Unboxing And Overview: Crossblade Ranger FM2+ Gaming Motherboard

For AMD fans umming and arring over an FM2+ upgrade, let us tempt you further with a bit of A10-7850K, Matrix R9 290X and Crossblade action in our unboxing and overview below!

In case you don't have a local store to browse around, here's the Crossblade box detailing all about its new features. Click for bigger pics to read the info.

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Inside the box you get:

• DND door hanger
• ROG Mecha (fabric) mouse mat!
• ROG case badge
• User guide and driver disc
• Rear IO cover
• SATA/ODD cables stickers, for identifying each one after they've been snaked through your case.
• Four SATA cables
• ASUS Q-connectors

Front and back of the Crossblade, with MOSFET cooling/heatsink bracing on the rear side as well. The two red PCIE slots support up to dual GPUs in CrossFireX (8x8x PCIE Gen 3 from APU).

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Next to the memory DIMMs, some OC features are built in:

• Power and reset buttons
• Q Code two digit POST read out
• ProbeIt (7 voltage read points)
• MemOK button
• Slow Mode switch
• LN2 jumper

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ROG's SupremeFX 2014 powers the audio, with red-line isolation, EMI cap, ELNA capacitors and the full Sonic Studio software package, including SenseAMP, SoundStage and Sonic Radar II.

Along the bottom of the board is the SoundStage quick-switch, Clear CMOS and KeyBot buttons. There are six USB 2.0 ports via pins, with two overlapping in use with the ROG-EXT pins, which can connect to an OC Panel or Front Base to accessorize your case.

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Eight SATA 6Gbps ports - all from the A88X chipset with support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 - neatly align the edge, with the red USB 3.0 front panel pins next to it.

On the rear IO:

• 2x USB 2.0 ports
• 4x USB 3.0 ports
• HDMI, DVI and d-sub
• S/PDIF out
• USB BIOS Flashback button
• ROG LANGuard (connected to Intel Gigabit Ethernet with GameFirst III)
• Six 3.5mm audio jacks 

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We put together a Matrix R9 290X, A10-7850K with some G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3 to give you an idea of how it looks as part of an ROG system.

 

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