AMD – Page 23 – Motherboard Review

GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX

December 9, 2020 by Stephen

Sometimes less is more, and when it comes to motherboards the mini-ITX form factor has some of the most enthusiastic fan club members. Small form factor systems are becoming more widely used as we’re ushered into a single graphics card setup dominated landscape. and in terms of features to price, the B550 chipset has some of the most cost-effective of any current desktop platform. One such board is the GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX which combines a wave of premium features combined with AMD’s B550 chipset.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT: Reviews Are In

December 9, 2020 by Stephen

The new Radeon RX 6900 XT is here with the same 26.8 billion transistors, but it packs 80 Compute Units (CUs) and 80 Ray Accelerators (versus the 72 and 60 for each inside of the Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6800, respectively). This results in 5120 stream processors (up from the 4608 inside of the RX 6800 XT and 3840 inside of the RX 6800).

GPU clocks aren’t any higher for the reference Radeon RX 6900 XT as they are to the Radeon RX 6800 XT reference, with Game GPU clocks of up to 2015MHz and boost GPU clocks of up to 2250MHz. The additional Compute Units provide more performance across the board, leading to 23.04 TFLOPs of single precision performance, versus 20.74 TFLOPs on the Radeon RX 6800 XT.

ASUS TUF X570-PRO GAMING (WI-FI) – Our Preview

January 7, 2021December 8, 2020 by Stephen

Today, we have our latest article. This time, we’re taking our first look at the new ASUS TUF X570-PRO GAMING (WI-FI). This board is a refresh/upgrade from last year’s hit, the TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (WI-FI). There are some cosmetic changes to be sure, like dropping the plastic rear I/O cover in favor of beefier VRM cooling, but there’s also more under the hood that’s been upgraded as well. Before we dig deeper into the product, take a look at our preview to see what’s coming.

12/31 Update – We fired up a 1.25V VCore and 1.00V VSoC at 4.65GHz all-core on our Ryzen 5 5600X to take a look at how the available LLC levels (1-5) impact the load voltage for both VCore and VSoC. Check out the last page of the Preview for the data table. This should be the last update to the Preview before the full review is up. Target date for the full review is Friday the 8th, if not earlier. Enjoy!

ASRock B550 Extreme4

December 8, 2020 by Stephen

ASRock B550 Extreme4 is a decent motherboard that supports the latest AMD desktop CPUs with a good list of features that lean towards the enthusiast who appreciates on-board Power and Reset buttons and a POST code debug display.

You can do an easy reality check by asking yourself whether seven PWM fan headers sound like a decent number or some sort of crazy overkill. As a hint, we reckon four or five headers is about right however it never hurts to have a few extra as spares.

ASUS ROG STRIX B550-XE GAMING WIFI

December 8, 2020 by Stephen

ASUS ROG STRIX B550-XE Gaming WiFi is the ROG STRIX series motherboard, which was released specifically for the new AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors. It may seem to some that the difference in the name by only one letter does not make a new product out of the board, but in this case everything is somewhat different. Yes, the design of the ROG STRIX B550-XE Gaming and ROG STRIX B550-E Gaming is similar, but this is just not the first glance. Model XE received a new design of the cooling system (and even now it is active), a completely different set of power elements in the power subsystem, as well as something really eye-catching in the package.

ASRock B550 Taichi Razer Edition

December 8, 2020 by Stephen

The Taichi Razer Edition uses the same 16-phase (14+2) setup using 50A DrMOS MOSFETs found in the original Taichi. While it is not the most robust we’ve seen, this configuration easily handled our flagship Ryzen 9 5950X at stock speeds and while overclocked. ASRock also replaced the Intel-based networking with Killer Network’s 2.5 GbE E3100X LAN and Killer AX1650x Wi-Fi 6 solutions. This move can be a polarizing one as Killer Network has its fans and detractors.

ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO

December 7, 2020 by Stephen

The Crosshair from ASUS has been the gaming platform for AMD users since it was introduced in 2006. Within this platform, the Hero has been the mid-range board for the last eight generations to the top end Crosshair Formula that has a few upgrades of its own. That said, the Hero has been one of the most popular boards for gamers and enthusiasts building on the AMD X570 platform. With the release of the AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU series in early November, ASUS readied several new motherboards to complement this plethora of processors; one of these new boards is the ROG Dark Hero VIII.

ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO

December 7, 2020 by Stephen

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is a rather expensive motherboard, but its price is justified by its capabilities even in comparison with its predecessor without the word Dark in the name. Like all other Republic of Gamers boards, the new Crosshair VIII series has a first-class component base (1.5 times stronger power subsystem) and, importantly, an efficient cooling system. In terms of functionality, everything is fine – all modern ports and interfaces are available to us, including three network connections at once – 1 Gb / s, 2.5 Gb / s and high-speed Wi-Fi 6.

ASRock X570 PG Velocita

December 7, 2020 by Stephen

The PG Velocita is a brand new high end product line under the Phantom Gaming family, and is packed full of features, while offering great looks and performance. So, today we’ll be taking a quick look at the ASRock X570 PG Velocita motherboard, which utilizes the X570 chipset and supports all of the latest Ryzen processors from AMD, including the 2000, 3000, 4000 G-Series and 5000 Series. It also supports PCIE 4.0 and memory speeds of up to DDR4-5000+ (OC).

BIOSTAR Racing B550GTA

December 7, 2020 by Stephen

By using the latest BIOS updates, the B550GTA board from BIOSTAR is fully compatible with the latest Ryzen 5000 series of processors, offers plenty of connectivity options (even a legacy PCI slot), 2.5Gbps networking and an easy to use UEFI interface. RGB strips can be connected to the dedicated 5V and 12V headers, while the chipset does no longer need active cooling due to lower TDP.