Engineers from ASUS took into account every little detail while designing Crosshair II Formula motherboard and by taking a closer look at layout it is obvious that they didn’t economize with components integrated into this motherboard. This had big impact on final price tag for this motherboard but all this doesn’t guarantee that configuration based on this motherboard will work flawlessly and be able to satisfy needs of every overclocker out there.

Chipset used for this motherboard is the same one used on M3N HT Deluxe model. As the matter-of-fact Crosshair II Formula very much resembles to M3H HT Deluxe model especially if we take a look at northbridge that is identical on both motherboards. Main difference between these motherboards is target user group. Crosshair II Formula is signed as ROG – Republic of Gamers and for such a piece of hardware it guarantees extraordinary gaming performances. Besides that this Crosshair II Formula is perfect choice for overclockers because BIOS has handful of options dedicated to precise adjustment of all vital parameters.

Eight phase VRM unit powers CPU while additional two phases are reserved for chipset. Cooling system on this motherboard is consisted of Pin-Fin Thermal Module that combines best thermal characteristics with low noise levels. An additional fan can be found in package, which can be mounted for better power unit cooling. All electrolytes on this motherboard are top quality solid electrolytes and this guarantees long and stable operation without possibility of leaking.

Layout is very neat without possibility that memory modules or chipset cooler can get in the way of graphics card. Another difference between Crosshair II Formula and M3N HT Deluxe motherboards is separate sound module that can be found on additional stand alone card (Supreme FX II) that can be inserted into one PCI-Express 1x slot. At last this slot is used for something good. Another interesting detail on Crosshair II Formula motherboard is system of LE diodes that indicate when you have gone too far with power settings. LEDs show power level for CPU, southbridge, memory and DRAM controller. Green color of LEDs means that power level is at nominal state, yellow for high level and red for “insane” power levels (often followed by mysterious smoke coming from some part of your configuration).

BIOS

BIOS is signed by AWARD and it allows overclock of power setting for chipset, VDD, integrated nortbridge, CPU core(s) and DDR2 memory. You can easily “fry” (intentionally or by accident) CPU and memory on this motherboard because power settings that this motherboard allows you to set for CPU and memory are “insane”. Crosshair II Formula allows you to set 3.45V for DDR2 memory and 2V for Vcore.

An old story is that initial version of BIOS found on Crosshair motherboards for AMD CPUs are buggy and it wasn’t different story with our test sample. It refused to work with DDR2-1066 memory in dual channel mode. More serious problem was second version of BIOS that continued to overvolt integrated northbridge on Phenom CPU to insane 1.8V (this value can send your CPU to kingdom come if used for prolonged period of time).  During tests only thing that we noticed was slightly higher temperature of our Phenom X3 CPU. This problem can be corrected by setting power value for northbridge at +100mV that result with 1.2V for CPU and acceptable 1.3V for nortbridge. Having all this on mind it is very nice from ASUS that they placed Clear CMOS button on backplate making it easy accessible, so in case you make an error during overclock you can press that button and reset BIOS settings to default. Last information that we got about this problem was that one series or motherboards was problematic (whole contingent from Germany was returned) and that we got one of those “faulty” motherboards. So why did we bother you with this entire story? Because, somewhere out there might be someone that got one of those motherboards.

What can be found in colorful box?

Besides motherboard itself, there can be found LCD panel (LCD poster) that shows progress when system is booting up. Beside that it is possible to set display to show time or custom text message. LCD Poster can be used for display of temperatures and power values of motherboard components if ASUS software for monitoring is installed. From rest of package content it is worth mentioning game Company of Heroes, benchmark software 3DMark06 and Kaspersky Antivirus.