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Crosshair V Formula vs SABERTOOTH 990FX

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  • Crosshair V Formula vs SABERTOOTH 990FX

    I want a new mainboard and ram (ddr2 800mhz simply doesnt do it anymore - dont laugh at me, it did well up till now ^^) and I've pretty much narrowed my choices down to these 2, both ASUS.

    Crosshair V Formula (basic one without the extra sound/lan thingie that doubles the price) vs SABERTOOTH 990FX

    I couldn't find much difference in the 2 though, except the Crosshair ROG board costing slightly more.

    Bonus of the Crosshair:
    - Intel LAN (that's claimed to be better)
    - 2 more USB3 ports on the back
    - eSATA3 (not relevant to me as my case has a docking station i can attach to the board)
    - better? soundcard.
    - slightly better OC potential, but i don't plan to OC my hardware, atleast not much. Don't plan on adding water cooling to it all, and i like it silent.
    - slightly better accessory pack

    Bonus of the Sabertooth:
    - firewire (dont need that)
    - power-eSATA,
    - more SATA ports (don't need more then 1 for hdd and 1 for case docking)
    - better components? Military grade (highlighted for that one and not for the other but might be same)
    - bit cheaper
    - supports quad gfx (don't need more then 1 card)
    - from description better cooled components

    Did i miss anything? Currently I got a Phenom X4 9850 black edition and a 1gb HD6870 IceQ but I'm getting the bulldozer 8core CPU as soon as it hits the EU shelves.
    Any suggestion on what to pick here? I plan a lifetime of 3-4years on my hardware before i replace it (unless it breaks).

    Thanks in advance.
    My advice - never visit a short-url, no matter who gives it to you. You can't trust any source at any time when you don't know your target
    Whitey: ROG Crosshair V Formula/Thunderbolt, AMD 1090T @ 3.2GHz w. NZXT Havic 140, Corsair XMS3 1333 8GB kit, HIS IceQ X HD 6870, Corsair Force GT 120GB, OCZ Vertex4 256GB, Kingston SSDNow 16GB, Samsung 500GB 3½" in casedock when needed, Chieftec Nitro88+ 650W, NZXT H2 White, 3x Asus VS248 24"
    Snuggles: Zotac Zbox HD-ID40 (Atom d525, worst purchase ever on cpu), Patriot Pyro 60GB (Thanks to Tweaktown Giveaway), 4GB 800' DDR2 SO-DIMM
    Bcube (NAS): ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe, AMD A6-3500 @ 2.1GHz, LSI 9240-8i (M1015) controller, GSkill Ares 1866 8GB blue kit, 4x Seagate SV35.5 2TB, 1x Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB, 1x Samsung HD103UJ, 1x Samsung F4 2TB, Temp. Rebel9 Alu case, Corsair H60, 2x Icy Dock MB973SP-B, NZXT UI01, Enermax T.B. Silence on docks and cpu, Aurum 500W gold PSU. (Draws 65W average, doesn't peak above 100W at any time)

  • #2
    Re: Crosshair V Formula vs SABERTOOTH 990FX

    A little while ago I ran into the same choice exactly. I ended up going for the Sabertooth for the 5-year warranty (about how long I require my motherboard to last before it's likely that I'll upgrade to a new platform again). It sounds like the crosshair 3-year warranty will expire near the end of your use for it, so it could kinda suck if it happened to break down on you when you would've rather waited an extra 2-5 months for a new platform to be released in 2015/early-2016.

    The soundcard on the Crosshair IS better than the generic Realtek HD Audio stuff on the Sabertooth, but the only real advantage I know of is the EAX 5.0 support, and not many games make use of that. But it certainly beats paying $50-$60 for a similar dedicated expansion card except you can't take it with you when you upgrade. Both audio solutions have a great sound to noise ratio though, so you probably won't hear a difference with ordinary MP3/DVD/Blu-Ray audio quality.

    As for SLI/Crossfire on the two boards, they both support Quad-SLI/CrossfireX using two dual-GPU cards (gtx 590, HD 6990). The Crosshair also supports 3-way using three dedicated cards connected separately. I currently use 1 card on my sabertooth, and it's nice having the option to go for Crossfire in the future. But 3 cards doesn't really add any value for the crosshair since it will be more reasonable just to buy a new card when 2 6950's can't handle to workload anymore, instead of hoping for a 30% boost for another card (with power consumption increase as well of course); 3-way SLI and Crossfire can also be a big problem driver-wise compared to two-way.

