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Software & Firmware: Asus’ Spin on Terminology

UEFI

Many vendors like to change their voltage rail nomenclature and individual feature names, but Asus decides to go full crazy and introduce several custom modes when perusing the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). Ai Tweaker is the main overclocking tab and houses the bulk of Asus’ enhancements to the standard UEFI. Luckily, the bottom portion of the screen provides a verbose output of what each parameter does and, in some cases, the formulas for producing produce settings. For example, the Custom CPU Core Ratio allows users to adjust the frequency multiplier and the frequency divisor to obtain a very granular range of frequencies.

TPU and Performance Bias grant users access to some shortcuts for increasing particular benchmarks and performance metrics. This is typically is frowned upon by reviewers, but as a customer, it might be worth the extra money.

DRAM Timing Control is a good tab for builders who desire to tighten timing of their RAM kits, but for us, AUTO tends to be reliable. We will discuss some of the overclocking features further in this article, but it’s important to point out that Asus gives users the option of either defining manual voltage setpoints or offset-based adjustments to increase or decrease their specific voltage rails. More impressive here is the 6.25mV step size for more flexibility; most other contenders stick to 12.5mV or even 25mV increments on the CPU Core rail.

The Advanced menu starts to drive into the minutia of AMD’s Promontory and Zen architecture-specific settings, but rest assured that the help strings are listed below and are helpful in explaining what each setting does.

Though our screen captures don’t grab each of the settings, navigating throughout the sub-menus is painless and less frightening than other Mini-ITX and X370 competitors.

At first glance, the Monitor menu seems as simple as other boards' with read outs from various sensors on the board. Upon clicking on the individual sensors, we were able to ignore thermal errors from certain sensors and the UEFI highlights fields that appear to be out of spec for easy identification. Cruising lower in the menu we have access to the Q-Fan control options for each of the fan headers on the system. Asus bakes AIO Pump control into the UEFI that allows for onboard control of pump temperature and other parameters to help minimize need of external controllers and pump software, which is idle for size-restricted boxes. Jumping into the Q-Fan GUI presents a modal-like window where you can adjust fan curves. Hitting Optimize All enables the UEFI to calibrate the fans to determine different thresholds. We find in our testing that using the Manual fan curve and lowering the thermal thresholds delivers a more audibly pleasing experience as opposed to the default Silent profile.

Each vendor has a particular template they like to use for UEFIs. Asus' template is a good blend of a traditional BIOS menu while implementing features of a modern UEFI to enhance the experience rather than overwhelm the screen.

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How We Test

Comparison Products

ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac

Biostar X370 GTN

Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi

Test System Configuration

Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Software
OS	Windows 10 64-bit
Graphics	Crimson 16.10.1 WHQL

Benchmark Suite

Benchmark Settings
Synthetic Benchmarks & Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMOOpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests & Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default PresetTest Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default PresetTest Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests & Settings
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
Blender	Version 2.68aBMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark, BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0, Version 13.8.0.144PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0. 20160603.r.88 x64PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4, Build 11.4.0.90 x64PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0, Version 20.0.0 (64-bit)PCMark driven routine
Game Tests & Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAAHigh Preset - 4k ~3460x1920, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 4k ~3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain1920x1080 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF4k ~3460x1920 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64High Quality, 1920x1080, High TesselationVery High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High TesselationHigh Quality, 4k ~3460x1920, High TesselationVery High Quality, 4k ~3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 2672521920x1080 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF4k ~3460x1920 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF4k ~3460x1920 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

The Thermaltake F51 Suppressor houses our components with a Corsair H110i All-in-one cooler fastened to the top in an exhaust configuration. G.Skill still provides our test stand with one of their 2x8GB dual-channel DDR4-3200 TridentZ kits. The Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming still powers our graphical output, and our dependable Ryzen 7 1700X provides our rig with eight cores and 16 threads running at 3.4GHz stock speeds. Our NVMe drive of choice is a Toshiba RD400 256GB drive, and a Corsair AX860 provides 80 Plus Platinum rated power for our high load tests.

If there is any other hardware you want us to feature, let us know in the comments.

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Right off the bat, the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming sets a decent precedent with a near five percentage point average lead compared to the Biostar product. The Asus board leads by upwards of 10 percentage points in both the Home and Work scenarios.

Sandra results help temper expectations with the purely synthetic benchmark showing no clear preference in the Arithmetic test. The ROG Strix enjoys an almost two percentage point lead in floating point operations within the Multimedia test but trades blows with the Biostar in Cryptography. It’s unfortunate that the Gigabyte AB350 suffers quite a bit in Cryptography and Memory Bandwidth tests, while the Asus and Biostar boards show increased bandwidth while utilizing half as many DIMMs as the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac.

The Cinebench results are less than awe-inspiring with mixed results for the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming, but Compubench appears to favor this board with face detect and ray tracing showing impressive performance. It is interesting to see that the video processing workload favors the Biostar X370 GTN by 11 percent in an almost inverse trend compared to face detect.

The ROG Strix X370-I Gaming battles with competitors in the applications benchmarks, with an average showing in Handbrake, Productivity and Compression. Testing the board with Adobe Creative Cloud showed increased variances in results, with it shaving off a half-second on average in the InDesign test compared to competitors, while Illustrator eats up nearly a full second in its automated test flow. We clip off the times for After Effects as to not blow out the scale of the graph, but the Asus board came out eight seconds ahead of the larger ASRock X370 Killer.

3DMark sets the stage for our future gaming results. The ROG Strik X370-I Gaming pumped out modest wins with its Graphics score and showed middle-of-the-pack performance for Physics and Combined scores. In the Firestrike test the motherboard lost in the Graphics category but won when it came to Combined score. Firestrike Extreme flopped the ROG Strik X370-I Gaming's Graphics score to last place, but it came out on top with its Combined score.

Gaming and Overall Performance

The ROG Strix X370-I Gaming yielded impressive 1080p results for the minimum, average and maximum batch performance at both detail settings for our Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation test. The Asus board manages to take wins even when shifting the load more onto the GPU with 4K resolutions, but finally slips to the Biostar X370 GTN at the Crazy preset.

In F1 2015, the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/AC continues to retain the pole position at 1080p Ultra High settings, but shifting gears to 4K resolutions favor the Asus sample by close to two frames per second (fps), nearly elevating this test bench above 30fps at 4K.

The ROG Strix X370-I Gaming hits a snag with Metro: Last Light Redux at 1080p and Medium settings, which hopefully doesn’t impact our overall metrics too much. Fortunately, 1080p Very High and both 4K detail settings show no favorites across the review samples when comparing the average reported frame rates.

Our favorite robot protagonist in The Talos Principle continued to enjoy smooth frame rates on all of our test runs. The ROG Strix X370-I Gaming board slipped to the bottom of our test subjects at Full HD resolution but managed to squeeze into the middle of the pack at Ultra HD.

Taking into account all the average metrics across all benchmarks, the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming managed to come out above average. A win in synthetics, a close 2nd in games and an unfortunate 3rd place in applications managed to pull this board just below the Biostar X370 GTN overall. Fortunately, 0.5 percentage points are well within the noise, and this board falls well within our expectations for an Asus product.

Power, Thermals, and Efficiency

Power consumption will be a critical advantage for the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming in this small form factor market segment. At idle, the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming shaved off 5 watts compared to our previously crowned efficiency king, and that spread continued with more than 11 watts saved when comparing against the Biostar X370 GTN at full processor load. The GPU Torture test showed impressive results for the Asus board, and full system load helped place the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming board in good standing for an efficiency win.

Try not to make too many direct comparisons against products with this thermal chart, as we were testing several cooling solutions with our early X370 test bench. Removing the product names for the chart can help give a glance at what any given Ryzen processor is to encounter with any particular cooling solution. For example, when using a good air cooler (i.e., the Noctua U12S), expect to see decent temperatures with full CPU load while providing sufficient airflow to the regulator heatsinks.

Small form factor coolers sacrifice CPU temperatures for compactness. The important take away here is that when comparing the other water cooled system, the voltage regulator temperatures for the Asus board are impressively lower than those of the Gigabyte AB350N. This shows that the Asus can operate very well in tight enclosures, or environments with minimal airflow. We expect that coolers such as the NH-L9x65 would work well with this regulator cooler, as opposed the Biostar X370 GTN's.

It’s nice to see the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac continue to put up a fight with these smaller contenders given its extra PCB, devices and phase of the ATX board. However, the commendable performance results and stellar power draw at various load conditions help shoot the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming to the efficiency top spot on this chart. Performance alone drags down the Gigabyte AB350N here, but that might be expected from the arguably lower-performing AMD B350 chipset.

Overclocking

Despite the compact size, Asus delivers a well equipped 6+2 phase regulator design to deliver power for overclocking. One of the benefits of utilizing Asus products for overclocking is the wealth of tweakable settings. This can be daunting at first glance, but Asus gives plenty of documentation as to what features do. Trying out the built-in EZ Tuning Wizard, Asus came up with settings for an estimated eight percent performance increase that turns out to be very conservative in terms of thermals and voltage settings as we regularly hit 3800 megahertz (MHz) by increasing the multiplier alone on most products. Our advice is to crank up that multiplier instead.

Rather than tinkering with the Custom CPU Core Ratio’s Manual mode, we stuck to the Standard Core Ratio adjustments we are comfortable with as we increased our multiplier in 0.25 steps until we hit an unstable point at around 3825MHz. Increasing the VDDCR Load Line Calibration to Level 3 helps minimize voltage droops and provides stability for close to three hours while running Prime95 before the dreaded black screen appeared.

Continuing the frequency and voltage ping-pong, increasing the VDDCR voltage to a modest 1.3875V gave us a successful overclock of 3875MHz with our eight-hour-long Prime95 run. For an unofficial overclock, we ran the less stressful AIDA64 FPU stress, which allowed us to squeeze an additional 25MHz for a 3900MHz frequency, leaving plenty of temperature and voltage headroom for the more ambitious overclockers out there.

Given the limited DIMM slots and compact nature of this board, X370 and our Ryzen processor had no problem running the default XMP profile for the G.Skill TridentZ kit of DDR4-3200MHz at CL14 through the D.O.C.P. menu. Increasing the Memory Frequency to DDR4-3333MHz was just as painless, and all overclocking stress tests performed there were successful. Compared to some of our other results with the same form factor, the Asus board performed on par in terms of ease and managed to break ahead of the competition with minimal effort.

Overall, our overclocking experience on this bite-sized board exceeded what we expected from a standard X370 high-end board, which goes to prove that even sleeper PCs with adequate cooling and airflow can still be pushed just as hard as custom-looped titans.

Value, Verdict and Conclusions

With three of the boards reviewed today scoring above 100 percent for overall performance across all metrics, it comes as no surprise that the more expensive board comes in dead last place in terms of raw “value”. The Asus ROG Strix X370-I Gaming comes in at a hefty $190 dollars at the time of this writing, even as the X470 cousin that shares many of its design choices costs marginally more. Though Asus has introduced several more value-oriented products to consumers, their top-of-the-line gear still bears the ROG cost burden, but we believe it is justified in this compact product.

To compare this product on paper against a standard high-end X370 board is not fair given the additional IO comes at the cost of square-millimeters, and designers have to contend with the size constraints of the Mini-ITX form factor. When comparing against budget-focused options, it is no contest that the Asus board comes far ahead with heightened sex appeal and quality of life features that are worth the cost. The ROG Strix X370-I Gaming is intended for high-end builders, and Asus delivers on the high-end aspect through features specific for the form factor and polish expected from a Republic of Gamers board.

Most important for this board is the fact that X370 is meant for high-speed IO, and most vendors just chop that off to get the notoriety of the enhanced chipset. Asus’ clever M.2 housing for the primary NVMe drive gives users the option of deploying additional snappy storage without sacrificing important connectors, cabling, or cooling, which is critical for this type of product. Tie that in with Asus’ well-documented feature set, overclocking success, performance and product delivery that is light years ahead of the budget options out there, and we got ourselves a winner. If a builder is looking for the best X370 Mini-ITX option available for a truly special and high-end build, the ROG Strix X370-I is hands-down the best experience we’ve had so far with this form factor.

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Corsair One Desktop PC Review: Cooler than the Rest

Derek Forrest — Mon, 28 May 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

The Corsair One is the company’s first gaming PC, taking form as a monolithic small form factor (SFF) desktop system with two 240mm all-in-one (AIO) liquid coolers for the CPU and GPU. The Elite model is the highest priced configuration of the One, featuring an Intel Core i7-8700K, a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, 32GB of DDR4-2666, a 480GB M.2 NVMe SSD, and a 2TB HDD. The “dangerously quiet” Corsair One Elite’s premium configuration and performance justifes its near $3000 price tag.

Specifications

Processor	Intel Core i7-8700K
Motherboard	Custom MSI Z370 mini-ITX
Memory	32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GDDR5X
Storage	512GB Samsung PM961 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, 2TB Seagate 2.5” 7,200RPM HDD
Optical Drive	N/A
Networking	Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet, Intel Wireless-AC 8265 802.11ac WiFi
Interface	(1) USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C; (1) USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A; (2) USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A; (2) USB 2.0; PS/2
Video Output	(2) DisplayPort 1.3; (2) HDMI 2.0
Power Supply	500W Corsair SF500 SFX
Case	Corsair One Aluminum/Steel
Cooling	Corsair 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler (CPU), Corsair 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler (GPU), Corsair ML 140 Mag-Lev 140mm Fan (Top Exhaust)
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
Extras	N/A
Dimensions	7.87 x 6.92 x 14.96 inches
Price As Configured	$2,999

Exterior

The Corsair One Elite houses premium components in its black steel chassis, measuring in at 7.87 x 6.92 x 14.96” and weighing 16.31 lbs. The SFF desktop sports perforated aluminum side panels that act as air intakes for the interior radiators. The top of the device sports a heavy aluminum heatsink above a 140mm exhaust fan. The One is designed to dissipate heat from the liquid-cooled components, and the result is a tall, sleek, and quiet tower PC that can fit at your desk or in the living room.

The front panel I/O consists of the power button, a single USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A port, and a HDMI 2.0 port for use with a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD). Around the back, there’s two USB 3.1 Gen2 (one Type-C, one Type-A), two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. There’s also a PS/2 connector for legacy peripherals, five audio jacks, and an S/PDIF interface. For display output, there’s an HDMI 2.0 and two DisplayPort 1.3 ports.

Interior

To access the components, you have to open the chassis from the top panel. A plastic button on the rear of the Corsair One can be pressed to release the top exhaust fan and metal fins, revealing the backside of the power supply and the graphics card. Four screws hold the sides in place, and removing them will release the aluminum panels and attached radiators from the centrifuge.

The custom designed radiators are 240mm in size but are thinner than the coolers Corsair makes available for DIY builds at retail. The pump design resembles that of the company’s H60 model, with a square shape and four thumbscrews in each corner securing the copper plate to the CPU. The hoses between the pump and radiator are short and easily tuck inside the chassis when you put it all back together, without feeling like it’s a wad of cables and hoses being forced into a small space.

The right side of the device houses the motherboard and attached primary components, including the liquid-cooled Core i7-8700K processor, 32GB (2 x 16GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666 memory (with CAS timings of 16-16-16-36), and a 480GB (class) M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD. The 2.5” drive bay contains a 2TB Seagate 7,200RPM HDD, giving users a beefy and fast primary storage drive and plenty of space for a sizable game library on the secondary HDD.

The CPU, memory, and secondary storage are all easily accessible, but the SSD is mounted on the back of the custom MSI mini-ITX Z370 motherboard. You’d have to remove most of the cables and components to be able to pull it out of the chassis if you wanted to upgrade the primary storage (so just trust us that it’s there). Corsair allows users to replace the 2.5” drive, and the memory without voiding the warranty, so it’s not in the end user’s best interest to replace the primary SSD anyway.

Although Corsair advertises the One as featuring a 480GB SSD, the drive in our retail unit is actually a 512GB Samsung PM961 PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD, so you get a little more capacity than advertised after provisioning. Corsair explained that it’s common for system integrators to advertise a capacity class (480GB class covers 480GB, 500GB, and 512GB SSDs) over exact specs so that it’s easier to source the component. The company also said it makes sure performance profiles between its drives are similar (PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe).

Turning the PC to the other side reveals the full-sized PCIe x16 graphics card with another custom 240mm AIO liquid cooler attached to the GPU. The card is the only component inside the left-side chamber, and the only other reason to get behind this panel is to release the 2.5” drive bay clips, which are exposed in the upper corner of the chassis.

Software And Accessories

Corsair’s Windows 10 Home 64-bit installation is as clean as a whistle (no bloatware), but the company pre-loaded several of its own software utilities including Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) for company-branded RGB LED peripherals and Corsair Link for monitoring CPU and GPU temperatures, fan and pump speeds. Corsair also got a custom version of MSI's Live Update so you can update your BIOS and drivers from an easy utility, and the company took the liberty of pre-loading several popular game platform installers in a folder on the desktop, including Battle.net, Galaxy, Origin, Steam, and Uplay. There's also a driver disk, and accompanying accessories (wireless antennas, power cable).

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

The Corsair One is one of the first Core i7-8700K-equipped PCs we’ve tested, so our comparison factors are limited to our previous-generation Z270 test rig, which sports an air-cooled Intel Core i7-7700K and an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Black Edition graphics cards, both clocked at their default (reference) settings. We also loaded a 32GB (4 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 and set it to standard CAS timings of 15-15-15-35, and HyperX also provided the storage in the form of a 480GB Savage 2.5” SATA 6GB/s SSD, and the rig is powered by a 1000W EVGA Supernova G3 PSU. The full specifications of our test rig can be seen below.

Test System Configuration

The Corsair One’s Core i7-8700K is also set to the default clock rates, with a base frequency of 3.7GHz, and a boost speed of 4.7GHz is lightly threaded applications. This should easily outperform our last-gen Core i7-7700K in lightly threaded workloads and even those that favor pure core count, but the lower base frequency could hold it back in some applications. The liquid-cooled GTX 1080 Ti graphics card is also set to reference Nvidia clock rates, so it should perform on par with our stock-clocked GPU. Although the CPU and GPU can be overclocked (via BIOS and software, respectively), we decided to test the Corsair One Elite as it was shipped, without any clock rate tinkering.

The One’s storage outclasses that of our test rig’s, with a 512GB Samsung PM961 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD residing under the motherboard. It will assuredly put up significantly higher numbers in sequential read and write tests, with the potential to improve performance in productivity applications that rely on storage speeds. The One’s 32GB (2 x 16GB) kit of DDR4-2666 also has the edge on our test rig in speed and capacity, but higher CAS timings (16-18-18-35) could put it closer to our 4-DIMM setup in some memory bandwidth-intensive applications.

3DMark

The synthetic workloads of Futuremark’s 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy tests easily place the Corsair One ahead of our previous-gen platform, accented by higher CPU and Graphics scores across the board thanks to its liquid-cooled Core i7-8700K and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. We observed sinisterly low CPU and GPU temperatures, with neither component breaching past a cool 57C at full load.

Cinebench R15

With the CPU under the microscope, the Corsair One Elite sees gains against our previous-gen platform in the synthetic rendering workloads of Cinebench R15. Although the Single CPU and OpenGL Shading tests only show an incremental increase in performance over our test rig, the multi-threaded workloads put a spotlight on the One and its 6-core processor.

CompuBench

The Corsair One Elite is handed its first loss in the CompuBench benchmarks, falling behind our Z270 test rig by a small margin in both the Video Processing and Bitcoin Mining portion of the test. This could be the result of slightly higher memory CAS timings holding back the platform-bound workloads, but the difference in performance (at least, from the GPU) in the Bitcoin test is within variance for stock-clocked GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics.

