X570 Motherboard Recommendations

STEM

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I'm finally getting my 3900X on Thursday (WEEE). I have been on ASUS motherboards for years. However, it seems to me that they don't necessarily offer the best motherboards anymore, considering what I see from MSI and Gigabyte. Can you guys recommend a good X570 motherboard that will last me for the next few years? Thank you.
 
I haven't really heard anything good or bad from most offerings. They are all pretty overbuilt,. (as most x series boards are), so it's mostly finding the one with the features you want (and looks if you're into that), but from what I've seen they all work just as well. If your looking for top class overclocks or something, may want some more opinions as some have better power delivery for this kind of thing, but I don't know to much about the high end board differences, hopefully someone else can come give some more info.
 
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I went with ASUS, the x570-e Gaming to be precise. I personally haven't noticed nor read anything about their boards going downhill, the only point of contention is price which can be on the high side. Build quality and reliability is just as good as ever (RMA experience probably just as bad as ever) Buildzoid seems thinks their boards are fine, but does bring up overpriced in a couple models. My personal preference is ASUS with MSI being a close 2nd. I avoid Gigabyte like the plague. I've had issues with 3 out of 5 I've used, across a wide array of chipsets from both AMD and Intel.

As far as what board, I'm going to assume you already know the deal since you've been pretty active in regards to Ryzen launch and just want some confirmation before spending money. From everything I've seen and I've seen quite a few motherboard reviews, they're all perfectly fine except for *maybe* the entry level ASROCK boards. So find one you like, at a price you like from a vendor you like and enjoy.
 
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I don't even know when B550 is coming. So I can't imagine that's going to be worth waiting on. On a budget, get a good X470 or B450 board. If money is less of a concern, there are many good X570 options available.
 
I grabbed an ASRock X570 Steel Legend, so far works fine.

I have also been using an ASUS Strix x370-F. Performance is identical, as well as memory overclocking so far. Power draw is lower on the x370 by about 10-15 watts.
 
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I went with ASUS, the x570-e Gaming to be precise. I personally haven't noticed nor read anything about their boards going downhill, the only point of contention is price which can be on the high side. Build quality and reliability is just as good as ever (RMA experience probably just as bad as ever) Buildzoid seems thinks their boards are fine, but does bring up overpriced in a couple models. My personal preference is ASUS with MSI being a close 2nd. I avoid Gigabyte like the plague. I've had issues with 3 out of 5 I've used, across a wide array of chipsets from both AMD and Intel.

As far as what board, I'm going to assume you already know the deal since you've been pretty active in regards to Ryzen launch and just want some confirmation before spending money. From everything I've seen and I've seen quite a few motherboard reviews, they're all perfectly fine except for *maybe* the entry level ASROCK boards. So find one you like, at a price you like from a vendor you like and enjoy.
It's funny because everything is has different experience. I have an Asus business oriented board that had the audio crap out a while back and now the onboard nic is dead... So I have to use USB speakers and I have a USB 3.0 1gb ethernet.plugged in just to keep running. When it dies, I am not going with Asus, just a bad experience. My biostar boards that are twice as old and lived a much tougher life on the other hand worked just fine for 10 years, which is when I decided to toss them because they were no longer useful, but still functioned 100%. I had one issue with my son's ASRock board for his 6500k, kept blue screening (I was an early adopter, bought it when it first came out). Once the first bios update was released, haven't had an issue since. Have a gigabyte board in my daughter's mitx without issue, but it's not very old either. Honestly, the only board I had issues with between all the manufacturers I've bought was this asus. My Asus router no issues, other Asus boards no issues, just bad luck, but it can leave people sour. Bye this board I'm talking about is a p8b75, so 4th gen Intel, but audio went out like 2+ years ago, nic just recently.
 
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It's funny because everything is has different experience. I have an Asus business oriented board that had the audio crap out a while back and now the onboard nic is dead... So I have to use USB speakers and I have a USB 3.0 1gb ethernet.plugged in just to keep running. When it dies, I am not going with Asus, just a bad experience. My biostar boards that are twice as old and lived a much tougher life on the other hand worked just fine for 10 years, which is when I decided to toss them because they were no longer useful, but still functioned 100%. I had one issue with my son's ASRock board for his 6500k, kept blue screening (I was an early adopter, bought it when it first came out). Once the first bios update was released, haven't had an issue since. Have a gigabyte board in my daughter's mitx without issue, but it's not very old either. Honestly, the only board I had issues with between all the manufacturers I've bought was this asus. My Asus router no issues, other Asus boards no issues, just bad luck, but it can leave people sour. Bye this board I'm talking about is a p8b75, so 4th gen Intel, but audio went out like 2+ years ago, nic just recently.

