Rambling about Asrock's AM5 motherboards.

hey guys Bill Zoid here and today I'm going to be going through asrock's am5 motherboard lineup and just sort of sharing my thoughts on them now I'm actually going to be sort of going through these with like the considerations of like I actually want to buy an ASRock am5 motherboard for testing um which probably isn't the most sensible purchasing decision on my part because uh uh like Intel 13th gen is just better than ryzen 7000 except for like the 7950x and 7900x because the thing is like the 7950x especially just offers great performance like a reasonable price and it doesn't have e-cores which like I I know if you like using Windows 11 the e-cores work well some of us don't like Windows 11 and I still don't like the e-cores so um yeah like the 7950x is a really cool CPU but then you go below that and you sort of like 7900x I think is still justifiable but then you get to like chips like the 7700x and the 7600x and it's just like a 13 700k even without the e-cores is still just better than literally every other eight core CPU that exists currently right except the 13900k because it's just like the 13700k is just a 12 like it's eight of the fastest chords you can get right now clocked really high with a really good memory controller it doesn't really get much better than that oh and it also comes with eight unnecessary cinebench accelerators but um yeah so that makes am5 kind of awkward for me because like on one hand I I'd like to test the boards more but on the other hand it's like this platform doesn't currently make a ton of sense um unless you're going with the 7950x but yeah anyway so with that unnecessary introduction out of the way let's get into this uh we'll start off with the two x670e Tai Chi boards we've got the Tai Chi karara which is literally just a Tai Chi with the like marble finish on it so to me I am completely indifferent to it well I will say I don't I don't particularly like the aesthetic of asrock's new motherboards like yeah I don't think they look that good I also don't think this looks that good yeah but anyway um that's not really the priority here I do like the one reason I've been sort of really interested in the Tai Chi boards is I'd love to test this vrm um I'd really love to test it and the reason I'd love to test it is because ASRock has managed to like produce some of the best vrms that I've ever tested and also some of the worst but the thing is on b550 the the b550 steel Legend has amazing voltage regulation for the price and so I've really ever since testing that board I've been really wondering like you know how good is something like an x670e Tai Chi and this does have a rather interesting vrm design like we have an absolute truckload of capacitance hanging off of this vrm like this is a ton of capacitors and then you also have like all of these little multi-layer Ceramics mixed into it and just I really wonder how this performs like this this looks like it could be really really bad or it could be unnecessarily expensive for no extra benefit that's sort of the two like uh wait did I say bad I mean really really good uh or unnecessarily expensive for no extra benefit so yeah like this is a vrm I'd be very interested in testing um I also like the motherboard the fact that this motherboard has dual X8 pcie slots which is not as common a feature these days as as I really wish it was like part of that is because pcie Gen 5 uh re-drivers are really really expensive but the other part of it is just um like people like their M like m.2 drives m.2 drives is why we have less pcie slots so and I'm not a fan of that anyway we do have a manual for this as you can see I've already tried to make this video a few times um because that's why I opened up on like a specific page um right is this the block diagram oh man this is awful where's the pcie assignment yeah so there you have your pcie switch loss redriver yeah so somebody asked me I remember seeing a comment under one of my uh motherboard PCB breakdowns where somebody asked why I call it a pcie switch when it's more like a pcie mux but like the motherboard manuals literally call it a pcie switch so yeah anyway we've got x16x8 support which is cool um and the rest of it I don't care to be completely honest uh I really don't the other thing is like this board has a lot of SATA ports like in terms of sort of connectors that I care about on a motherboard this is like right up my alley except for the rear i o this like it's a good number of USB type A's right it's eight USB type A's that's really like that's not bad that's not something I would say like you know this needs needs more USB ports but I wouldn't mind more USB ports especially considering how ridiculously expensive this board is um and that's that's the main sort of issue I have with this board right now is like these in the UK are like 600 pounds um same goes for the regular version like both of the both the marble version and the regular one like they are very very expensive and the marble version is even more expensive than the regular one um and so yeah that's kind of kind of the thing is like because it's got a postcode power button reset button yeah it doesn't have safe boot but thanks to AMD safe boot doesn't work there's a clear CMOS button in the rear i o uh dual X8 eight SATA ports which is something you really don't see on many x670e motherboards um interesting vrm design right massively overpowered vrm design but that's a given it's an x670e motherboard like you'll get it like you get an Overkill like uh vrm on x670e at like 300 so that's it's not really you know that's the vrm is not even a concern or a consideration in this situation um so yeah I'll do the slot spacing now that I look at it like this pcie slot is like way down the board right like yeah they shifted it down to down by like two slots because usually it's pretty common for like mainstream motherboards to have that first pcie slot slot shifted one down from the top uh pcie slot position but this is two down that's that's pretty far down um I'm not really a fan of that because that means the second X8 is closer to that first X8 um and actually like this PCI you thought is actually like pcie slot layout is really like for a daily system I actually think it's kind of sub-optimal um because if you put a capture card down here it'll be restricting airflow to your GPU which like it's not a huge deal it's not going to massively increase temperatures it does potentially increase the noise output though because you get an obstruction in front of a fan and fans make like a lot of fans will end up making way more noise if there's a obstruction in front of them even if like they're running at the exact same RPM they will just get louder because of an obstruction um so yeah like this pcie slot layout is like at least it's dual X8 but I am not a fan of the physical positioning um or the quantity of pcie slots for because for the other thing is like if you're getting a capture card or something you actually won't don't really want to be do going like X8 X8 potentially right like it would be maybe better to have the capture card going off of your chips at so like a pcie X4 slot somewhere on the board would have been nice like I think it would have been best if there was like an X4 directly above the primary x16 because that way it's out the like that way it's out of the way of the GPU uh and it wouldn't you know steal pcie Lanes but there's like no motherboards doing that so actually I think the z590 tachyon does that but that's like the only board that I can think of that has that style of pcie layout where the very first slot is actually going to the chipset then the second one is for your GPU but anyway so yeah this is a like interesting feature like a really unique feature set for an x617 motherboard thanks to especially thanks to the Dual like