    Both boards really should OC about as well as each other, being that they're same chipset from the same company, and both a targeted towards a higher-end segment of the market. You should run into thermal limits on either of them before the board itself starts messing up overclocks.

    TL;DR, I'd go for the Sabertooth for the better warranty if I know I want my computer to last more than 3 years. (which it will if in 3 years I'm only just thinking about building something new)

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    • #3
      Re: Crosshair V Formula vs SABERTOOTH 990FX

      This is one of the toughest decisions I've had to make so far when it comes to hardware. Usually I know what I want and just go for it. Oh well, still time 'till the 1st when its payday :)
      My advice - never visit a short-url, no matter who gives it to you. You can't trust any source at any time when you don't know your target
      Whitey: ROG Crosshair V Formula/Thunderbolt, AMD 1090T @ 3.2GHz w. NZXT Havic 140, Corsair XMS3 1333 8GB kit, HIS IceQ X HD 6870, Corsair Force GT 120GB, OCZ Vertex4 256GB, Kingston SSDNow 16GB, Samsung 500GB 3½" in casedock when needed, Chieftec Nitro88+ 650W, NZXT H2 White, 3x Asus VS248 24"
      Snuggles: Zotac Zbox HD-ID40 (Atom d525, worst purchase ever on cpu), Patriot Pyro 60GB (Thanks to Tweaktown Giveaway), 4GB 800' DDR2 SO-DIMM
      Bcube (NAS): ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe, AMD A6-3500 @ 2.1GHz, LSI 9240-8i (M1015) controller, GSkill Ares 1866 8GB blue kit, 4x Seagate SV35.5 2TB, 1x Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB, 1x Samsung HD103UJ, 1x Samsung F4 2TB, Temp. Rebel9 Alu case, Corsair H60, 2x Icy Dock MB973SP-B, NZXT UI01, Enermax T.B. Silence on docks and cpu, Aurum 500W gold PSU. (Draws 65W average, doesn't peak above 100W at any time)

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Crosshair V Formula vs SABERTOOTH 990FX

        Ended up buying the ROG, even the big model with the Thunderbolt card... hehe. So with the ordered stuff (forgot to check ram's stock lvl, so order delayed till the 6th) my system will soon look like this:

        Case: NZXT H2 Classic with extra 140x140x25 Noiseblocker Silent Pro Fan L-PK2R at top.
        PSU: Chieftec Nitro88 650W
        Mainboard: Asus ROG Crosshair V Formula/Thunderbolt
        Ram: 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance 1866 (2 more at a later time)
        CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9850 with NZXT HAVIK 140 cooler
        SSD: Corsair Force GT 120gb, Kingston SSDNow 16GB
        HDD: Maybe, got LAN storage out the kabooz.

        (Mainboard, Ram, extra case cooler and cpu cooler will be new)
        My advice - never visit a short-url, no matter who gives it to you. You can't trust any source at any time when you don't know your target
        Whitey: ROG Crosshair V Formula/Thunderbolt, AMD 1090T @ 3.2GHz w. NZXT Havic 140, Corsair XMS3 1333 8GB kit, HIS IceQ X HD 6870, Corsair Force GT 120GB, OCZ Vertex4 256GB, Kingston SSDNow 16GB, Samsung 500GB 3½" in casedock when needed, Chieftec Nitro88+ 650W, NZXT H2 White, 3x Asus VS248 24"
        Snuggles: Zotac Zbox HD-ID40 (Atom d525, worst purchase ever on cpu), Patriot Pyro 60GB (Thanks to Tweaktown Giveaway), 4GB 800' DDR2 SO-DIMM
        Bcube (NAS): ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe, AMD A6-3500 @ 2.1GHz, LSI 9240-8i (M1015) controller, GSkill Ares 1866 8GB blue kit, 4x Seagate SV35.5 2TB, 1x Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB, 1x Samsung HD103UJ, 1x Samsung F4 2TB, Temp. Rebel9 Alu case, Corsair H60, 2x Icy Dock MB973SP-B, NZXT UI01, Enermax T.B. Silence on docks and cpu, Aurum 500W gold PSU. (Draws 65W average, doesn't peak above 100W at any time)

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