THE STORYAfter many days, in the dark days of x86 AMD was born small warrior. Big older brother Crosshair fighting well two-three years ago as Vishera octa core against Sandy and Ivy. It was not true, because for 8 threads was only 4 floating points etc....Strong in video, strong in render, strong in compressing and encryption. Average in games, but not much good with one hand in single operation...Old brother must reboring into something new if he do not die. Time to rest.
Now is here smaller brother with 4 arms. Exactly 2CU/4C. And good shield for him is new Crossblade....There begins Crossblade Ranger story.I like ROG and I like two oponents in game of x86 (AMD and Intel too). Today is D day of Crossblade Ranger. The first ROG motherboard for not highend chips, but for mainstream FM2+. What is the benefit the FM2+? You can play extreme with Trinity, Richlands and Kaveri APUs or Athlon derivates. All these CPU you can put into the motherboard. And you know, Richland and LN2 can be really fun. Or some experiments with good Kaveri chips. iGPU here is so strong!
Features, what you cann add to boardInjoy with ROG Front base panel
🙂SupremeFX sound with soundstage function. HW soundstage are predefined audio profiles exmaple for racing games, FPS games etc...And again video with some audio functions in Sonic Studio software (Z97 tested)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuUVXFRUYVA&list=UUJXfmRezJja_lW9sz2RNi8AIntel LAN chip is not all, ROG 2014 and guards
Gamefirst III for gaming, streaming, working etc.
At install DVD you can find RAM disk software. If you have around 16 GB DRAM or more, it can be nice improvement...
Special HW/SW function keybot. I will wite later sometimes about it in text in short. For better understanding is here video (tested with Z97)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w3NLBK3Sug&list=UUJXfmRezJja_lW9sz2RNi8AThe AI SUite software can auto-OC your system. Not only OC, but exactly to say tuning your PC.
Sonic Radar II, where is your enemy...
The BOXFrom top is the classic, the board name, color scheme, ifno about support 4K, win8.1, CPUs...And something as bonus inside
🙂Open the part of the box and features info inside
And description of the board and boards functions
Gaming features, audio, LAN, IO
Who/what it is inside?:)Inside the board you can find the SATA cabels, cabel labels, DVD, Manual, ROG sticker, gaming tag, IO cap, Q-connectors and
mouse pad!
Description in shortLook at the board from top. ROG is long time with nice scheme colors black and red. Now are all details only red and black, no white etc.... The first look likes as Z97 Ranger. The connectors are at the rigt and classic places. At right are 4 DIMs slots for DDR3 DRAM up to 2666 MHz (and support DOCP and AMP profiles)! Overall capacity can be up to 64 GB, not bad :-). For them is OC area and digi power for memory. Middle part of the board and bottom half is about PCIE/PCIe slots. You know, Trinity and Richland is PCIe 2.0 chip, but Kaveri are PCIe 3.0. But of course, everything from FCH (SB) is still PCIe 2.0. As Z87/97 too. The CPU has 16 PCIe 3.0 links. So with A88X you can try 1x X16 or 2x X8 in the red slots :-). Smaller PCIe slots are PCIe X1 2.0 (from FCH chip). The last one black PCIe X16 slot working as X4 and its again 2.0 standard.
The board has seperate PCB part for audio and audio links named Supreme FX 2014 with some exclusive functions. Yes, you know them from Z97 launch :).
From bottom look are backplates. CPU backplate and two mosfets backplates. Hardness of PCB is OK, the board is not to sag.
Details of the board partsDRAM slots are digital driving with separate controller, primary slots are RED colors. You can see 24-pin MB ATX power and START and small RESET button in front. I evaluate the post display. ABout more details and example fan connectors we will talking later
🙂The 8-pin ATX CPU power.
8 Chokes and nice designed pasive at VRM area. One average 7850K inside the socket.
Details at PCIe area. The red slots are X16 in the mode 1x 16 or 2x 8 (PCIe2.0/3.0, depends at CPU). These are from CPU controller. The space between red slots its OK for Crossfire. Small PCIe black slots are PCIe x1 and from southbridge (FCH). This chipset is still live with PCI lines. It can up to 3 PCI, but ussually in these days you are OK with 1 PCI. The Crossblade Ranger has overall 2x PCI slots. The last black slots at bottom the board is PCIe x16 working in x4 mode (PCIe 2.0).
There is SATA cornet of MB. You can see 90 angle SATA slots. All eight slots are 6 GB/s and all native from chipset with Raid support 0,1,5,10,JBOD. Under the ROG FCH pasive is located true and not big FCH chip and Asus TPU chip for tuning PC. Between SATA connectors and 24-pin ATX you can see red USB3.0 front port.
IO panel is part of conectivity and video/audio outputs. The Trinity/Richland/Kaveri support Multi-VGA: HDMI/DVI-D/RGB ports
- Supports HDMI with max. resolution 4096 x 2160 @ 24 Hz / 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz*1
- Supports DVI-D with max. resolution 2560 x 1600 @ 60 Hz
- Supports RGB with max. resolution 1920 x 1600 @ 60 Hz
Maximum shared memory of 2048 MB
AMD? Dual Graphics technology support. With Kaveri you have some next of benefits GCN architecture as Mantle, DX 11, True audio, HSA etc... But back to IO information :-). You can see PS2, 2x USB 2.0 (one is for right function of Keybot feature), SPDIF out, D-SUB, HDMI, DVI, bios flashback button, 4x USB 3.0, gigabit LAN (Intel I211 controller) and audio outputs with 8 channel support DTS.
Sound part with SupremeFX chip. You can see audio part line of "shielded" part PCB. There are few capactiors by ELNA, big aluminium shield and inside probably ALC1150. The audio line can red blinking (BIOS setting).
Who knows me, knows me ;)....AMD 3000+, AMD x2 4600+ EE, AMD X4 955 BE C2,2x AMD X4 965 BE C3, AMD X4 970 BE C3, AMD x4 975 BE, AMD x4 980 BE, AMD X6 1090T BE, AMD x6 1100T BE, 2x AMD FX-8120, 2x AMD FX-8150, FX-6300, FX-8300, FX-8320E, FX-8320, FX-8350, FX-8370, FX-8370E, FX-9370, FX-9590, AMD A8-3850, AMD A8-3870K, A8-5600K, A10-5800K, A10-6800K, A10-7850K, A10-7870K, A 5150, Athlon x4 860K, Intel i7-5960X, i7-6700K, Intel i7-4770K, Intel i7-980x, Intel i7 2600k, Intel i7-3770K, i7-3930K.