the I mean eight uh SATA ports um it's just so damn expensive and there's really no reason to get 24 power stages to power your 7950x like the 7950x doesn't pull that much power that's it's kind of the the thing that makes it attractive as a high core count CPU in my opinion is just like yeah you get a ton of cores and it doesn't you know pull more than because the thing is the 7950x is basically uncoolable past 250 Watts unless you plan to delit it so you know like yeah it doesn't pull a ton of power and uh and even at 250 Watts it's a really really fast CPU so yeah anyway um so moving on from the Tai Chi boards like those are really interesting I just wish the price was lower and I don't think like ASRock is over charging for the feature set compared to the other manufacturers like the Dual X8 is actually quite unique I'm a bit restrictive on the pcie slot Arrangement on the flip side if you like SATA drives there's more SATA ports on these than on literally any other board let's take a look at the steel Legend and yeah I don't like like I don't I don't like the the look of asrock's new boards oh well this is one of the re I feel like that's one of the reasons I've been like subconsciously putting off making this video it's just like these some of these boards are really ugly this one isn't even that bad I mean I've never really been a fan of the steel Legend styling but I feel like this is kind of worse than what they did on the b550 also compared to the b550 steel legend or yeah like there's no postcode on here the b550 steel Legend is like totally over like compared to most modern motherboards is actually really imbalanced in terms of like build quality and feature set and price like it's under 200 under 200 has a postcode great vrm yes it runs a bit warm but if you just have some airflow it's fine um so yeah maybe I shouldn't be using that motherboard for comparisons because because it's really unfair but but anyway um so I have a single like 16 then it's just a bunch of 3.0 that's weird most boards give you like a I think most boards give you a 4.0 but not that it really makes much of a difference also I could have a sneaking suspicion that's not a full size x-16 is it pcie2 that's our x16 pcie3 X4 yeah that's what I thought wait gen 3 why oh I guess it's because they're running it all the way down to the bottom edge of the board and so to like for signaling reasons they dropped it all the way down to 3.0 because I don't think like pcie4 already has like a bunch of signal Integrity issues so I guess running it all the way down to they didn't want to deal with that and so they dropped it down to 3.0 because I'm pretty sure this could have been 4.0 like the the actual like pcie connector on the CPU end is 4.0 not 3.0 wait a minute no it 16 for then you get your four to the chipset uh uh wait a minute is this like USB ports that they decided to turn into a pcie slaw so maybe I'm wrong about that maybe that is just a gen 3 link anyway like that is perfect actually for like a capture card like this this is actually if you're getting a capture card this is actually like ideal it's a mile away from your GPU and it connects directly to the CPU and that's not generally that important but I have run into weird issues with having devices like pcie cards connecting to the chipset and then to the CPU so um ideally you want to connect everything directly to the CPU if you can um so this actually like that that PC I thought for like a capture card is ideal that is it literally perfect for that uh application and then you also get an X1 slot in just kind of the most awkward location possible but X1 is the kind of thing that you'd use for like a Wi-Fi card or something so I don't think it's too much like and those cards don't tend to be that large well I mean you might still run into the issue of like you put the card in and then the GPU fans end up being noisier than than before but um it's less of a concern than when you have a really big card in front of a in front of a GPU anyway so I like the pcie layout on this a lot like well I mean that X1 slot is a bit awkward but on the other hand they did manage to get all of the m.2 drives away from the the exhaust of the GPU and this is one thing I've been wondering for a while is like I think a motherboard like this where you have just a big open space directly under your main pcie slot will actually have somewhat better GPU temperatures than motherboards that have a bunch of covers in that area because you'll just have like most gpus try to exhaust some amount of heat down towards the the motherboard and so not having a great big like m.2 heatsink or something down there uh could actually help GPU temperatures a bit it's not really any something I've tested but it is something I've always kind of suspected like might be the case so yeah so I I like the I like the way this motherboard's pcie stuff is set up um oh this is my kind of rear i o uh you get bios flashback no clear CMOS uh dual Lan you get one what is that real Tech two and a half gig real tech one gig and I'm not really a fan of that I feel like if you're gonna do because I I don't think you can Team them or anything so I think it would have made more sense if it was like Intel one gig and then real Tech two and a half so that like you have two different vendors um if you don't like the drivers from one of them you can just use the other one for what or yeah that kind of thing um but yeah I you do get dual land so if that's if you have like a different use if you have a use for that then that's kind of cool I guess it does have an optical out and there's just a ton of USB ports right this is what like 13 no 11. it's 11 type A's as well as the type C there's bios flashback Wi-Fi six E Yeah Wi-Fi six e and for the power delivery we're looking at a 16 plus two plus one um I'm not sure that it's actually phases it might actually be an eight plus two plus one and then just two power stages in parallel in each phase UH 60 amp smart power stages so that should handle a 7950x no problem like even without a vrm heatsink it should handle a 7950x um did I mention what the layer count is this is probably an eight layer PCB isn't it yeah eight layer PCB so the vrm will really have no issues whatsoever um it comes with a graphics card holder that's nice I guess um oh you do get troubleshooting LEDs but yeah there's no postcode on this which I think really kind of sucks then again at the price point that I think this board is at that's kind of standard so yeah I can't like that's not like ASRock being cheap that's just like motherboard manufacturer motherboard manufacturers just don't include postcodes very often these days on like cheaper boards blazing OC tuner oh so it looks like ASRock has the same thing that like Asus and gigabyte have um with the dynamic switching from PBO to static um all right anti-drop screws oh they they mean the everybody does this now and it's nice like I really like this this I don't think it really adds a lot of cost because they just have to thread the hole in the m.2 heatsinks um actually yeah so they just have to thread the holes in the m.2 heatsinks and then they put in a screw that isn't threaded all the way and the screw doesn't have a tendency to like you don't have the screws like you don't have to worry about losing the screws anymore because they just stay with the heatsink um but this is super common these days um yeah I don't I don't even know like which manufacturer did it first but I've just kind of noticed with a lot of the motherboards that I've been taking apart for uh like recently been disassembling for PCB breakdowns like all of them come with captive screws now um for this kind of thing like not for your other heatsinks your other heatsinks still have regular screws but um at least the m.2 heatsinks the the screws don't run away from you so yeah that's nice