Asus ROG Strix X470-F Gaming overview: one of the best X470 AMD motherboard to your 2700X

The Strix X470-F is a classically handsome Asus board, all chunky, angular heatspreaders, black PCB, and the inevitable, unmistakable glow of RGB LEDs. It’s bought the kind of design aptitude that makes it seem like it wouldn’t misplaced on the coronary heart of an enormous Gundam. And, even when your machine isn’t turned on it could nonetheless give off that soothing rainbow LED rhythm must you so need.

But aesthetics aren’t why it’s best to take into account this board as a contender for the house of your model new Pinnacle Ridge processor, it’s the CPU efficiency it affords, the gaming potential it homes, and the overclocking chops at its disposal.

The $250 (£190) Strix is one in all Asus’ high-end gaming boards and, as such, has all the required options current and proper. Most apparent is the second M.2 socket for extra PCIe SSDs, like the brand new Samsung 970 EVO drive, as a result of we’ve all bought the bottomless pockets essential to fill a second slot, proper?

Unfortunately that second M.2 socket is just operating at x2 PCIe speeds, providing half the bandwidth of the first socket.

It’s additionally, like the opposite X470 boards we’ve examined just lately, able to supporting reminiscence speeds all the way in which as much as 3,600MHz… if yow will discover each the reminiscence and the CPU that may deal with that tempo.

But except for these little extras, what does the brand new X470 chipset have to supply the discerning AMD gamer? Well, if we’re sincere there’s not likely quite a bit right here for anybody already sitting on a good X370 motherboard. The drawback with AMD sticking with the AM4 socket for the foreseeable – talking for the motherboard producers – is that there’s much less impetus for individuals to usually improve their board when a brand new CPU comes out if their previous one remains to be suitable.

And so that you simply get an even bigger chipset quantity, some doubtful additional options and never quite a bit else. Though AMD’s James Prior did inform us previous to launch that they had been “taking in a bunch of the feedback from the launch of the 300-series motherboard and pushing those into the design of the 400-series motherboards. So the new high-end boards are going to have improved memory layout, memory overclocking, VRMs, power delivery, as well as a change in the chipset.”

But the efficiency isn’t that totally different when put next with earlier X370 motherboards. Testing in opposition to Asus’ personal equally priced Crosshair VI Hero and there’s virtually no distinction between the X370 and X470 chipsets by way of total efficiency. Which I suppose is sweet information for shoppers, however not such nice information for motherboard makers hoping to ship extra models.

The excellent news for Asus is that their Strix X470-F Gaming is probably the most highly effective of all of the X470 motherboards we’ve examined to this point. It posts the best CPU efficiency numbers and was the board which allowed us to hit the best frequencies with our 2700Okay overview pattern. It was solely 250MHz increased than the Gigabyte and MSI boards, however that ought to offer you extra confidence in its total efficiency.

However, that efficiency comes at a price in energy and temperatures. As properly as being the quickest, the Strix can be the toastiest and probably the most energy hungry too.

When it comes all the way down to it, although, Asus have made what’s the finest high-end AMD motherboard we’ve examined to this point. We’d by no means recommend anybody exchange their X370 board for a brand new X470, and I’d in all probability additionally suggest avid gamers follow a extra inexpensive B350 motherboard for a great-value platform, however if you wish to get absolutely the most out of your second-gen Ryzen processor, then the Strix X470-F Gaming is a good possibility.

SE7EN.WS verdict: 8/10