Storage Test

The 512GB Samsung PM961 M.2 NVMe SSD inside the Corsair One Elite outclasses our test rig’s SATA 6 GB/s drive, highlighted by speedier 4K random read and write, and substantially higher 128K sequential read and write performance. The high capacity is adequate to store several of your favorite games, and the secondary 2TB HDD will fit even larger libraries.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

Corsair’s 32GB (2 x 16GB) kit of Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666 doesn’t have the tightest CAS timings, and the higher-frequency RAM performs closer to our test rig’s kit of DDR4-2133 with lower latency in bandwidth-intensive workloads in single-threaded workloads. However, multithreaded bandwidth tests give the One a substantially higher lead over our reference system.

PCMark 8

The Corsair One Elite takes a backseat to our test rig once again in the PCMark 8 application tests, with slightly lower scores (around 200 points, give or take) in both the Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative benchmarks. This could be the same platform hiccup we saw in the synthetic CompuBench and single-threaded memory bandwidth tests, which seems to be affecting certain types of productivity workloads that rely on the memory subsystem (such as Office and Adobe applications).

PCMark 10 Extended

The PCMark 10 Extended synthetic benchmark gives us similar results, with the Corsair One Elite attaining a better overall score thanks to its higher performance in the Essentials, Digital Content Creation, and Gaming portions of the test. However, the Productivity segment of the benchmark gives us similar results as some of the other workloads we’ve tested thus far – the One falls slightly behind our last-gen Z270 reference machine by a small margin, and single-threaded memory bandwidth could play a significant role in that.

VRMark

Switching back to a gaming workload, the One easily outpaces our previous-generation Z270 system in the VRMark benchmark. The lead shrinks to less than 1FPS when the details are turned up in the Blue Room test, but the liquid-cooled CPU and GPU inside the One appear to have a slight edge in VR applications and games.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

The Corsair One Elite starts our gaming benchmark suite ahead of our Z270 test rig, with the CPU-intensive Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation tests posting higher framerates against our reference machine as you turn the resolution up. At 1920 x 1080, the One is ahead by an average of 3.4 FPS, but that margin grows as the pixel count rises. At 2560 x 1440, the difference is increased to 3.8 FPS, but at 4K we see the Core i7-8700K-equipped Corsair One Elite average 8.6 FPS higher than our previous-gen test rig. Clearly, CPU thread count matters in this particular game.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite is less complimentary to the newer platform, and the Corsair One Elite falls behind our test rig by a tiny margin at all tested resolutions. The older game sees more performance gains from CPU clock rate than core count, and the slightly lower Turbo frequency binning of the -8700K (4.3GHz with all cores engaged) could be the determining factor here (the 7700K reaches turbo frequencies of 4.4GHz with four cores active), but users won’t be able to see the difference in performance with the human eye.

DiRT Rally

We see much of the same phenomenon in the DiRT Rally benchmarks, where the Corsair One Elite falls ever-so-slightly behind our previous-gen test rig. At 1920 x 1080, the difference is more pronounced, with a 2.16 FPS (average) gap between the One and the Z270 platform. However, that margin is reduced to less than 1 FPS at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160. Similar to Bioshock, DiRT sees gains from clock speeds more than core count with all the settings maxed out, but the gap in performance is negligible, and both GTX 1080 Ti-equipped PCs provide excellent framerates with all the eye candy turned up.

Grand Theft Auto V

The Corsair One Elite resumes its dominance in the GTAV benchmarks, netting slightly higher average framerates than our Z270 test bench. The Core i7-8700K and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti have no problems delivering excellent framerates with the highest settings enabled at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, and it even produces playable framerates at 4K.

Hitman

We retested our Z270 test bench, as several updates to the game and drivers (and possibly due to Spectre and Meltdown patches) seemed to cap performance of a GTX 1080 Ti around 99 FPS at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440. Even our previous 4K results were slightly behind, but the Corsair One expectedly beats our reference machine.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

The Corsair One Elite continues its slight lead in the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks, coming in just ahead of our test rig by less than 1 FPS at all tested resolutions. The GPU clock speeds are the equalizers at these particular settings, and with both machines in the field matched, so too are the results.

The Division

We see much of the same results in The Division, where the Corsair One Elite outperforms our reference rig across the board. Enabling the highest settings at 4K pushes the One’s framerates down to a more-than-playable 49.5 FPS average, and you can assuredly hit 60 FPS by reducing the settings.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

The Corsair One Elite finishes our test suite strong, besting our Z270 reference machine in the Shadows of War benchmarks at 1920 x 1080. The Core i7-8700K is again responsible for the victory over the previous-gen counterpart, but the performance is equalized by the graphics card at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160. The One matches the other GTX 1080 Ti-equipped PC at those resolutions, averaging 55 FPS at 4K with all the highest detail settings enabled.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Corsair One Elite is worthy of its name with its premium configuration, which includes an Intel Core i7-8700K, 32GB (2 x 16GB) of DDR4-2666, and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card. The 480GB class PCIe NVMe SSD provides plenty of speedy primary storage, and a 2TB 7,200 RPM HDD gives you plenty of space for a sizeable gaming library. The 500W Corsair SF500 PSU is just enough to power the platform, and the hardware is packed into an impressively small steel and aluminum chassis.

The exterior is a tall and sleek monolithic LED-illuminated masterpiece of a case, with a steel and aluminum construction that makes it a bit heavy, but more than adequately stable. The I/O is consistent with other SFF PCs designed as ultimate living room gamers, with adequate USB connectivity for VR HMDs and multiple display output options, including a front-panel HDMI 2.0 port.

The true star of the show is the One’s cooling system – it’s truly a feat of engineering to cram not one, but two 240mm radiators into a chassis this small, and despite the lack of any fans attached directly to the radiators, the CPU and GPU never exceeded 57C in our testing. The top fan and its aluminum cage are equally impressive, with the heatsink making contact with the aluminum panels to draw heat away from the components, and the 140mm Corsair ML-series mag-lev fan pulling air through the two side-panel radiators and their vents to exhaust the heat. It’s easily one of the quietest cooling designs we’ve ever tested in a SFF gaming PC, and even at full load, the Corsair One is nearly silent.

At $3,000, we wouldn’t expect the Corsair One Elite to appeal to frugal bang-for-your-buck shoppers that are looking for the cheapest way to achieve gaming glory. There are less-expensive configurations of the One available (starting at $2,299 for a previous-gen i7-7700K, 16GB of memory, a GTX 1080 and a 400W PSU), but even the introductory price is quite high and you are still shelling out a considerable overhead compared to the DIY approach (as is the case with almost every OEM and custom shop PC). However, the One is a marvel of a machine, and those that consider themselves among the elite (with a bank account to match) would welcome the top-tier performance, sleek design, and quiet operation of the Corsair One Elite, even at its premium price.

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AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Review: Spectre Patches Weigh In

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Ryzen To The Mainstream

AMD's 2000-series Ryzen CPUs are already available, challenging the Coffee Lake-based Core line-up from Intel. As we found in our Ryzen 7 2700X review, a host of improvements made possible by 12nm manufacturing, such as higher frequencies and Precision Boost 2, add more performance in threaded apps. Meanwhile, lower system memory and cache latencies augment AMD's showing in lightly-threaded apps like games. Unlocked multipliers, backward compatibility with older Socket AM4 motherboards, a beefy bundled cooler, and a $330 price tag combine to leave us impressed. The Ryzen 7 2700X offers a great alternative to Intel's Core i7-8700K, which costs more, doesn't come with a thermal solution, and drops into more expensive motherboards (at least if you want to overclock).

Similarly, Ryzen 5 2600X targets Intel's enthusiast-oriented Core i5-8600K, leveraging similar advancements and a more attractive $230 price tag. As we'll see, it's even faster than the first-gen flagship Ryzen 7 1800X in many workloads.

But First, Spectre Variant 2

Unfortunately, due to a lack of communication from AMD, we weren't told that the company had rolled its Spectre Variant 2 patch into shipping X470 platforms. As a result, our Ryzen 7 2700X launch day coverage didn't include Intel CPUs tested with their corresponding patches. Today's review does, however, feature results generated on Intel-based systems with the latest Spectre microcode updates.

Ryzen 5 2600X

Ryzen 2000-series processors, otherwise known by their Pinnacle Ridge code name, are based on the same basic Zen core design as previous-gen models (though AMD now uses Zen+ nomenclature to reference the architecture's various improvements). The CPUs still utilize a dual-CCX configuration, tied together with Infinity Fabric, yielding eight physical cores. The flagship Ryzen 7 2700X comes with all eight of its cores active. For Ryzen 5 2600X, AMD turns two off, creating a six-core, 12-thread configuration with an unlocked ratio multiplier.

As mentioned, Ryzen 5 2600X sells for $230, replacing the $220 Ryzen 5 1600X. It slots into the gap between Core i5-8600K and the Core i5-8400, forcing the chip to contend with Intel's recently-announced Core i5-8600. While we don't have that model in our lab yet, we do have the two nearest Coffee Lake-based competitors in today's benchmark charts.

What do you get, performance-wise, for the extra $10? Ryzen 5 2600X sports the same 3.6 GHz base clock rate and a slightly higher 4.2 GHz Precision Boost 2 frequency (+200 MHz) than 1600X. That might seem minor, but as our benchmarks show, the gains are quite pronounced in threaded workloads. Like its predecessor, the 2600X also features 16MB of L3 cache and a 95W TDP.

	AMD Ryzen 7 2700X	AMD Ryzen 7 1800X	AMD Ryzen 7 2700	AMD Ryzen 5 1600X	Ryzen 5 1600	AMD Ryzen 5 2600X	AMD Ryzen 5 2600	Intel Core i5-8600K	Intel Core i5-8600	Intel Core i5-8400
MSRP	$329	$349	$299	$219	$189	$229	$199	$257	$224	$182
Cores/Threads	8/16	8/16	8/16	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/6	6/6	6/6
TDP	105W	95W	65W	95W	65W	95W	65W	95W	65W	65W
Base Freq. (GHz)	3.7	3.6	3.2	3.6	3.2	3.6	3.4	3.6	3.1	2.8
Precision Boost Freq. (GHz)	4.3	4.1	4.1	4.0	3.6	4.2	3.9	4.3	4.3	4.0
Cache (L3)	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	9MB	9MB	9MB
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Cooler	105W Wraith Prism (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire	95W Wraith Spire	65W Wraith Stealth	-	Intel	Intel

Although AMD didn't include thermal solutions with its original Ryzen X-series processors, the company does bundle coolers with its pricier models now. On one hand, it's nice that the 95W Wraith Spire cooler neatly matches the 2600X's thermal design power. On the other, we're not expecting much overclocking headroom from the combination.

Ryzen 5 2600X can drop into either new X470 or older 300-series motherboards. As usual, AMD allows you to overclock on value-minded B-series boards, too. And even though 400-series B-models aren't available yet, they'll undoubtedly offer a lower-priced alternative for overclocking.

Officially, the Ryzen 5 2600X supports up to DDR4-2933 memory, just like Ryzen 7 2700X. This trumps Coffee Lake's Intel-specified DDR4-2666 ceiling (with a few caveats). AMD also sticks with Indium solder between Ryzen 5's die and heat spreader, improving thermal transfer performance. And as we mentioned in our Ryzen 7 2700X review, these new CPUs also include StorMI Technology, which is a software-based tiering solution that blends the low price and high capacity of a hard drive with the speed of an SSD, 3D XPoint (including Intel's Optane parts), or even up to 2GB of RAM.

Precision Boost 2 and XFR2

In a nutshell, AMD is leveraging GlobalFoundries' 12nm process to enhance its design, rather than shrink it. The enhancements offer higher performance or lower power consumption at any given frequency, giving AMD headroom for other improvements.

The company's previous-gen Ryzen processors have Precision Boost, which is similar to Intel's Turbo Boost technology, and eXtended Frequency Range (XFR), capable of delivering a frequency uplift when your cooling solution has thermal headroom to spare.

The new Precision Boost 2 (PB2) and XFR2 algorithms improve performance in threaded workloads by raising the frequency of any number of cores. AMD doesn't share a list of specific multi-core Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 bins because the opportunistic algorithms accelerate to different clock rates based on temperature, current, and load.

AMD gave us a graph of the PB2 frequencies for Ryzen 7 2700X, but we followed up with our own measurements to compare the current and previous-gen Ryzen 5 models. As you can see, Ryzen 5 2600X offers more robust multi-core frequencies than its predecessor, and our Ryzen 7 2700X measurements largely mirror AMD's. We tested both CPUs with AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive active. The Ryzen 7 2700X does have a higher TDP rating that some older motherboards may struggle with, so PB2 performance will vary based upon the power delivery subsystem.

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AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X

Patching Up, Overclocking & Test Setup

Patching Up

The Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities impose overhead that affect performance, but it's the Spectre Variant 2 patches that incur the largest penalties. We've been waiting for AMD and Intel to release their respective updates, leveling the playing field. AMD gave no indication in its press material that the X470 motherboards used in our Ryzen 7 2700X review already had Spectre 2 mitigations built-in. But hours before launch, we learned that the patches were present. At that point, we didn't have enough time to test with Intel's corresponding microcode.

In our 2700X review, the test rigs included Meltdown And Spectre Variant 1 mitigations. Spectre Variant 2 requires both motherboard firmware/microcode and operating system patches, though. We had already installed the operating system updates for Variant 2 on our Intel-based platforms, so we only lacked the fourth and final piece: new microcode.

There are two options for applying this microcode. One is a Windows KB that allows the operating system to load microcode during boot-up. The other is a motherboard firmware update. We used the Windows KB to install patches on our Z270-based platform, providing a true measure of pre- and post-patch performance.

Faster processors suffer less from the Spectre Variant 2 updates. This creates a conundrum for us and our Z370-based platform. In previous reviews, we noticed that Intel's Core i7-8700 was consistently faster than the more expensive Core i7-8700K on MSI and Gigabyte motherboards. We disclosed this during our launch coverage. The issue becomes relevant today because MSI's latest firmware update, which also includes the Spectre Variant 2 microcode, fixes most of the performance disparities we observed. As we suspected, the problem seems attributable to the Core i7-8700K. It's now faster in several games, performing the way we originally expected. So, on this motherboard, we're using new firmware instead of the Windows-based patch since it fixes our Core i7-8700K issues. That means our Coffee Lake-based CPUs don't correctly reflect pre- and post-patch performance. Instead, allow those results to serve as a general indication of competitive deltas.

In any case, with the exception of our AMD X370-based motherboards, all of the platforms in today's review are fully patched. The company hasn't given us a time frame for securing its previous-gen chipsets, but you can bet that we'll follow up with benchmark results once a Spectre Variant 2 patch becomes available.

Overclocking

We ran our gaming and application tests in the U.S. lab, while power/thermal measurements were collected in our German lab.

In the U.S. lab, we paired our Ryzen 5 2600X with Corsair's H115i cooler for overclocking. This allowed us to maintain a 4.2 GHz all-core frequency at 1.3875V Vcore, 1.2V SoC voltage, and default Load Line Calibration settings. These are the same settings used on the Ryzen 7 2700X, albeit with a slight 0.009V Vcore boost to ensure stability.

First-gen Ryzen processors don't have much memory overclocking headroom, so we're still testing tuned X370 platforms at DDR4-3200. The X470 chipset is remarkably stable at higher data rates with both 2000-series Ryzen CPUs installed. So, we settled on DDR4-3466 with 14-14-14-34 timings. We also ran our overclocked Intel processors at DDR4-3466.

Precision Boost Overdrive

AMD hasn't shared much information on this pending feature, which increases the maximum boost voltage and boost duration. We attempted to disable Precision Boost Overdrive as we tested for our Ryzen 7 2700X review, but didn't observe a performance difference one way or the other. Now we know the feature wasn't toggling correctly due to an issue with the board. Instead, it remained enabled throughout our benchmarking.

Precision Boost Overdrive is an AMD-sanctioned feature, unlike the multi-core enhancements you often find in Intel-based motherboards. Because this is a standard capability for Ryzen 2000-series processors, we leave it enabled.

MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC

Our MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC has a PCI Express 3.0 slot with a x16 link, a slot with a x8 connection, and another PCI Express 2.0 slot with a four-lane link for graphics cards. Its four RAM slots support DDR4-2933 and can scale up quite a bit higher through overclocking.

The motherboard also provides two M.2 slots with PCIe connectivity. The I/O panel has a USB 3.1 Type C connector. The USB 3.1 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 support fast charging for smartphones and tablets. If RGB is your thing, MSI has you covered. The integrated RGB Mystic lighting allows customizable effects with several software-controlled zones.

Comparison Products

Intel Core i5-8400

Intel Core i5-8600K

Intel Core i7-7700K

Test Systems

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	Germany AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 5 2600XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i5-8600K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2666AMD Socket AM4 Workstation (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, Ryzen 5 1600X, Ryzen 5 1400MSI X370 Tomahawk4x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 @ 2667 and 3200 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2400 and 3200All SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8700K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400, DDR4-2667, DDR4-3466AMD Socket AM4 (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1700, Ryzen 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2667, DDR4-3200Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500-TI, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703 - All Spectre and Meltdown mitigations
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)U.S.Corsair H115i
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500 MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100 kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500 MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80 Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

VRMark & 3DMark

These are busy charts with the addition of our retested Intel platforms, including the Spectre Variant 2 microcode patches. At stock settings, the Ryzen 5 2600X outperforms its overclocked predecessor across the board, which is especially meaningful in the lightly-threaded VRMark workload. Overclocking yields significant gains in synthetic gaming benchmarks, which don't necessarily translate to the rest of our benchmark suite.

Several of the patched Intel processors do lose performance compared to before the updates. This is particularly apparent in VRMark on Intel's Core i7-8700K, while other tests reflect minimal regression. Meanwhile, the Core i5-8400 and -8600K give us mixed results. Core i7-7700K is a more representative measure of pre- and post-patch performance, and it takes a healthy dive in VRMark as well (verified several times by removing and reinstalling the OS-based Spectre patch).

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ryzen 5 2600X is clearly superior to its predecessor in threaded titles. After all, the stock 2600X beats an overclocked 1600X. Those gains propel the Ryzen 5 up the chart, where it matches a stock Core i7-8700K.

Flip over to the album's next slide, which includes Intel CPUs before and after we patched their platforms. The Core i7-7700K loses a few frames per second in our retest, falling outside of this consistent benchmark's margin of error. Aside from the Core i5-8400's gains, which remind us that firmware updates sometimes fine-tune performance, too, most of the Intel CPUs land within the run-to-run variance we expect to see.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

The Ryzen 5 2600X represents a nice step forward for AMD, particularly since Intel's processors typically lead in this test due to their per-core performance advantage.

A few of the processors exhibit slight regressions post-patch, but nothing outside of the variances we'd expect.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

An overclocked Ryzen 5 2600X beats the stock Ryzen 7 2700X, which should excite value-seekers.

Then again, Intel's Core i5-8400 slips past the tuned Ryzen 5 in this test, yielding better performance at a lower price (and despite a locked ratio multiplier).

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Dawn of War finds the tuned Coffee Lake-based CPUs at the top of our chart. Even the fastest Ryzen (overclocked, no less) lands behind a stock Core i7-7700K.

Interestingly, the Coffee Lake CPUs enjoy slight gains after we patch them, while Core i7-7700K doesn't change much.

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Far Cry Primal, GTA: V & Hitman

Far Cry Primal

Ryzen 5 2600X nearly matches Intel's Core i7-8700K at stock clock rates. But tuning propels the chip ahead of an overclocked Ryzen 7 2700X and into contention with Core i5-8600K at 4.9 GHz. Clearly, this title responds well to physical core count, favoring platforms without SMT enabled.

Grand Theft Auto V

It's no surprise to see Intel's processors dominate our Grand Theft Auto V charts. An overclocked Ryzen 5 2600X essentially ties the stock Core i7-7700K, while Core i5-8400 stands out again for its higher performance and lower price point.

The post-patch Core i7-8700K averages 9 FPS-higher in GTA V. This is one of the games where -8700K historically lagged the slower Core i7-8700, so it looks like motherboard firmware fixed a few issues. We also see an improvement from the Core i5-8400.

Hitman

A recent update added a frame rate cap to Hitman, causing most of our configurations to reflect a graphics bottleneck. It's no surprise, then, that an overclocked Ryzen 5 2600X nearly matches the fastest Intel CPUs.

