WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:08.480 Yes, many requests for this one. Many, many requests. This is the Crosshair 4 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:12.559 Extreme and it contains all of the latest technologies. In fact, some that 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:19.439 have been around for a while but just took well a lot of months to actually be 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:26.080 implemented on anything. This has the Hydrolologics engine by Lucid. So what 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:29.920 that means is that you have support for 00:00:26.080 --> 00:00:33.840 not only ATI Crossfire X but also 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:36.800 multi-GPU support for mix and match here 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:41.840 up here. So cross links 3 technology mix and match vendors and cards and whatever 00:00:40.239 --> 00:00:45.840 else you could possibly want to mix and match for graphics cards. So experience 00:00:44.239 --> 00:00:49.440 true graphics freedom. You can run two Radeon cards. You can run two GeForce 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:54.160 cards. You can run a GeForce and a Radeon. You can run mismatched GeForce 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:58.160 cards or match GeForce cards. It doesn't matter. It's not an SLI ready 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:04.400 motherboard. Please note the absence of an SLI logo. This is an AMD board with 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:07.280 an AMD 890 FX chipset, but you can still 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:13.040 run two GeForce cards thanks to the Hydrolologics chipset right there from 00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:16.799 Lucid. Okay, it's a Republic of Gamers board, so you've got ROG connect, so you 00:01:15.119 --> 00:01:21.439 can plug in another computer and you can make any changes to the system settings 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:24.880 that you could want to. It has USB BIOS flashback. That would be really nice, 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:29.119 actually. That's a cool feature. So, you just throw a USB with the BIOS on it, 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:34.320 you plug it into the back, and you boot up and it restores it. Very cool. You've 00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:37.520 got uh Oh, yeah. I believe that one is so that you can use Bluetooth to 00:01:35.759 --> 00:01:43.280 overclock through your phone or something like that. So, that's a pretty neat feature if you're into that. And 3D 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:46.399 Mark Vantage Advanced Edition is included. Let's have a look at the back 00:01:45.119 --> 00:01:52.720 of the box and see what they have to say. It's all of the exact same stuff. 00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:53.840 Wow. Okay. Five PCIe 16X slots. Now, 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:58.240 we're going to have to have a look at the manual for a change. I know. I don't 00:01:56.479 --> 00:02:01.360 think I've ever actually shown you the manual for a motherboard during an 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:08.080 unboxing, but we're going to have to do that to find out exactly how the 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:11.039 Hydrolologics engine splits up those PCI 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:16.480 Express lanes because it actually acts as um as an intermediary between the 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:20.560 chipset and the graphics cards and that's how it performs its magic where 00:02:18.319 --> 00:02:23.280 it takes two mismatched cards and and takes the performance of them and adds 00:02:22.160 --> 00:02:30.200 them together and makes more performance. So, let's have a look at the accessories. First, we have 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:37.840 What on earth is this? We'll be back in a moment. This is a Bluetooth riser 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:42.640 card. I got it figured out. We have a USB cable for ROG Connect. We've got an 00:02:40.640 --> 00:02:49.920 IO shield, which is black and looks cool. We have some temperature probes. 00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:52.239 Very nice. We have some cable ties. We 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:57.680 have a Q connectors. We have a Crossfire bridge. 00:02:54.879 --> 00:03:00.720 We have voltage readout little plugs and you plug those into the 00:02:59.440 --> 00:03:08.640 board and then you plug your multimeter into there and you can read the voltages of a bunch of various aspects of the 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:12.480 board. We have a FireWire USB IO PCI 00:03:08.640 --> 00:03:14.959 back plate. We have one, two, three bags 00:03:12.480 --> 00:03:18.959 of two. So that's a total of six SATA 3 cables. And then we have two SATA 2 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:24.319 cables. Please note those cables are identical other than the color. 