I
f you’vemadethedecisionto
builda newsystemarounda
Ryzen3rdgenCPU,youcouldgo
withanexistingchipsetthanks
tobackwardscompatibility,oryou
couldjumpuptowhatareclearly
someofthemostadvancedand
featurepackedmotherboardsever
created.PCIExpress4.0mightbethe
headlinegrabbingfeature,butthat’s
farfromallX570boardsbringtothe
table.Thisisa platformthat’s
premiuminprettymucheveryway
andmanyofthesenewboardscome
withfeaturesthatnoteventhemost
expensiveHEDTboardscanmatch,
withtheexceptionoftheirhighPCIe
lanecounts.
Theheadlinegrabbingmotherboard
featureissupportforPCIExpress4.0.
While it might be logical to conclude
that this will benefit graphics cards
the most, single GPUs stand to benefit
very little, at least in the short term as
PCIe 3.0 x16 isn’t a bottleneck. There
is evidence to suggest that high-end
SLI and Crossfire is beginning to hit a
bottleneck at PCIe 3.0 x8. So beyond
the short term, PCIe 4.0 will benefit
multi GPU setups, though for now,
PCIe 3.0 is enough to feed even the
likes of an RTX 2080 Ti.TICKING ALL THE BOXES
The higher tier X570 motherboards
definitely come with exciting feature
sets. Networking in particular has
taken a major step forward. Wi-Fi 6
(802.11ax) makes its widespread
debut.2.5, 5 and10GLANarealsobecoming more common. We’re
personally thrilled that faster than
Gigabit LAN is slowly becoming
mainstream. Gigabit is one of those
technologies that should have been
superseded a decade ago. Add in
things like tons of USB ports
including native USB 3.2 Gen 2,
stronger VRM solutions with cooling
that’s actually effective and not just
aesthetic and of course PCIe 4.0
connectivity, and you can see where
some of the extra cost comes from.
It’s terrific to have the option to buy
premium HEDT level boards for a
‘mainstream’ CPU socket. Though you
will certainly have to pay for it!
On the topic of pricing, with all
these new features, some of the
motherboard pricing is rather
outrageous. Gigabyte and MSI have
models costing well over $1,000, At
Computex, Asrock showed off its
X570 Aqua at US$999! Do the
conversion... While Asus doesn’t yet,
we can imagine it won’t take too long
for it to have a $1,000 board too.
Having said that, there are X570
boards on sale that cost under $300
AUD. While X570 will never be
considered cheap, at least there are
relatively affordable options forAMDm udget? No way!Chris Szewczyk says hello to perhaps
the mos ature-packed desktop motherboards ever.
“We’re personally thrilled that faster
than Gigabit LAN is slowly becoming
mainstream. Gigabit is one of those
technologies that should have been
superseded a decade ago. “
m s