Asus Crosshair III Formula First Look
With the seeming stagnation of AMD-based chipsets versus Intel-based chipsets in the past year, as well as the recent focus on other PC component types, things seem to have been quiet for the Republic of Gamers on the AMD front. Well not anymore. Asus have provided us with exclusive pictures of their latest and upcoming AMD-based RoG creation, the Crosshair III Formula.
Overall, the general board layout looks to be fairly similar to its predecessor, the Crosshair II Formula, with what looks to be the same 8+2 phase power design. However, there are a few key differences. One of the first, and more interesting, things you'll notice is that the board features "only" a pair of PCI-E x16 slots, instead opting for a second PCI-E x1 slot compared to the recent Rampage II Extreme RoG board. We can see that the Crosshair III does not seem to sport an onboard GPU and also seems to have abandoned the outdated floppy connector.
The usual RoG goodies make their appearance in the form of the SupremeFX audio card, external LCD Poster, and onboard power/reset/CMOS clear buttons. The SupremeFX card looks to be of the newer generation seen on the Rampage Extreme II and thus likely supports Creative X-Fi technologies such as EAX 4.0, X-Fi CMSS-3D, and the X-Fi Crystalizer.
As for the packaging, it's rocking the same red and white colour design as the more recent Rampage II Extreme and GENE line of motherboards from Asus.
We spoke to Iain Bristow, Technical PR for ASUS UK who commented, "The Crosshair III Formula is a really exciting addition to the Republic of Gamers and follows in the foot steps of it's predecessors. It's a fully featured Republic of Gamers motherboard for AMD CPU's."
Unfortunately, this is only a photo release, so we have no concrete specifications to list at this time. Still, time will tell, and we're certainly looking forward to seeing exactly what Asus has in store with this latest update to their gaming-focused AMD platform.
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