Yep, I agree. It's pretty much a roll of the dice and most of what you hear is anecdotal. I had a Z77 GB board that would go through several reboot cycles before actually loading the OS, a x470 board that fried DIMMs, a P35 board that worked fine for a couple years after which the VRMs started crapping out and I had to keep lowering my CPU clocks to keep it stable. Thought it was the CPU until I aquired an indentical board, swapped it and got my performance back (this replacement was one of the two GB boards I didn't have an issue with) I did have an ASUS board go bad on me way back when nVidia was making chipsets for AMD but those chipsets were dying no matter which vendor you went with, so I put that on AMD more than ASUS.
 
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This is why I like OCN forum they have owner's threads or board specific overclocking threads. Instead of paid-for reviews you get actual owners reporting and seeking help with their succeses and issues. Plus there is no ambiguity regarding which product is being focused. Trust me no body does review after review without seeking someway to get paid for it. What you get in an owners thread is reality and useful tips and tricks and a community of people helping one another.
Gigabyte X570 AORUS Owners Threadl
Gigabyte X570 AORUS Master Overclocking Thread
ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII
ASRock X570 Overclocking and Support Thread
Asrock X370 Taichi Overclocking Thread
MSI X570 MEG Ace motherboard club

Keep in mind the platform is new so data is just beginning to build but so far what I'm getting out of it is Gigabyte has the best offering out of the gate or at least has the most owners.
I typically go MSI but if user support for that doesn't grow I will be forced to choose a board that has support from plenty of folks because it's an invaluable resource.
https://www.overclock.net/forum/6-intel-motherboards/1711478-gigabyte-z390-aorus-owners-thread.html
 
This is why I like OCN forum they have owner's threads or board specific overclocking threads. Instead of paid-for reviews you get actual owners reporting and seeking help with their succeses and issues. Plus there is no ambiguity regarding which product is being focused. Trust me no body does review after review without seeking someway to get paid for it. What you get in an owners thread is reality and useful tips and tricks and a community of people helping one another.
Gigabyte X570 AORUS Owners Threadl
Gigabyte X570 AORUS Master Overclocking Thread
ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII
ASRock X570 Overclocking and Support Thread
Asrock X370 Taichi Overclocking Thread
MSI X570 MEG Ace motherboard club

Keep in mind the platform is new so data is just beginning to build but so far what I'm getting out of it is Gigabyte has the best offering out of the gate or at least has the most owners.
I typically go MSI but if user support for that doesn't grow I will be forced to choose a board that has support from plenty of folks because it's an invaluable resource.

Reviewers get paid, but not by the companies who put out the product. We've also bought boards that we couldn't get sampled. Frankly, the hardware cost of the boards is far less than labor costs. You can also drastically offset the cost buy selling off the boards when you are done. Thus, we aren't really as beholden to these companies for samples as you might think. I've put out tons of reviews over the years that pissed off manufacturers. I'm also not sure how any professional review has ever come across as being ambiguous regarding what product was being reviewed.
 
This is why I like OCN forum they have owner's threads or board specific overclocking threads. Instead of paid-for reviews you get actual owners reporting and seeking help with their succeses and issues. Plus there is no ambiguity regarding which product is being focused. Trust me no body does review after review without seeking someway to get paid for it. What you get in an owners thread is reality and useful tips and tricks and a community of people helping one another.
Gigabyte X570 AORUS Owners Threadl
Gigabyte X570 AORUS Master Overclocking Thread
ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII
ASRock X570 Overclocking and Support Thread
Asrock X370 Taichi Overclocking Thread
MSI X570 MEG Ace motherboard club

Keep in mind the platform is new so data is just beginning to build but so far what I'm getting out of it is Gigabyte has the best offering out of the gate or at least has the most owners.
I typically go MSI but if user support for that doesn't grow I will be forced to choose a board that has support from plenty of folks because it's an invaluable resource.
Great place for specific motherboards and can be fun as hell for a new motherboard working through successes problems tricks etc. You can find out what memory works best, settings that work, bios updates and changes - really a great place to spend some time if you are into this sort of stuff.