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Shadow Of War & Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

Ryzen 5 2600X beats the overclocked Ryzen 7 1800X, and tuning propels it to within 0.5 FPS of the fastest CPU.

Intel's Core i5-8400 is less expensive and tends to outperform the 2600X in many games, but the 2600X does lead in this one. Aside from the Core i5-8400, we observe lower average frame rates from the post-patch Intel processors, though the variances only amount to one or two frames per second.

Project CARS 2

Ryzen 5 2600X delivers a commendable performance in Project CARS 2, but it lags the less expensive Core i5-8400.

Aside from the Core i7-8700K's and i5-8400's performance gains, we don't significant variations related to Spectre mitigations.

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Office & Productivity

Adobe Creative Cloud

The stock Ryzen 5 2600X trails most of AMD's first-gen Ryzen CPUs, notably lagging behind the previous-gen Ryzen 5 1600X. We reran this benchmark several times to verify its results, and the outcome is repeatable. But given the performance observed in other tests, PCMark's Creative Cloud component may be an outlier.

Although we didn't see much performance variation from the patches in our game testing, that changes drastically in our Adobe Creative Cloud suite. Every Intel processor's overall score takes a significant haircut (the Core i7-8700K drops ~9%, while the Core i5-8400 drops ~10%).

Web Browser

The Krakken suite tests JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography.

AMD's processors typically lag Intel's in Web browser benchmarks due to their lower per-core performance. The Ryzen 5 2600X is competitive with Intel's Core i5-8400 in this test. But as we noted in our Ryzen 7 2700X review, overclocking actually results in lower scores during lightly-threaded tasks. That's a bit more surprising in this case because, as we pointed out on the first page, Ryzen 5 2600X sustains up to 4.2 GHz on a single core, which is the same frequency as our all-core overclock. XFR2 contributes an extra boost during sporadic workloads though, and that's likely what we're seeing here.

The MotionMark benchmarks, which emphasize graphics performance (rather than JavaScript), are also sensitive to CPU clock rates. Ryzen 5 2600X isn't as competitive compared to the Intel models, reminding us that AMD still lags what it comes to IPC throughput.

Again, we see performance regressions from Intel's processors in these workloads, which we measured with a Spectre-patched version of Firefox.

Productivity

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem. Initially, we thought that'd be bad news for Intel's CPUs. After all, the security mitigations have an intense impact on I/O operations. Surprisingly, though, we actually recorded higher results from the Intel-based platforms. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 2600X beats AMD's first-gen Ryzen CPUs, but trails the Core i5-8400.

Our video conferencing workload measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. Ryzen processors perform well in this test, joining an overclocked Core i7-8700K at the top of the chart. At stock settings, the Ryzen 5 2600X handily dispatches Intel's Core i5-8400.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, so Ryzen 7 2700X naturally takes a lead. The Ryzen 5 2600X performs well given its price point. And the Intel CPUs all take a hit after we get them patched.

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Rendering, Encoding & Compression

Rendering

Threaded rendering workloads favor Ryzen's SMT-enabled cores. Ryzen 5 2600X slots in right where we'd expect it to land, while Intel's processors suffer slight performance hits after installing the Spectre mitigation patches.

Encoding & Compression

LAME is the quintessential example of a single-threaded workload, normally favoring Intel's per-core performance advantage. AMD's 2000-series Ryzen CPUs go a long way in closing the gap by offering better per-core performance than their predecessors.

Our threaded compression and decompression tests adsorb data directly from system memory, removing storage from the equation. The Ryzen 5 2600X fares well during the test, easily beating Intel's Core i5-8400 and -8600K. Given Windows' new dual page table addressing structure that prevents Meltdown-based attacks, we expected more performance overhead after the patches. However, the company's latest processors have a PCID (Post-Context Identifiers) feature that accelerates page table translations. As a result, older Core CPUs without the PCID feature are likely affected more than the ones we're testing.

There's a larger delta between Intel and AMD processors during our HandBrake x265 test compared to the x264 benchmark due to its heavier distribution of AVX instructions. The 2600X slots in where we'd expect given its six cores with SMT technology.

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Final Analysis

AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600X isn’t quite as impressive as the higher-end Ryzen 7 2700X, but it does offer a solid mixture of performance and value that's well-suited to many different workloads. Whereas professionals might be more interested in the 2700X's eight cores, gamers on a budget will want to check out the 2600X. After all, saving money on other system components is critical at a time when you're certain to pay a premium for discrete graphics.

In the chart below, we plot gaming performance with both average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we then convert into a frame-per-second measurement. We also have price-to-performance charts that get split up to include CPUs-only and extra platform costs. For the models that don't come with a bundled cooler, we add $25 for a basic heat sink. We also add $20 if overclocking requires a more expensive motherboard (as is the case for Z370). The Intel test results reflect our patched configurations.

Games show the Ryzen 5 2600X offering a universal improvement over AMD's previous-gen Ryzen 5 1600X. Unfortunately, we see limited gains from overclocking, though that's just as well given this family's meager headroom. More important is that Ryzen 5 2600X beats the Ryzen 7 1800X throughout our suite.

Intel's Core i5-8600K is also in the 2600X’s crosshairs; AMD takes aim with a significantly lower price, a bundled thermal solution, and compatibility with less expensive motherboards. If you're not worried about overclocking, though, the Core i5-8400 is an even better buy for gaming. It offers nearly the same performance as the 2600X at a ~$50 discount. The i5-8400 drops into value-oriented B-series motherboards and comes with a stock cooler/fan, too.

Although we're big fans of the Core i5-8400 for entertainment, Ryzen 5 2600X is a smarter all-around value when it has the change to stretch its six cores and 12 threads. The processor distances itself from the i5-8400 in our rendering, encoding, compression, and decompression apps. It even challenges the eight-core Ryzen 7 1700X in several tests, particularly after tuning. That highlights the improvements borne of the Ryzen 2000-series’ enhanced multi-core boost algorithms and lower memory/cache latency.

Like all of AMD’s processors, the Ryzen 5 2600X comes with an unlocked ratio multiplier. AMD is pushing the frequency/voltage curve to its limits, so we didn’t experience massive gains in some mundane workloads. However, we did see more of a benefit with the 2600X in heavily-threaded tasks compared to the Ryzen 7 2700X. That’s largely due to the 2600X’s lower multi-core boost frequencies.

We wish AMD was ready with its B450-series motherboards at launch time. But you can still pair the Ryzen 5 2600X with a capable 300-series model.

The Spectre patches did take some wind out of Intel’s sails in many of our application tests, but the impact varies by application. In most cases, the regressions aren’t severe enough to change our recommendations. Still, it's always disappointing to observe performance stepping backward. Luckily for Intel, gaming wasn't affected much.

Intel beefed up its Coffee Lake-based Core i5s by adding 50% more cores. Up against the Ryzen 5 1600X, we couldn't help but acknowledge Intel's great performance and generally better compatibility with existing games. This time, however, AMD brings the heat in our benchmarks, while most of its optimization-oriented issues are ancient history. If gaming is your only concern, save some cash and pick up a Core i5-8400. But we think you’ll be happier with the Ryzen 5 2600X, which has more resources to handle general desktop workloads with ease.

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Zotac Mek1 Desktop Review: Killer 1440p Gaming

Derek Forrest — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Zotac is far from a stranger to the mini-PC market. Indeed, the company touts itself as the maker of the "original" mini-PC, namely its long-running ZBox line.

The Mek1, though, is a momentous Zotac departure: It's the company's first gaming desktop with full-size components. In our test unit, that was an Intel Core i7-7700 CPU, 16GB of memory, and a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti card. The $1,599 price could make it a definitive "value" purchase--insofar as a four-figure gaming system can deliver value. But can the Mek1 make its mark with its benchmarks?

Exterior

The Zotac Mek1 is a small tower desktop PC using the Mini-ITX form factor, measuring in at 15.5 x 4.65 x 16.3”. That makes it considerably larger than Zotac’s usual PC offerings in its ZBox lineup. The smooth, black-plastic side panels resemble the induction hood of a sports car. Vents lining up with the CPU cooler and the GPU direct fresh air to the components, as do centered, edgy intakes in the center.

The side panels and top edge of the Mek1 are illuminated with an RGB LED light bar, giving the PC a unique look. The slim design gives it a smaller overall footprint than a run-of-the-mill desktop, and plastic feet on the bottom of the device stabilize an otherwise flimsy plastic chassis to stand upright.

The front of the Mek1 sports Zotac’s emblem and a hidden I/O panel shielded by a sliding door. Behind the panel, you'll find two USB 3.0 ports, in addition to the power button, audio jacks (mic-in, headphone-out), and a tiny reset switch.

The rear motherboard panel features four USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to a PS/2 connector and a full range of audio jacks. The dual Gigabit LAN ports are powered by Realtek RTL8168 NICs, and the back panel gives plenty of clearance for the two antennas attached to the Intel Wireless AC 3165 module. Display output is provided by the GPU’s three DisplayPort 1.3 ports, as well as HDMI 2.0 and DVI-D ports.

Interior

You open the Mek1’s panels by removing the four screws in each corner on the back, then sliding the side panels to the rear. Note that the panels can’t go far, as the LED bars in each side panel are wired, rather tightly, to the rest of the PC. You can swing each panel off to one side to access the components, but removing the panel entirely will prove difficult.

Removing the right-side panel exposes the motherboard and its installed components, including an air-cooled Intel Core i7-7700, a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of DDR4-2400, and the storage. A Zotac-branded heatsink covers the primary SSD (a 240GB Phison PS5008-E8 M.2 NVMe SSD), and the 1TB 2.5” 7,200RPM hard drive is seated in a plastic tray. Zotac’s original promotional materials advertised the SSD as a PCIe 3.0 x4 drive, but a closer inspection revealed it actually runs at half the bandwidth with a PCIe 3.0 x2 controller. Zotac corrected its specifications based on our findings, chalking up the snafu as an internal miscommunication. Despite the mixup, the primary storage of the Mek1 is of an adequate capacity and speed for the target audience.

Opening the left panel reveals the Zotac-branded GeForce GTX 1070 Ti graphics card. The blower-style black plastic shroud doesn’t resemble any of the company’s other GTX 1070 Ti cards that are available at retail, but the GPU chamber is spacious (certainly enough for cards with an oversized cooler) and makes the card easy to get to and remove, should you decide to upgrade down the line. The side panel’s vent gives the card a fresh air supply, and the separate chamber should help keep temperatures in check. (The graphics card doesn’t clash with the CPU’s waste heat.)

The 450W 80 Plus Bronze-certified SFX power supply doesn’t quite meet Nvidia’s recommended system power for the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (500W), but it’s enough juice when you consider that the CPU is a 65W non-"K" SKU. Most of the cables are bound together in a space in the chamber above the PSU. It doesn’t look pretty, but it all fits. With a PC this slim, that’s the goal.

If the wattage or the wad of cables rubs you the wrong way, the PSU is also easy to swap out. You could replace it with a better SFX power supply at your own expense/effort. (Doing that will also likely void the warranty.) Although the actual position of the PSU is awkward (especially when you consider that the power cable connects at the top rear of the device), Zotac inconspicuously ran the power cable extension along the top, front, and bottom panels to get it to reach the supply.

Software & Accessories

The Mek1 comes with a plethora of extras. They come in a neatly packed pizza-style box that itself contains smaller boxes. You get a power cable, Wi-Fi antennas, a mouse pad, a 3,600 DPI gaming mouse, and a mechanical keyboard with non-branded “blue” switches. The keyboard lights up in static blue and has adjustable lighting modes, brightness settings, and zone selection that you change via function-button keystroke combinations. (Example: Fn+Up increases the brightness.)

Zotac doesn’t load any excess software on the Mek1. Our test unit had a fresh Windows 10 Home 64-bit installation, with all the drivers installed and Windows ready for its first set of user-login credentials. The company does offer its Spectre lighting-control software and FireStorm GPU overclocking/monitoring utility on an included driver disk and a USB dongle. (The latter is for buyers lacking an external DVD drive; the Mek1 doesn't have an optical drive built-in.)

Spectre can customize the LEDs' color, effects, and brightness for both idle and loaded operating conditions. Although we appreciate the lack of bloatware, it would have been forgivable had Zotac pre-loaded Spectre on the PC itself. The chassis lights will glow bright blue unless you adjust them (or shut them off) with the software.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We didn’t manage to work in a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti for our reference bench, but we used data from both the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 Founders Edition graphics cards in our Z270 platform, which features an Intel Core i7-7700K cooled by a Deepcool Gammaxx 400 on an AsRock Z270 Gaming i7 motherboard. That platform is backed by 16GB of Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4-2133 memory, a 1TB HyperX Savage SATA 6Gb/s SSD, and a 1000W EVGA Supernova G3 power supply. The full specifications of our comparison system are listed below. We also compared the Mek1 testing to data from our review of the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD, which will predictably get trounced in GPU-intensive workloads but is priced comparably (within $100).

Comparison Products

MSI G25 Vortex 8RD

Zotac Mek1 Gaming Desktop

Test System Configuration

The Mek1’s Core i7-7700 won’t compete with our Z270 test bed’s Core i7-7700K, even with the CPU at stock settings. The non-"K" processor has a lower clock rate and TDP (3.6GHz base frequency, 65W) than our reference machine's, so it won’t look good in comparison for games and apps that favor CPU speed. However, it will give us an idea of how much performance you potentially sacrifice by going with a PC sporting the top-tier non-K 7th-generation Intel processor. We will also see where this locked "Kaby Lake" CPU fares against the 8th Generation Core i5-8400 inside the Vortex.

The Zotac Mek1’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-pin DDR4 memory is clocked at a frequency of 2,400MHz, with a CAS latency of 17-17-17-39. That puts it at odds with our test rig’s DDR4-2133 CAS 15 setup. The higher frequency of the Mek1’s RAM will aid some programs, and the higher latency of the memory won’t affect many games, but it can bring the dueling bandwidths within reach of each other in some applications and benchmarks. The Vortex’s memory has the same frequency, capacity, and CAS latency as the Mek1, except that it’s a single 16GB stick of RAM (which likely won’t hold a candle to dual-channel systems in bandwidth-intensive tasks).

The GTX 1070 Ti doesn’t have a direct comparison, but we set up goalposts of sorts for the performance we should expect from the Mek1’s GPU by using the GTX 1080 and 1070 in our Z270 rig. We tested all the cards at their stock reference-design frequencies, and the Mek1 doesn’t come overclocked (although Zotac offers software to do it yourself). The GTX 1070 Ti should fall right between the two in applications and games that weigh on the performance of the graphics card.

3DMark

The Mek1 starts our benchmark suite by taking its rightful spot between the GTX 1080- and 1070-equipped Z270 test bench variants. Although it barely edges out the less-powerful GTX 1070 GPU in the Overall score (due to the expected hit to its Physics and CPU scores from the Mek1’s less-powerful Core i7 CPU), when you crank up the resolution to Fire Strike Extreme (1440p), and Ultra (4K), the GPU becomes the bottleneck and puts the Mek1 in a better light.

Cinebench R15

The locked Core i7 CPU inside the Mek1 may not perform as well as our Z270 test bed’s unlocked (yet stock-clocked) Core i7 from the same processor generation, but it does have moderate chops in single-threaded workloads versus the MSI G25 Vortex’s 8th Generation, six-core Core i5-8400 processor. However, the multi-threaded Rendering and OpenGL Shading tests put the Mek1 at the back of the pack.

CompuBench

The Mek1 performs well in the CompuBench tests. Although it falls behind the other systems in the field in the Video Processing portion of the benchmark (which relies heavily on CPU performance), the Bitcoin Mining test puts the Mek1 between our testbed’s GTX 1080 and 1070, where it should be with anything that showcases GPU performance.

Storage Test

As we mentioned earlier, when we first received the Mek1, Zotac was incorrectly advertising the primary SSD storage as an NVMe PCIe x4 SSD (and on the box, as a SATA SSD). The Phison PS5008-E8 M.2 NVMe SSD under the hood is actually a PCIe 3.0 x2 SSD with half of the potential bandwidth of a x4 device.

Now, it still provides speedy boot and loading times. However, at a low queue depth (QD2, which is reflective of normal user workloads), the Mek1’s SSD doesn’t perform any better than our test rig’s 2.5” SATA SSD (a Kingston HyperX Savage) and the MSI Vortex’s Samsung PM871 client M.2 SATA SSD. At a higher queue depth, the Phison SSD will perform more like what you would expect from a NVMe SSD. (We saw better results at QD32, not pictured.) But average consumers won’t notice a difference between the two types of SSDs in most workloads.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The Mek1’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of DDR4-2400 doesn’t perform quite as well as our test rig’s DDR4-2133 in the Sandra memory-bandwidth test. This is due to the Mek1’s higher CAS latency (17-17-17-39), which succumbs to our reference platform’s tighter 15-15-15-36 timings. The Vortex’s single 16GB module of DDR4-2400 memory sports the same CAS latency as the Mek1, but it lags behind systems with dual-channel memory operation in workloads that are bandwidth-intensive.

PCMark 8

The Mek1’s weaker storage and ho-hum memory bandwidth play a role in its lesser-by-comparison performance in the PCMark 8 application benchmarks. Although the CPU performance should have pushed the Mek1 ahead of the MSI Vortex, the storage adversely affects real-world application workloads for Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite, placing the Zotac offering at the bottom of the heap.

PCMark 10 Extended

The synthetic workloads offered up in the PCMark10 Extended test show the Mek1 in a slightly better light. We see a better overall score than the Vortex thanks to the gaming portion of the test (where it rightfully bests even the GTX 1070-equipped reference PC). It still lags behind the GTX 1070 testbed overall, but it does offer up better performance in the Essentials section.

The Productivity and Digital Content Creation segments of the test expose the Mek1’s lesser storage and memory bandwidths. (It falls behind the otherwise less-powerful Vortex.) But average users won’t see much difference in performance in most of these kinds of applications. And most power users who depend on programs like these for a living wouldn’t be looking at the Mek1 to begin with.

VRMark

The VRMark test results highlight what’s to come in gaming performance, with the Mek1 failing to unseat the reference rig’s GTX 1070 (a better GPU) in the Orange Room test. However, Orange Room is mostly a baseline capability test, and it doesn’t tax the graphics card to the point where it becomes the bottleneck. The CPU performance will hold back the Mek1 in less-demanding VR applications and games. But if you feed it enough eye candy (like Blue Room does), you’ll see the Zotac offering take its familiar place between our GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 Z270 test beds.

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Gaming Benchmarks

We weren’t able to record performance metrics for the MSI G25 Vortex 8RD in our gaming benchmarks at 1440p, due to its mobile MXM graphics card. (It didn’t allow 1440p at fullscreen.) So we excluded the data from our charts but kept the Vortex in the mix at 1080p and 4K.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Our gaming benchmarks appear to (if not just temporarily) redeem the Mek1’s unremarkable productivity performance, with the Zotac offering starting off strong in the Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation tests. At the highest possible settings, the Mek1 takes a seat at the table in second place behind our GTX 1080-equipped test rig. The GTX 1070 Ti will place the Mek1 in this position frequently, but it’s important to note that the performance gap is far more substantial at 1080p, where the CPU plays more of a role in frame rate.

Bioshock Infinite

The Mek1’s weaker CPU (versus the rest of the comparison set here) drops the Mek1 to a third-place position against our test rig’s GTX 1080 and 1070 in the Bioshock Infinite benchmarks at 1080p, despite having a better GPU (and higher minimum frame rates) than the latter configuration. However, putting more pressure on the graphics card by turning up the resolution places the Mek1 ahead of the GTX 1070-equipped reference machine in average frame rate, albeit by less than only 1 FPS at 1440p and 4K.

