ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme review: A match made in heaven for AMD Ryzen 9 processors

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Cardinal

If you want the accented best performance from AMD processors, the Threadripper range and best motherboards with TRX40 chipset are the combinations to go for. But if you don't have thousands of fiat money to spare on such a setup, motherboard vendors take been able to push the AMD X570 chipset considerably, which allows one to employ high-stop platforms with more affordable CPUs.

This is where the ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme comes into play. It'south in the region of $800, which is a considerable amount for a motherboard, merely supports AMD Ryzen processors and has a host of features yous won't find on less-capable boards. We're going to have a look at this flagship X570 board from ASUS and run across whether it's worthy of a spot in your next AMD PC build.

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme

Bottom line: ASUS goes all-out when designing and building the Crosshair range of motherboards and the X570 8 Extreme is no exception. It'south about as good as yous can get for AMD processors, so long as y'all don't listen the high price tag.

The Proficient

Astonishing performance
Splendid BIOS support
Robust power delivery
10Gb LAN and Wi-Fi half-dozen
Enough of expansion options
No chipset fan

The Bad

Expensive
Overkill for nearly PC builds

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair 8 Extreme: Price and availability

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Primal

The ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair 8 Extreme is the company'south flagship AMD X570 motherboard. Performance-wise, it's about the same equally well-nigh X570 motherboards, but this animal comes rocking considerably more than features. This is the price you pay for a high-end, enthusiast motherboard.

Priced at $800 at the fourth dimension of writing, the Crosshair VIII isn't for those on tighter budgets. This is nigh equally much as some spend on an entire PC, permit lone a unmarried component. It's expensive, simply well worth the price if you programme on taking advantage of many of the more than advanced features not available with more affordable options.

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme: What's practiced

Like other X570 motherboards, the ROG Crosshair Eight Extreme from ASUS is a premium foundation for a PC build. Some notable feature highlights with the AMD X570 chipset include PCIe 4.0 for speedier SSD storage and more headroom for GPUs. Merely where the Crosshair VIII Farthermost differentiates itself from the contest is everything else that comes with it.

ASUS did a solid job designing the ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme.

Inside the box, alongside the ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Farthermost, you'll notice an ASUS fan controller, DIMM.2 SSD expansion menu, Wi-Fi antenna, ROG Audio cable, also as the usual SATA cabling and other accessories one would expect with a motherboard. Y'all'll notice the footling touches when unboxing everything. Instead of chucking all the accessories underneath the board, ASUS packaged it all inside the sturdy foam.

For the motherboard itself, at that place's total support for the Ryzen 2000, 3000, and 5000 series of processors. It's possible to install up to 128GB of DDR4 RAM at speeds of up to 5GHz (2.5GHz x2). There are two PCIe four.0 x16 slots with full support for NVIDIA and AMD dual-GPU configurations. Then you lot've got 5 M.2 slots (three on the board and 2 on the expansion card), three of which are capable of running at PCIe four.0 speeds.

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Fundamental

Simply that'south not all, ASUS managed to throw in ii.5Gb and 10Gb LAN connections for more network bandwidth, not to mention the Realtek ALC4082 sound codec. Then there's the array of rear ports, which includes 8 USB-A iii.2 Gen 2 ports, ii Thunderbolt 4 ports, and illuminated audio jacks. It's a board with plenty of features, which is the biggest selling point.

