The ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact: A Sharp $430 Impulse on X570

Board Features

The ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact is one of two small form factor motherboards from ASUS and is the bigger of the pair with its slightly larger than normal PCB. Using the mini-DTX form factor allows ASUS to feature its ROG SO-DIMM.2 slot which allows users to install two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives with cooling support provided by the inclusive heatsink.  Other storage options include four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. The Impact features an Intel I211-AT Gigabit ethernet controller and an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax wireless interface; this also offers users BT 5.0 connectivity. Onboard audio is handled by ASUS's familiar SupremeFX S1220 HD audio codec and also includes an ESS ES9023P DAC. This adds three 3.5 mm audio jacks which are illuminated, as well as a single S/PDIF optical output on the rear panel. The implementation of the onboard audio is interesting as it's on an add-on card which is plugged into the PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot just beneath the full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot.

On the rear panel are five USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C port, and two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports. A further two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G1 Type-C, and two USB 2.0 ports can be added through the front panel headers. Clear CMOS, USB BIOS flashback and reset buttons are also located on the rear panel, and a two digit Q-Code LED debugger makes up the rest of the space. The memory support on the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact is very impressive with support for up to DDR4-4800 and the two slots allow for users to install up to 64 GB. The 32 GB UDIMMs can be used, as well as the double-height, double capacity DC memory is also supported.

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC	Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs	Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX	Crucial Ballistix DDR4	Silverstone Coolers	Silverstone Fans

New Test Suite: Spectre and Meltdown Hardened

Since the start of our Z390 reviews, we are using an updated OS, updated drivers, and updated software. This is in line with our CPU testing updates, which includes Spectre and Meltdown patches. We are also running the testbed with the new Windows 10 1903 update for AMD's Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, and X570 motherboard reviews. The Windows 1903 update improves multi-core and multi-thread performance on AMD's Ryzen processors with topology awareness meaning previous issues in regards to latency have been known to affect performance. As users are recommended to keep their Windows 10 operating system updates, our performance data is reflected with the 1903 update.