but anyway that that boards is kind of standard motherboard and we have the x670e Phantom gaming lightning 14 plus two plus one well power stages 70 amp smart power stages oh that should power a 7950x no problem as well then uh that's a lot of USB type A and I do like to see that no Wi-Fi on this uh-huh two and a half gig line wow slash back no optical audio output if that's something you care about um all layer count eight layer yeah eight layer PCB this board's kind of ugly in my opinion I don't like the like I don't mind like creative um like Silk Screening to like for some extra visual Flair but but this right here I don't like it like I feel like this would look better if the board was just black yeah it would just look better if this board was just like and that that and I say that as somebody who hates the fact that most modern motherboards try to be as just a black uh rectangle as much as possible Right like if you look at an x670e Tai Chi this is pretty much a black rectangle with a gold stripe on the edge that's it um but then you have a board like this where I almost feel like they're doing this uh design with the silk screening to make the board look worse because it in my opinion does like it's just visual noise for no real reason to me so I I don't I don't like this I think it would look better if it was just black or I don't like honestly I would have preferred it if they just like plastered their like the ASRock like logo across the entire board or something um because to me yeah like like I don't like it because it's visually it's nothing it's just visual noise and I don't like it um like there's no no real pattern to it no reason it's just kind of there and it's just ugly um in my opinion but luckily it doesn't affect performance um but yeah I wish they wouldn't do this because like honestly like like old low end motherboards are nicer to look at than this is because they they didn't yet get you know all creative with their solder masks um I mean with the silk screening not the solder mask the solder mask is the black part that's fine I think I don't want the brown solder mask that that looked horrible but uh yeah anyway oh these are Dr Mal oh no right technically smart power stages are like a sub family of Dr Moss components because smart power stages have an integrated driver as well as the two mosfets um yeah 14 plus two we have eight layer PCB wait this doesn't have a two ounce copper layer what that doesn't seem right that's like a standard feature of modern motherboards is to have two ounce copper or do they just not mention it at random oh they just randomly don't mention it yeah because this yeah here they say two ounce copper I can guarantee you there is no way in hell that this board doesn't have a two ounce copper power and ground plane no way that they're not doing that um because it like that would be bad if they didn't um yeah so that just seems to be random okay so that doesn't mean anything this this almost certainly has it too um and when I say almost certainly I mean like 99.999 certainty because there's no way like the two ounce copper layers for motherboards for like the power and ground are standard for like years now like even Cheapo four layer boards we'll use two ounce uh caught like two ounce copper thickness for the like big Power planes because you need that for your power planes and ground so yeah anyway so vrm wise this looks perfectly fine looks like it also uses the same memory topology as all the other boards also comes with the anti-drop screws it's just a really ugly motherboard I also just realized I didn't talk about the networking on the Tai Chi at all did I oh it's two and a half gig killer so that's rebranded Intel as far as I know and then you also have rebranded Intel Wi-Fi but yeah so I just wish this board was just black to be completely honest yeah if they didn't do the the silk screen I think like I I'd be willing like you know like if I'm choosing a motherboard to test it does I guess it doesn't really matter that it's ugly but like if I have the option to get something less ugly I'll go for the less ugly one um so let's check out the x670e pro RS so that's all of the x670 ASRock boards I actually like how this looks yeah I don't know why they didn't do something similar to what they did on this right like it's the same kind of like yeah I just don't like the fact that this is like a random line pattern whereas like this actually has some kind of design to it um so anyway this this looks fine and 14 plus two this is the same board isn't it actually this has a better pcie slot layout well that's stupid oh and it's a lot better it's not even like a little better like this is uh x16 uh then you've got X4 and then X oh you get an X1 X4 X1 um so actually let's check the manual this is really dumb like I I understand not having a bunch of x16s maybe but like why why not have an X4 on the very bottom or like when I say x16s like these are x4s like physically yes the plastic is for x16 but electrically those are X4 sloths um where is that user manual there we go actually I would probably mention it in the connector section don't they actually that's probably even on their website and the specifications yeah they run X4 I mean x16 running X1 and then x16 running X4 off of the CPU and that's gen 3 um wait is it no that's pcie4 yeah wait which that's pcie3 oh I don't like this layout yeah so this is 4.0 but like it's not the end of the world but like it's in my opinion it's it's a bit too close to the x-16 slot the the primary one so yeah I wish the X4 like X4 should be like second to last or very last pcie slot in my opinion or it should be above the x16 um that's sort of the the best locations for it you want to get it away like as far away from the heatsink for the GPU as possible basically so you either put it behind it or you put it way down um not not right here because actually I think there's like RTX 40 90s right now that if you put them into this motherboard like it you won't be able to use the X4 slot anymore right and there are things like like there's capture cards that are X4 and if you put them in X1 like you're not gonna have enough bandwidth um so yeah this does still have troubleshooting LEDs um oh and it only has four SATA ports EU uh yeah I don't like this very much um like it's not like there's nothing particularly wrong with the build quality um but I am not a fan of what it looks like the rear i o is nice I I'll give ASRock that this is a good rear i o um otherwise I'd be okay yeah so I like the rear i o but yeah this board's a bit um then we have the x670e pro RS where it's like okay so this looks nice you get your six SATA ports and then it's just like no pcie slots like [Music] like yeah like this is just there's just no X4 slots like why m.2 slots were a mistake as far as I'm concerned we should have we should like I'm not two Emerald two ssds should just come with pcie adapters as a standard and then we should just have more pcie slots um anyway oh and the rear i o wait a minute what the hell ASRock no seriously what so this is two and a half gig there's a type c here there's a type c here as well that's two and a half gig oh you get an optical but there's just like a 9 type A's versus 11. yeah 11. um this board costs more oh they put Wi-Fi 60 on here as well but this is the more expensive board and it just has like less features trying to figure something out right now this is on a 14 plus two how they're so like ASRock has a lot like these boards are all very different from each other like this is in my opinion the best looking of azerox like x670e boards and unfortunately the one I like like in terms of internal connectors the one I like the least like this is a good pcie slot layout this is a this is an acceptable pcie slot layout and then then we have this thing where it's like why is this even an x670e