00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:27.599 We have a Crosshair for four extreme motherboard DVD which you should throw 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:31.200 away and download the latest from the ASUS website. And we have labels for 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:35.040 your SATA cables as well as the manual. So give me a moment. I'm going to look 00:03:32.239 --> 00:03:40.480 this up and I'll be as you can see this is a very complicated chart. And hold 00:03:37.920 --> 00:03:44.560 on, cameraman, don't move the camera. Uh look at this paragraph so that if people 00:03:42.799 --> 00:03:48.480 want to, they can freeze the video and read it. Don't move. Don't move. Don't 00:03:46.799 --> 00:03:52.799 zoom. Steady hands. Steady hands, cameraman. There you go. Okay. So, 00:03:50.640 --> 00:03:59.200 basically what happens is if you want to run Crossfire, just native Crossfire, 00:03:55.519 --> 00:04:02.640 you use PCIe slots one and three. Okay. 00:03:59.200 --> 00:04:05.439 If you run want to run Lucid Hydra, 00:04:02.640 --> 00:04:11.120 okay, so that's uh ATI, NVIDIA, or X, which is mixed multiGPU mode, then you 00:04:08.959 --> 00:04:15.760 can use any one of these combinations here. Crossfire X will also work with 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:18.479 these com with these combinations. But if you want to run it natively, it's 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:23.280 here. Depending where you want to install your theoretical RAID card or 00:04:20.479 --> 00:04:28.800 other PCIe peripheral, you can get varying um 00:04:26.080 --> 00:04:35.440 uh widths for the PCIe lanes. So you can get up to 16x, 16x, 16x for triple VGA 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:40.000 mode. And then if you want to run quad VGA, you'll have to settle for 16, 16, 00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:43.680 8, and 8. So there you have it. Let's keep going with this unboxing 00:04:42.400 --> 00:04:50.160 and we'll have a look at the board itself. U that is really like 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:53.840 yeah I don't know it throws a lot of uh it looks like it probably threw a lot of 00:04:52.080 --> 00:04:59.280 complications into the engineering process. I mean when you're figuring out 00:04:55.919 --> 00:05:01.280 how to how to optimize you know which 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:07.280 ones are running off the bridge chip and which ones are running natively off the 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:09.280 chipset and like all this stuff. It's um 00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:13.680 a miracle they managed to make a board like this at all actually 00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:18.400 and a high-end one no less. Look at that. Okay, so that is a very very nice 00:05:16.960 --> 00:05:21.840 looking board. So why don't we start with the general layout. The first thing 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:25.440 we're going to find on this board is a CPU socket. That's an AM3 socket 00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:31.520 compatible with the latest quad core and six core CPUs from AMD. Up here in the 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:36.800 top left, you will find an 8pin CPU power connector as well as a very 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:40.000 elaborate looking PWM and chipset cooling solution. So you can see there's 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:46.080 a heat pipe. Actually, I'm going to get you to get a slightly different angle on this. First of all, there's fins down 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:50.800 here. And then there's thicker fins up here. Okay? So, you can see the heat 00:05:47.840 --> 00:05:57.120 pipe is running all the way through here, down this way, under here, over 00:05:54.880 --> 00:06:01.840 here, and then down to the south bridge. And that is actually where the 00:05:58.400 --> 00:06:04.479 hydrolologics chip resides if I recall 00:06:01.840 --> 00:06:10.479 correctly. Let me have a look. I believe it is. Oh, it could also be here. 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:14.000 Hm. This could be trouble. Well, not sure exactly where it is. My guess would 00:06:12.080 --> 00:06:18.240 be here though. Okay. And you can actually see there is a cooling fan 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:23.199 inside here as well and it is plugged in right there. So that is probably one of 00:06:21.440 --> 00:06:26.800 the most complicated cooling solutions I've seen on an ASUS board in a very 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:31.199 long time. Uh because it is an AM3 socket board. You've got support for for 00:06:28.479 --> 00:06:35.680 dual channel DDR3 memory up to 16 gigs. You've got onboard hey look at that core 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:39.440 unlocker button. That makes it easy, doesn't it? Then you've