AMD supplied four different motherboards to the media, one from ASRock, ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI. In case of the ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero Wi-Fi motherboard, the media was instructed to use 0066 bios build, which had been vetted and approved by AMD. However, newer bios builds were available and ASUS has also (allegedly) told the media to use those versions. What exactly has transpired here is still under investigation, but regardless of the actual reasons behind it, the consequences might be rather significant. In practical terms, all reviews which were done on ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula or Hero motherboards using other than 0066 bios build must be considered invalid, at least partially. Reviews using other ASUS motherboard models (not provided by AMD) are under suspicion as well.
The external power measurements (VRM DCR) revealed that the CPU was consuming significantly more power, than its power management should have allowed it to. I initially suspected that this was AMDs own doing, in an effort trying to boost the performance of the new CPUs even further, but further investigation indicated otherwise.
AMD had no part in it, and the actions by ASUS are the sole reason behind it. The investigation revealed that ASUS is altering one or more power management parameters of the CPU, causing it believe it consumes less power than it actually does. As a result, the frequencies will be higher than the actual power budget would normally allow to. Tricks like this are pretty much a common (mal)practice these days however, there is a good reason why this must be considered worse than the others: this "thing" is completely undetectable without external measurements and rather deep knowledge, but also there is no way to disable it either.