Reviewers don't last long if it becomes obvious they are just looking for a paycheck no matter what. The honest effective ones are rewarded with a most have look at reputation, for years if not decades.
 
Go by what features you want, and then choose based on price. It's a dice roll anyway. Either you get lucky and the board works for years flawlessly or you get one DOA. There isn't any significant difference in build quality between the brands IMO.
 
IMO the winners of premium boards each gen were:

X370: Taichi and derivatives, everyone else was meh or trash. CH6 was a dumpster fire at launch and to this day is still a risk with 0% fan scenarios - totally unacceptable.
X470: taichi still good, basically the same. CH7 got a redesign (and new EC/monitor chip? has no 0% fan fail) and is actually good too, I'd tie it with taichi. Everyone else woke up and realized Ryzen was real, so a lot of decent midrange options but no new premium winners. Less meh boards overall which is a good thing for AMD.

X570 remains to be seen. Who really keeps the bios updates going is going to be the true champion in the end. Gigabyte really stepped up its offerings this time and could win (Master), Asrock has some design brainfarts but the Taichi line is still decent at its core. Asus (CH8) seems like it might be good in the long run but the first couple months of bios support is key.

Also since X570 simply costs more to make, there will not be any truly "budget" boards, probably want to avoid all the <$200 models because of this - many seem to cut corners to get down there to the point a premium X370/470 on sale is a better choice. You can find the good ones under $150, under $100 used/new-old-stock.

I also think we might see X570 updates/refreshes sooner rather than later - particularly due to that fucking chipset fan but also to tweak some rushed designs.
 
Just came across these:

https://nl.hardware.info/artikel/9411/15-amd-x570-moederborden-review-op-de-proef-met-een-3900x
scroll down and they have VRM temp testing on various boards
they have charts for front of the motherboard temp and also the back



more VRM temp testing
Asus TUF slightly beats Gigabyte Elite at the ~ $200 price point but both seem like good boards.
Asrock and MSI boards have weaker and hotter running VRM, especially MSI. I would advise avoiding low end MSI boards.
 
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IMO the winners of premium boards each gen were:

X370: Taichi and derivatives, everyone else was meh or trash. CH6 was a dumpster fire at launch and to this day is still a risk with 0% fan scenarios - totally unacceptable.
.....

I mean, I have been using a CH6 since I bought my 2700x last year, overclocks better than the X470 Prime I tried out.

The ROG Strix X370-F seems easier to work with and overclocks very well also. Also cheaper
 
Go by what features you want, and then choose based on price. It's a dice roll anyway. Either you get lucky and the board works for years flawlessly or you get one DOA. There isn't any significant difference in build quality between the brands IMO.

Once I get it down to features, there's usually only one or two boards that fit the bill.

Stuff like not wanting Realtek LAN (screw you MSI), wanting SP/DIF on ITX (screw you ASRock), or wanting 10Gbit LAN (thanks ASRock!) all thin the herd a bit.
 
I would just go get a X470 for B450 if you don't really need the storage capability and on the plus side, no chipset fan.

I'm thinking B550 will have some trickle down features from X570 to incentivize sales. Better vrm components, 2nd nvme slot, etc that basically makes B550 like a X470+ but lower price points for those "one day I'll run a 12/16core future upgraders".

They can crank out way more cheapie boards Black Friday and beyond. They'll sell us way more of the low binned Zen2 parts in combos.
 
I just picked up the gigabyte x570 aorus master and this think seems to have really solid build quality. I am hoping it last for many years.
 
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Unfortunately its the same price as CH8 and objectively inferior to it on a purely technical level, and that is just considering the same OEM. If they were comparable or it was priced accordingly ($ starts with 2 instead of 3) then it would be a nice 'rgb-free' option.

No surprise that microcenter has had "10+" of these in stock at both stores near me since launch, while CH8 is rare as hens teeth.

Only the x8 slot configuration choice is truly interesting, as you can use a full 3.0 x8 card and have all the bandwidth available (minus other peripherals) as the chipset 4.0 x4 link is the same. Most premium desktop users want as many pcie m.2 slots as possible though.
 
Once I get it down to features, there's usually only one or two boards that fit the bill.

Stuff like not wanting Realtek LAN (screw you MSI), wanting SP/DIF on ITX (screw you ASRock), or wanting 10Gbit LAN (thanks ASRock!) all thin the herd a bit.