Category	ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme
Size	EATX
CPU	AMD Ryzen 2000 AMD Ryzen 3000 AMD Ryzen 5000
Socket	AM4
RAM	4x DDR4 DIMM (up to DDR4-5000), 128GB limit
Chipset	AMD X570
Expansion	2x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) 1x PCIe iii.0 x1
Storage	8x SATA (6Gbps) 1x M.2 2242/2260/2280 (PCIe 4.0 x4, SATA) 2x Grand.two 2242/2260/2280 (PCIe iv.0 x4) 2x K.2 2242/2260/2280 (SATA)
Audio	Realtek ALC4082
Rear ports	USB BIOS FlashBack Push(due south) 1x 10G LAN 1x 2.5G LAN 1x ASUS Wi-Fi 2x Thunderbolt 4 8x USB-A 3.two Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps) 2x DisplayPort in 1x Optical S/PDIF out 5x Illuminated audio jack
NVIDIA SLI	✓
AMD CrossFire	✓
Dimensions	305mm ten 277mm
Launch price	$800

To cram all this tech onto a PCB that fits inside most mid- and full-tower PC cases, ASUS made full utilise of the rather confusing EATX "standard," measuring in at 305mm x 277mm. Information technology'south substantially an ATX motherboard that's a little flake wider. Compared to the outgoing X470 Crosshair Seven, this latest entry in the AMD series from ASUS sports a slightly less ambitious blueprint, which should fit in with builds that don't rely on RGB lighting.

Information technology'south a sleek, all-black PCB with an all-encompassing metal shroud. We've come up to know and appreciate how ASUS approaches the roofing of M.two slots without making anything important inaccessible, though this comes short of what NZXT offers with its N7 B550 motherboard. It's incredibly heavy for a motherboard, also in office due to the full metal backplate. This is an EATX board, however, so you will need to make sure your chassis tin take a 277mm-wide platform.

Should you lot have an adequate case, you'll appreciate all the extra features present on this lath. Let'due south start with the dual 8-pivot CPU ProCool II power connections in the top left, which is mutual on high-stop boards such as this. Next, we take the eighteen+2 power stages (rated for a total of ninety amps) with microfine alloy chokes and 10K Japanese-fabricated black metallic capacitors.

This EATX motherboard is laden with enthusiast features for powerful PC builds.

It's a fantastic foundation for loftier-operation Ryzen 9 processors. There are four DIMM slots, every bit well as an additional DIMM.2 slot for adding an optional (but included) PCIe 4.0 Thousand.two expansion card. There'south the return of the pocket-sized OLED console merely below the CPU socket, which can display temperatures, clock speeds, and other data.

The usual 24-pivot ATX ability connectedness is nowadays on the right with an additional onboard 8-pivot PCIe port. ASUS has generously added two USB-C and two USB-A iii.0 ports for cases that support either. Enthusiast features are towards the lesser of the board, below the usual array of six SATA points of contact.

To play with, you've got physical buttons for safe boot, retrying a BIOS config, and switching BIOS altogether. And to get the near out of your processor, yous'll need h2o cooling. Using a custom water-cooling loop, the ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme tin can control the pump, radiator fans (2 headers tin supply 4A of current), and even monitor water temperatures and flow charge per unit.

The 3 M.2 slots are covered past metal shrouds, as is the case with many motherboards today. The summit-most M.2 slot is hidden behind the 2-inch OLED panel. Information technology's removed easily, as is the case with the ii other M.two slots, and ASUS makes utilize of a toolless design to secure the SSD to the lath, which is brilliant. There are also thermal pads nowadays both below and above the master M.2 drive.

The ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair Eight Extreme has a lot going for it. Actually at that place'due south not much to dislike with the motherboard. If you lot take an expansive example with numerous forepart console USB ports, more than three M.2 SSDs, a powerful Ryzen nine processor, and programme to do a custom h2o-cooling solution to keep everything within a specific temperature range, this is the board for you.

Having fancier features is one thing, just how does the motherboard compare to the competition in terms of performance? We put the Crosshair 8 Farthermost to the examination with an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, and Sabrent PCIe 4.0 SSD to see how much of a departure it would make. We weren't expecting huge gains since fifty-fifty mid-tier motherboards perform very well.

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Fundamental

We've not tested many enthusiast motherboards and as such don't have numbers to compare apples to apples, but compared to mid-range motherboards like the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E, the difference is negligible when running stock settings through the UEFI BIOS. Simply that's doing the Crosshair motherboard a disservice and cranking everything up allowed for a very slight edge on everything else nosotros've tested. I'm talking in the region of up to 5%.