motherboard because like the only thing x672e is about is how many pcie slots you get thanks to the chipsets and it's like uh uh where are they so yeah I guess asrock's intent is to sell this motherboard on looks alone because it does look better than everything else in their lineup in my opinion but terms of functionality I am not very impressed also real Tech two and a half gig real Tech two and a half kick in one gig and then real Tech two and a half yeah still the same memory support I'm surprised that they claim up to 6600 considering ryzen really doesn't do speeds that high and in fact their qvl doesn't even have any speeds that high in their qvl which incidentally 6400 on ryzen 7000 is a matter of luck some CPUs just won't do it 6200 will work on basically every CPU but 6400 not always if you're going for like full stability you can boot it on basically any CPU should be possible but full stability is is a different matter um anyway so that's the x670 boards and I think in terms of feature set like steel Legend is is nice um but I wish it was less ugly also like nice vrm heatsinks but like the vrm heatsinks aren't like aren't a concern when you've got a 16 like 16 power stage vrm um yeah and the pro RS is just like I I guess if you don't care about the kind of weird lack of like if you don't need a lot of pcie slots then this is fine I guess but I think actually if you like want m.2 heatsinks there's motherboards from other manufacturers that have better m.2 Cooling in this price range so I'm not very like I'm I'm not very impressed with this board so steel Legend and Tai Chi are cool but the other two are kind of I don't even really know why they're x670. um anyway we've got the b650e Tai Chi and I'm very sad about this motherboard because at a glance you might look at these two x you know x16 slots and go like oh this this does dual X8 like the the bigger type like the x67 to e Tai Chi does and you'd be wrong about that because what it actually is is by by four from the chipset like it's not even from the CPU it's from the freaking chipset so I am very upset about that like very very upset about that that is the main like when I first saw pictures of this board that I was thinking like oh I'll just buy this instead of the x670 version because it's got the same vrm and and it'll still do X8 and then then I finally saw the specs and I was like oh no it it doesn't do dual like say it does x16 and X4 off of the chipset uh like to be fair to ASRock that's not exactly abnormal for a b650e motherboard to do it's just like I was really hoping there would be like a a cheap way to get dual X8 pcie slots and there isn't um also this board's not cheap this board's like really I think in the UK it goes for like 450 quid when I last checked so like this thing is very expensive and really the only thing you're getting in my opinion is a massive vrm and then everything else well okay a ton of USB type A I'll give them that and I do like a ton of USB type 8. um I do but you only got four SATA ports which is because the b650 chipset just doesn't have that many lines available you do get a postcode power button reset button um well the like like the pro like this is this is basically a vrm and a bunch of USB ports as a motherboard and like to be fair that's that's kind of you know in well like that like on a surface level that sounds like the kind of thing I would like but this like the vrm is so Overkill that it's just unnecessary like if they re if they literally removed half of the vrm half of it just so I could have a dual X8 I'd take it I'd rather have dual X8 on the pcie slots than uh then 24 power stages especially since they're using 105 amp smart power stages like we don't need 24 of them the 7950x doesn't pull that much power um plus it even has heat sinks which I know is standard for vrms but like this vrm will do it without heatsinks um so yeah like I feel like this is too far cut down from the x67 to e Tai Chi to really make sense um could be an interesting like ln2 overclocking motherboard because I have a sneaking suspicion that if the that it might be the same for Ln to overclocking um not a hundred percent certain there might be some like extra auxiliary voltages that like this doesn't let you adjust that the Tai Chi the x67 to e Tai Chi does but this is ASRock and they don't really do that kind of thing that's more in line with like Asus where like Rog boards will often have extra voltage settings that you don't get on the uh like strikes boards and uh other Rog boards um with ASRock like even the cheapest boards will often have voltage settings that are like relatively advanced overclocker stuff so just because Azeroth can't be bothered to like disable the functionality in the Bios and the voltage Regulators are the same so it's like well it's the same voltage regulator so it supports the same functionality and we can't be bothered to remove it from the BIOS to be fair gigabyte does the same thing as well as I think MSI most uh I think MSI mostly does that it's just like with MSI there's some voltages that are just kind of missing like there were a few cases where they just didn't have a setting across their entire lineup so um yeah that's sort of a different matter um yeah so overall like I like this I just I the price is too high and it doesn't do dual X8 which I find incredibly disappointing also this pcie slot is again like as an X4 for a capture card it's too close to the x16 put it at the bottom of the board I guess asrock's decision to put it up here is that it puts the m.2 drives further away from the GPU which I guess is good for like that that'll be good for your m.2 drive temperatures but like I I the I don't think the the X-Force law should be that close to the to the x-16 also why is there a bunch of capacitors down here like it's not weird to have capacitors by your pcie slots for like extra power filtering but like why is there three of them that's like a lot like usually you'd expect like 116 volts cap and one 6.3 volt cap for the 3.3 volt rail why is there three I am very confused I mean it doesn't hurt anything it's it just looks weird there's also seemingly voltage Regulators down here for the chipset am I missing something I don't like how also they highlight like two gen 5x16 slots wait a minute this is just straight up wait is it where is it connectors wait slots it's not gen 5. it's straight up wrong yeah see so this is just wrong straight up like this is just completely incorrect they're not dual gen 5x6 like this one goes to the freaking chipset so just no anyway um I don't think I'm missing anything so that is interesting there's like a whole lot of power delivery stuff down there I wonder what it's for I wonder if the x670e version has that too because like if I'm gonna be spending kind of a lot like kind of too much on a motherboard I may as well get the one that does everything instead the one that just does almost everything oh well we can't see on this one oh that's a shame well anyway moving on we've got the b650e steel Legend at the very least oh looks like that's the same vrm as they had on the x670 version yep that was the pcie slot layout also bad wait a minute does this only have two SATA ports or am I blind no way right it has two SATA ports oh my God it has two SATA ports are you kidding me two like I get that the b650 chipset doesn't have that many lanes but two SATA ports okay well I guess uh no like bulk storage for you then um I mean I guess you shouldn't be hooking up that many drives to your daily system anyway but interesting that they claim 6400 Plus for this board and yet it has like the same qvl that they have for boards like this which this claims support up to 6600. oh well um let's keep going so eight layer PCB again like the the thing is this will still have no issues powering like a 7950x but is there no rear i o photo oh oh this is