If you’re contemplating shopping for one in all AMD’s new Ryzen+ CPUs just like the Ryzen 5 2600 or Ryzen 7 2700X, then you may additionally wish to take into consideration getting a brand new X470-based AM4 motherboard to go along with it. It’s not strictly crucial – all of AMD’s 2nd gen Ryzen processors will work with present AM4 motherboards, whether or not you’ve bought one with a high-end X370 chipset or the extra entry-level A320 or B350 chipsets – however upgrading to X470 brings with it an a variety of benefits, comparable to Ryzen+ help straight out of the field in addition to AMD’s shiny super-fast StoreMI acceleration tech as normal.
To kick issues off within the X470 division, I’ve bought the Asus ROG Strix X470-F Gaming motherboard on take a look at at this time, with extra boards following shortly. Let’s see whether or not this one from Asus is any good.
Priced at £185 / $215, the ATX-sized Asus ROG Strix X470-F Gaming undoubtedly edges towards the higher finish of the motherboard market, nevertheless it gained’t set you again fairly as a lot as Asus’ ROG Crosshair VII-Hero (Wi-Fi) X470 board or MSI’s X470 Gaming M7 AC. Still, you may undoubtedly see the place your cash’s going with this one, as this arguably one of the placing motherboards I’ve seen in fairly a while.
Its pre-mounted enter/output defend with built-in RGB lighting has a really clear, premium look about it, and Asus’ Strix emblem and the various ‘gaming’ phrases etched into its metallic warmth sink sometimes echo these rainbow tints after they catch the sunshine good. Most of the time they’ll be sitting beneath the shadow of no matter graphics card you could have put in, after all, rendering their glinting, shining surfaces null and void, however at the very least it offers it a bit extra character than different boards of this ilk.
Ports of lots.
You’ll additionally discover two RGB headers on the board that helps Asus’ Aura Sync tech for matching your motherboard’s color scheme to different Aura-compatible elements comparable to your graphics card, monitor or mouse and keyboard, plus one other addressable RGB header for any extra LED strips you may wish to set up.
Looks apart, the principle purpose for getting the X470F-Gaming is so you may reap the benefits of that aforementioned X470 chipset. Previously, the X370 was the highest-specced chipset you possibly can purchase for an AMD Ryzen processor, however the X470 brings with it some shiny new options that will help you get the easiest out of AMD’s new Ryzen+ chips.
Chief amongst them is AMD’s StoreMI acceleration tech. You’d usually must pay further for this on different AM4 motherboards, however right here you get it at no cost. You’ll nonetheless must obtain the software program from AMD’s website, thoughts, however this primarily allows you to flip nearly any SSD / HDD setup into one huge jumbo drive the place every part operates at SSD-level pace.
It works by mechanically transferring the info you utilize most to the SSD, whereas the information you hardly ever go to get moved to your HDD. StoreMI adapts to your PC utilization over time, too, so the situation of your information will change over time relying on how a lot you utilize them. You don’t must reinstall Windows or faff round with RAID configurations both. Everything simply works and saves you from shelling out on massive capability SSDs. Naturally, the evolving nature of StoreMI makes it fairly tough to check scientifically, so for now I’ll consider how the X470F-Gaming performs with out StoreMI put in.
Otherwise, X470’s specs are similar to these you’ll discover on X370 boards (extra of which you could find out on AMD’s AM4 landing page). Still, even inside Asus’ personal product household, you’ll discover some stark variations. Take RAM, for instance. Whereas the 4 DDR4 slots on the X370 model of this explicit motherboard (the ROG Strix X370F-Gaming, to provide its full title) max out at 3200MHz (overclocked), the X470F-Gaming allows you to ramp that as much as a most of 3466MHz. The X470F-Gaming additionally allows you to push your RAM additional when you have one in all AMD’s Ryzen Vega chips, too, such because the Ryzen 3 2200G or Ryzen 5 2400G – as much as 3200MHz versus the restrict of 2400MHz on the X370F-Gaming.
Both help as much as 64GB by way of capability, however when AMD’s Ryzen chips have all the time historically carried out higher when paired with sooner RAM, the X470F-Gaming simply offers you that little bit of additional flexibility for max potential efficiency energy.
In phrases of enlargement, you’re getting just about the identical deal as different X370 boards: two PCIe 3.zero x16 slots (operating at full pace individually or x8/x8 if each are in use for a number of graphics card configurations), and each comes with a band of metal shielding spherical them for further safety towards at this time’s more and more heavy array of graphics playing cards.
You additionally get one other PCIe 2.zero x16 slot sans metal defend down the underside that runs at x4 – useful when you occur to wish to run three AMD GPUs in CrossFireX (simply remember this board solely helps two Nvidia GPUs through SLI) – plus three PCIe 2.zero x1 slots.
Annoyingly, the highest PCIe x1 will probably be obscured by your graphics card, so that you’ve actually solely bought two to play with if you wish to add issues like community and sound playing cards. It will get doubly irritating once you look again at Asus’ X370F-Gaming motherboard, as that had the great sense to place it above your predominant PCIe x16 slot relatively than beneath it.
The purpose behind this modification, nevertheless, is as a result of the X470F-Gaming has caught a second M.2 slot there as a substitute, full with its personal detachable heatsink to assist hold your NVMe SSD operating as cool, and due to this fact as effectively, as doable.
