ASUS X570 Crosshair VIII Formula Review

Conclusion

Please note this review was written prior to the AGESA 1001 BIOS update. Our graphs have been updated to reflect the new results, but the text remains the same as the fast single threaded stock performance affects so few of our results and none of our overall opinion. Additionally we wanted to preserve how we felt at the time.

Whilst it might not necessarily be the exact thing we’re trying to discover when we’re reviewing individual motherboards we have to say that the consistency of the latest AMD X570 chipset is probably the thing we’re most impressed by. The X370 was pretty good across the board, the X470 improved upon that, but the X570 is outstanding. When there are so many new elements to consider – PCI Express 4.0, USB 3.2 Gen2, Intel WiFi 6 – in older times it might have been something that tripped up the R&D team, but AMD have come through with flying colours.

That’s all well and good for AMD but how does the ASUS X570 Crosshair VIII Formula stack up against its rivals? After all, it is unquestionably placed in the upper echelons of the ASUS range of AM4 motherboards in price terms, so has it enough to make it a worthy purchase?

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, we think it does. The ASUS ROG range has such strong historical performance that there is a huge level of expectation accompanying any model. We saw the Crosshair VIII Hero continued to carry the flag for the Republic of Gamers brand and the Formula does nothing to sully the good name of ASUS premium range. Performance is the most impressive aspect. The Formula happily ran our Ryzne 9 3900X – a 12 core behemoth – at 4.4 GHz whilst also having enough reserves to run the Corsair Vengeance kit at 4600 MHz. Unsurprisingly when you combine those two elements you get some incredible performance benchmarks and the X570 Crosshair VIII Formula topped 8 of our 21 graphs and was in second place in three more. That’s more than half of our graphs giving the edge to the Formula.

Naturally the stock results are more tightly grouped across all of the X570s we’ve tested, but that is to be expected when they are all running at the same speed. It does, however, show what we’ve just said about when it comes to the consistency of the X570 as a platform. Obviously if you overclock you’re getting better performance but many people run their systems at stock and with our particular test setup utilising the flagship 3rd Generation Ryzen CPU you have enough ‘out of the box’ performance that most people wont require the extra oomph that an overclock can bring. If this is the case for you then the Formula still has a lot to offer when it comes to convincing you to part with your cash. Looks are always a strong suit of the Republic of Gamers brand and the Formula combines some lovely heat sink designs – including hybrid EK watercooling connections – with smart silver accents and the always popular AURA RGB lighting to bring a motherboard which looks bang up to date.

It isn’t only the aesthetics that score highly with the Formula though. The connectors at the back are all shielded, the PCI Express 4.0 slots have the Safeslot armour and there is even the LiveDash OLED display built into the main VRM heatsink letting you keep an eye on your motherboards status or just show off your clan logo. Couple this to outstanding cooling potential from a plentiful supply of fan and pump headers all well situated, and the aforementioned CrossChill EK III combined heat sink and water-cooled option letting you plug the Formula into your water-loop without having to buy special heatsinks and the Formula ticks all the boxes. The only slight knock on it is something which is true of all the X570 motherboards, namely that there is so much hardware necessary to utilise PCI Express 4.0 that the price is significantly higher than we have seen on earlier AMD motherboards. With the CPUs being more affordable than their Intel counterparts the end result is about the same total cost.

The ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Formula is the latest in a long line of Republic of Gamers products that show a combination of clever design touches with powerful features and massive connectivity options to be a very attractive choice and it wins our OC3D Performance Award. 

  

Discuss the ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Formula in our OC3D Forums.