[Various] AM4 Motherboards

[StyM]

ASRock gathers its herd of AM4 motherboards







Details on four ASUS AMD AM4 Ryzen motherboards





Gigabyte Announces AM4 Ryzen Support

[Ket]

So many Zen boards are fugly as all hell.. best looking Asrock board is the "Killer", but that thing doesn't even have a debug LED never mind power/reset buttons and a ALC1220.. kinda makes the board somewhat embarrassing with its price of 145-150. The look of all the Asus boards just makes me want to vomit. Only Gigabyte seem to have a board that isn't completely hideous to look at with the Aorus, but the placement of the M.2 slot is the dumbest I've ever seen (because placing a device with a controller chip that can get quite toasty right by a GPU that will get very toasty under load is a smart idea, isn't it Gigabyte? ) and fan header placement clearly hasn't been thought about but most people will be able to work with that.

[chew*]

I see so many peoples first complaint as trivial.

First should be function.

Second should be bios support. Can have the best damn components and be overbuilt...but if the bios support is sub par...it won't matter.

Last thing to be concerned with is looks.

[Ket]

Looks are easy to get right you shouldn't even need to think about it, and anyone that says you do, is simply incompetent. I consider everything, I'll scorn a board equally regardless of what the shortcoming is based on the price segment its aimed at. As I did in my last post anyway I tried to refrain from writing a essay about what I don't like about each board design but if I had gone in to more detail I would of doubled down on my slamming of Asus boards and criticised them for the quality of the components they use then have the balls to charge a premium for components that are pretty average. Asrock do good in that area, always pretty good, Gigabyte too, although you do have to watch out for their phase implementations.

[Greg83]

I see so many peoples first complaint as trivial.

First should be function.

Second should be bios support. Can have the best damn components and be overbuilt...but if the bios support is sub par...it won't matter.

Last thing to be concerned with is looks.

so true
all the ancients of amd overclocking started here
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1123/3
and this is when looks got better
http://techreport.com/review/8026/df...-motherboard/2

if you could rock one of these boards in your window like all the ancient amd overclockers

everything coming out today is sexy and they know it.

and lets never forget. the first after the noble mobile 2500+ , amd overclockers in the birth of HT times on intel side
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1466/3

ddr 500mhz is still some of the best latencies out there !

[Ket]

I had a few DFI boards, never thought of them as ugly. The problem is manufacturers do think about making a board "pretty", end up wasting too much time on its looks and thinking about it rather than focusing on important details. You can make a tidy board without spending any time on it at all. Forget about stupid printed logos, forget about "housing" certain components, just design a good board with functional, efficient heatsinks. Thats my definition of a attractive board. For example; The Asrock "Pro" board, take that ugly print off the board and it would look pretty sleek and beastly.

[Greg83]

oh , personally i really like the shields they've added, it gives a dust protection layer, emi protection layer, for open concept cases. its function again to me, i have yet to see anything i'd consider an ugly am4 board. since design phase anyway

lots of crowded on those most definitely , i too when i get into a new computer cause my amd fx series at 4ghz + serves me fine , also want a board with a simple look, lacking tons of comonents, but also with lots of heatsinks and shielding.

but by that time, it will be nvram times and zen+ , plan on dropping $100 a month into a computer to last a decade or spend it over a decade, come 2020. i find my most common complain today with a computer, is not gaming or video encoding, i just rip my blu rays i own to wrap them back up and play them back , which is blu-ray drive speeds.

but to me , most important thing for a pc today is reloading all my previous tabs. so more cores the better, why FX i love , and still love . and will continue loving til zen+

don't know what will be best for me , for a computer that i'll put $12,000 into over a couple years or lifetime expecting a decade outta the motherboard, cpu and nvram and dram anyway, maybe naples. gpu i might upgrade if i get back into heavy gaming a bit more. but think for games i like RTS , civ series would benefit from tons of cores and running inside of dram or nvram .

[AliG]

Man that brought out some memories; back then motherboard actually made a significant difference in overclocking - and the NB still made a huge difference for Intel chips.

Today I don't think there's all that much functional difference between boards. Just get the one that offers the pci lanes you need, and supports the storage capacity + RAM you want.

[Ket]

Man that brought out some memories; back then motherboard actually made a significant difference in overclocking - and the NB still made a huge difference for Intel chips.