Might want to check again - the asrock ITX board has intel LAN, optical out and TB3. TB3 gives you 10GbE two different ways.

Its painfully short on usb ports but that is easier to deal with.
 
Might want to check again - the asrock ITX board has intel LAN, optical out and TB3. TB3 gives you 10GbE two different ways.

Speaking specifically to the scattershot of features available, and how that narrows down choice- the board that I have an issue with a limited featureset is Z390. Their X570 board seems to be better thought-out, though the single M.2 slot would certainly be more than an annoyance.
 
Does Asrock still use their razor thin PCBs? Last time I had an Asrock board was in the Core2 days. They have the Taichi here [locally, not USA] for cheaper than the Strix E
 
Does Asrock still use their razor thin PCBs? Last time I had an Asrock board was in the Core2 days. They have the Taichi here [locally, not USA] for cheaper than the Strix E

They all do. Whether a 'thin PCB' was used is something that you'll need to check on a board by board basis.
 
Reviewers get paid, but not by the companies who put out the product. We've also bought boards that we couldn't get sampled. Frankly, the hardware cost of the boards is far less than labor costs. You can also drastically offset the cost buy selling off the boards when you are done. Thus, we aren't really as beholden to these companies for samples as you might think. I've put out tons of reviews over the years that pissed off manufacturers. I'm also not sure how any professional review has ever come across as being ambiguous regarding what product was being reviewed.
Dan, you make great points and I whole heartedly agree reviews and certain reviewer have great merit in helping form a decision to buy. I should have clarified that some reviewers are better than others like yourself, but I was trying to keep my comments brief and to the point. I think you misinterpreted my comment regarding ambiguity. What I was suggesting is the user reads a thread that is generalized and not focused on the specific board that they are working with, hence the inexactness. It was not directed at reviews or reviewers in anyway, sorry for the confusion. Bottom line the effort involved in reviewing tech the right way is a largely thankless and underpaying endeavor and I applaud and appreciate anyone who does it this way.
 
They all do. Whether a 'thin PCB' was used is something that you'll need to check on a board by board basis.

Yep this is a segment/features thing, the premium boards are usually 8-layer, midrange are 6 and some budget/oem are possibly still doing 4 designs? Thin pcb is a bullshit metric to become a brandboy over for sure.

It all varies based on how many traces they need to connect everything and how dense the components are, which is why most ITX boards have more layers than similar model ATX.
 
Does Asrock still use their razor thin PCBs? Last time I had an Asrock board was in the Core2 days. They have the Taichi here [locally, not USA] for cheaper than the Strix E

ASRock is very product specific. Their new high end boards are nothing like their old Core2 boards, but their mid range budget offerings can be somewhat lacking (although not as bad as the old Core 2 boards). They do have a tendency to release higher end chipsets on lacking boards at the low end (think X370/470 on basically their B350/450 boards). But their Taichi line is pretty good from everything I've seen. I'm using the Z370 version in a home server right now and have had zero issues. I also used a X370 Pro4 board that was essentially a B350 Pro4 with the higher end chipset. It had a lot more limitations (PCIe related in my case) compared to low end X370 from other companies. The X470 K4 was somewhere in between. It had worse memory compatibility than my Asus boards.
 
The Gigabyte A320s I've seen at the office are still nowhere near as thin as the Asrock board I last got... Plugging in the RAM while the board was mounted was a bit scary.

The Asus B450 E and the GB X470 are decently thick for relatively budget boards too. Just checking if the higher end Asrocks are still cutting corners... (Also read a review on H that as of a few years ago, Asrock's boards were also a little thinner than usual).

That said, if it were a big problem, it would have exploded in Asrock's face a few years ago... and so far it appears as if it hasn't.
 
Once I get it down to features, there's usually only one or two boards that fit the bill.

Stuff like not wanting Realtek LAN (screw you MSI), wanting SP/DIF on ITX (screw you ASRock), or wanting 10Gbit LAN (thanks ASRock!) all thin the herd a bit.
10GB kind of narrows it down.

I used to frown at Realtek nic before, but in the long run intel nics have gave me more trouble even though I've seen less of those.

Like my current MB has an Intel NIC and it's giving me trouble.
 
I test them all the time. Realtek NICs are slower than Intel controllers and generally have higher CPU utilization.
 
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