With the heatsink…
…with out the warmth sink!
There’s one other M.2 slot additional down as nicely, however this one doesn’t get the identical heatsink therapy – if solely as a result of it most likely wouldn’t bodily match between your different PCIe slots. It’s additionally value making an allowance for that this explicit M.2 socket shares the identical PCIe clock as that prime PCIe x1 slot, so when you’ve bought one thing in each then the M.2 will solely run on the similar SATA-level speeds because the six correct SATA ports you get alongside the aspect on your conventional 2.5in SSDs. The similar applies to the PCIe x1 slot down the underside, too.
This isn’t one thing I’m notably apprehensive about although, as a result of a) the quantity of people that truly personal two NVMe SSDs is more likely to be fairly small (and people additionally needing two PCIe slots will probably be even smaller), b) you’re not going to be placing something in that prime PCIe x1 slot anyway when you have a graphics card, and c) come on, who actually wants two PCIe x1 slots?
Much extra helpful is the X470F-Gaming’s plentiful provide of fan headers. You get seven in whole, catering for chassis and AIO water pumps alike, which is fairly beneficiant so far as this stuff go, and different good extras embody a USB3.1 Gen 2 header for the most recent USB speeds, plus a USB 3.1 Gen 1 connector and two USB 2.zero headers.
There’s that fancy USB 3.1 Gen 2 connector.
You additionally get 4 little LEDs within the prime nook that allow you to know when you’ve bought an issue together with your RAM, CPU, graphics card or booting units. Not fairly as helpful as a correct little show you’ll discover on different boards, however at the very least it’s higher than nothing.
It’s actually bought the options to justify its worth, then, so let’s discuss the way it truly performs in observe. To take a look at the X470F-Gaming, I loaded it up with AMD’s Ryzen 7 2700X CPU, 16GB of G.Skill Sniper X RAM operating at 2133MHz, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070Ti graphics card and a Samsung 850 Evo SSD.
And from the appears of issues, the X470F-Gaming is a reasonably good all-rounder. While it couldn’t fairly sustain with the MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC when it got here to pure gaming efficiency, it proved to be a reasonably shut match to Asus’ dearer ROG Crosshair VII-Hero (Wi-Fi), coming in both simply behind or on par with its pricier cousin in nearly each take a look at I threw at it.
In Geekbench 4, as an illustration, the X470F-Gaming produced respective single and multi core outcomes of 4607 and 25126, which is fairly rattling near the Crosshair’s outcomes of 4651 and 25547, to not point out forward of the M7’s 4561 and 24168. The similar factor occurred in Cinebench R15, too. Here, the X470F-Gaming sat proper in the course of the Crosshair’s 175 and the M7’s 173 single core scores, and it truly got here out on prime within the multicore take a look at, beating each the Crosshair’s 1746 and the M7’s 1750 with a rating of 1771.
In the grand scheme of issues, I doubt this is able to translate into any type of significant distinction in precise on a regular basis use, nevertheless it goes to indicate you’re getting equal, if not marginally higher, normal efficiency with the cheaper X470F-Gaming as you might be on dearer boards.
The similar goes for its SATA storage efficiency. Both the Crosshair and X470F-Gaming produced an an identical random 4K learn pace of 38.5MB/s after I put them by way of AS SSD’s artificial benchmark take a look at, coming in a fraction behind the M7’s 41.3MB/s random learn pace. The M7 took an even bigger lead when it got here to random 4K write pace, ending with 93.6MB/s in comparison with the Crosshair’s 87.7MB/s and X470F-Gaming’s 76.70MB/s, however I’ll be damned if I observed which one was sooner throughout testing.
It was solely after I turned towards extra gaming-oriented checks that the X470F-Gaming began to fall a bit additional behind. In 3DMark’s Fire Strike take a look at, as an illustration, its general rating of 15533 was about 400 factors slower than the Crosshair and round 800 behind the M7. A mid-15000s rating is in itself nonetheless extremely respectable, nevertheless it relatively undermines its titular ‘Gaming’ moniker once you begin evaluating it to different X470 boards.
The X470F-Gaming struggled to maintain tempo in PCMark 10 as nicely, though right here its rating of 4136 nonetheless proved a roughly equal match for the Crosshair’s 4313. Again, MSI’s M7 proved to be most adept at this mixture of workplace, net and digital content material creation-based checks, steaming forward with a rating of 5665.
Still, I’m unsure whether or not these few further seconds you’ll save ready for one thing to occur are value paying an extra £30 for – at the very least within the UK. In the US, the MSI solely prices another $15, making it a way more tempting little bit of equipment by way of general efficiency, however I’ll be writing up separate, extra detailed critiques of each the Crosshair and the M7 subsequent week.
Right now, although, the Asus ROG Strix X470F-Gaming is unquestionably my favorite by way of what it’s prefer to construct with, in addition to its general look and design. It might not be the quickest gaming motherboard on the market, however it nearly actually holds its personal with regards to normal, on a regular basis efficiency. If you’re seeking to construct a extra normal function PC that’s prepared for something and fancy saving your self a bit cash within the course of, then the X470F-Gaming is a superb place to start out.