Today I don't think there's all that much functional difference between boards. Just get the one that offers the pci lanes you need, and supports the storage capacity + RAM you want.

Main things now are examining a boards layout to get one that has the best possible, trying to gauge competence level of a manufacturers UEFI coding team and general reputation of how well a manufacturer will continue to support a board and fix reported issues. Thats why I did things for Asrock, they were interested in making the best UEFI they could, not just throwing out a few updates and then getting bored (no pun intended) with it. I also still like to see properly designed heatsinks with good thermal solutions for basic thermodynamic principles.

[AliG]

I don't think thermals are really a problem anymore though. The NB and SB don't actually do all that much stuff these days; it was back when the memory controller was still integrated that you had to actually worry about heat production.

[StyM]

Gigabyte is Ryzen up to the challenge of their rivals


Biostar announces X370GT5 Motherboard

[drmrlordx]

I don't think thermals are really a problem anymore though. The NB and SB don't actually do all that much stuff these days; it was back when the memory controller was still integrated that you had to actually worry about heat production.

You still have to worry about thermals on the VRMs. As long as they stay cool, you're in good shape.

[chew*]

You still have to worry about thermals on the VRMs. As long as they stay cool, you're in good shape.

Bingo.

[Sparky]

Am I asking too much for a micro ATX board with good VRMs for overclocking? One PCIe x16 slot is fine for me. The next PC I would like to make a micro ATX build, as I want a smaller case.

[Buckeye]

Any Workstation class boards coming out ?
or are they all gamer boards.

[Ace123]

Initially amd is mostly concerned about creating an initial large ecosystem. That's why a majority of the boards are mainstream gaming boards.
After a while we will see the premium boards with plx and workstation/professional boards.

[dasa]

best to work out any remaining gremlins on the enthusiasts rather than the workstation crowd i guess

[FlanK3r]

Am I asking too much for a micro ATX board with good VRMs for overclocking? One PCIe x16 slot is fine for me. The next PC I would like to make a micro ATX build, as I want a smaller case.

me too, I would like to see some ROG mATX board. I believe, later coming more boards, because Ryzens seems better than most of people thought it....

[StyM]

[thematrixhazune]

Anyone know if the asrock fatal1ty boards are for sale yet or even preorder. Newegg seems to be sold out.

[drmrlordx]

Seems like NewEgg ran dry on pre-orders quickly. They've also changed the delivery date on some boards to March 7th . . .

[Ursus]

Does anyone knows, do any MB makers still add firewire nowadays?
Would love to find an AM4 MB with FW.

[trans am]

as far as the "looks" comment. move to a different forum. This is "xtremesystems" not "my computer LOOKS pretty cool systems"
as far as i'm concerned it should go like this:

A. 100-150.00 motherboard MAtx formfactor (overclocking budget board) same bios as the big boys just cut down a few things but clean socket layout for containers and insulation but good voltage options (basically XS disposable boards for really heavy ripping) maybe even make them colored that plain jane PCB like asus b5b was. who cares!
B. $150 - $180 atx board that is aimed towards gamers and lazy kids that want pretty boards like the above guy.
C. $$-$$ high end full size board for the guys that just want everything a workstation board would have. all the bells and whistles plus some. including 4x m.2 sockets for 4x ssd in raid 0. and maybe some extra marvel sata contollers etc.
D. ^^ include all of the above but this board is the high end oc king. think Asrock OC formula. crazy bios options for every single possible setting. Oscar Wu and Nick SHih on 24/7 tech support on here giving out beta bioses on a weekly basis.

My point is. the companies spend so much on design and other crap and blow all this money on releasing 10 boards that have minuscule differences. they could cut their costs by a huge margin and just release 4 or 5 really good boards for each chip.
just make a few boards that are aimed at ocing that perform well and give us what we actually need and cut the rest out. we dont want it or use it. DFI Lanparty NF4- ultra D, ASROCK z170 OC formula , gigabyte z77xud3h, biostar Tpower I55, asus p5b -deluxe. you get it?!! look at the past boards that kicked ass and use them as a reference and make them new again. its very simple.

[StyM]

[StyM]

BIOSTAR Shows off First Mini-ITX Socket AM4 Motherboard