got start, 00:06:37.520 --> 00:06:43.120 reset, as well as switches for all the PCI 00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:48.000 Express slots. You know what? This can be a lifesaver if you have water cooling. If you're using full cover 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:52.400 blocks, it's almost impossible to remove one card and not another one. So, if 00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:56.000 you're trying to um to troubleshoot like a dead card or anything like that, this 00:06:54.160 --> 00:07:00.160 can like seriously it's worth its weight in gold. You've got probit, which is 00:06:58.479 --> 00:07:03.680 where you can find out the voltages from a bunch of different aspects of the 00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:09.520 board. So, you've got a ground here. We've got CPU, PLL, CPU, RAM, 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:12.720 Northbridge. Uh, yeah, a bunch of other stuff, too. 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:17.440 That's great. Uh, you got a go button. I believe that's actually the memo K 00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:21.280 button. Okay. And then we've got our 24 pin power along the right hand edge of 00:07:18.960 --> 00:07:24.880 the board, exactly where it belongs. Then we have SATA, and they're 00:07:23.199 --> 00:07:31.759 specifically labeling these as optical drive. I guess that's because they're SATA 2, cuz the other six ports are 00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:32.960 actually SATA 3 6 GB per second ports. 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:38.319 All right, let's keep going down. You can see we've got dual BIOS chips here 00:07:35.039 --> 00:07:39.840 as well as a SIMOS clear button. Then we 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:44.080 have our front panel connectors, a couple 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:49.919 H couple of USB headers presumably. Okay, 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:51.440 so 9 10 7 8. 00:07:49.919 --> 00:07:55.680 Okay. And then I'm not sure what the others are. Okay, that's fine. All four 00:07:54.080 --> 00:08:00.800 pin fan connectors on this particular board and there are quite a few of them. 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:05.039 And then we've got a couple of auxiliary Molex connectors. So there's one here, 00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:12.160 one up here over by that chipset. So that means if you're loading this up with five GPUs. I mean remember this 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:16.479 this plug here was not designed to provide that much power through the 00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:20.720 slots on the motherboard. So ASUS has gone ahead and augmented it with a 00:08:18.479 --> 00:08:24.160 couple of additional Molex plugs. Now if you're only running one or two cards, 00:08:22.319 --> 00:08:27.599 it's probably fine not to plug these in. But if you are loading it up with five 00:08:25.520 --> 00:08:31.120 high power cards, definitely plug those in to your power supply. Let's go around 00:08:29.840 --> 00:08:36.399 and have a look at the back of the board on the IO panel. So, we have a PS2 port, 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:39.519 which I personally still like to see just because sometimes USB keyboards can 00:08:38.479 --> 00:08:45.680 be a little bit finicky when you're running an unstable overclock. We've got 00:08:41.680 --> 00:08:48.480 1 2 3 4 5 six USB 2.0 ports, a SIMOS 00:08:45.680 --> 00:08:53.519 clear, optical audio out that looks like a powered ESATA port as well as a 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:56.800 regular ESATA port. We have two USB 3.0 00:08:53.519 --> 00:09:00.959 ports, gigabit Ethernet, ROG connect, 00:08:56.800 --> 00:09:02.640 and 7.1 analog audio out. Thank you. Oh, 00:09:00.959 --> 00:09:07.440 no, no, not thank you. Thank you. I mean, thank you. But also, check this 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:12.160 out. So, we got our one, two, three. These are our normal ATX mounting holes. 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:17.200 But wait, there's more. This is not an EATX board, but because an EATX board 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:23.040 would probably be about here, and it would have one more screw hole, but it is actually wider than an ATX board. So 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:26.880 bear that in mind. If your case is not a little bit wider, it's not going to fit 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:31.200 this motherboard. Thank you for checking out this unboxing and first look. And 00:09:28.880 --> 00:09:36.720 don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more cool stuff like this. The 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:41.200 Lucid chip is here. Cameraman and I work together. This is the south bridge. This 00:09:38.640 --> 00:09:45.120 is the Lucid Hydraologics chip. And this is the north bridge. Thank you for 00:09:42.640 --> 00:09:45.120 watching.