okay there's seven type A's and a type c i uh seven is good seven or more like no Seven's not good seven is acceptable like that is not like once we go below seven USB type A ports in the rear i o That's when I start complaining because that's when it's an issue um in my opinion like that's when it's like where am I gonna plug all my stuff in um above seven is like okay like above seven is like I actually don't know what I would plug into it but I can imagine that there are people out there who have even more peripherals than I do and for those that's nice um but yeah like I think I'm not 100 certain but I'm pretty sure the minimum I need is seven type A ports um it might be eight at this point but yeah um anyway you get Wi-Fi six e of course which is kind of standard on Mo like a lot of the more expensive motherboards these days um I don't like the pcie slot layout you got troubleshooting LEDs no postcode of course oh that's another thing do I really want to pay for money money for a motherboard with no postcode I mean it is a ryzen motherboard so the postcode isn't really that helpful anyway but well I'm not sure like so I personally don't like this board very much there's nothing particularly wrong with it but like the am5 platform in my opinion is a bit awkward and it might be just because I really don't care about like pcie Gen 5 storage because like I don't copy files all day I don't need it to be that fast foreign or more like usually when I'm copying files it's to a different drive that's way slower than my main storage and I use a SATA SSD um oh wait this isn't LEDs this is actually just like blue oh cool I did not know that um what is this 14 plus 2 up to 6600 man as rocks like memory speed advertisements are just like random numbers aren't they how's the rear i o on this this is nicer than this is it yes it is this is just straight up nine USB type A ports now admittedly a lot of them are slower are they oh no yeah they are because these are five blue ports versus three blue ports um but for me like USB type A ports are about quantity not speed so yeah it's the same vrm as I think the like lower end x670 boards actually ASRock straight up mentions what power stages they use which is really cool yeah 60 amp smart power stages so that's that's good that should have no problem powering a 7950x it still has a eight layer PCB so yeah and it comes with vrm heatsinks nothing to worry about there is a volt like there is a temperature uh I mean troubleshooting LEDs over here um oh we have a better pcie slot layout on this and four SATA ports man asrock's internal connection connector like configurations are mind-boggling because they're just all over the place like the pcie slot to move to like random locations for reasons I don't understand the SATA ports are like there's no SATA ports here four SATA ports here like I'm pretty sure this is the cheaper board isn't it yes yes it is because it has worse rear i o um so yeah like it is bizarre to me how like this has a better pcie slot layout than this does um like that's just weird and I said pcie slots are and this one's even connected to the CPU look at that like that's so awesome you get an X4 all the way at the bottom of the board that goes to the CPU and it's X4 by three like gen 3. so like it's not even that slow really right like that's like 2.0 X8 equivalent um so yeah so I like this I like this I don't like the color blue though so um that's fun but I I do like I do like this board like I like the rear I oh yeah it's not a really like if you need high speed ports then I guess this isn't for you but if you're like me where it's just like no I have a mouse a keyboard a webcam an audio like a sound card a printer and uh there's also like a USB cable that I use as like an option cable for um what is it um like various like controller type things and the Arduino oh and on Arduino sometimes as well um yeah oh and I have the drawing tablet so like I just need a ton of type A it doesn't really need to be very fast though um I don't hook up storage devices to the back of my motherboard so yeah that's what that's what the front panel ports are for all right that's where you plug in your USB drives that kind of thing and the rear I O is for like permanently attached devices and an extension cable because like the the thing is I usually use the controllers on like all the like the the microcontrollers I usually use them on the like opposite end of my desk so I have a like two meter actually might be a like I have a USB type A like extension cable that just runs along my desk um over to the area where I usually use the microcontroller stuff so yeah anyway um like I like this this is so far my favorite motherboard from ASRock um that is like at at a reasonable price because obviously the type well no the Tai Chi boards have a stupid PC like okay it's not stupid if you're actually running SLI then this pcie slot layout is actually sort of necessary but it's not like it's not my favorite pcie slot layout whereas the riptide down here like this is a really good pcie slot layout for like a daily setup where you know you might have a GPU capture card maybe like it comes with Wi-Fi so you wouldn't have a Wi-Fi card but I don't know may like maybe you could get a 10 gig card in pcie gen like X1 or something so um yeah like I like this board a lot I just like I wish I had a postcode that would make it that much better but um uh yeah like this this is currently sort of top of the list for like boards I would consider testing at this point um anyway now we have the beef 650e Phantom gaming ITX board um and solid rear i o for an ITX board right we've got us 7 USB type A's two and a half gig uh two and a half gig Intel Lan wait what's on this Intel as well interesting um and what else do we have vrm wise it looks like 105 amp smart power stages on v-core 10 power stages yeah so this is a great like this vrm should have absolutely no issues powering your CPU um what's the layer count on this 10 layers 10 layers yeah ITX board extra layers because there's not enough space um the thing is like with ryzen oh it looks like this actually wait a minute wait a minute ASRock how do how does this work so is the qvl lying or is this just incorrect it could be both ways like with ASRock you never know which is kind of the whole issue like I'd be surprised if this was actually the limit of the board well actually no like ITX motherboards are in this sort of awkward situation where like if they're if there's enough space to do a good memory topology it exports get an advantage because they put less load on the memory controller by having less dim sloths not that that really helps a ryzen 7000 series CPU because the memory controller really doesn't do high memory speeds but that doesn't really do very high memory speeds but um yeah like if you have a memory controller that can do high memory speeds less dim slots is better this right here but with ITX boards you also can end up with like a terrible memory topology because the board has too many features relative to how big it is and so compromises need to be made in order to get everything to fit including the memory so um yeah like this board like I do like one of like the other nice thing about ITX boards is like they don't take up much space in between testing right like they're easy to store which is nice but uh um on the flip side they also have like weird like ITX boards are kind of wacky like they come in sort of extremes because on another benefit that they tend to have is because the power plane is like or more like because the vrm's rammed right up against the CPU socket uh they can often have like a voltage regulation Advantage because the power plane is just super duper short um so yeah like like test results from an ITX board are not generally going to be reflective of the rest of the motherboard lineup from that