DiRT Rally

DiRT Rally responds better to GPU horsepower than CPU performance, and the Mek1 lands back in its second-place position at the highest settings on all tested resolutions. It averages over 60 FPS at 1440p, and it even gets playable frame rates at 4K (about 35 FPS average) with all the eye candy turned up. Gaming at 4K may be a stretch for the hardware if you’re looking for that ideal target of 60 FPS, but the Mek1 is starting to look like a surefire win at 1440p.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V is one of the most demanding games in our suite when it has the details and AA turned all the way up, and it favors a blend of GPU and CPU horsepower. The Mek1’s weaker CPU slates it below the GTX 1070-equipped test rig with a stronger K-series processor at 1080p, and neither system can average the 60 FPS sweet spot at 1080p. However, when the bottleneck shifts to the GPU at 1440p and 4K, the GTX 1070 Ti in the Mek1 takes a slight lead over the lesser graphics card. If you want to play at 4K with a comfortable frame rate, expect to sacrifice on effects to a big degree.

Hitman

The Mek1 performs similarly in Hitman, falling behind the GTX 1070-equipped reference rig at 1080p but pushing ahead of it at higher resolutions. The CPU is surely the deciding factor at 1080p, but the Zotac desktop continues to shine at higher resolutions, and you get quite-playable average frame rates (above 45 FPS) at even 4K with all the effects at maximum.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is another hard-hitting game at maximum settings, and the Mek1 is able to (barely) provide a 60 FPS average frame rate at 1080p with eye candy turned up all the way. It can even hold a playable 35 FPS at 1440p, but kicking the resolution up to 4K will require lower detail settings to get playable frame rates. Similar to DiRT Rally, ROTR doesn’t hinge as much on CPU performance, and the GPU hierarchy dictated how the systems in the field performed.

The Division

The Division exhibits the same disregard for CPU performance at 1080p as Rise of the Tomb Raider, with the Mek1 taking its familiar spot (trailing the GTX 1080, besting the GTX 1070) and providing well over 60 FPS at 1080p. The Tom Clancy shooter is much less demanding than Lara’s shoot-n-search story, and the frame rates are decidedly playable at 1440p and 4K. The Mek1 is able to net close to a 60 FPS average (56.9 FPS, to be exact) at 1440p and maintain an average above 30 FPS at 4K.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

We saw high average frame rates in Middle Earth: Shadows of War, with the Mek1 outperforming a GTX 1070-equipped Z270 test rig with a better CPU at all tested resolutions and the maximum detail and effect settings. Although the game isn’t as demanding as some others in our suite, the weaker processor still seems to hold it back from touching the GTX 1080. However, the game is quite playable at these settings, averaging an enjoyable 56 FPS at 1440p and managing a playable 32 FPS at 4K.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Zotac Mek1 is a fine first outing for Zotac in its endeavor to provide larger gaming PCs with desktop components at an affordable price point. Like most of Zotac’s wares, its primary benefactor is the uninitiated gaming enthusiast; DIY gearheads likely wouldn’t look twice at the Mek1’s edgy black chassis, induction side panels, and integrated RGB lighting when you can always “build it yourself.” The plastic construction also feels somewhat flimsy compared to a traditional tower PC's. However, the Mek1 isn’t configured for the experienced PC builder looking for unlocked and overclocked CPUs, top-shelf RAM and storage speeds, or monstrous and heavy cases. And we think that’s just fine.

The interior design is intelligent, and the components are easy to access, giving the Mek1’s crucial and most frequently replaced components a degree of longevity with a clear upgrade path. (The memory, GPU, and storage are all upgradable.) The dual-chamber design and well-positioned vents keep the CPU and M.2 SSD heatsinks exceptionally cool; the processor never exceeded 78C in our tests. However, the graphics card experienced high temperatures, capping out at 85C and keeping the GPU from attaining boost states for prolonged periods when it was at full load. However, if you opt to install Zotac’s FireStorm GPU overclocking and monitoring software, you can easily circumvent this by tuning up the fan speeds. (We tested the cooling system as it came, out of box.)

The Mek1’s static hardware configuration is suitable for gaming with high details and effects at 1080p and 1440p, primarily thanks to its Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 Ti graphics card. Although, at times, the locked Core i7-7700 holds back potential performance at 1080p compared to faster and unlocked Core i7 CPUs, the Mek1’s hardware is particularly adept for 1440p gaming, where the processor is less a limiter to frame-rate throughput. You can even get playable 30 FPS average frame rates at 4K with certain games, but you’ll have to substantially turn down the eye candy to reach a target 60 FPS at that resolution.

Not everything is peachy-keen on the performance front, though. The Mek1’s 240GB Phison PS5008-E8 M.2 NVMe SSD performs more like a SATA SSD at low queue depths (normal user workloads). Although a more robust storage workload would yield better results, the target audience (average gamers) won’t see much difference in storage performance in their daily use, and end users will appreciate the sheer presence of an SSD, period. (Any kind of SSD is better than a HDD boot drive.)

The 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of DDR4-2400 memory has higher-than-average CAS timings (17-17-17-39), giving it slightly less total memory bandwidth than our test rig running DDR4-2133 at CAS 15. This combination of performance setbacks in the storage and memory subsystems hampers productivity-application performance, and professionals looking for a midrange video-editing or CAD workstation would be better suited looking elsewhere. However, gamers won’t see too many AAA titles make a fuss over memory bandwidth or storage speed.

At $1,599, it would be hard to argue that the price isn’t right. The Mek1 costs only $100 more than the MSI G25 Vortex’s suggested MSRP, and the Mek1 offers a lot more horsepower in crucial components for the extra money. Whereas MSI’s SFF desktop features an 8th Generation ("Coffee Lake") Core i5-8400 processor, the Mek1 counters with a 7th Gen Core i7-7700, which proves slightly better for most games and multi-threaded applications (although some benchmarks prefer physical cores over Hyper-Threading).

The memory specifications of both machines are nearly identical (16GB DDR4-2400, CAS 17), but Zotac ships the Mek1 with dual-channel memory instead of one stick of RAM, giving it substantially higher total memory bandwidth versus the Vortex. The Mek1’s desktop-sized GTX 1070 Ti graphics card handily outperforms the Vortex’s GTX 1060 MXM module in games and GPU-intensive workloads by a significant margin, and despite somewhat weaker everyday storage performance, the Mek1 excels where it matters most for gamers.

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Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi Review: AM4 Grows Up

Jacob Terkelsen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 22:30:00 +0000

Features & Layout

We have been anticipating the next generation of AMD's Ryzen processors for a while now. Promises of improved IPC, better transistors, and increased performance all around have kept the buzz steady for several months. Even with Spectre and Meltdown plaguing processor architectures, 2nd Gen Ryzen has remained a potential bright spot for consumers, at a time when many other components are priced in the stratosphere.

And now that we have tested and reviewed the Ryzen 7 2700X, we can say definitively that AMD has delivered another impressive product that, at the very least, pushes right up close to Intel's competing silicon. What we haven’t heard so much about yet are the platforms that these new chips were designed to drop into. Today, we'll shine some light on the newest platform from AMD: the X470 chipset.

According to AMD, several thorns in the side the previous-generation 300 series chipsets are being rectified for this latest revision.The first notable feature is the tCTL (T Control) offset, which is an adjusted value of tDie (the true measure of the die temperature). The 2700X has a +10C offset, which AMD says ensures consistent fan policies on motherboards. More importantly, power delivery specifications are improved to help satisfy requirements for processor features such as AMD's improved Extended Frequency Range (XFR2), though many older X370 boards have already been deemed compliant with these requirements by AMD.

AMD is also increasing supported memory speeds, but only based on PCB layer count. Six layers or more will support up to DDR4-2933 speeds, while four layers support up to DDR4-2667 when using two single-rank DIMMs. This will be a critical factor for builders when debating between competing products and their intended memory configuration.

Another new feature bundled in with X470 is the StoreMI technology, which essentially enables multi-drive systems with both an SSD and a spinning hard drive the ability to “fuse” together and cache data on the SSD for improved performance. We covered this feature under its standalone product name--FuzeDrive--earlier this year.

The X470 is also backward-compatible with Ryzen 1000 series and other AM4-socket processors. Right out of the gate, if that shiny new 2700X is out of stock, builders can still plug in their previous-generation chip and be ready to game with minimal downtime. Conversely, users who own a 300-series motherboard can also install one of the new 2nd Gen Ryzen chips. Try doing anything like that with recent Intel-based hardware and you'll be in for some serious disappointment.

Aorus Gets a Facelift

Gigabyte has stepped up yet again to provide us with hardware for our early testing, and today we're looking specifically at the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi motherboard. Gigabyte's Aorus brand has become synonymous with RGB, and this board does not disappoint on the lighting front. However, Gigabyte’s designers have taken the feedback from the media and builders to make this board even better than their 300 series predecessors. This X470 board has toned down the plastic and over-aggressive molding of boards past, in favor of a more industrial and anodized styling. We'd call that an improvement.

The contents of the board box are on par with other Aorus offerings for both Intel and AMD chips. For cables, you get four SATA, two thermistors, an RGB extension, and LED strip adapter. The WiFi implementation utilizes a standalone single antenna that can be routed away from the motherboard, enabling more positioning options. G-Connector, a 60mm single slot SLI bridge, and M.2 standoff screws complete the mechanical connection hardware. Gigabyte bundles in an Aorus badge, sticker sheet, documentation material, and driver disc, along with a VIP card. Sorry, Gigabyte, we're not posting that Members Only card on our Instagram feed.

On paper, X470 looks a whole lot like X370. The back panel on this board is similar to other Aorus boards and provides one Type-A and one Type-C USB 3.1 Gen2 port, coupled with six USB 3.1 Gen1 ports. Two additional USB 2.0 ports are available on the back panel for older peripherals. Owners of AMD's recent graphics-packing Raven Ridge chips like the Ryzen 5 2500G will need to look elsewhere, as this board lacks any video output. Two WiFi antenna ports are accessible here, as is an RJ-45 port for Gigabit Ethernet. Five analog audio jacks and a SPDIF connector hook up users to the Realtek ALC1220 codec, while pumping the signal back through the ESS SABRE digital-to-analog converter. Gigabyte tops it all off with an integrated backplate for additional structural support, as well as power and CMOS reset buttons easy access while building, upgrading, or troubleshooting.

We have been spoiled with the ample amount of PCIe slots on Threadripper boards, but X470 picks up where X370 left off on that front. The Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi provides three PCIe x16 slots wired for 16, 8, and 4 lanes from top to bottom. The top two x16 slots support PCIe Gen3, but the bottom only complies with PCIe Gen2. Also, keep in mind that this bottom slot is disabled when using the bottom M.2 slot. For additional IO cards, two PCIe Gen2 x1 slots are located above the two Gen3 slots.

Storage options are above average for the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi, with 6 right-angled SATA3 connectors and access to two M.2 slots for smaller form-factor drives. The top M2A socket supports full PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe and SATA3 drives, while the M2B slot provides PCIe Gen2 x4 and SATA3 support. Gigabyte’s marketing material touts the board’s ability to support M.2 RAID arrays, but given the PCIe disparity on this mainstream platform, we won’t be expecting RAID performance that's possible with the X399 platform. Regardless, both M.2 slots come paired with thermal pads and heat spreaders that can really be effective at keeping storage cool when sufficient airflow is present. Maybe this is a good opportunity to get a smaller M.2 SATA SSD for use with StoreMi!

The bottom edge hosts a plethora of headers for builders, with features such as front-panel audio, two RGB headers, trusted platform module (TPM), two USB2.0, two USB3.0, two 4-pin fans, and the usual front-panel headers. Rotating past the X470’s heatsink, a USB 3.1 Gen2 header is located just below the numeric debug LED. The four DDR4 DIMM slots support up to DDR4-3600 when overclocked, and come equipped with dual latches that give that satisfying ‘click’ when DIMMs are inserted. DualBIOS DIP switches are accessible to the right of the DIMMs and three additional 4-pin fan headers are located below the 24-pin ATX connector. In true Aorus fashion, an LED strip lines the far right of the board for customizable accent lighting.

The northern edge of the board allocates real estate to two additional RGB headers, the OC button, two more 4-pin fan headers, and both an 8-pin and 4-pin 12 volt ATX header. Let’s not forget about the LED header for AMD Wraith-style coolers and the last 4-pin fan header above the top PCIe x1 slot. In total, 8 hybrid fan headers are available here, which support 24-watt devices. Each fan can have programmable fan curves provided by the Smart Fan interface in the UEFI.

The Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi provides a plethora of different RGB options. For starters, the board itself glows with lighting from the DIMM slots, X470 chipset, PCIe Gen3 x16 slots and IO shield areas. These lights are programmable through the RGB Fusion software for lighting various patterns and zones for a top-shelf out-of-the-box lighting experience. Does the computer need more of an aura? Users can install either 12V or 5V LED strips into the proper headers, for even more options for lighting their build.

Now, let’s talk about what makes this board unique. First, Gigabyte outfits its voltage regulators with a direct-attach heat pipe that routes into a proper fin stack array for increased surface area for cooling. This might seem purely an aesthetic feature, but this fin stack is phenomenal when compared to other implementations such as the MSI X370 Krait Gaming boards (which used essentially solid blocks of material). We’ll dive more into this feature’s performance in the overclocking section.

Next is the integrated backplate around the back IO. We like to hold premium boards like this by the top left section, due their heft. And this backplate helps there, feeling extremely solid, with no visible flex or bending. Another interesting feature nearly escaped this reviewer’s eyes: There are voltage sense points directly above the DIMMs labeled COUPON1, 2, 3, and 4. This is imperative for competitive overclockers when software-based sensors are not accurate, or don't report the right voltages needed to hit that aspirational 5GHz mark.

We have very few issues with this board overall. Our primary complaints are focused around shifting components around the X or Y axis for improved ergonomics. Perhaps removing the 2nd M.2 slot in favor of additional SATA3 ports would better suit more builders, as the Gen2 M.2 is under-utilizing the interface. Otherwise, the layout and design of this board are stellar, and the inclusion of the fin stack, voltage sense points, and DualBIOS capability make the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi a great choice for overclockers.

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Software & Firmware

On the surface, not much has changed on the Gigabyte UEFI front. The home screen greets us with an overlay of our CPU, memory, and voltage settings while the M.I.T. menu grants access to menus to change those settings. Pressing the right Alt key opens up the side panel, and the left Alt key generally provides a useful description of the currently highlighted field. Drilling into the Frequency settings, EZ Overclock Tuner provides for pre-configured clock rate settings. CPU Clock Control lets you adjust the reference clock for the system, for finer-grained overclocking control. Advanced CPU Cores settings and the Memory Frequency menu are similar to the X370 boards, and are documented in the manual. Voltage controls are similar to X370 as well, though the addition of Chipset Core 2.5 and 1.05V options are new.

Smart Fan 5 behaves similarly to previous Gigabyte products, and we prefer to run our system in “Silent” mode. We’ve also noticed that by default in our configuration the fans ramp to maximum speed during Prime95 tests, so be careful with what sensor is being monitored. RGB Fusion is also back to fulfill our lighting customization desires--and we still find the Pulse mode the most pleasant. The headpone/speaker-friendly DAC-UP feature makes its way to the yellow rear USB 3.0 ports and can be modified through the peripherals menu in the UEFI.

Scrolling down to the Peripherals tab also provides the AMD CBS tab. Traversing through the sub-menus here appeared similar to what we've seen on X370 boards. But these options might change depending on what version of Ryzen processor is plugged into the socket. As we had a fist-generation Ryzen chip for testing, we will visit this option again once a 2000 series processor is in our possession. Hopefully, the help menus toward the bottom can be more helpful than stating ‘no help string’ in the instance additional debugging is needed.

The UEFI is serviceable, and provides the function we need to get going. Having tested several versions of Gigabytes UEFI, we can say that each has been stable, and the memory issues we saw around the initial X370 launch are far behind us. With any luck, Gigabyte will tweak some of the aesthetic features to the UEFI to keep us engaged while we fiddle with voltages and frequency settings.

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How We Test

We’re going to be changing things up just a smidge going forward with X470 compared to our traditional 300 series AM4 reviews. First off, we’re going to be updating all of our software to the latest drivers and tool versions that are supported by our current test image. Secondly, we will be monitoring temperatures using HWiNFO64, since we have observed inconsistencies with AIDA64 even with the latest stable versions. In future articles, we’ll be equipping our X470 bench with a GTX 1080 as well as a 2000 series AMD CPU to hopefully modernize our setup.

Today’s article, however, will be comparing apples to apples with data from throughout the previous year. Any oddities or inaccuracies in the data will be described and filtered out from the calculations where the data could potentially be skewed. X370 reviews will continue to be tested the same way they have been for the past year, but we’ll reference some of the new data collection methods accordingly.

The X470 test bench is, in essence, our X370 test bench from chassis to cooler. The Thermaltake F51 Suppressor houses our components, with a Corsair H110i All-in-one cooler fastened to the top in an exhaust configuration. G.Skill still provides our test stand with two of their 2x8GB dual-channel DDR4-3200 TridentZ kits. The Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming still powers our graphical output, and our dependable Ryzen 7 1700X provides our rig with 8 cores and 16 threads running at 3.4GHz stock speeds. Our NVMe drive of choice is a Toshiba RD400 256GB, and a Corsair AX860 provides 80 Plus Platinum-rated power for our high load tests. If there is any other hardware you want us to feature, let us know in the comments.

Test Hardware

Comparison Products

ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac

Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi

MSI X370 Krait Gaming

Benchmark Settings

Synthetic Benchmarks & Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613 Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21 CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography Memory Bandwidth
Iometer	Version 1.1.0 4K Random Read, 4K Random Write 128K Sequential Read, 128K Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMO OpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8 Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests & Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0 Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests & Settings
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19GB 4K mkv to x265 mp4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark-driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark-driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark-driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark-driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests & Settings
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation	Version 2.50.28527 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1080, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 3840x2160, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 3840x2160, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain 1920x1080 - Ultra High Preset, 16x AF 3840x2160 - Ultra High Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 3840x2160, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 3840x2160, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 301136 1920x1080 - High Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF 3840x2160 - High Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 3840x2160 - Ultra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Synthetics & Applications

When Ryzen originally launched, Cinebench R15 was the go-to metric to show the advantages of extra cores and threads. Though the 2nd Gen Ryzen processors boast instruction-per-clock increases, this X470 platform still hums right along with the older boards and establishes a 1% increase over the averages for both single and multi-core metrics. Compubench shows mixed results with the FaceDetect workload coming ahead, while the Video Process test lags behind when exercising this GPU-focused workload. PCMark shows middle-of-the pack performance on average for the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 board, landing only 0.5% above the average across samples.

Sandra starts to hammer some of the more board-design-centric changes, with memory bandwidth landing 3.5% ahead of the 2nd place contender and besting the dual-DIMM board by nearly 7%. Arithmetic shows wins in the remaining categories, most notably with the cryptography workload landing 3% ahead of the MSI X370 Krait. Going forward, we plan to present IOmeter data comparing NVMe IOPS and MB/s measurements for sequential and random reads and writes. But for now, PCMark’s Storage metric shows a virtual dead heat for 3 of the 4 boards.

Graphical synthetics are fairly consistent across our test samples, despite minor variations in driver or OS levels. The Skydiver workload’s 720p resolution boasts some impressive numbers for the Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi, but that lead begins to dwindle as the graphical load increases on the GTX 970. The Krait does very well with keeping up, but again the deltas are minor when looking at Firestrike.

The trend continues with the application workloads where the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 W-Fi is able to squeeze 30 seconds off the Killer at Handbrake, as well as shaving precious seconds off the contenders in Blender. Unfortunately, the AB350N was having a bad compression day when we ran the 7-zip workload, but as for the X470 it works just as well as its peers. Adobe seems to not favor the X470 this time around, though the three remaining boards take a win at various other spots on the chart.

Games

For our purposes today, we’ll only be factoring in 1080p results towards the overall performance metric, because we don't yet have enough data for 4k results yet, though we do have higher resolution results for some games.

