The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Formula
The ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Formula represents its flagship X570 entry onto the market with some very notable features, including a revamped design with a strong focus on performance, and ROG themed aesthetics. First of all, the ROG Crosshair VIII Formula uses EKWB heatsinks which can be connected to a custom water cooling loop for better power delivery temperatures, or as passive cooled. This has been seen on numerous iterations of its Maximus Formula boards created for Intel chipsets. This marks a shifting tide where ASUS seem to have confidence in AMD and the ability of its 7nm Ryzen 3000 processors, by opting for such a premium model for the X570 chipset.
One of the main focal points of the X570 chipset is its native PCIe 4.0 support. The ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Formula has three-full length PCIe 4.0 slots operating at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/x4, with the final x4 coming from the chipset. This allows users to use two-way NVIDIA SLI and two-way AMD Crossfire multi-graphics card configurations. For add-on cards, a single PCIe 4.0 x1 slot is also present. There are also four DDR4 memory slots with a maximum supported capacity of up to 128 GB. Also included are a LiveDash OLED screen, a full metal backplate for a more rigid frame, and ROG armor across the majority of the PCB; not to forget about the swathe of RGB LED zones and the integrated fan within the chipset heatsink. On the rear of the board is a metal backplate which adds reinforcement to keep the board's structure intact.
On the componentry, the Crosshair VIII Formula uses a premium controller set with the most notable inclusions coming on the networking side. An Aquantia AQC111 5 GbE controller with a secondary Intel I211AT gigabit chip offers users dual LAN, but more impressively, ASUS has jumped onto the Wi-Fi 6 bandwagon by including the new Intel AX200 2x2 Wi-Fi adapter. The onboard audio is controlled by the Realtek SupremeFX S1220 HD audio codec. On the rear panel is a wide array of connections including seven USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, and four USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports. Users can add to this with one USB 3.1 G2, two USB 3.1 G1 and two USB 2.0 front panel headers, with the USB 3.1 G2 offering one additional port, and the rest each offering an additional two ports per header.
The ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Formula is a mixture of premium controllers, quality features, and classic Formula aesthetics due to the implementation of an EKWB water block to keep the power delivery cool. This not only adds extra weight to the board but also cost and that is represented with an MSRP of $700.
225 Comments
View All Comments
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Agreed. The major differences between pricing in motherboards nowadays is how well they support overclocking, how many / what type of Ethernet ports, and how much RGB garbage they throw on there. :-)brunis.dk - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Retarded Garbage Blinking!29a - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
RGB changes the price by pennies at the most.jrs77 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
If it wasn't for the optical digital output I'd agree, but these seem to be rather rare and not common at all. A couple years back that wasn't the case, so I see an actual backwards trend here that comes with a lack of necessary ports. Atleast an optical digital output is necessary for me.lmcd - Friday, July 26, 2019 - link
I mean sure, but a decent number of them were completely useless from a terrible onboard chipset. Pretty sure one of my two desktops had one that maxed out at 2.0 channel over optical digital output.Silma - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
This would have been true, but for the dearth of ThunderBolt 3 ports, needed for audio interfaces for example.lso the price of most of the boards is outrageous compared to their real added value, imho.
umano - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link
I agree with Silma, for example the great asrock x299 itx at launch had a price tag of 399, with 4 memory channel and sodimm slot and 3 nvme. Something's wrong, or the amd statement is false (most modern i/o), or the mb manufacturers did not get the best from x570regsEx - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
I like it either. But back in days, top Intel's Asrock P67 Fatali1y Professional was priced at $120. For that price you were getting 16+2 phase power, cooling with a pipe 3 brand new Etron USB 3.0 controllers (USB 3.2 Gen 1), additional PCIe controller, best at the time Realtek ALC892 sound, 2 Realtek RTL8111 LAN controllers, additional Marvell SATA controller, Dr. Debug display, power and reset buttons, 3.5" front USB 3 panel, additional rear USB 3 bracket and SLI bridge in the box. That was first generation of motherboards of XMP profiles and new graphical AMI UEFI (return of graphical AMI BIOS after 15 years) etc etc. Just $120. Now to get similar set you have to pay at least $360. And for $120 you can only get some poor office board. And ASRock was cheapest of high end boards back then. Now it's most expensive.regsEx - Friday, July 19, 2019 - link
"best at the time Realtek ALC892 sound"I mean best of Realtek. Obviously there were Creative X-Fi.
Marlin1975 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
How soon before you can test the x570 boards? Really curious how pcie 3 m.2 cards perform in them with 2000 and 3000 series cpus. Does the new chipset help performance for 2000 cpus or even 3000 cpus compared to x470 and b450 boards?And any word on future mATX boards? Only 1 so far seems weird and also a monoply for asrock.