manufacturer though with some manufacturers every board performs completely differently anyway so it kind of doesn't matter what you test you need to test almost all of them um so yeah and ASRock is actually one of those manufacturers because like I tested uh z390 and z370 so I tested a z370 Xtreme 4 ATX board terrible like literally the worst z317 motherboard I tested and then there's the z390 I it uh z390 Phantom gaming ITX best uh one of the best motherboards I tested straight up like like straight best ITX board I tested and almost uh best uh all like also one of the best out of any board that I tested in terms of voltage regulation um so yeah like that's the kind of the unfortunate like so ITX boards sort of can be really good or really bad um and nothing in between in my experience and also they're not reflective of the rest of the motherboard lineup because of that but still this is a really interesting board um it looks good like the surprisingly good rear i o for an ITX board you do only get two SATA ports but you know it's an ITX board there's not that much space um and actually because it's an ITX board there's just not that much of anything on it right uh do you even get two m.2 slots you do so one of them has to be on the back right yeah there's one on the back I kind of wish they had a picture of the back of the board oh they have different the the pictures here for the VR yeah I wish I wish I could see like the capacitor configuration on the back of the board but this could be like an intro like this is a vrm I would love to have measurements for unfortunately it's also just like it like the measurements from this board would literally only apply to this board so that's kind of the the reason why it might not be the ideal test subject because it's like not very useful for General more more General conclusions whereas like this vrm I think ASRock is just copy pasting it around for a few of the boards like it's probably the same like yeah this and this probably share vrm designs except maybe they change the power stages which doesn't really like that doesn't really tend to that'll improve the efficiency potentially but it won't change really like it generally won't change the voltage regulation performance um anyway so that's the ITX uh then we have the live mixer oh no the website's gotten more fancy I love this color scheme I am so happy to see that we now have colorful motherboards again instead of just black motherboards with RGB uh chickenpox right because because like there's a lot of motherboards where they just kind of stick some random RGB LEDs on them and it's like look it's RGB now and it's like the board is primarily black so you know like I do not appreciate motherboards that are black with a colorful skin condition that's that's not really not really that interesting to look at this on the other hand this is cool I mean I'd prefer it if it was like actually orange instead of like red and yellow but close enough to being Orange though I do believe this is the same thing as one of the other boards we've looked at okay at least once we get to the specs page everything functions normally yeah this looks suspiciously like the steel Legend oh whoa this rear i o damn that's a lot of USB ports I like it they ditched the Wi-Fi apparently did they yeah they did um oh and you got are they reasonably laid out got two PCL pcie2 is huh as long as you don't have a four slot GPU like yeah this will work so you get by four by four you don't get very many like you only get two SATA ports on this board as well which is unfortunate but that's just a limitation of the b650 chipset um I still don't like it though I wonder like so this seems to be the same vrm as the actually it could still be basically the same vrm as the steel Legend depending on uh uh depending on like what like they could literally be using the same vrm controller and just removing like two power stages that could also be true for the riptide I maybe should look that up I'm yeah I kind of I wonder if that information might not be somewhere available somewhere on the internet already but um yeah so this is basically like a good pcie slot layout and all my favorite pcie slot layout but a good one um and an absolute ton of USB type A and and I do like that um I wish I had a postcode I I really wish it had a postcode the thing is I feel like this board probably costs extra and if I'm just testing it then there's not really much point from with for me to go for it because like there's no way I'd ever daily this thing because it doesn't have enough SATA ports for my daily system like literally it just does not have enough data ports for my daily system so that's a bit unfortunate um v650 Pro RS oh this looks okay yeah this looks okay um 14 plus two it's the same vrm uh uh what else do we have two and a half gigabit Lan from real Tech and we've got x16 and oh so this actually has wait this is the same thing as the riptide then oh they ditched one of the m.2 heatsinks and no Wi-fi wait a minute is this just a cheaper version of the riptide it is oh that's perfect I can get like yeah it's it's the same thing it's the same board for less money it's perfect I mean you lose out on m.2 heatsinks but I don't care about that I don't use m.2 drives it doesn't affect me it does have trouble shooting LEDs uh solid number of type A ports yeah I like this like this is in terms of feature set this is right up my alley um and this should still be able to power a 7950x with no issues v650 Phantom gaming lightning oh no it's got the horrible freaking gray random the random gray mess all over it oh this has a nice rear IO yeah that's a lot of type a USB ports again um oh the pcie slot layout is uh not that great oh it's only got two wait no it's got four SATA ports there's two hanging out down here this board is like weirdly empty and the Grays like gray mess isn't like is that like I really don't like it wait a minute how how many m.2 slots does this have one two three kind of low or at least that seems a bit low well oh no that seems to be normal for ASRock okay note that I really care but it is something that like a lot of I think a lot of other am5 boards are just absolutely packed with m.2 slots so only seeing three of them is kind of surprising um this is still the same vrm but unfortunately I am not buying a board that looks like this when I can have a board that looks like this though I wonder which one is cheaper because it isn't immediately obvious to me I I do want to actually look that up so we're going to go to PC part picker and I am currently set to the United Kingdom so oh man it's 2 45 it's 250. that's a lot that's like in the same price range as like Z6 and like low end z690 boards M5 and the lightning is 229. yeah that's not enough of a price decrease now I'm starting to suspect that ASRock is making these ugly on purpose foreign just like this is this is kind of just a better rear i o same vrm yeah it is just better for in terms of rear i o um same vrm worse heat sinks which really shouldn't matter because you know 7000 series doesn't pull that much power um worst pcie slot layout significantly worse pcie slot layout because I've now noticed that yeah you only get one CPU slot instead of two oh these are X2 as well they're not even X4 oh that is like a law or I like X2 devices are like like admittedly I've not looked into that many exotic pcie add-on cards but generally like you have your X1 stuff and then you have like X4 X8 and x16 stuff X2 is one of those like I know it's technically possible but I can't immediately think of anything that I've seen with an X2 connector um like there's networking cards and like audio cards and even some capture cards that are on X1 and then I've seen a lot of capture cards on X4 and then you have like your gpus that are like an X8 or actually AMD now has some GP well Jeep is there some