 So I have a by request unboxing for you today. This is the ASUS Republic of Gamers branded board. So you know it's going to be feature rich and have good accessories. And this is the Crosshair 3 formula. This is a motherboard. It is designed for gamers. And it has support for the AMD Phenom 2 X4, X3, it is 790FX. And it has Crossfire X support. So the first thing you will notice about the Crosshair 3 is that it has a window. Nah, the motherboard doesn't have a window. The box has a window. So you can actually check out the board on the store shelf before you buy. They've done a quick overview of the features that set this board apart. So let's go through that really quickly here. You've got Memo K, which is a solution that allows you to press a button on the board. And in theory, it should be able to post with pretty much any memory, which will allow you to get into the BIOS, configure the optimal settings, and then get the computer running. You've got CPU Level Up, which is a simple click for instant upgrade, basically a software overclocking utility. SupremeFX with XFY software. That's pretty cool. So they've updated their SupremeFX little daughterboard sound card to XFY. Then you've got a bundled copy of 3DMark 06 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus. And then, oh yeah, we've also got start and reset buttons on board. I always like to see that on any high end or even a low end board. It's a great feature. On the back, it reiterates pretty much the same thing. And yeah, that's it. Okay, so let's get this thing open and dive right into what is arguably the highest end AM3 board out there right now. So accessory package first, as per my usual arrangement. You've got a nice black box here containing all of your accessories. So first of all, you've got an IDE cable. All right. Then you've got five SATA cables. This is kind of an odd number of SATA cables. Okay, five. And then you've got a USB and Firewire PCI backplate. Then you have the LCD poster. Now, the LCD poster has been around for a while in their Republic of Gamers line. And I've never seen it do anything more useful than inform you with a CPU in it error that your board isn't working. But if I didn't already know it wasn't working, I wouldn't have plugged in the LCD poster. Okay, there's your 7.1 audio as well as your two different kinds of digital audio out with the Supreme FX, listening with Absolute HD, X-Fy, supports up to EAX 4.0. This is a PCI Express 1.0 card. Sorry, PCI Express 1X card. Next, we have some zip ties for cable management. Then we have their Q-connector technology. I mean, most cases come with block connectors these days anyway, so it's not a huge deal, but it's nice to have. Then you've got an I.O. shield. Okay. And then the Crosshair 3.0 Formula User's Guide as well as a driver's DVD. Don't use this. Download the latest drivers off the manufacturer website, as per my usual advice. All right, next, let's get to the board itself. So it comes in its nicely little windowed casing here. Let's get the top plastic cover off and figure out how to get it out of here. I think I need to move these aside and then I can lift the board out this way. Here we go. Okay, so first thing, let's do the general layout. So you've got your power connectors in their usual desirable places with the 24-pin along the right-hand edge and the 8-pin up at the top left corner of the board. You can see the plug right here for your LCD poster, so be aware of that. And then you've got your power design or your whatever, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10-phase power design right here as well as your MOSFET cooling and your Northbridge and Southbridge cooling. Then you've got your AM3 socket, so this supports AM3 DDR3 chips only at this time. Only DDR3 chips because all of the DIMM slots on the motherboard are DDR3, dual channel DDR3 compatible. Down at the bottom, you've got 3 PCI Express 1x ports, 1 PCI port, and then 2 PCI Express 16x ports. These operate at full 16x and they are compatible with Crossfire but not with SLI. In terms of your...oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, let's have a look at these onboard power buttons. So there's your start, there's your reset, here's your Memo-K button, and then clear CMOS is still done with a jumper on this board, so you don't actually have a button for that internally, but more on that later. And then here we've got 4 SATA ports that are right angle, and then we have one additional non-angled SATA port. Now let's have a quick look at the back I.O. panel of the board. So you've got 6 USB ports. That's very few on a board of this sort of price point, but I'm guessing there's some kind of reason for it. You've got 1 PS2 keyboard port, and then you've got a clear CMOS button back here. Honestly, this is my favorite place in the world for a clear CMOS button. It can come in handy and be a total lifesaver. Then you've got E-Zeta, Firewire, and 1 gigabit Ethernet port. So thank you for checking out my unboxing of the ASUS Republic of Gamers Crosshair 3 formula.