Asus Blitz Formula?

[mcloud777]

Anyone have an opinion on the Asus Blitz Formula MB?

 

[jkresh]

It looks cool and the built in waterblock system for the northbrige/southbridge is interesting but without any reviews or prices it hard to say if its that much better then any of the other p5k boards.

 

[MadMurph]

I posted this on another thread under this same topic.

I've done some further research after first posting this thread. For those insterested, I found an Aussie reviewer that got an early peek at the boards. Pix posted here.

I like the board for several reasons. I like the board layout -- it looks like ASUS is listening to end-users. Compared to the P5K Deluxe, you're not giving up a minimum of 2 SATA ports, due to blockage from GPU size. Plus, a lot of thought has gone into the placement of those ports -- they face out from the edge of the board, like they started doing with IDE connections. They've done the same with USB, though not facing out, but sitting on the edge of the board. You have the choice of DDR3 or DDR2 memory, so when it drops in price you can upgrade. If you run dual GPU's, each channel gets X8. One of the Formulas does not have water block cooling. I think there's Formula Special Edition (SE), with W/B, so choose carefully if that's an important feature for you. These are due to be released to reatailers around Aug. 3; a British vendor is taking pre-orders; about $350 US, depending on model.

 

[mcloud777]

In Crossfire with dual x8 lanes to overcome the x16 x4 issue do you think this will provide significant performance improvement for our ATI cards in Crossfire with this board?

 

[MadMurph]

Absolutely! Under the old x16/x4 config, the second card isn't used to full potential, which is why I favored a single, high-end card, over the CrossFire setup. This should resolve that.

 

[mcloud777]

That is good to hear since I was going to get a single card Nvidia for the P35, but now with what you just told me has changed my mind to a Crossfire setup, so it looks like I will with ATI this time around to scale up some performance, thanks again for the info.

 

[MadMurph]

np/gl

 

[jkresh]

MadMurph unless I am mistaken you don't have a choice on memory, the blitz extreme is ddr3 only and the blitz fuzion is ddr2 only.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: mcloud777

In Crossfire with dual x8 lanes to overcome the x16 x4 issue do you think this will provide significant performance improvement for our ATI cards in Crossfire with this board?

initial reviews suggest that the Crosslinx chip actually isn't that clever.

 

[MadMurph]

Originally posted by: jkresh
MadMurph unless I am mistaken you don't have a choice on memory, the blitz extreme is ddr3 only and the blitz fuzion is ddr2 only.

Mine eyes deceived me, don't know what I was looking at. I stand corrected. Here's the features chart with a breakdown between the three Blitz boards.

 

[jedisoulfly]

Originally posted by: jkresh
It looks cool and the built in waterblock system for the northbrige/southbridge is interesting

I dont think theres actual cooling on the southbridge. I could b wrong but I dont think fluid will travel in the copper heat pipe between the NB/SB. it might help the SB some but I dont think it will be like having a waterblock on the SB itself

 

[jkresh]

jedisoulfly, you are correct that the water stays in the northbridge, but the whole idea of a heatpipe is that it transfers heat realy well, so if the southbridge is warmer then the cooled north bridge its heat will go to the nb which will be cooled by the water so it will drop the south bridge temperature as well (as the the reviews that are out have shown). It wont be as good as independent blocks but it appears to be a lot better then not having the waterblock.

 

[mcloud777]

I see this board for sale but not in the USA yet.

 

[RFV]

The thing I like about the Asus Blitz Formula Special Edition is the fact that you can run it with just a normal CPU heatsink & fan and nothing more, it will function perfectly well with air cooling. If later on you decide to go upgrade to a water-cooled system, the Fusion Block is already in place which will cool the North / South bridges, the voltage regulators positioned around the CPU area, and the Cross Link chipset. They are available in the UK for £152 making it even more expensive than the Asus Premium Black Pearl Edition, but cheaper than the Asus Blitz Extreme which is the DDR3 version. For that kind of money I would be expecting an outstanding performance. I would like to see a few more reviews on this board, but here's one to start off with ...

http://www.hardocp.com/article...M3MiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0
.

 

[jedisoulfly]

Originally posted by: jkresh
jedisoulfly, you are correct that the water stays in the northbridge, but the whole idea of a heatpipe is that it transfers heat realy well, so if the southbridge is warmer then the cooled north bridge its heat will go to the nb which will be cooled by the water so it will drop the south bridge temperature as well (as the the reviews that are out have shown). It wont be as good as independent blocks but it appears to be a lot better then not having the waterblock.

just wondering what reviews you are referring to. I have not seen a review that actually hooked water up to the block. I personally don't think that the heat pipe is going to cool the other blocks as effective as some might think. yes there will probably be some temp drops on the blocks that are only connected to the NB by heat pipes. but without liquid flowing directly over the blocks themselves I would not expect the temps to lower as much as the NB temp would. you probably are lowering the overall temp of the entire heat pipe assembly when you run water but the water is not magically going to make the air a more effective cooler. my understanding of these heat pipe assembly's are that they try and move the heat towards the back of the case so the heat can be removed by exhaust fans. if I have this right then the air from the cross links and SB will only flow towards the NB? and then the NB and volt block flow to the mosfet? if this is correct for the most part then is seems that only the air flowing from the NB to the mosfet? will actually have air that was cooled by the water flowing to it?. I don't know I could be totally wrong but it would be better to have the individual blocks for each thing. at least for a max over clock.

 

[Gary Key]

We have seen reductions in temperatures on the NorthBridge around 8C on average with a fairly simple water cooling setup but it has not changed our overclock results. Overclocking is up about 15FSB over the Premium and Deluxe boards with slightly better memory clocking performance on the high end. As far at 8x8 performance versus 16x4 with the 2900XT cards, it buys you a few FPS here and there, once again, minor improvements.

 

[mcloud777]

Asus Blitz Formula For Salehttp://www.ncixus.com/products/25641/Blitz%20Formula/ASUS/