GPU from AMD that's on X4 there's no way it has to be X8 like I'm not going to look that up right now but anyway so yeah like most stuff like like you this it usually goes 1X 4X 8X 16x and and 2x is like I'm sure there's some devices that use by two but I am not aware of what that would be um you could still probably adapt that into an m.2 slot if you wanted to um you just wouldn't have a ton of bandwidth on it but yeah so this board like the rear i o is nice I'll give it that um you do still get troubleshooting LEDs but those are kind of standard also they where are they wait a minute does this not have Elite it has to have them there's no way okay well we gotta go grab the manual because there is no way that that doesn't have troubleshooting LEDs if this doesn't have troubleshooting LEDs then it's just terrible do they even label them in the manual because on the pro RS they're right there in the corner and on this we have some mosfets in that area occasionally puts them along the bottom Edge as well but there's nothing down here like 230 pound board and it doesn't even have oh no they've shoved them up above the memory slots yeah yeah okay they just moved them into a slightly different location so it does have them wait are they not labeled in the manual oh they are they're up here it's just not immediately obvious they look kind of like a fan connector or something um not okay so you get troubleshooting LEDs it's not it's not like they're it's not completely terrible it's just ugly it's just a very ugly motherboard it's not also bad um okay let's check out the matx riptide and that comes in Wi-Fi and non-wifi versions which the normal Wi-Fi version is wait is it actually that it it whoa oh and we even have pictures of the back of it nice wait that means I can check out a picture of the back of the ITX one can't I oh this is yeah man I bet the voltage regulation on this is really good like really really good because that is all SMD polymers tantalum input filtering um and therefore also not at all comparable to any of the other boards in asrock's lineup um except yeah like straight up not comparable not necessarily like that it like like it's so different in terms of its design that like you can't compare it not necessarily that the same level of performance can't be achieved um there are many there are like many many ways to design different voltage Regulators with roughly the same performance um when it comes to the voltage regulation side of things because you ultimately everything ends up bottlenecked by the CPU socket itself um anyway this is currently not available in the in the UK and on NewEgg it's 320 quid now I think I've seen some pre-order listings that have it at around 280 which isn't too bad [Music] um anyway let's take a look at that matx Riptide board so you can get it with a Wi-Fi 6E of course I wish there was more USB type A ports I think we we all know that I was about to say that the RM heatsink looks good vrm itself though is slightly down is it oh actually significantly downgraded I guess that makes sense when the price is so low how many layers is it oh the power wait they're not advertising an eight-layer PCB so this is probably a six layer um that doesn't necessarily mean that this would have any issues with powering your CPU though interesting that there's just a tantalum capacitor like hanging out by the CPU socket I wonder what that's for especially on a motherboard this cheap like there's just a tantalum cap over here it might be for the soc or something also this like like array of multi-layer ceramics that ASRock is doing for some of their actually they're kind of doing it for the whole thing here and it still manages to squeeze in force aw ports and troubleshooting LEDs down on the bottom Edge this pcie slot layout for an m80x board is actually about as good as it's going to get um what's the PCI installed assignment on this this is not bad I don't hate this at least not immediately it's 4.0 x 16 yeah for 4.0 X4 off of the chipset and then 3.0 by one twice not that you're going to be able to use those because your GPU is going to be there um you do get two m.2 slots not three um am I right about that yeah you get 2m.2 slots I'm surprised that we didn't get uh the bottom pcie slot as uh by four from the CPU because I think they have Lanes left over from the CPU um real Tech two and a half gigolan what's the qvl look like oh this is actually yeah because I guess six layer PCB does that doesn't it yeah huh that makes sense like that that's kind of my observed difference between like six layer boards on and eight layer boards on z690 with 12th gen Intel so that that actually makes sense that a six layer board would be worse than an eight layer board for ddr5 overclocking so that's almost certainly accurate which also means like on one hand this is the cheapest like one I think this is straight up one of the cheapest am5 boards in general like even if I don't look at ASRock specifically where's ASRock there we go um yeah it is actually just straight up the cheapest and it's not immediately like it's not immediately terrible the vrm actually looks like it could be like actually it should still be perfectly capable of powering a 7950x um this is actually very similar to the vrm on the b550 steel Legend except this actually looks like it has a better vrm heatsink like this is a good vrm heatsink design um like this style of vrm heatsink works really really well in my testing so and it's on a six layer PCB so this actually like I never figured if figured out if the b550 steel Legend is a four layer PCB or a six layer PCB I've always suspected that that's that it's a four layer PCB because it feels kind of thin but I'm not sure um and ASRock doesn't advert like I think azeroch advertises the lair count on their six layer boards but not on their four-layer boards so um yeah that's the other reason why I'm like it's probably a four layer because I can't find anything saying it's a six um but anyway so this is a six there almost certainly and that's not really like like the issue is like what CPU would you put in this could you put a 7950x in it yes why would you do that though I'm not entirely certain could you put a 7600 and X in it of course uh would that make sense yes if the 13600k didn't exist um unfortunately for AMD the 13600k does exist and so the 7600x doesn't really make any sense um and so that's kind of the awkward thing for me is like like I am in I am intrigued but I am not sure if this is a board that actually like makes a ton of sense right now for am5 because yeah it's the cheapest am5 motherboard in the UK and probably everywhere else in the world um but at the same time what would you do with it like it's not really like I don't know and I I kind of do I really want to motherboard that clock's memory worse than everything else does especially like since as far as I can tell asrock's entire lineup is eight layer pcbs isn't it isn't it oh no this one has the wacky overview page okay we're gonna not do that one but eight layers though that you know what considering some of the other mistakes we've seen okay and okay I'll I'll take that this is an eight layer PCB um eight layer PCB antler PCB again so like this board in terms of memory overclocking will be very different from or well okay maybe not very different but it'll be different from everything else in asrock's lineup so from like uh from a perspective of like showing people what settings are possible on ASRock motherboards it's utterly useless because it's just not comparable to anything else um that doesn't make it bad okay it just means like for for me from a Content production perspective this board is awkward as hell because it's like this is this board like whatever settings are the limit on this board are not necessarily going to be the limit on any other Azeroth motherboard so yeah that