With that out of the way, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is taking advantage of the slight improvements in power delivery on this board, and is able to squeeze out a couple of extra frames at 1080p and the High preset. On the game's Crazy setting, 1080p levels the playing field somewhat, and both Gigabyte boards are nearly identical. At higher resolutions and detail settings, we see the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac take the lead by nearly 2 frames. It is important to note that the Krait was tested at the Surround Resolution of 3460x1920, which attributes its lower detail win.

F1 2015 is one of those games we intend on upgrading in the near future. But for now, Ultra High presets are playable across the board for all resolutions. The Gigabyte AB350N’s unusually low result was repeatable, so it’s interesting to see the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi best it by nearly 24% when comparing averages. Things improve slightly for the AB350 at 4k, and only 3 frames separate it from the X470. F1 2015 scales fairly well with resolution, so it’s expected to see the Krait perform well here.

We are observing some oddities with the latest Windows update that causes Metro Last Light’s benchmark utility to have a hard time starting consistently across resolution changes. However, test data is repeatable and the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi takes a huge hit with 1080p high performance. Increasing to the Very High quality setting appears to level things out, where all boards fall within 3 percentage points of each other. Metro scales well with resolution, and all boards perform well when comparing the average metric.

The Talos Principle continues to haunt this reviewer’s dreams, and at 1080p medium and ultra settings, the ASRock X370 Killer nudges past all three contenders by two-to-12 frames. The trend continues at 4k resolutions, but the increase in resolution and detail tighten the gaps significantly. A funny observation: despite having fewer pixels to generate, the Krait still is unable to perform up to par with the other boards.

Power, Thermals, Performance, and Efficiency

Up to this point, the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac has been our reigning efficiency king, but the X470’s design improvements reveal their handiwork here. At idle, we are within the margin of error for the Kill-A-Watt socket power draw measurement device. However, saving five watts at full CPU load and 17 at full system load help reduce this system’s power footprint. It’s also interesting that a board with nearly half the IO and board real estate manages to draw similar wattage compared to this premier board.

Now temperature is a tricky subject, so let’s walk through it carefully. The Gigabyte X470 and AB350N both use the Corsair H110i for cooling, and their CPU measurements reflect that when compared against the air-based coolers. The X470 is using a newer version of AIDA64, so that is likely the attributing factor to the CPU versus CPU1 Diode delta. Comparing the air-cooled (Noctua U12S) data shows a fairly similar trend. The big takeaway from this chart is the voltage regulator temperatures. We are still using the same IR thermometer from launch day, and it is clear that the fin stack design on the X470 is 10C better than the air-cooled samples. Fan configuration on the chassis hasn’t changed, so it is even more compelling, because the AB350N shows a 35C degree difference in temperatures!

While still utilizing the same components as the X370 review samples, the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi’s performance manages to come ahead in three of the four genres of benchmarks, after factoring in all of the averages and test samples. Granted, several wins are by less than a percentage point, but we’ve got much more to geek out over with this product.

As we alluded to earlier, given the power draw improvements of this design and the impressive performance throughout our tests, the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi manages to come out ahead of the Killer SLI/ac by 1.5%. The Krait doesn’t appear to perform as well in this particular chart, but more importantly, it is drawing 7.3% more power on average than our newly crowned efficiency king.

Overclocking – Criticism Builds Success

Let’s talk CPU overclocking first. We’ve shared on several occasions the lackluster performance from the particular 1700X sample we use for testing motherboards. However, it is predictable and provides a great reference for a board’s ability to withstand harsh conditions. We tried three different UEFI versions for this board, all of which provided similar results in overclocking. Our first step was to bump the multiplier from AUTO to 38. Success is achieved, but moving up to 38.5 forces us to move to the load line setting to HIGH. An average overclock for our old methodology was achieved with 3875MHz and 1.3875V set through the UEFI, which is well within the acceptable territory for longevity.

Eager to test out this board’s Vreg cooling, we threw out the usual playbook and kept going. Increasing the voltage to 1.4075V made 3900MHz stable, but going any higher required an additional 55mV of voltage. Our official Prime95 overclock came to 3950MHz at 1.525V for an eight-hour torture test. To our amazement, the Vregs measured in at only 62C while the system was burning 282 watts! To make things better, the same settings allowed us to achieve an eight-hour FPU stress through AIDA64 with 4.0GHz. Nice job, Gigabyte! As long as sufficient airflow is flowing over the Vreg heatsink, this board can easily source more than the allowable maximum circuit voltage of 1.45V for our Ryzen 1700X. We intend on covering Ryzen 2000 series overclocking in our next X470 article.

After cooling down a bit, it’s time to turn on XMP. Memory overclocking follows the same procedure as before: we increment the multiplier until the system fails to survive stress tests. Since we run a fully populated DIMM configuration, seeing DDR4-2933 would be a great start. Right out of the shoot, the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi hit DDR4-3200 through XMP settings! How about DDR4-3333? It runs smoothly. Feeling bullish, we tried DDR4-3466. It booted, but wouldn't run any of our stress tests. We do not know if it’s the X470 physical design guidelines or Gigabyte’s settings, but this overclock improves our DDR4 bandwidth by 35% with zero additional tuning. On second thought, maybe we will show off that Aorus VIP card on social media!

Clearly, improvements were made on this iteration of the AMD chipset lineup that has measurable gains on our test bed. As always, our results might not be typical, but it sure feels good to hit a set of stable, higher numbers.

Value & Conclusions

It is difficult to justify “value” comparing 1-year-old products against brand new high-end products. Still, it’s important to factor in cost because not everyone is primarily interested in performance. With pricing ranging from $240 to $300 at the time of this writing, it's difficult for the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi to win outright. With as-tested benchmarks averaged out, this board runs on par with our two other highly rated boards for the X370 platform. On pricing, even if the AB350N is removed from the metric, a $90 difference is hard to swing unless we want to start factoring in platform costs. But the bundled performance, stability, and design features help this reviewer justify the additional cost for a premium board.

However, $240 seems to be a reasonable price for a top-tier board if it’s available. With new Taichis, Crosshairs, Primes, and M7s landing on shelves, it’ll be interesting to see how prices go moving forward. If the B350 vs X370 comparisons translate to the eventual “B450,” or whatever AMD's new stepped-down chipset gets called, getting even better performance from tighter memory and power control designs on a less-expensive board could translate to a better deal, though.

With all that said, do we recommend the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi? Yes. Gigabyte delivers on customer feedback and provides performance, flair, overclocking, and expandability options that should please any builder that with a windowed case to show off the luxe lighting. As this is our first X470 motherboard, we're only left wondering if the competition can deliver even better performance.

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AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Review: Redefining Ryzen

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:00:00 +0000

Redefining Ryzen

AMD's return to prominence last year found it rolling out a long stream of CPUs that pressured Intel in almost every segment of the desktop PC market. Even after Intel countered with dramatic adjustments to its processor portfolio, AMD continues gobbling up market share. Even in the face of stiff competition, AMD says it enjoys as much as 50% of CPU sales to DIYers on sites like Newegg and Amazon.

And a slow transition to 10nm manufacturing continues to leave Intel vulnerable. AMD is now ready to evolve its Zen architecture with a round of new processors. To be sure, the improvements they offer are iterative. The low-hanging fruit that made it possible for first-gen Ryzen to compete are already baked in. These chips do incorporate some notable advantages, though.

To begin, second-generation Ryzen processors are manufactured using an optimized 12nm LP node that promises performance and efficiency gains compared to the original Ryzen's 14nm LPP process. AMD also tweaked the Zen architecture, now dubbed Zen+, to support higher frequencies, more sophisticated multi-core boost rates, and faster memory/caches. Overall, the company claims that its 2000-series facilitates nearly equivalent gaming performance compared to similarly-priced Core CPUs, plus a 20% advantage in threaded workloads.

AMD certainly hasn't forgotten its core message: more cores and features for less money. The second-gen Ryzen processors are priced competitively, all models come with beefy stock coolers, and they are backward compatible with older Socket AM4 motherboards. AMD even throws in free caching software to sweeten the deal. It all starts with silicon though, so let's take a look.

Ryzen 7 2700X

Ryzen 2000-series processors, otherwise known by their "Pinnacle Ridge" code name, are based on the same basic Zen core design as previous-gen models. But they benefit from 12nm manufacturing, along with targeted tweaks to improve cache and memory latency. The company says its resulting Zen+ architecture delivers up to a 3% boost in IPC (instructions per cycle) throughput.

The CPUs still utilize a dual-CCX configuration tied, together with Infinity Fabric. Not surprisingly, then, they're divided into eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 and six-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 families, both with 16MB of L3 cache. Like the Ryzens that came before, all 2000-series models boast unlocked ratio multipliers for easy overclocking. Intel, in comparison, still charges a premium for its overclockable K-series SKUs.

AMD separates its the 2000-series stack into high-performance X-series models and their non-X counterparts. But it shrinks the Ryzen 7 family from three models to two. Ryzen 7 2700X would seem to suggest a Ryzen 7 1700X replacement. However, it actually replaces the flagship Ryzen 7 1800X. AMD claims that its 2700X offers up to 12% more performance than Ryzen 7 1800X in threaded applications. Much of that improvement comes from a 100 MHz-higher base clock and 200 MHz of additional boost frequency (though multiple other refinements also contribute).

While the Pinnacle Ridge processors drop into 400-series motherboards, AMD is only releasing its X470 chipset at launch time. We still don't have a release date for the less expensive B450- and A420-based motherboards. As the company originally promised, it continues supporting Socket AM4 (and purportedly will until 2020), so the new Ryzen CPUs also work with 300-series motherboards after a BIOS update. First-gen Ryzens do work with 400-series platforms as well, allowing you to drop an older CPU into a brand-new board, if desired.

	AMD Ryzen 7 2700X	AMD Ryzen 7 1800X	AMD Ryzen 7 2700	AMD Ryzen 5 1600X	AMD Ryzen 5 2600X	AMD Ryzen 5 2600	Intel Core i7-8700K	Intel Core i7-8700	Intel Core i5-8600K	Intel Core i5-8400
MSRP	$329	$349	$299	$219	$229	$199	$359	$303	$257	$182
Cores/Threads	8/16	8/16	8/16	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/12	6/6	6/6
TDP	105W	95W	65W	95W	95W	65W	95W	65W	95W	65W
Base Freq. (GHz)	3.7	3.6	3.2	3.6	3.6	3.4	3.7	3.2	3.6	2.8
Precision Boost Freq. (GHz)	4.3	4.1	4.1	4.0	4.2	3.9	4.7	4.6	4.3	4.0
Cache (L3)	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	16MB	12MB	12MB	9MB	9MB
Unlocked Multiplier	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Cooler	105W Wraith Prism (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire (LED)	-	95W Wraith Spire	65W Wraith Stealth	-	Intel	-	Intel

The $329 Ryzen 7 2700X should sell for $20 less than an 1800X (though prices of previous-generation chips will likely fall as long as stock is robust), while the $299 Ryzen 7 2700 lands right where you formerly found the 1700. AMD's non-X models were apparently more popular with enthusiasts since they also had unlocked multipliers, enabling similar performance as the pricier models (after some tuning) for less money. You could save $50 stepping down from Ryzen 7 1800X to the 1700, for example. But that gap shrinks to $30 this time around.

AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X grapples with Intel's $359 flagship Core i7-8700K. Though that seems like an uncomfortably close comparison, AMD allows you to overclock with one of its value-oriented B-series motherboards (B350-based, for now), whereas Intel compels users splurge on a Z-series platform for overclocking. Adding the CPU and motherboard together, Intel's premium ends up being quite a bit higher.

Second-gen Ryzens now support up to DDR4-2933 RAM as well, trumping the Coffee Lake architecture's official DDR4-2666 ceiling (with a few caveats that we'll cover shortly). More bandwidth should help latency-sensitive apps, such as games. Also, X470 motherboards pave the way for better memory overclocking than previous-gen platforms.

AMD's first-gen X-series processors, which topped out at 95W, came without a bundled thermal solution. This time around, all 2000-series CPUs include a cooler. The 105W Ryzen 7 2700X includes a "Wraith Prism" LED cooler that features four direct-contact copper heat pipes, three independent RGB zones, switchable fan profiles, and a 39 dB(A) noise rating. The cooler is rated to dissipate 116W of waste heat in "L" mode (2800 RPM) and 124W in "H" mode (3600 RPM). Cooler Master manufactures the heat sink/fan, while AMD provides software for controlling the lighting and fan profiles. Company representatives claim the cooler represents a roughly $43 value, and that it also allows for some overclocking headroom.

As with the generation before, AMD employs Indium solder between its die and heat spreader to improve thermal transfer. In contrast, Intel uses standard thermal interface material on its Core i7-8700K. Also, that Intel chip doesn't come with a cooler, widening the price gap between a Ryzen 7 2700X-based configuration and a current-generation unlocked Intel Core i7.

According to AMD, its 2000-series CPUs benefit from an improved SensMI suite that also includes its new StorMI Technology. The latter is a software-based tiering solution that melds the low price and high capacity of a hard drive with the speed of an SSD, 3D XPoint (including Intel's Optane parts), or even up to 2GB of RAM. AMD sold this software as a $20 add-on in the past, but now it comes free as part of the 2000-series package. As with any tiering utility, you assume the same risks of data loss inherent to a RAID 0 array. For more details about this software, read our feature: AMD and Enmotus Expand FuzeDrive Offerings.

The GlobalFoundries 12nm LP Process

As mentioned, AMD's 2000-series CPUs are not manufactured on GlobalFoundries' 14nm GPP node, but rather its 12nm LP process technology. The ported-over design helps boost transistor performance, but does not affect die area or transistor density. As a result, Pinnacle Ridge's ~4.8 billion transistors and 213mm² area remain the same as first-gen Ryzen.

Lower leakage current does enable roughly 300 MHz-higher clock rates or a 50mV core voltage reduction at any given frequency compared to 14nm manufacturing. The company also refined some of the architecture's critical pathways with higher-performance transistors. All told, AMD claims the 12nm design enables up to 11% less power consumption than 14nm-based Ryzen CPUs at the same clock rates, or up to 16% more performance at the same thermal design power. All-core overclocks are expected to land in the 4.2 GHz range moving forward.

AMD also adds other nuanced refinements to the performance story, reportedly improving L1, L2, and L3 cache latencies, while also reducing memory latency by 11%.

Ryzen 7 2700X's 105W TDP represents a 10.5% increase compared to the 1800X for a 4.65% increase in boost frequencies. That seems like a simple trade-off of power consumption for higher clock rates. But the TDP rating also takes the multi-core Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 algorithms' higher power draw into account, allowing access to Socket AM4's full 95-amp current ceiling even during stock operation.

Precision Boost 2 And XFR2

AMD's previous-gen Ryzen processors have Precision Boost (a Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling implementation similar to Intel's Turbo Boost), and eXtended Frequency Range, which provides additional frequency uplift if your cooling solution has thermal headroom to spare. Those 1000-series CPUs only offer dual-core or all-core Precision Boost and XFR clock rates. But lightly-threaded applications (like games) often offload less-critical tasks to other threads. Unfortunately, light helper threads can apply enough of a load to trigger the lower all-core frequency, limiting performance potential even when the CPU could be operating at higher clock rates.

The new Precision Boost 2 (which debuted on the desktop with AMD's Raven Ridge processors) and XFR2 algorithms improve performance in threaded workloads by raising the frequency of any number of cores. Precision Boost 2 delivers up to 500 MHz-higher clocks during multi-core workloads, while XFR2 adds an additional 7% boost if your cooler is beefy enough. This extends Ryzen's already-strong threaded performance to a wider variety of tasks, though it levels off when the processor reaches 60°C (tCase) or 95 amps of current. Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 also work on 300-series motherboards.

AMD doesn't share a list of specific multi-core Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 bins, because its opportunistic algorithms achieve different frequencies based on temperature, current, and load.

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AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X

X470 And Ryzen Master 1.3

AMD's Socket AM4 was designed with robust power delivery capabilities that aren't entirely used by first-gen Ryzen processors. The 2000-series chips are much better at leveraging the platform's current headroom through their improved boost algorithms. Some value-oriented motherboards employ scaled-back power delivery capabilities, so AMD's second-gen Ryzen CPUs communicate with the platform to modulate performance based on what the motherboard can do. That's a necessary addition to accommodate Ryzen 7 2700X's 105W TDP, which didn't exist before this new chip line. As a result, less-capable motherboards may not expose the full performance potential of higher-TDP processors like the Ryzen 7 2700X.

The processor monitors Package Power Tracking (PPT) and Thermal Design Current (TDC) variables, measuring available margin to the motherboard's maximum power output and current, respectively. Electrical Design Current (EDC) also indicates the maximum current possible from the VRMs during peak/transient conditions. A control loop feeds the real-time telemetry data back to the Infinity Fabric, which then allows the processor to dynamically affect performance based on thermal and power conditions.

If the motherboard BIOS supports it, AMD exposes some of these monitoring features with its updated Ryzen Master 1.3 overclocking software. The fastest cores are identified during the binning process and flagged by Ryzen Master with gold stars on a per-CCX basis. The third- and fourth-fastest cores are marked with a circle.

AMD's software now supports per-CCX overclocking as well, and includes a built-in stress test. The warranty does not cover damage caused by overclocking, so exercise caution.

Because there are still plenty of 300-series motherboards available for sale, AMD designed a badge to let you know that a firmware update may be necessary before dropping a 2000-series CPU into one of those older platforms. Unless your 300-series motherboard has an out-of-band update mechanism like BIOS Flashback, you need a previous-gen Ryzen processor to update it. AMD also offers its Boot Kit solution, which is a loaner processor you can use to update the motherboard firmware.

Eventually, all 300-series motherboards will support 2000-series processors right out of the box. AMD expects X470 and X370 boards to coexist for the foreseeable future, so it may be possible to find excellent deals on those previous-gen motherboards.

DIMM Slots Filled	Memory Ranks	Supported Speed
2 of 2	Single	2933*
2 of 2	Dual	2677
2 of 4	Single	2933*
2 of 4	Dual	2400
4 of 4	Single	2133
4 of 4	Dual	1866

*Note: requires a motherboard with at least six PCB layers. DDR4-2667 is supported on four-layer PCBs.

AMD's 2000-series processors support up to DDR4-2933 with a pair of single-rank DIMMs, though you need a six-layer motherboard to unlock that capability. Support drops back to DDR4-2667 for four-layer motherboards. Fortunately for enthusiasts, most mainstream platforms utilize six or eight layers.

From what we've seen thus far, X470 motherboards have an improved layout to facilitate aggressive memory overclocking. As you might expect, X470 boards in our labs are much more mature at launch than the 300-series platforms we battled last year. Thanks to this, we're easily running memory at DDR4-3466 with tight timings. Our motherboard team also noticed vastly improved overclocking with all memory slots populated, which was an issue on some X370 motherboards.

X470-based motherboards feature lower power consumption, higher multi-hub USB throughput, and improved power delivery. But they still have the same connectivity options as 300-series motherboards.

I/O Source	USB 3.1 Gen2	USB 3.1 Gen1	USB 2.0	PCIe Gen3	GPP PCIe Gen2	SATA
AMD Ryzen SoC (1000- and 2000-series)	0	4	0	20x	0	2
X470/370	2	6	6	0	8	8
B350	2	2	6	0	6	6
A320	1	2	6	0	4	6

The first line in our chart covers Ryzen's I/O capabilities, which you then combine with one of the chipsets underneath to determine platform connectivity. A Ryzen CPU sports 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Sixteen are dedicated to the PCIe slots, while four lanes are dedicated to SATA ports or a 4x link for NVMe SSDs. Four of the SATA ports can also be assigned to SATA Express interfaces at a 2:1 ratio, yielding a maximum of two SATA Express connections.

As you can see, the X470 chipset offers the same connectivity options as its predecessor, with two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, four USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, and eight general-purpose PCIe 2.0 lanes that vendors can carve up for additional functionality (like hanging M.2 slots off of the chipset or enhanced 5/10GbE support).

