but I am afraid that it will never happen. AM3+ looks to be a dying platform. The 1090FX chipset was cancelled long ago and it will never see the light of day. FM2+ with Kaveri looks to be the next enthusiast platform for AMD and current Vishera processors look to be the last AM3+ products to be released.
The Redline is really a red line. The board has some real curb appeal.
Having said that, Asus is sending AM3+ out with a bang. The Crosshair V Formula-Z is one of the best motherboards I have ever tested. Stability, feature set, quality, design, and overall appeal are tops. The Redline audio is very interesting and very clean. Connectivity options are outstanding as well. I really cannot think of where Asus could have improved the design, other than squeezing in the A85X as a southbridge.
AMD enthusiasts will want to take a long, hard look at this board. It offers a compelling package for the price. The issue is again the seeming dead end socket that it embraces. Vishera looks about as good as it will get. I am not entirely certain that there will be a significant refresh of Vishera parts (eg. FX-8450 or the like). Still, it is hard to ignore this product.
Well, speaking from a true
Well, speaking from a true Asus/AMD fan (no not a troll), I currently love my Asus Crosshair V Formula Z board. I got it all up and running maxed out on speed & RAM. Just saving up my money to get 2 high end MSI video cards for it. But if any of you are interested to know, that I currently still run and still use the original ROG motherboard. What is the original ROG motherboard? I am talking about the original release ROG Crosshair 1 board from 2008; even though BIOS just simply calls it “Crosshair”. I first saw this board on Amazon back then when I was building my new high end system, and it interested me enough to try it. It continues to run strong and fast to this day, just changed the CMOS battery earlier this year! 🙂 Goes to show how good ROG boards are! I am a ROG fan for as long as they make them for AMD CPU’s. 😀
I have a pc it has cross-hair
I have a pc it has cross-hair a fx chip 16 gig of memory and radieon 7990hd black edition gfx and it works ..dam i dont know how they do it but it works i can play games surf the net and stuff, (giggles) there was this one time right i went all out and talked to my friends while i played a game and surfed the net on another monitor i know right it was a little naughty but hey you only live once right.
so all i can say is i have no problems and as long as thats the case im happy.
and thats all thats important to me
Just got one, more then
Just got one, more then impressed, trying to get 5 ghz stable.
Thanks for the write-up. I
Thanks for the write-up. I enjoyed reading the results of your planning and hard work. I have been privileged to work on some sweet AMD and INTEL systems in my employment for many years but always wanted some of that quality and power in my home system design. I bought the crosshair v formula z and wasn’t dissappointed. The board holds its own under heavy loads and I don’t regret the expense. I’m a tightwad and will choose simplicity and quality over fancy useless fluff any day but this main board is exceptional. I believe most people’s experience is highly dependent on what ram and cpu they pair it with. I have 32gb of hyperx with an 8320 and it works just fine. It’s also more affordable than I thought. I am usually a gigabyte or asrock fan but I have built three of these for people and businesses and haven’t been dissappointed with its flexibility. I chose AMD because my experience is that they will keep the drivers updated and take feedback from end users.
I bought this board and a
I bought this board and a black edition FX-8350 the moment they were released, it is now 2018 and I have been running this combo on a moderate overclock(4.6ghz)for about 350 days a year since first install, it has been moved into a new case, got a bigger cooler,RAM capacity has been maxed and other components have changed around it, but it has performed flawlessly the entire time.
This year it will finally be retired to media server duties, but it has been an awesome board, I certainly got my money’s worth out of it.