Asus CrossHair II Formula

Manufacturer: Asus
UK Price (as reviewed): £148.21 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $274.99 (ex. Tax)

Asus CrossHair II Formula Features:

• Support for all Athlon and Phenom processors on socket AM2+/ AM2 up to and exceeding 140W
  
• Nvidia nForce 780a SLI MCP
  
• Nvidia NF200 PCI-Express chip
  
• GeForce 8200 DirectX 10 integrated graphics core with HDMI/DVI and VGA out
  
• Four 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16GB of system memory at 667MHz or 800MHz with Athlon CPUs and 1,066MHz with Phenom CPUs
  
• Asus SupremeFX sound: ADI SoundMAX 1988b 7.1 channel High-Definition audio codec
  
• Two Marvell 88E81116-NNC1 PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet with Asus AI NET 2
  
• Three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (either x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8) with support for Nvidia SLI, Hybrid Boost and Hybrid Power
  
• Two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots* (the second PCI-Express x1 slot doubles as the SupremeFX audio slot)
  
• Two PCI slots
  
• Six SATA 3Gbps ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD
  
• One IDE connector
  
• 12 USB 2.0 ports - six on rear I/O, six via pin-outs
  
• Two IEEE1394a Firewire connectors - one via pin-out and one on rear I/O
  
• Asus LCD Poster

Box Contents

• Six red SATA cables, including three with 90 degree connectors
  
• IDE and floppy cables
  
• 3-way SLI and SLI bridges
  
• One Molex to SATA power adapter
  
• Asus Q-Connector
  
• Asus Q-Shield (metal rear I/O shield with spongy back so you don't cut yourself)
  
• Optional heatpipe fan
  
• HDMI to DVI adapter
  
• PCI bracket with two USB 2.0 and one 6-pin Firewire
  
• Driver disk and case badge
  
• Company of Heroes full game
  
• Asus LCD poster

We've come to expect Asus including everything into its Republic of Gamer boxes, and the CrossHair II is no exception. It seems to have forgotten the kitchen sink though...

By that cunning quip (ah-ha-ha) I mean to say we're missing three temperature sensors that were in the original CrossHair and still feature on the board itself. You can't easily buy these elsewhere. Other than that we get all the cables needed, as well as an HDMI to DVI adapter (because the board only features HDMI), a very useful LCD POST readout that can sit on your desk and a full copy of the game Company of Heroes. That's really quite a tasty bundle.