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Cache And Memory Performance, IPC

Memory Latency

AMD Measurements	L1 Cache Latency	L2 Cache Latency	L3 Cache Latency	Memory Latency
Latency Improvements	13%	34%	16%	11%

AMD's first-gen processors demonstrated higher memory latency than we expected, affecting the performance of memory-sensitive applications. The company claims it reduced memory latency by 11% this time around, as well as cutting cache latencies by double-digit percentages. We'll start by measuring the memory and Infinity Fabric subsystems, and then move on to IPC tests.

SiSoftware's Sandra is used to measure cache and memory latency with three different access patterns, giving us more granularity than a single test. Sequential access patterns are almost entirely prefetched into the TLB, so that one's a good measure of prefetcher performance. The in-page random test measures random accesses within the same memory page. It also measures TLB performance and represents best-case random performance. The full random test features a mix of TLB hits and misses, with a strong likelihood of misses, so it quantifies worst-case latency.

We tested both the Ryzen 7 1800X and Ryzen 7 2700X on the same X470 motherboard. We include results with the Ryzen 7 2700X at DDR4-2933 for the stock configuration, DDR4-3466 for the overclocked configuration, and DDR4-2666 to normalize it with AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X.

With normalized DDR4-2667 data rates and timings, the Ryzen 7 2700X posts impressive gains over Ryzen 7 1800X, regardless of the data access pattern. As percentages, the 2700X's improvements weigh in at 11.49% for full random, 6.64% for in-page, and 9.35% for the sequential access pattern.

The Infinity Fabric speeds up as we increase memory frequency to the 2700X's default DDR4-2933. This fabric ties the IMC and cores together, so we record even larger improvements of 18% in the full random test, 13.4% with a full random access pattern, and 12.9% with the sequential metric.

AMD isn't fully disclosing the steps it took to improve memory latency, but we suspect the company worked on the Infinity Fabric and integrated memory controller to realize these gains.

Cache Latency And Bandwidth

Regardless of the memory access pattern, the smallest data chunks fit into L1 cache. As the data gets larger, it populates the 2700X's higher tiers of cache, which we outlined in the following table:

	L1	L2	L3	Main Memory
Range	2KB - 32KB	64KB - 512KB	1MB - 4MB	8MB - 1GB

% Improvement Over 1800X	L1	L2	L3
In-Page	11.11%	51.72%	26.38%
Full-Random	11.11%	53.5%	25.64%
Sequential	11.11%	13.3%	13.3%

The cache latency reductions that we measured are even better than what AMD suggested we'd see, though its lab might be using different access patterns. Regardless, the apples-to-apples results in our table are downright impressive.

We also see a notable increase in cache bandwidth. Feeding the cores with lower latency and higher throughput is a win-win on the performance front. Intel's S-series processors still have a big single-core L1 bandwidth advantage, but AMD's updated L2 cache is measurably faster than the 1800X in both single- and multi-threaded tests. AMD even enjoys better L2 cache latency than Intel in the sequential test and better L3 cache latency with several data patterns.

To Infinity, And Beyond

The updated Zen+ design fuses two four-core CCXs together with the Infinity Fabric, which is a crossbar that also handles IMC, northbridge, and PCIe traffic. As such, fabric latency is a critical variable that ensures the memory latency gains we observe can actually be delivered to the cores.

SiSoftware Sandra's Processor Multi-Core Efficiency metric helps illustrate the Infinity Fabric's performance. We use the Multi-Threaded test with the "best pair match" setting (lowest latency). The utility measures ping times between threads to quantify fabric latency in every possible configuration. We boil those benchmarks down to latency averages for the different pathways, but head here for a more detailed explanation of the various components.

AMD reduced Ryzen 7 2700X's intra-core latency by 11.8% and the critical cross-CCX latency by 8.3%. We also notice that Ryzen 7 2700X offers significantly improved fabric bandwidth.

Instructions Per Clock

It's important to remember that IPC can vary by workload, so dissimilar tasks may yield different outcomes. We set a static 3 GHz clock rate for the following tests:

Our single-core Cinebench benchmark suggests a 1.6% IPC improvement favoring Ryzen 7 2700X. But while AMD does improve, Intel still holds onto a distinct IPC throughput advantage. Switching to the Multi-Threaded Cinbench test gives Ryzen 7 2700X a 2.7% improvement over its predecessor.

Core i9-7820X employs two 256-bit AVX FMA units per core that operate in parallel, whereas Ryzen's Zen architecture divides 256-bit AVX operations across two FMA units per core. That difference hands the Skylake-X processor a commanding lead in y-cruncher. We do see a 3.9% increase in the 2700X's Multi-Threaded y-cruncher result compared to Ryzen 7 1800X. But the gains in single-threaded AVX performance are marginal.

We see similar results in our single-core cryptographic tests, though Ryzen 7 2700X takes an 8.7% lead over the 1800X in the Multi-Threaded AES-256-ECB encryption workload. AMD's Zen architecture includes two AES cryptographic accelerators for each core, so it isn't surprising to see Ryzen dominate over Intel's S-series CPUs in the AES-256-ECB tests.

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Overclocking, Spectre, And Test Setup

Overclocking

We ran our gaming and application tests in the U.S. lab, while power/thermal measurements were collected in our German lab.

In the U.S. lab, we paired our Ryzen 7 2700X with Corsair's H115i cooler for overclocking. This allowed us to maintain a 4.2 GHz all-core frequency at 1.3785V Vcore, 1.2V SoC voltage, and the default Load Line Calibration settings. Since we couldn't smash through to 4.3 GHz without exceeding AMD's 1.40V maximum recommended Vcore setting, we stopped at 4.2 GHz.

We did encounter temperatures as high as 90°C during extended AVX testing, so we recommend a capable closed-loop or custom water cooler for overclocking. AMD would really benefit from an AVX-offset feature as well, which could cut clock rates during power-hungry AVX workloads. Should you choose to go the more extreme route, there have been reports of 5.8 GHz with Ryzen 7 2700X under LN2.

First-gen Ryzen processors don't have much memory overclocking headroom, so we're still testing tuned X370 platforms at DDR4-3200. However, the X470 platform was remarkably stable at higher data rates with Ryzen 7 2700X. So, we settled on DDR4-3466 with 14-14-14-34 timings (though we're confident that more time to tune would yield even higher overclocks). We also ran our overclocked Intel processors at DDR4-3466.

Spectre And Meltdown

Our test rigs now include Meltdown And Spectre Variant 1 mitigations. Spectre Variant 2 requires both motherboard firmware/microcode and operating system patches. We have installed the operating system patches for Variant 2.

Today's performance measurements do not include Intel's motherboard firmware mitigations for Spectre Variant 2 though, as we've been waiting for AMD patches to level the playing field. Last week, AMD announced that it’s making the mitigations available to motherboard vendors and OEMs, which the company says should take time to appear in the wild. We checked MSI's website for firmware updates applicable to our X370 platforms when AMD made its announcement, but no new BIOSes were available (and still aren't).

Unfortunately, we were only made aware that Variant 2 mitigations are present in our X470 board's firmware just before launch, precluding us from re-testing the Intel platforms with patches applied. We're working on this now, and plan to post updated results in future reviews.

The lack of Spectre Variant 2 patches in our Intel results likely give the Core CPUs a slight advantage over AMD's patched platforms. But the performance difference should be minimal with modern processors.

Test Setup

AMD is working on a Precision Boost Overdrive feature, which seems similar to the Multi-Core Enhanced Turbo (MCE) feature that allows Intel's K-series processors to run at their maximum Turbo Boost bin across all cores at all times. The setting on Intel platforms modifies the CPU's clock rate and voltage to deliver higher performance, basically amounting to factory-sanctioned overclocking.

AMD's Ryzen Master 1.3 software doesn't currently let you activate this feature from within Windows. But as we often find with MCE, AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive is enabled by default in many BIOSes. After extensive experimentation, we can conclude that the option doesn't deliver an appreciable performance gain in its current form. Thus, we ran our tests with Precision Boost Overdrive disabled.

Comparison Products

Intel Core i5-8400

Intel Core i5-8600K

Intel Core i7-7700K

Test Systems

Test System & Configuration
Hardware	Germany AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i5-8600K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2666AMD Socket AM4 Workstation (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, Ryzen 5 1600X, Ryzen 5 1400MSI X370 Tomahawk4x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 @ 2667 and 3200 Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @ 2400 and 3200All SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power SupplyWindows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.AMD Socket AM4 (400-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 2700XMSI X470 Gaming M7 AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2933, DDR4-3466Intel LGA 1151 (Z370):Intel Core i7-8700K, i5-8600K, Core i5-8400MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400, DDR4-2667, DDR4-3466AMD Socket AM4 (300-Series)AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1700, Ryzen 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium2x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2667, DDR4-3200Intel LGA 1151 (Z270)Intel Core i7-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming M72x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2400Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i7-7820XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ DDR4-2666All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500-TI, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)U.S.Corsair H115i
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK
PC Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Extension Kit and Mods Configurations: Open Benchtable, Closed Case
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500 MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100 kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500 MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80 Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording
Acoustic Measurement	NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File, Low Cut at 50Hz) Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)Creative X7, Smaart v.7 Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H) Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

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VRMark, 3DMark And AotS: Escalation

VRMark & 3DMark

Gaming is where rubber meets the road for most enthusiasts. AMD tells us that its 2000-series processors should be nearly equivalent to Intel's comparable models, at least at stock settings. And there's no doubt that Ryzen 7 2700X will excel in heavily-threaded titles. But tests that are sensitive to clock rate and IPC throughput, such as VRMark, have traditionally been a challenge for Ryzen.

The 2700X bridges the gap between Intel's processors and first-gen Ryzen. AMD's stock 2700X outstrips the Ryzen 7 1800X by 11.8%. More impressively, it also beats the overclocked 1800X by 2%. The 2700X's lead over its predecessor extends further after tuning its cores and memory subsystem.

Synthetic benchmarks are great because they tend to scale more clearly than real-world applications. 3DMark's real usefulness lies in measuring the amount of performance available to game engines, giving us a peek at what highly-optimized games could be capable of.

Ryzen 7 2700X's 16 threads beat Core i7-8700K's 12 threads in our DX11 and DX12 CPU tests, even after overclocking. The 2700X also bests Intel's $589 Core i7-7820X during both tests.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation evokes memories of AMD's early struggles with the Zen architecture. This was one of the first games to receive an update optimized for AMD's processor design.

Although the patch improved performance, Ryzen 7 1800X still fails to beat a stock Core i7-8700K. But Ryzen 7 2700X and its Precision Boost 2 algorithm turn the tables, giving AMD an advantage in stock and overclocked trim.

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Civilization VI Graphics & AI, Dawn of War III

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization's AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game and tends to favor per-core performance. Ryzen 7 2700X almost ties the Coffee Lake-based Core i7-8700K at its stock settings. However, Intel gains more from overclocking, pulling away after our tuning efforts.

Again, notice that the stock Ryzen 7 2700X is fast enough to beat the overclocked 1800X.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The stock Ryzen 7 2700X beats every other Ryzen CPU by ~10 FPS (or more). But Intel's stock CPUs have no problem maintaining their advantage.

Tuning the 2700X yields a 6.3% speed-up on average. But that doesn't help it catch the Core i5-8600K, which takes the top two spots in our chart.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

The overclocked Ryzen 7 2700X lands just shy of the Core i7-7700K and -8700K. Tuning those chips allows them to walk away from AMD's flagship, though.

Meanwhile, Ryzen 7 2700X beats AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X by 14% right out of the box.

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Far Cry Primal, GTA: V, Hitman

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal responds well to Intel's Core i7-7700K. It's also interesting that a stock Core i5-8600K beats the overclocked 6C/12T Core i7-8700K. Then again, we've seen this tendency before.

The stock Ryzen 7 2700X lags behind Intel's newest K-series CPUs, though tuning does help AMD's case.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates. The overclocked Ryzen 7 2700X vies with Intel's chips at stock frequencies. But again, giving Coffee Lake the same treatment propels those chips to the top of our chart.

Ryzen 7 1700 suffers from a low base clock rate and languishes at the bottom of our chart as a result. This processor often provides similar performance as AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X after some tuning. However, it's clear that the Ryzen 7 2700X sets a new high water mark for AMD CPUs in games.

Hitman

Hitman's GOTY update imposed a hard 90 FPS cap on performance, so this title no longer scales well with high-end PCs. Unfortunately, some popular AAA games employ similar frame rate limits, so we leave this result in place to show that not all titles respond to faster components.

We do see slight scaling from Ryzen 7 1700 up to Intel's overclocked models. However, these differences would be hard to spot during a gaming session. Ryzen 7 2700X lands in a familiar position ahead of AMD's previous-gen Ryzen CPUs.

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Shadow Of War, Project CARS 2

Middle-earth: Shadow Of War

Middle-earth: Shadow of War doesn't scale as dramatically as some of our other benchmarks, and it certainly isn't as sensitive to IPC throughput and frequency as Shadow of Mordor. While CPU reviews tend to focus on games that scale well with certain host processing specifications, some games just can't get enough graphics performance.

Ryzen 7 2700X comes tantalizingly close to matching the Coffee Lake-based processors at stock and overclocked settings.

Project CARS 2

Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading. A 6C/6T Core i5-8600K beats the overclocked 8C/16T Ryzen 7 2700X though, so it's clear that parallelism isn't the most influential factor in defining this game's performance.

A stock Ryzen 7 2700X trails all of the Intel CPUs except for Core i7-7820X. But overclocking nudges AMD's flagship closer to the top.

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Office And Productivity

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe's Creative Cloud suite generally favors higher frequencies and IPC throughput, giving Intel an advantage. Still, Ryzen 7 2700X provides a nice balance of high clock rates and core count, yielding an impressive 13.8% speed-up in the overall score compared to AMD's tuned Ryzen 7 1800X.

Overclocking doesn't deliver the big gains we recorded in our gaming suite. In some of the lightly-threaded application tests (like After Effects), a stock Ryzen 7 2700X is even faster than the overclocked one. This is a result of the 2700X's 4.3 GHz Precision Boost 2 frequency, which outstrips our 4.2 GHz all-core overclock. These tests also aren't as latency-sensitive as gaming workloads, so DDR4-3466 doesn't deliver as much of a performance improvement.

Web Browser

The Krakken suite tests JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. AMD's processors typically lag Intel's in Web browser benchmarks due to their lower per-core performance. However, a stock Ryzen 7 2700X still outpaces its overclocked predecessor.

The MotionMark benchmarks, which emphasize graphics performance (rather than JavaScript), are also sensitive to CPU clock rates. Again, the 2700X's higher stock Precision Boost 2 frequencies allow it to slip past the overclocked configuration. At the same time, we measure a 14.6% gain over the stock 1800X.

Productivity

Ryzen 7 2700X is much more competitive than AMD's previous-generation CPUs. We also observe slim gains from overclocking in many of these workloads.

Our video conferencing workload measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. Not surprisingly then, a stock Ryzen 7 2700X leads the rest of the field at default clock rates thanks to its 8C/16T configuration and higher frequencies.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, which obviously plays to the 2700X's eight-core design.

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Rendering, Encoding, And Compression

Rendering

Ryzen 7 2700X takes a commanding lead in the multi-core Cinebench benchmark, which we expected in light of the radical cache latency and bandwidth improvements that AMD made. POV-Ray also shows the 2700X to be a chart-topper, though again it's faster in stock form than overclocked.

AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X leads in many of the threaded workloads, but isn't as impressive in workloads that tax a single core. There, Intel's architectures continue shining.

Core i7-7820X leads in LuxMark. But notice that we don't have OpenCL results for it. This is because the older OpenCL SDK doesn't support AVX-512. Intel updated the SDK fairly recently, and it works correctly with Skylake-X-based processors. We'll have to retest all of these CPUs to reflect the changes, but be assured that AVX-512 is a powerful addition.

Encoding & Compression

LAME is the quintessential example of a single-threaded workload, and the 2700X posts solid gains over Ryzen 7 1800X in its stock configuration.

Our threaded compression and decompression tests adsorb data directly from system memory, thus removing storage from the equation. As per usual, the Ryzen processors dominate the decompression workload while Intel's Skylake-X leads in compression-oriented benchmarks. It's notable that Core i7-8700K needs overclocking in order to beat AMD's flagship.

There's a larger delta between Intel and AMD processors during our HandBrake x265 test compared to the x264 benchmark due to its heavier distribution of AVX instructions. Ryzen 7 2700X is particularly impressive in the x264 metric, where it upsets the capable Core i7-7820X.

We also provide results from y-cruncher, a single- and multi-threaded program that computes Pi using AVX instructions. We tested with version 0.7.3.9474, which includes Ryzen optimizations. The 2700X trails Intel's portfolio in the single-core benchmark. However, parallelization puts it in a more competitive position. Also, we clearly see the benefit of Core i7-7820X's dual 256-bit AVX FMA units (per core) in the AVX workloads.

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XFR2 vs. Manual Overclocking

XFR2, Cooling, and Clock Rates

In contrast to the first-gen Ryzen models and their strange temperature curves, the tCTL (core temperature) values now correspond with what we'd expect to see. AMD does add a 10-degree offset to the 2700X specifically, which motherboard BIOSes already take into account. We subtract this offset from our own measurements.

Chip quality naturally influences achievable clock rates as well. These effects are seen much more clearly with second-gen Ryzen CPUs supporting XFR2, since they have to be binned precisely.

With as much cooling performance as we could muster, Ryzen 7 2700X still reaches almost 4.2 GHz. A more conventional thermal solution would result in a lower clock rate. However, with a good air cooler, it should be possible to sustain 4 GHz on all cores.

Manual Overclocking

Ryzen 7 2700X can be manually overclocked to 4.3 GHz. But the 1.475V required for this is more aggressive than we want to get long-term. Pushing to 4.35 GHz resulted in a crash no matter how much voltage we applied.

As the following curve shows, power consumption and performance in Cinebench are almost directly proportional, so long as the system runs stably and doesn't crash. It's also worth noting that Cool'n'Quiet is completely disabled on our test platform when we configure the ratio multiplier manually. When that happens, the configured clock rate doesn't drop from its specified maximum, even at idle.

We measure a maximum of 135W in Cinebench and just over 150W in Prime95 with AVX, although this extreme torture test is more of an exhibition.

If you spend some money on good cooling, there's no reason to manually overclock Ryzen 7 2700X. Thanks to XFR2, AMD's flagship should remain stable above 4 GHz, even under full load. Try to go any higher and you'll pay a hefty price in heat, power, and possibly long-term reliability.

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Power Consumption

At idle, Ryzen 7 2700X lands behind most of the Intel competition, but ahead of previous-gen Ryzen CPUs. First and second place in our chart go to a couple of AMD APUs, perhaps surprisingly.

Under a light CAD workload, Ryzen 7 2700X performs better and uses less power than its predecessor. This shows us that AMD didn't pay for better clocks with a sacrifice to power consumption. Its progress is already apparent at this point in the measurements.

Gaming tells a similar story; the performance increase is again more pronounced than the differences in power consumption.

When it comes to our stress test, AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X is much more reserved than its predecessor. We attribute this to the chip's XFR2 functionality, along with more granular frequency/voltage settings.

Even when we hit it as hard as possible, the new CPU stays stable above 4 GHz.

Performance rises and power consumption falls (if only slightly). There's truth to AMD's marketing material, so says our lab equipment. Ryzen 7 2700X really does deserve attention for these results.

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Thermals And Noise

The Wraith Prism

Ryzen 7 2700X's Wraith Prism thermal solution is a large, high-finned cooler with four flattened heat pipes and a plate behind them for stabilization. The heat sink's entire contact surface is thus made of copper. Its fins are arranged in such a way that the exhaust air is focused toward the memory and I/O shield.

The fastening clamp is a big disadvantage of this large cooler, which takes us back to the old Athlon XP days. Even at maximum load on all cores in the stress test, the CPU only reaches a maximum temperature of 82.8°C (corrected value), so it remains below the thermal throttle threshold. The cooler handles the 105 watts easily. You can expect peaks up to 70°C and a little above, depending on the motherboard's predefined fan curve.

