Small form factor PC fans rejoice! ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) Philippines recently announced of the availability of its top tier gaming board, the ROG Crosshair VII Impact, to local stores nationwide. This announcement comes after news of the Crosshair VII Impact managing to break the 6GHz barrier on CPU and memory speed recently. As a long time builder and fan of compact PCs, I welcome this development. What does the new Crosshair VII Impact offer us?
Crosshair VII Impact Details
The old saying, “bigger is better”, the Crosshair VII Impact is not a slouch at all. Even if it is a mini-DTX form factor motherboard, it has the right amount of features that elevate its performance. Then what makes it perform well, we ask?
- With multiple cores on processors being the trend, motherboards need to manage power efficiently to prevent lags or inconsistent performance. ROG’s VRM architecture has an 8+2 teamed power stage design. It has an allowance to carry a current of up to 70amps for each power stage. The teamed Infineon TDA21472 power stages that allow rapid current changes also features a low RDS(on), therefore keeping the motherboard thermally safe to operate.
- On top of the VRM and motherboard chipset, ASUS installed high performance heat sinks. This is cooled by two custom Delta Superflo fans. These are configured by the factory to efficiently and consistently cool both sections of the board on load.
- The board has an AMD AM4 socket, which will support the latest (and old) AMD Ryzen processors. An AMD 570X chipset manages the board, allowing for impressive overclocking potential.
- Included are two M.2 drive slots on an expansion card that is connected to a SO-DIMM interface. Therefore, this allows builders to add more M.2 drives on a motherboard, pretty nice use of board space.
- While mini-DTX is a bit new/weird/strange for a form factor size, it’s simply a slightly taller mini-ITX board right after the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. Think of it as adding the height of the (now) common 2-slot high GPU onto the board’s length. By extending a few inches, additional features were added onto the board like:
- For sound, a SupremeFX and ESS ES9023P DAC chips are installed on an interference reducing card, producing clear and noise (static) free sound.
- There is additional space for angled SATA mounts, and Aura RGB headers; making for easier cable management.
- For connectivity, the Crosshair VII Impact includes a built-in Intel Wireless AX-200 card running Wifi6 (802.11ax). And for wired network connectivity, the latest Intel Ethernet(I211-AT) is also included.
Where to buy and how much?
The ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Impact motherboard will initially be available at the following stores:
- ASUS ROG Concept Stores
- Complink
- Davao Futurebright Enterprises
- IT World (Lazada)
- JDM Techno Computer Center
- PC Hub
- PC Quickbuys
- Strategic Technologies
- Tech2027 (Lazada)
- Thinking Tools.
It’s suggested retail price (SRP) is Php23,320.
Something from ROG Philippines for early adopters
For the first ten early adopters who purchase the motherboard and submit details online, they will receive a ROG swag pack containing
- ROG drawstring bag
- ROG writing notebook
- ROG passport holder
- ROG lanyard
This offer is ongoing until February 1, 2020, and for those who have already purchased can submit their details here: https://ph.rog.gg/totalimpact.
Complete Specifications
| Model Name | ROG Crosshair VIII Impact | |||||||||||||||||
| CPU | AMD AM4 socket for 3rd and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™/2nd and 1st Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega graphics processors | |||||||||||||||||
| Chipset | AMD X570 | |||||||||||||||||
| Form Factor | Mini-DTX (8.0” x 6.7”) | |||||||||||||||||
| Memory | 2 x DDR4 / 64GB | |||||||||||||||||
| Graphics Output | None | |||||||||||||||||
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