that doesn't really make it a very sensible Choice from that perspective so I think I like the pro RS best like I like the pcie slot layout on this a lot the rear i o could be better but it's like for even for me and I use a lot of USB ports compared to normal people this is actually enough um or actually I think I might even have like USB ports left over with this um yeah and still has Force Ada ports instead of just two that you get on some of the uh b650 boards there are troubleshooting LEDs thing I'm kind of upset about is it doesn't have that overly like it doesn't have all of the extra multi-layer ceramics that some of the other boards have in the vrm right like yeah we have this over by the what I think is the vddio phase oh and there's a tantalum cap hanging out over here I really wonder what that's for I think it's probably for the soc power rail um same vrm as the riptide though yeah yeah it's the same um basically the same as the steel Legend yeah I think the steel Legend is literally just two more power stages slapped onto the same controller as this and then this is the same controller minus two power stages I bet is how this is set up and even compared to the like I also want to check the x670 steel Legend because it's like I you know I I want the every as rock motherboard is actually just this motherboard motherboard that would be ideal this looks quite different and there's nothing really interesting on the back from what I can see there man x670 East well it's an x670 board so yeah those those are just silly expensive man this this price so the b650e Tai Chi which oh they haven't listed uh any all the stores for that yet anyway so certainly my favorite in asrock's lineup is the pro RS in terms of feature set but even like a v650s phantom Phantom gaming lightning if you're if you primarily just want more rear i o stuff like it does that um and vrm wise this should be perfectly capable of powering a 7950x in fact it might even be possible to power a 7950x with this vrm and no heat sinks um I think the only board where that probably wouldn't work is the the matx riptide because that's on the six layer PCB and it's also like 12 power stages in their 50 amp power stages instead of 60s so yeah and the main issue with a lot of these boards is like beef 650e steel Legend is just like it's 300 quid it's like it's it's a very expensive motherboard and it doesn't really do like when does it even do all right that doesn't work I guess it adds an optical output compared to some of the other ASRock boards like the I think already by the riptide you don't get an optical yeah so the riptide already doesn't have an optical output um so yeah like I don't I don't get why you would get like a b650e steel Legend because as far as I can tell it's probably the same vrm just stretched out um you don't even get any SATA ports um the the pcie layout is actually just a downgrade from like the riptide or the pro RS or the well no the Phantom gaming lightning is actually the same layout um I don't like it's not a good layout though so yeah like and then you get like and then you get the silly expensive boards which are the Tai Chi's and the b650 Tai Chi especially is just like I I have no idea how that board ever could ever make sense because like the the thing is this is basically just a massive very expensive vrm like I have no doubts that most of the price well like a lot of the price of this board is just justified by the price of the vrm but it's like it's totally unnecessary it doesn't do dual X8 anyway um I do wonder what is up with those inductors under that second X8 slaw like under the by four pcie slot um and yes you get an absolute ton of USB type A ports but like there's other ASRock motherboards that do that sure they're not all like uh what is it oh I guess there's like a lot of 3.2 gen one what a stupid Port naming scheme but like yeah okay you get a lot more 3.2 gen 1 than other motherboards but yeah and then two and a half gig Intel land two and a half gig Intel Wi-Fi wait I mean not two and a half gig you get Wi-Fi 6E from Intel which I think you get on every board though at least every board that has Wi-Fi right because like because for like a really long time the default choice for Wi-Fi 6E was Intel Wi-Fi 6E I guess there's more Wi-Fi 6E manufacturers now then yeah so like like that's the thing with uh with am5 is like the more expensive motherboards is just like a lot of them are just like look there's a lot more vrm for your 200 watt CPU why do you knew like you don't need it so yeah I like the pro RS the the live mixer if it had more SATA ports would definitely be on my list but it has a grand total of two and that is not okay the ATX looks interesting unfortunately not very comparable to anything else in asrock's lineup and I do like the like I like the features out of the x670e Tai Chi but not enough that I'd be willing to pay that much money for one so uh yeah that's that's my thoughts on asrock's M5 motherboard lineup [Music] um like honestly the am5 motherboards in general are just weird now that I think about it because like the the thing is like all your motherboard really needs to do is connect your other stuff to the CPU so like your GPU sound Card Capture Card networking card m.2 drives like whatever you know additional add-on devices you have whatever USB devices you have your memory um and the thing with am5 is like all of the basically all of these motherboards are eight layer pcbs using the exact same daisy chain topology so they have the same memory over clocking capabilities ryzen doesn't pull that much power so you don't really need that much vrm um and you're just kind of left with this like situation where it's like if you want to post code you need to pay an insane amount of money and if you don't want to post code well they're all basically the same thing right unless you need like a very specific number of USB ports um and well a specific High number of USB ports right and even then like this already does that like there's a ton of USB type A on this and it has troubleshooting LEDs it's just really ugly and I don't like the pcie slot layout like yeah this so anyway that's that's it that's my thoughts on the ASRock am5 lineup um basically if you want dual X8 you get a Tai Chi and if you don't care about any of that you get a like a pro RS or a phantom gaming lightning in my opinion because the rest of the boards don't really make a ton of sense and I'll probably test the pro RS and also test it probably I'll also test it without vrm heatsinks because I would not be surprised if it was able to still like I would expect it to end up getting very hot in that scenario but I don't think it would get hot enough that it couldn't run a 7950x um so yeah and so if this if this can you know power a 7950x with no heatsinks then this thing can do it too um because it's the same vrm but with heatsinks so or it should be the same vrm but with with the with heat sinks um anyway that's it so thanks for watching like share subscribe leave any comments questions suggestions down in the comment section below if you'd like to support what I do here with actually hardcore overclocking I have a patreon there's a link to that down in the description below there's also the ahoc Teespring store where you can pick up shirts hoodies uh posters you know the usual YouTuber merch and I also have a band camp I mean if you could check out if you're interested in listening to Industrial noise uh so yeah there's links to all of that down in the description if you'd like to support the channel and that's it for the video so thanks for watching and goodbye

Channel: Actually Hardcore Overclocking

Views: 75,431

Keywords: Overclocking, PCbuilding, Buildzoid, AHOC, Actually, Hardcore, Hardware, OC

Id: B_17nZQrbl8

Length: 91min 50sec (5510 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022