The cooler is loud and emits 44 dB(A) under load (50 cm distance, 45° diagonal) when the fan is spinning at 2600-2700 RPM. The fan can even be a bit noisy even when the system is idling on the Windows desktop. Unfortunately, the fan adjusts much too rapidly as the cooler reacts to short-term temperature jumps.

We see the result in the narrow-band frequency spectrum of the motor noise, which shifts back and forth between approx. 240 and 300 Hz. The fan generates almost 39 dB(A) at idle, which isn't necessary. It helps if adjust the fan curve to a fixed speed of at least 1400 RPM if the processor is under 60°C. However, you'll have to experiment because each case will require different settings.

AMD has made good progress with XFR2 and the powerful cooling finally pays off in terms of performance. The power consumption remains largely the same and you get a nice clock rate increase, but we don't like the unnecessary noise levels or the fiddly mounting mechanism.

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Final Analysis

AMD's 2000-series processors aren't revolutionary, but they are far beyond the normal evolutionary updates we've become accustomed to over the last several years.

In the chart below, we plotted gaming performance with both average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we then converted into an FPS measurement. We're also presenting price-to-performance charts that get split up to include CPUs-only and extra platform costs. For the models that don't come with a bundled cooler, we add an extra $25 for a basic heat sink. We also add $20 if overclocking requires a more expensive motherboard (as is the case for Z370).

In gaming, AMD's stock Ryzen 7 2700X delivers a great performance boost that rivals its overclocked predecessor in every one of our tests. Tuning the 2700X provides additional performance, though you probably won't notice the difference. Check out our chart: as you can see, the Ryzen 7 2700X effectively ties Core i7-8700K based on the geometric mean. But it sells at a $30 discount, drops into a less expensive motherboard, and comes with a thermal solution that adds even more value.

While the overclocked Core i7-8700K is a fierce competitor, it requires you to buy a Z-series motherboard for overclocking, along with a capable cooler. Core i5-8600K offers most of the -8700K's performance, but you lose Ryzen 7 2700X's sixteen threads and bundled heat sink/fan. We think it's safe to say that AMD is delivering on its pledge to provide a near-equivalent gaming experience in most titles.

If you're searching for a more productivity-oriented processor, Ryzen 7 2700X is incredibly attractive. It offers superior performance compared to the Core i7-8700K in many of our threaded tests, and is much more competitive in lightly threaded applications than previous-gen models.

AMD's Precision Boost 2 and XFR2 algorithms are already pushing the voltage/frequency curve to its limits, so don't expect much in the way of overclocking headroom. We did tune Ryzen 7 2700X up to 4.2 GHz, but a higher dual-core Precision Boost 2 frequency of 4.3 GHz offers better performance than our all-core overclock in certain applications. Significant gains in games were likely a result of heightened sensitivity to our DDR4-3466 memory.

AMD's latest Ryzen 7 delivers a host of features that make enthusiasts swoon, such as an unlocked multiplier, backward compatibility with 300-series motherboards, solder between the heat spreader and die, and an LED-equipped cooler. We only wish that B450-based motherboards were available at launch time. Hopefully we hear more about AMD's lower-cost platform soon.

In a broader sense, AMD is delivering on its first update to the Ryzen processor series, proving that it can execute on its roadmap. It looks like it's going to be another busy year in the CPU space--and that's more good news for enthusiasts and gamers.

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AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate Desktop Review: A Custom-Shop Ryzen Powerhouse

Derek Forrest — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 01:00:00 +0000

Introduction & Product Tour

Traditionally, custom-PC makers send us their most pumped-up configurations based on Intel silicon. AVADirect, in a pleasant change of pace, sent us one of its Battle Box-branded custom desktop PCs with an AMD bent. Our test unit had an AMD Ryzen 7 1700X processor, 16GB of memory, and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti under the hood.

Can the Battle Box deliver on its promise of ultimate frame rates and performance at the most demanding settings? We’ll find out as we take a look at our first AMD Ryzen-based custom gaming PC.

Exterior

The AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate is an Nvidia-co-branded gaming PC that can be customized to almost anything, with an array of different cases, chipsets, processors, graphics cards, memory, storage, and power supplies from all the major manufacturers. This particular configuration features an NZXT H440 mid-tower ATX chassis, which has black ABS plastic panels and a SECC steel frame. The removable side panels are also metal, and the window on the left side is made of clear acrylic. The solid panel has padding on the interior side to dampen vibrations, and the only customized parts of the chassis are an AVADirect decal on the window and an emblem on the bottom of the front panel. Otherwise, it’s no different from NZXT's retail H440 case.

The front and top panels have some vented red trim that provides airflow and an edgy look, and the NZXT logo is prominently displayed on the red-accented PSU cover that is visible through the side window, especially with the additional CableMod light strip that AVADirect outfitted in this test unit. (This flashy feature adds $60 to the bill; it's a custom remote-controlled RGB/UV strip.)

The top-panel I/O blends seamlessly into the smooth plastic and consists of two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to headphone-out and mic-in audio jacks. The back of the machine also has gratuitous USB connectivity, with two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports (one Type-A, one Type-C), four USB 3.0 ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. There’s also a PS/2 port, six audio jacks (powered by a Realtek ALC892 NIC), and an RJ-45 interface that gets you online with Realtek 8111H Gigabit Ethernet.

The graphics card features three DisplayPort 1.3 interfaces and an HDMI 2.0 port. The motherboard’s DVI-D and HDMI ports don’t serve a purpose in this particular configuration (the CPU lacks integrated graphics), and you may have to get an adapter if you insist on using a DVI-D connection (say, with an older monitor).

Interior

Under the hood, this configuration of the AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate sports an AMD Ryzen 7 1700X processor on an MSI X370 Gaming Pro ATX motherboard with a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2400 memory. The CPU is cooled by a Corsair H110i v2 (a 240mm AIO liquid cooler), and the processor comes overclocked at no charge when you purchase the cooling add-on, which tacks on $100 to the bill. (That's around the retail price for the H100i v2.)

An Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition graphics card is seated in the motherboard’s primary PCI Express (PCIe) x16 slot, covering the M.2 interface and its attached 250GB Samsung 960 EVO NVMe SSD. This top-tier graphics card should provide the best frame rates in the latest AAA game titles, and the speedy primary storage should drastically reduce boot times and program load times. The low-capacity SSD won’t hold much more than a few games and productivity apps, though the 1TB 7,200RPM Seagate 3.5” hard drive should provide enough space for a moderate app and game library. The case also has plenty of 2.5” and 3.5” bays available to customize your storage the way you like.

The 750W power supply (an EVGA Supernova G3 80 Plus Gold model) is hidden by the case shroud, and it has plenty of juice for the components inside. The case also sports a dust filter for the PSU that is easy to clean. AVADirect included a set of custom-design, individually braided PSU cables in red for the CPU, ATX, GPU, and SATA power connectors, which contributes a hefty $115 to the total bill. However, once again, this is around what you would pay for a set of these at retail.

The interior is bathed in RGB/UV lighting by the custom CableMod light strips we mentioned, which are remote-controlled LEDs held on by magnets. They line the top side and inner wall of the chassis. This aesthetic bonus contributes $60 to the price, but as the only RGB lighting, it could be worth it if you’re looking to jazz up the otherwise plain components and chassis.

Software & Accessories

AVADirect’s Windows 10 Home 64-bit installation is as clean as a whistle. It completes the installation on the first boot and makes you create user accounts. There are no additional programs or bloatware (unless you count Microsoft’s usual offenders, such as Candy Crush), and this includes overclocking software. The CPU overclock is handled by the BIOS, which is set to an all-core multiplier of 38 for a peak 3.8GHz.

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Synthetic & Productivity Benchmarks

We tested the AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate against our own box with which we will do battle: a new AMD X370 test rig. It's built around a Ryzen 7 1700X cooled by a Deepcool Gammaxx 400 on an Asus Prime X370 Pro motherboard. We outfitted the board with a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 with a CAS latency of 16-18-18-38. We chose to run memory at the recommended frequency (2,666MHz) for the processor. We also loaded our test rig with a HyperX Savage 480GB 2.5” SATA SSD and an EVGA 650W Supernova G3 power supply. In addition, we loaded our own stock-clocked GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card (an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Black Edition) and ran it at Nvidia’s stock frequencies.

Test System Configuration

Although our test rig is almost identical to this particular configuration of the AVADirect Battlebox Ultimate with its CPU, GPU, and memory, there are some differences. The company overclocked our sample’s CPU to an all-core 3.8GHz (the peak lightly threaded frequency at stock) and keeps the temperatures in check with a hefty 240mm liquid cooler. There should be a near match in performance to our test rig’s stock-clocked card (the Battle Box Ultimate sports the GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition), so the real deciding factor will be the CPU and memory performance.

The Battle Box also has a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of HyperX Savage DDR4 memory, but it runs at 2400MHz with a CAS latency of 15-15-15-35. (Our test rig runs at 2,666MHz with a CAS latency of 16-16-16-36.) The storage is also presumably faster, with the Samsung 960 EVO NVMe SSD poised to beat our test rig’s SATA-based SSD in sequential performance.

3DMark

The AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate starts our test suite by handily besting our X370 test rig with the same Ryzen 1700X processor and an identically clocked GeForce GTX 1080 Ti card. The deciding factor is AVADirect’s overclocked CPU at an all-cores 3.8GHz. (The stock settings of the 1700X in our test rig puts the processor at a 3.4GHz base clock and a 3.8GHz boost frequency.) The advantage is evidenced by the higher Physics scores in the Fire Strike and Time Spy tests.

Although the stock settings of the CPU can boost a few cores to 3.8GHz, the static multiplier overclock settings of the Battle Box ensure all the cores are working at the chip’s max boost frequency at all times. So, you naturally get better performance. The Battle Box also pulls ahead of our reference system in the Graphics portions of the benchmarks, indicating that CPU throughput is significantly tied to GPU performance.

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 puts a bigger spotlight on the Battle Box’s overclocked Ryzen 1700X, which pulls ahead of our stock-clocked reference system by a small margin in the single-threaded Rendering and OpenGL Shading tests. The advantages of the all-core overclock are especially evident in the multi-threaded Rendering results, where it leads the test bench by 120.43 points, showing that the 400MHz boost to the CPU’s stock base clock can really provide a significant edge on multi-threaded workloads.

CompuBench

The Battle Box continues to best our reference rig in the CompuBench Video Processing and Bitcoin Mining tests. The CPU overclock gives the AVADirect system a clear advantage in video processing workloads, but the GPU-focused Bitcoin Mining benchmark also sees slight gains from the CPU’s boosted all-core frequency.

Storage Test

The 250GB 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD inside the Battle Box easy trounces our reference system’s SATA SSD in sequential read and write speeds, but the shortcomings of AMD’s chipset as it pertains to NVMe optimization are on full display in the 4K random read tests, with AVADirect’s sample falling behind our X370 sample (with a SATA SSD) by a little less than 9,000 IOPS. The random write speeds of the Battle Box best the test rig’s higher-capacity SATA SSD, but the platform is definitely hampering the full potential of the primary storage drive, which is rated for up to 3,200MB/s and 1,500MB/s sequential read and write speeds.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

The Battle Box’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2400 falls behind in total memory bandwidth compared to our test rig’s similar kit of DDR4-2666. Although the lower CAS latency of the memory in our AVADirect tester machine helps close the gap in performance, the higher frequency of our reference system pulls ahead. However, AVADirect can equip the Battle Box with your choice of memory, including kits with higher speeds and lower timings.

PCMark 8

The Battle Box returns to the top of the chart in the PCMark 8 application tests, thanks to its overclocked CPU and fast storage. The fine-tuning helps propel the Battle Box ahead of the reference rig by more than 450 points in the Adobe Creative application benchmarks. It also outpaces our setup by about 340 points in the Microsoft Office application tests.

PCMark 10 Extended

The PCMark 10 Extended benchmark gives us a more detailed look at varying workloads in a home-office environment, and the Battle Box again makes short work of our reference system with its overclocked Ryzen 1700X. It scores a few hundred points more than the test rig in the Essentials, Productivity, and Digital Content Creation portions of the benchmark, and the CPU frequency’s correlation with gaming performance is once again cast in the spotlight with an 824-point lead in the Gaming section of the test.

VRMark

With a GTX 1080 Ti under the hood, it should come as no surprise that the Battle Box nets impressive frame rates (scores) in the VRMark tests, far exceeding the minimum frame-rate target in the Orange Room benchmark. Although it falls short of the target 90 FPS in Blue Room, most top-tier gaming PCs do. (The test is meant to punish the hardware.) But it does manage to score a respectable 3062 points, which translates to 66.7 FPS.

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Gaming Benchmarks

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

The AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate is able to perform above our X370 test rig in the Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation benchmarks thanks to its overclocked processor. However, the boosted CPU frequency doesn’t add significant performance in this particular game. The Battle Box only averages 1 FPS more at 1080p, and the lead is significantly diminished as you turn up the resolution to 1440p and 4K.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite gives us a better look at how the CPU frequency can affect performance at lower resolutions, with the Battle Box Ultimate surpassing our reference rig by double digits at 1080p. Increasing the pixel count shifts the bottleneck to the GPU, and the lead is less significant. At 4K, the Battle Box’s average frame-rate advantage is reduced to less than 1 FPS, which comes as no surprise considering that our test system’s GPU sports the same clock rates as the AVADirect machine.

DiRT Rally

We see much of the same phenomenon in the DiRT Rally benchmarks, where the Battle Box is able to upend our reference system by negligible margins at all tested resolutions. At 1080p, the Battle Box musters just an extra 2.98 FPS average thanks to the CPU overclock, but by the time you hit 4K, the lead is reduced to a trivial 0.01 FPS.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V gets a significant double-digit average frame-rate boost from the increased CPU performance of the AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate at 1080p. Whereas our reference system could not quite reach the 60 FPS target most gamers covet, the Battle Box is able to exceed this and average 73.97 FPS thanks to a much higher minimum frame rate. It also is able to keep above 60 FPS at 1440p. Only at 4K does the Battle Box fall to striking distance of our test rig, but it is still able to net a little over 2 FPS more at 4K.

Hitman

The Hitman results parrot our previous game tests, with the AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate netting better average frame rates (accentuated by higher minimum frame rates) than our reference machine at all tested resolutions. However, the gains from the CPU overclock aren’t drastic, with only 2.33 FPS separating the competing systems at 1080p. At 4K, the lead is reduced to a not-meaningful 0.28 FPS.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider sees little improvement in performance from the Battle Box’s CPU overclock, with AVADirect’s beastly AMD-powered rig barely edging out our reference machine. Even at 1080p, where the CPU clock rate has a bigger potential to affect the average frame rate, the Battle Box can only muster 0.87 FPS more than the test rig. The Battle Box can provide excellent frame rates in this game at 1080p and 1440p, but it falls short of a playable 30 FPS average at 4K with the most demanding settings applied.

The Division

The AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate’s CPU clock advantage is slightly more visible in The Division, where it averages a little less than 4 FPS more than our test machine at 1080p and 1440p. However, the advantage is reduced to just 0.5 FPS at 4K, where the identically clocked GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in each of the systems in the field become the bottleneck.

Middle Earth: Shadows of War

The Shadows of War benchmarks make a final declaration of victory for the Battle Box, with the AVADirect system besting our test rig by 1 FPS at all tested resolutions. Although this GPU-intensive test is usually a great tool to differentiate GPU performance, the CPU overclock of the Battle Box does play a minor role in the slight bump in performance for this particular game with the highest settings enabled.

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate is a simple build with high-end components at a reasonable price, especially compared to the DIY approach, which has become less of a value play in 2018 due to the high costs for (and shortages of) powerful discrete graphics cards.

The chassis is plain (the same one is available at retail) compared to some other custom-shop builds we’ve reviewed, but its sleek design, red accents, and easy accessibility make it an ideal case for first-time buyers. The PSU shroud gives the interior a clean look, and aesthetic add-ons including remote-controlled lighting and individually braided PSU power cables give the Battle Box just the right amount of bling for those who want some eye-catching components but don’t need their new PC to light up like a Christmas tree.

The AMD Ryzen 7 1700X processor excels in multi-threaded workloads, and AVADirect’s overclocked Battle Box nets higher average frame rates (sometimes trivially so, sometimes substantial) against our stock-clocked test rig with the same CPU and GPU. The 240mm Corsair liquid CPU cooler easily keeps temperatures in check, and the overclocking service is included when you add the component in the company’s online configurator. The cooling add-on is priced almost identically to what it would cost from a retail outlet, so the overclock doesn’t cost any more money than if you built the PC yourself. This is especially appealing to first-time gaming-PC buyers, who may not have the patience or knowledge to build one themselves.

The Battle Box easily delivers well over 60 FPS in every game we tested with the highest settings at 1080p. You may have to turn down a few details to get playable frame rates at 4K, but the GTX 1080 Ti inside the Battle Box is at the top of the heap when it comes to single-card gaming performance. The 750W EVGA Supernova G3 power supply can easily accommodate the power-hungry components inside, with enough headroom to overclock the GPU if you want to get some more performance by tweaking the core and memory clocks on your own.

Our sample Battle Box tester unit came equipped with a modest total drive capacity of just over a terabyte (the 250GB Samsung SSD, and a 1TB Seagate HDD). The memory capacity is the standard 16GB a gamer looks for, but the memory speed is pedestrian, at 2,400MHz. AVADirect offers other storage and memory options if you want more capacity or speed, so you can opt to get better RAM or a larger SSD if memory performance and storage space is important for your workloads. However, gaming performance isn’t affected by either of these components, and if that’s the primary goal, this particular configuration of the Battle Box offers a great starting point for both.

The AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate lives up to the promise of ultimate gaming performance for a reasonable price: in this case, $2,642 in our test configuration. The DIY approach is slowly taking back its value proposition, as system prices rise to match recommended component MSRPs (the Battle Box went up in price in the middle of our review), especially if you can find a sweet deal on a high-end GPU. However, we find that AVADirect’s easy-to-use configurator, free overclocking (with the purchase of the liquid CPU cooler we got), and high-quality components make it a compelling choice for new gamers and hardware novices who just want a dependable and powerful gaming computer.

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ECS Durathon 2 A320AM4-M3 Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 02:00:00 +0000

Features & Layout

We’ve been flying pretty close to the sun lately, reviewing some awesome X370, B350, and X399 motherboards. High-end IO, spiffy lighting, and high overall build quality have kept our enthusiast blood vessels pumping.

But now it’s time to visit the other end of the solar system.

Does AMD’s essential A320 chipset belong in a system near you, or do higher-end mainstream and enthusiast boards make more sense? Can the ECS brand make a first impression that will sway this reviewer from the fancy RGB of more widely available boards stateside? Should anyone put a tortoise on their motherboard boxes? Let's investigate.

At first glance, the ECS A320AM4-M3 is a pleasant deviation from what you might expect given the pricing. Abandoning reds, blues, and greens, ECS uses purple to provide a subtle-yet-distinctive color throughout the outer packaging. The choice of a tortoise and a serpent accompanying the Durathon 2 branding is also an interesting departure from dragons, claws, and race cars, even if the tortoise gives our enthusiast eye some serious pause.

Flipping over to the back, the purple begins to consume a bit more real estate, but the smaller fonts and minimal logos help keep clutter to a minimum while still providing adequate descriptions. We also enjoy the Decepticon-esque logo on the box and wish that it were a bit more prominent on other aspects of the product.

Contents of the box, on the other hand, are just as we would expect from a lower-end board. Two SATA cables, a driver CD, and a manual...that’s it. This is one of the skimpiest loadouts for a board we have seen in quite some time. Granted, some of us never use the included discs, and most of us rarely require cables, but there are likely some first-time builders who will rely on the motherboard to provide the cables for their hard disks. Also, the included guide seems a bit thin, so we recommend downloading ECS’ manual from the company website.

Though we had mixed feelings about the packaging and contents, the board design itself placed our expectations on happier ground. The back panel includes VGA, DVI, and HDMI 1.4 ports for builders who want to utilize an APU, which would fit well with this target market. Two PS/2, four USB 3.0, and two USB 2.0 ports are available, a modest set of universal attachments. The ECS A320AM4-M3 is also equipped with a single gigabit Ethernet port and three ports of analog audio, on par with some of the Mini-ITX boards we’ve tested.