VRM temperatures were measured at 44C stock settings. Overclocking components brought this upward to 49C. It was possible to button the Ryzen nine 5950X to 5.1GHz at ane.45v without effect. I was able to get the installed G.SKILL Trident Z Purple RAM running stable at full rated speeds and 1.49V (versus the rated i.5V). Running the RTX 3080 in games saw the same astonishing results one would expect from such a GPU at 1440p and 4K resolutions (see the card review for more details).

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair Viii Extreme: What's not good

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Key

I didn't come beyond anything I disliked about the Crosshair VIII Extreme. It does mostly everything correct, which should be expected given how many revisions ASUS has gone through with previous chipsets. The latest X570 iteration is a earth-course motherboard, and then long as y'all can afford information technology.

The major problem with such a premium production is the audience. Exercise yous really need a motherboard with upwardly to five M.2 slots, more power delivery headroom than you lot'll ever require, overclocking tools similar physical kicking buttons, and 10Gb LAN? The answer is likely to be no, which makes it difficult to recommend the ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair Eight Extreme to anyone other than a PC enthusiast.

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair 8 Extreme: Contest

Gigabyte X570-I Aorus Pro Wi-Fi Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Fundamental

Yous can compare this motherboard confronting all other X570 offerings since they'll mostly all be compatible with the same processors. When put upwards against more affordable X570 motherboards, you'll be gaining a slight heave in performance, only non ane that'southward worth the boosted cost. If you're merely later calculating power, it'due south all-time to become with a better value board.

In terms of features, this is where the Crosshair serial from ASUS shines. Yous've got endless Chiliad.2 slots, fantastic h2o-cooling support, advanced overclocking back up, a better power delivery setup, and both 10G and 2.5G LAN connections. This is a solid foundation for an enthusiast build or for a creator PC.

To fit all this functionality on a single PCB, ASUS had to stretch the dimensions a little, meaning this motherboard is slightly wider than standard ATX. This may dominion out some cases that are unable to support such a size. And if yous're because a compact PC build you lot'll want to look at a Mini-ITX motherboard similar the Gigabyte X570-I AORUS Pro Wi-Fi.

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme: Should you lot buy it?

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central

Yous should buy this if ...

You accept an AMD Ryzen 9 processor
You programme to overclock your CPU
You desire to use 10Gb LAN or Wi-Fi 6
Yous want an enthusiast-form motherboard
Y'all can spare $800 from your PC budget

You lot shouldn't buy this if ...

You don't take much coin to spare
You lot don't have at least a Ryzen seven processor
You don't plan on overclocking the CPU
You won't employ most of the features

The question of "should you buy this motherboard" comes downward to how much budget you have to spare. If you tin spend $800 on a motherboard alone without feeling a little down afterward, you should go correct ahead and do so. Merely that'due south just if you plan on using most of the more advanced features, including the DIMM.2 expansion card, front USB connections, overclocking back up, and water-cooling features.

If you're non going to employ any of that, the ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair Eight Farthermost becomes a harder sale. That's not to say it's a bad motherboard; information technology's admittedly the contrary. This is a fantastic foundation for an AMD Ryzen PC build. It looks stunning, is built to a very high standard, and uses premium components for stable power delivery. All the most important boxes are ticked.

The upshot is most PC builds won't require any of these features. Nearly gamers don't create their own water-cooling loops, nor practice they need to connect upwardly to five M.2 SSDs to their PC. Even ASUS' ain mid-range motherboards, such as the infrequent ROG Strix X570-E Gaming, offer like performance at a vastly more than affordable price. But such boards likely won't have an OLED console, physical buttons for BIOS switching, and more.

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Extreme

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair Viii Extreme

Bottom line: In that location's then much to honey virtually this motherboard, including the robust BIOS and power delivery, expansion options, and impressive performance.

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