The first and most prominent feature with the 780a chipset is integrated video onboard allowing for what Nvidia calls Hybrid Power and Hybrid SLI. Basically this allows you to save energy as if you're doing day to day tasks such as web browsing of using a word processor it'll shut off completely you're primary graphics in your PCI-Express slot. When you load up a game your main card starts up, thus saving you plenty of power and heat in what the majority users have as downtime. Quite a neat feature but unfortunately we ran into problems with the Crosshair II trying to enable it and were just short on time so we'll have to look into this and other 780a features later. For now let's move onto our review of Asus' Crosshair II Formula 780a motherboard.

Here are the technical specs.

U AMD® Socket AM2+ for AMD Phenom™ FX / Phenom / Athlon™ / Sempron™
AMD Socket AM2 for AMD Athlon 64 X2 / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 / Sempron
AMD Cool'n'Quiet™ Technology
Chipset NVIDIA® nForce 780a SLI
System Bus Up to 5200 MT/s; HyperTransport™ 3.0 interface for AM2+ CPU
2000 / 1600 MT/s for AM2 CPU
Memory 4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR2 1066 / 800 / 667, ECC and non-ECC, un-buffered memory
Dual channel memory architecture
VGA Integrated graphics
512MB Maximum shared memory of MB
Supports HDMI™ Technology with HDCP compliant with max. resolution 1920 x 1200
Supports D-Sub with max. resolution 1920 × 1440 @ 75 Hz
Multi VGA output support: DVI & D-Sub
Hybrid SLI Support
Expansion Slots 3 x PCIe2.0 x16 support NVIDIA SLI Tech @ dual x16 or 3-way@x8, x8, x8
2 x PCIe x1, PCIex1_1 (black) is compatible with audio slot
2 x PCI 2.2
Storage 6 x SATA 3Gb/s ports with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD support
1 x Ultra DMA 133 / 100 / 66 / 33
LAN Dual Gigabit LAN controllers, both featuring AI NET2
High Definition Audio SupremeFX II Audio Card
- ADI 1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC
- Noise Filter
Coaxial, Optical S/PDIF out at back I/O
IEEE 1394 2 x 1394a ports(1 port at back I/O, 1 port onboard)
USB max. 12 USB2.0/1.1 ports(6 ports at mid-board, 6 ports at back panel)
ASUS ROG Overclocking Features Extreme Tweaker
New 8+2 phase power design
Intelligent overclocking tools:
- CPU Level Up
- AI Overclocking (intelligent CPU frequency tuner)
- ASUS AI Booster Utility
- O.C Profile
Overclocking Protection:
- COP EX (Component Overheat Protection EX)
- Voltiminder LED
- ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)
ASUS ROG Special Features LCD Poster
ROG BIOS Wallpaper
Onboard Switches: Power / Reset / Clr CMOS(at rear)
Q-Connector
ASUS EZ Flash2
ASUS CrashFree BIOS2
Stack Cool 2
ASUS Q-Shield
ASUS MyLogo3
Uses 100% All High-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors!
Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x HDMI
1 x D-SUB
1 x PS/2 Keyboard port(purple)
1 x Optical + 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Output
2 x LAN (RJ45) port
6 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 x IEEE1394a port
1 x Clr CMOS switch
Internal connectors 3 x USB 2.0 connectors supports additional 6 USB 2.0 ports
1 x Floppy disk drive connector
1 x IDE connector for two devices
6 x SATA connectors
8 x Fan connectors: 1 x CPU / 1 x PWR / 3 x Chassis / 3 x Optional
3 x thermal sensor connectors
1 x IEEE1394a connector
1 x S/PDIF output connector
1 x Chassis Intrusion connector
24-pin ATX Power connector
8-pin ATX 12V Power connector
1 x En/Dis-able Clr CMOS
1 x LCD Poster
1 x ROG light connector
System panel connector
BIOS 8Mb Award BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI2.0a Multi-Language BIOS
Manageability WOL by PME, WOR by PME, Chasis Intrusion, PXE
Accessories 3-Way SLI Bridge
SLI Bridge
HDMI/DVI converter
ASUS Optional Fan
3 in 1 ASUS Q-Connector Kit
UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable
Floppy disk drive cable
SATA cables
SATA power cables
2-port USB2.0 module+IEEE1394a module
ASUS Q-Shield
Cable Ties
User's manual
Software The hottest DX10 Game: Company of Heroes:Opposing Fronts
Support DVD:
Drivers
ASUS PC Probe II
ASUS Update
ASUS AI Suite
Futuremark ® 3DMark® 06 Advanced Edition
Kaspersky® Anti-Virus
Image-editing software
Form Factor ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.4cm)

The Crosshair II Formula represents the highest-end version of their 780a motherboards and Socket AM2+ in general and as with other motherboards from them is loaded to the brim with accessories, features, and a great bundle. The passive cooling remains, quick front-panel connectors, onboard reset and power on buttons, a clear CMOS button, LED readout meter, the full version of Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, cable management strips, and more. It is very inclusive and a high status motherboard that is a great overclocker though that comes also with a price.

A new blue colored heatsink covers the southbridge with the Asus logo which looks quite nice. Placement follows somewhat standard of what we've seen from other Asus boards the past few years with our only real gripe the CPU 8-pin plug can be quite a snug fit in a case with a large heatsink.

Here we see the side ports and the VGA output as well as HDMI from the integrated video of the 780a. Again we'll unfortunately have to test that at a later time.

Overclocking brought in our best results yet we've seen for the Phenom X4 9850 reaching 2.9GHz stable both through changing the multipliers in the BIOS and increasing the bus speeds. This is about 80MHz more than our best overclock which may not seem like much but for a Phenom is quite good.

Onto the benchmarks

Here's our current test system.

Our test OS was Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 x86 with 175.14 Forceware drivers, 18.11 nForce drivers, and ATI Catalyst 8.4. All the latest software revisions were used in our testing.

Let's start off with some game benchmarks.

Here in game benchmarks we don't see a huge difference in scores. The 590 chipset is limited though somewhat by the 1GHz Hypertransport bus as opposed to the 2GHz of the others.

PCMark gives a good base of general PC performance and the Crosshair does quite well. In 3DMark 2006SE the  790FX barely comes out on top but that the difference is minute enough to be a variable.

HDTach's test again shows the 790FX and 780a closer than the 590SLI but the 780a comes out on top.