14 DAY TRIAL // After the motherboard has been pictured on several hardware websites, Asus has finally made official its upcoming AMD flagship motherboard for Bulldozer processors, the Crosshair V Formula, which is based on AMD's 900FX chipset.
Just as all the other ROG products in Asus' lineup, the Crosshair V Formula also uses the same black and red colorway, as well as a clean and well thought-out layout which doesn't seem to have any major design issues.
The Asus board includes four PCI Express x16 slots compatible with SLI and CrossFireX setups, seven SATA 6Gbps connectors, 7.1-channel SupremeFX X-Fi 2 sound, an Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller, six USB 3.0 ports and a powered 6Gbps eSATA port.
CPU power is provided by an Extreme Engine Digi+ 8+2 phase VRM and the board also packs a wide assortment of Asus specific technologies, such as ROG Connect, MemOK! or the TurboV Evo application.
The expandability options of the Crosshair V Formula are completed by one PCI Express x1 and one legacy 32-bit PCI slot, and the first one of these can used for installing the Asus ThunderBolt add-on card.
This was specially designed in order to offer extra functionality to its users and it bundles together a 2-channel high-quality DAC/ADCM, which has a 116dB signal-to-noise ratio, with a TI 6120A2 headset amplifier and a Bigfoot Killer network controller (the E2100 Killer NIC).
"We have seen a tremendous response to our ROG Rampage III Black Edition motherboard and ThunderBolt expansion module using the embedded Killer E2100 networking platform," said Kris Huang, product line manager, Asus.
"With the addition of Bigfoot Networks' Advanced Stream Detect technology to the Killer E2100, we are excited to add this great new capability to our Asus ROG Crosshair V Formula/ThunderBolt motherboard and provide our customers the best online experience for all their online games, streaming video and audio."
The Asus ROG Crosshair V Formula/ThunderBolt motherboard will be available for purchase at the end of June 2011 for a yet-undisclosed price.