Unusual performance at 5950x speed?
Unusual performance at 5950x speed?
I thought the Crosshair VIII was a premium, well-made board based on its popularity and my reviews. Damn.
It mainly comes down to the premium ASUS board, and ASUS is known for producing top-tier motherboards. Their BIOS setup is often favored by reviewers, leading to a perception of high-quality boards. I’m not claiming they’re flawless—Crosshair VIII performs well under extreme conditions—but the memory layout is considered the least improved among manufacturers. Switching boards isn’t recommended unless you want noticeable gains; the performance boost from adjusting subtimings can often be more impactful than the base clock speed alone.
I’d have hoped for at least some solid RAM capacity, but honestly another excuse to criticize this disappointing meme hardware. It’ll definitely fall short compared to the X570 Dark or Unify X, which are real overclocking boards—not just flashy wannabe models. No wonder the cheap meme boards get crushed by better options; they’re just trying to look cool. Still, there are some decent deals on lower-end ASUS boards now, which makes the situation a bit more balanced. Crosshair will pale next to a proper OC board like X570 Dark, but it’s still a decent alternative for those who want more than just a flashy setup.
I believe there aren't any Gen 4 AM4 XOC boards available. The dark setting is acceptable, but a genuine XOC board should use the B550 chipset as it offers more flexibility with BCLK. The only XOC board with a B550 chipset that I know of is the Unify-X, though it lacks several key features XOC requires, such as dual BIOS support.
It seems the earlier x470 crosshair version could reach 200 bclk, which is impressive. Still, it feels like just a fancy piece of hardware for the most part, but at least it handled 200 bclk.
Hey, some of these people are just starting out with overclocking. You can't push them too hard when they're using quiet systems with very little airflow.
I mentioned 1.7v for rams with a fan or up to 1.5v without one. I can push my 1x3 1066 cl6 to 1520 7-9-6-10 at 2.34v and run my generic Samsung Rev F1GB DDR3 at 2200 MHz with a 9-11-24-24 configuration. Both are stable and solid without fans. If they skip the rams, that’s okay. I’m just sharing the ideal volt settings for peak performance and safety. 1.7v works well for Samasung B Die, though 1.6v is also safe for some builds. It’s a bit conservative, but it helps preserve components when they run cool.
Attempt to turn off c-states and in-memory timing options, disable power-down mode and check if it resolves your problems. The memory controller is set for high speed at 2x8GB. The problem seems to be with the CPU, not the board. Hope it works. Also, avoid using 1.7V on anything—it was a ridiculous idea.