This MicroATX board sports a single PCIe x16 Gen3 slot for the assumed graphics card (unless you're using an APU) and a small PCIe x1 Gen2 port for use with a myriad of options from COM cards to capture cards. Placed between the two slots, the included M.2 port is routed out for PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe on Ryzen chips and a reduced lane count and speed for Athlon-branded processors.

Hopping over to the right side of the board, four angled SATA3 ports are provided, which is nice despite the reduced quantity compared to B350. A major downside to this product, though, is the choice of only two DIMM slots for memory modules. Though no overclocking is officially supported with this product, there is no upside for preventing users from using four sticks of RAM.

Going top-side, we note a rare thing: no heatsinks on the voltage regulators. This 3+2 phase design gives us our first unmodified opportunity to measure regulator temperatures with a Ryzen CPU at full load. (However, without sufficient airflow, we could be sniffing burnt silicon in our test bench before long.) Speaking of regulators, this board has a single four-pin 12V connector for additional juice for our CPU, adequate for non-overclocking tasks.

As for headers, two four-pin fan headers are available at the top and bottom of the board, along with a single RGB LED header for a likely AMD Wraith cooler or similar product. Front panel, COM, USB 3.0, and front-panel-audio headers reside on the lower edge of the board, and the silk-screening to the northeast of the front-panel header is clearly labeled with polarities for pins 1 and 2. Additional USB 2.0 headers are located directly above the SATA3 ports and below the 24-pin ATX header.

Overall, the product provides the bare minimum for even the lowest of Ryzen processors. Comparing against some of the spec material for A320, USB 3.1 Gen2 is listed nowhere on the marketing material, which is an unflattering omission. Given the lack of heatsinks on the Vregs and any sort of embellishment, the ECS M3 board will likely live its life inside of a closed case lacking any sunlight (much like this reviewer in his office during the work day).

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Firmware

UEFI – That's an Eyeful

We were not expecting to see such a colorful display inside of the ECS M3 UEFI. The Main page is a lot to digest right out of the gate, but it does contain useful information for general system health. The leftmost circle indicates operating modes that ECS preconfigures for various use cases for its product.

By default, the system comes up in Normal mode, which appears to favor a balance of performance, power consumption, and noise. “Disable” places the priority to performance and power, at the cost of sound. In the center of the screen, CPU Tctl is listed, as well as the default monitored system temperature. To the right, voltages for the CPU, DIMM, and 12V rails are listed, and available fan headers are printed out underneath the purple fan icon. At the time of our testing, the 7/12/17 UEFI was the latest; ECS has since released a newer one, and a beta BIOS with support for the AMD Raven Ridge APUs has also been made available.

Clicking into Advanced (top right) abandons the rainbow-clad icons and graphics in favor of the more traditional BIOS feel with a subtle 3D cube grid background from before. The main menu here is very barren, with a helpful text block to the top right and available options listed on the bottom right. As we prepared for testing, confirming our boot setup is straightforward as far as UEFIs go, we found the ECS driver provided fairly standard options for PXE and boot-device configurations, as well as priorities for storage locations.

As this is an A320 board, we weren’t expecting much from the M.I.B. X menu, and sure enough, no options for core overclocking are available. We are blessed with the option to bump up the frequency of our RAM, though, and DDR4-2400 is achievable for our standard test benchmarks. However, voltage controls are not accessible, nor XMP profiles, so bumping up higher than DDR4-2400 was outside of our immediate control. On the flip side, DDR4 rates are available from DDR4-666 to DDR4-3200. So solder up those external voltage supplies and go for it!

The chipset menu is another area that is lightly populated, and only the South Bridge menu provides any configurations to the user. Advanced menus do have some room to grow, with our first foray into the options with PC Health status. Smart Fan Control behaves similarly to other vendors’ solutions where PWM fans can be calibrated and placed into operating modes to fit different use cases. Various Zen options are available to the builder, like on other vendors' boards out there, and another stab at memory options is available to tighten up timings within the JEDEC spec.

Overall, the UEFI is serviceable, if not enjoyable, from our perspective. As convenient as the Main UEFI is, it would have helped to tone down the colors and pick a blue or silver theme throughout the interface. Even tying in the purple from the box would have been a better choice. Another nitpick would be to just remove the blank UEFI menus and add breadcrumbs throughout to at least drive users back to where they were. Opening up voltage controls on the DIMMs would have been an excellent addition, as would getting extra DRAM speed into the mix.

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How We Test

Unfortunately, with only two DIMM slots on this board, we can only populate the A320AM4-M3 with half of our four-DIMM set of standard 8GB DDR4-3200 Trident-Z RAM modules from G.Skill. Our cooling solution for AM4 boards is still the Corsair H110i, though we have noticed the fans are starting to knock a little bit during use, which is expected with the amount of runtime placed on the unit. The Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming powers our LG 4K monitor across the various test resolutions, supplying just enough horsepower for up to 1440p gaming at 60 frames per second. Our Ryzen 7 1700X sample still rules the roost and provides a stable 3.4GHz up to the standard rated XFR frequencies when available during our test.

Test System Configuration

Cooling	Corsair H110i
CPU	Ryzen 7 1700X
Graphics	GTX 970 G1 Gaming
Memory	(2) G.Skill Trident Z RGB F4-3200C14D-16GTZR 2x8GB DDR4-3200 CL14 (2) HyperX Predator HX432C16PB3K2/16 2x8GB DDR4-3200 CL16
PSU	Corsair AX860 860W 80 PLUS PLATINUM
Software	Microsoft Windows 10 Anniversary Update
Storage	OCZ RD400
Networking
Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Graphics	Nvidia
Chipset	AMD X370

Comparison Products

ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac

Biostar X370 GTN

Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi

Application Tests & Settings

HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19 GB 4K MKV to x265 MP4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to MP3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests & Settings
Ashes of the Singularity	Version 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 3460x1920, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain 1920x1080 - Ultra High Preset, 16x AF 3460x1920 - Ultra High Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 3460x1920, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 267252 1920x1080 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF 3460x1920 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 3460x1920 - Ultra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Synthetics & Applications

Surprisingly, on this installation and test run, the ECS M3 scored nearly 10% ahead of the competitors within the PCMark suite, particularly on the Home, Work, and Adobe workloads.

Sandra slowed down the hype train, with a minuscule win at arithmetic and multimedia; cryptography and memory-bandwidth workloads lagged. These Sandra results were repeatable, so we hope to not see these trends in further results.

Cinebench scores placed this ECS board in the middle of the pack. Compubench focuses more on GPU computation, and it’s good to see that our driver issues have been resolved going forward. In terms of scores, the ECS M3 is roughly 1 percentage point below the average performance for the test.

3DMark Skydiver shows interesting results, where the graphics score is notably higher than the competitors, but the combined result is pulled down by the physics score. However, relying on the GPU more with both Firestrike workloads brings us back to what we should expect from our gaming results.

Application data comes as no surprise, but the ECS sample here managed to fly under the radar with no large wins or loses. InDesign shaved a half second off when compared to the other boards, and a second here and there helps keep the ECS M3 on a viable footing going into the gaming workloads.

Test Results: Gaming

As a budget board, the ECS is aiming to provide essential functionality at a competitive price. For our bench suite, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation showed nearly 3% improved 1080p performance compared to the other samples. It struggled at the higher batch levels and detail levels at 4K, unfortunately, but do we really expect people to game at 4K on this board? Probably not.

The M3 lagged behind a few frames in F1 2015 at 1080p and Ultra details, and surged ahead at 4K Ultra for second-place finishes. It is interesting to note that the minimum frame rates were ahead (by nearly 20%) compared to the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac.

On the flip side, Metro at 1080p showed some much reduced performance for the ECS M3 at High presets, which might reflect some of the CPU issues seen in our previous benchmarks. Fortunately, the Very High setting helps equalize the field, and the average frame rates for all samples were within a third of a frame. Our 4K settings also showed similar results to the 1080p Very High, and all of the samples’ average frame rates deviated by less than 0.5%.

The Talos Principle favored the ECS and Gigabyte AB350N across all settings and resolutions, and this can be attributed to the game update we mentioned in the Gigabyte article. Regardless, all boards ran exceptionally well, and even 4K at Ultra is playable on this three-and-a-half-year-old GPU.

Overall, performance for the ECS A320AM4-M3 actually exceeded our expectations for such a low-end offering from a relatively small brand here in the States. For synthetics, we did observe a few key benchmarks scoring lower-than-average results, but on the flip side, application and gaming benches comported themselves well. From a combined metric, rocking 99.7% of all the averaged averages is nothing to scoff about, and it goes to prove that AMD isn’t leaving any off-the-shelf performance from the A320 platform.

Non-Overclocking, Power, Thermals & Efficiency

A brief word on overclocking: A320 does not officially support overclocking. ECS takes this to heart and completely locks out the opportunity to adjust CPU-specific variables to increase performance. On the contrary, memory speed is overclockable, but without the ability to increase voltage, most users will see a limited opportunity without DIMMs specifically binned for 1.2V at elevated data rates.

With that out of the way, our power tests here are reported as total system power draw from the wall using a Kill-A-Watt meter. As expected, each product in the chart shows very consistent results for idle, Prime95 CPU, and GPU FurMark tests. Unfortunately, as we run the complete system load test, the system is having to allocate CPU resources for completing both sets of work, thus making constant power measurements difficult with our current measurement sample rate. Averaging out each use case results in system power draws all within 3W of each other. With reduced functionality and IO on the system, we were hoping that the A320 chipset would be a little more efficient, but maybe that’s just a testament to the chipset and system ecosystems as a whole.

Temperature reporting is beginning to become more stable as we standardize our AM4 test bench behind the Corsair H110i, and both the Gigabyte and ECS products conform to the standard. As expected, this 240mm AIO solution is superior to the more modest Noctua solution at lower fan speeds, and the small-form-factor cooler naturally runs very warm. However, we could foresee the Noctua SFF cooler being used on this system, as it does adequately cool the processor and provide downdraft air to the regulators. Back on topic, the ECS board also performs well for the Vregs, despite lacking the heatsinks and contact points that the other three solutions use. This bodes well for the ECS M3, in that it can be deployed in several different use cases and not fear the dreaded white smoke of a cooked regulator or thermal throttling (within reason, of course).

Efficiency, then, is really a nit-pick in our statistics at this point, with an average performance spread of only 2.4% dictating the efficiency spread by almost 1.9%. The graph may at a glance seem to represent the data in a negative light, but both the ECS and Gigabyte samples do perform well, regardless.

Value & Conclusion

At the time of this writing, a few vendors were listing the ECS A320AM4-M3’s sibling (the A320AM4-M3D) at a price of roughly $55. That, coupled with the nearly perfect average performance metric, shows a decent-size value win for the ECS. If fast-boot-enabled and set-it-and-forget-it deployment is all you need from a board, then clearly this board makes a good business case.

However, while performance keeps it in the green, the user experience is enough to make or break a product. Some purchasers want to enjoy the entire package from installation to delivery, and the ECS product is the boy you pick at dodgeball because he looks tough, but ends up getting pelted by the ball because he forgot to tie his shoes. Maybe after a few rounds or software revisions, this product could be a contender. Even investing another $20 per shippable product would yield dividends in usability and still win the value argument.

But for $50 bucks, it’s hard to complain. What you see is what you get. We could envision this product going into a build for Scrap Yard Wars or for a relative who just wants to boot a box and play Minecraft.

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Biostar X370 GTN Mini-ITX Ryzen Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 14:00:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

Mini-ITX is a battleground where manufacturers have to make critical design decisions regarding features, layout, and product use case. With the industry putting more emphasis on smaller form factor chassis and watercooling solutions, does sacrificing motherboard features and connectivity for compactness make sense? Let's see what Biostar's Racing lineup tells us about these trade-offs.

Specifications

The Biostar X370 GTN makes its way to the bench along with some deviations from our typical X370 reviews. Looking back at our Ryzen launch article, X370 is targeted towards the high-end enthusiast who doesn’t want to invest in TR4 and Threadripper. With more SATA, USB3.1 Gen2, and PCIe lanes dedicated to GPUs, X370 has a good mix of connectivity, expandability, and performance potential. In contrast, B350 still enables overclocking but lacks the wealth of I/O connectivity from the processor and chipset.

And that’s the rub with the Biostar X370 GTN. With Mini-ITX, there just isn’t enough physical planar to fit the chipset’s arsenal of I/O onto a single board. Most of what makes X370 tick is sacrificed in the name of compactness.

Market	Enthusiast	Performance	Mainstream
Chipset	X370	B350	A320
PCIe Gen3 Graphics	1x16/2x8 (Ryzen) 1x8 (APU/Athlon)	1x16 (Ryzen) 1x8 (APU/Athlon)	1x16 (Ryzen) 1x8 (APU/Athlon)
USB 3.1 G2 + 3.1 G1 + 2.0	2+10+6	2+6+6	1+6+6
SATA + NVMe	4 SATA + 1 x4 NVMe (Ryzen) or 6 + x2 NVMe	2 SATA + 1 x4 NVMe (Ryzen) or 4 + x2 NVMe	2 SATA + 1 x4 NVMe (Ryzen) or 4 + x2 NVMe
SATA Express (SATA & GPP PCIe G3)	2	1	1
PCI Express GP	x8 Gen2 (plus x2 Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	x6 Gen2 (plus x2 Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	x4 Gen2 (plus x2 Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)
Overclocking	Yes	Yes	No

Board Description

The packaging of the GTN is very similar in style to its bigger brother without the addition of the folding cover page. The contents are a bit sparse for an X370 board, with only a driver CD, manual, backplate, and four SATA cables. Given the form factor, there probably aren’t many other items that could have been bundled in.

Looking at the backpanel, there's one PS/2, DVI-D, HDMI 1.4, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.1 Gen2 (1 Type-C, 1 Type-A), four USB 3.1 Gen1, five analog, and one digital audio. That's similar to the larger X370 boards. The lone PCIe x16 connector consumes the bottom of the board where we typically find the additional headers and front panel pins. Directly above the x16 slot is the USB 2.0 header, which was slightly difficult to route our chassis header wires to. Still gazing in the GPU territory, there are four SATA ports available (with RAID 0/1/10 support).

The side of the board hosts the front panel, USB 3.0, and 24-pin ATX headers. Only two DDR4 DIMM connectors are on the board, and they use the single-sided DIMM latches. A single 4-pin 12V connector is located by the VRegs for supplying the processor with additional power. Cleverly hidden on the backside of the board is the M.2 NVMe connector, so don’t forget to install that high-speed storage device before securing the board in the chassis.

Biostar made a few good decisions on this board in the layout department. Two 5050 LED ports are located on the top side of the board, which helps eliminate some of the clutter from the front of the case while still providing builders with lighting options. Two fan headers are also located next to the LED headers, so top or front mounted radiators will be ideal. We would like to have seen a third fan header for exhaust, but two fans can get the job done.

On the downside, the aforementioned USB 2.0 header is in such a weird spot that it is almost unusable. It might be feasible to use a flexible PCIe riser or clever cabling techniques, but routing our Thermaltake Suppressor front panel wires was less than optimal (and draped across the entire board). The SATA ports could have used a little more attention given that there are no angled connectors and that they are scattered around an already chaotic segment of the board.

Space surrounding the CPU for cooling solutions is also a sore point, although this is highlighted in the documentation. Installing the Noctua NH-L9x65 SE AM4 was a smooth process, but installing the Corsair H110i required shifting the cooling head to the left in order to provide enough clearance for the DIMMs. Though the water tubing provided no interference with the DIMMs, any DIMMs with thicker heatspreaders could drive you back to Newegg or Amazon looking for slimmer modules.

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Firmware & Software

UEFI

Following the Racing brand’s theme, the GTN continues where the Biostar GT7 left off and provides a virtually identical user experience. As with most major manufacturers on the market now, Biostar implements a revision of the AGESA 1.0.0.6 code base into its UEFI for improved memory stability.

Biostar listened to its fans and with this update tweaked its methods for implementing overclocking, using a multiplier-based setting rather than the previous FID and VID settings in the Custom Pstates menu. Overall, the UEFI is serviceable but lacks some of the glitz and glam that other vendors provide.

We kind of breezed through some of the extra items in the previous Biostar AM4 UEFI, so let’s jump into those. Fan control is accessible through the Advanced tab, where various control modes can be defined to use either preset thresholds or custom fan curves. Fan calibration is also included in this menu where the UEFI determines the upper and lower RPM thresholds. What it lacks in graphical finesse, it makes up for in practicality, a common theme for the GTN UEFI. If the Vivid LED DJ application is too clunky from the OS, users can tweak the patterns and colors of the on-board and attached LEDs within the O.N.E. menus.

PC Health Status and SATA Configuration in the Advanced menu show the typical system voltage measurements and devices connected to the system. The Compatibility Support Module Configuration remains untouched in our testing. CPU tweaking and memory overclocking are available through the O.N.E. menus, which we will cover in just a bit.

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How We Test

Comparison Products

ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac

Biostar X370 GT7

MSI X370 Krait Gaming

Test System Configuration

Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Software
OS	Windows 10 64-bit
Graphics	Crimson 16.10.1 WHQL

Benchmark Suite

Benchmark Settings
Synthetic Benchmarks & Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMOOpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests & Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default PresetTest Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default PresetTest Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests & Settings
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
Blender	Version 2.68aBMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark, BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0, Version 13.8.0.144PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0. 20160603.r.88 x64PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4, Build 11.4.0.90 x64PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0, Version 20.0.0 (64-bit)PCMark driven routine
Game Tests & Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAAHigh Preset - 4k ~3460x1920, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 4k ~3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain1920x1080 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF4k ~3460x1920 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64High Quality, 1920x1080, High TesselationVery High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High TesselationHigh Quality, 4k ~3460x1920, High TesselationVery High Quality, 4k ~3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 2672521920x1080 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF4k ~3460x1920 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF4k ~3460x1920 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

Because this is our second Mini-ITX review with the Ryzen platforms, we will be running our standard test suite with the Noctua NH-L9x65 SE AM4. Given the small form-factor board, it is only appropriate to give this product a shot to see how well it can handle standard workload usage. Given Noctua’s reputation, we will also run a reduced overclocking suite to see just how well a smaller case can push the Ryzen processor.

Hopefully this will be one of the last reviews where we post data with the Nvidia Surround resolution of 3460x1920, and we will start running more tests behind a 4K monitor. Also, with the lack of four DIMM slots, we will be deviating from the standard load out with two pieces of G.Skill 8GB DDR4-3200 Trident-Z RAM. Also, the Tumbler is our Ryzen test rig and we will be using the 256GB Toshiba RD400 NVMe, Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming, and Corsair AX860 power supply.

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Benchmarks, Overclocking & Conclusions

Synthetics & Applications

PCMark synthetics help set a baseline for the GTN with a couple above average scores in Storage and Adobe, while falling behind in Home, Work, and Creative suites. Sandra shows respectable Arithmetic, Crypto, and Memory Bandwidth wins.

The Biostar X370 GTN fails to capture the pole position in any of our 3DMark suite combined metrics, which foreshadows a grim fate in the gaming segment.

Cinebench R15 falls in line with expectations, and Compubench again shows comparable results to our other tests.

Applications show a similar back-and-forth trend, where the Biostar X370 GTN takes a four-second loss in Handbrake but makes up for that in Adobe’s Illustrator and After Effects workloads.

Blender and Lame64 are typically uninteresting, with only a few seconds separating the contenders. 7-Zip, on the other hand, favors the Krait and Killer SLI/ac boards, and the GTN putters across nearly a full minute later.

Games Performance

Our Ashes data was collected before the big push to standardize behind Escalation, so it's more straightforward for this article. At 1080p and High settings, the GTN shows a commendable result, but engaging the Crazy preset shows a much more profound reduction in performance.

Standard 4K Ashes performs as expected compared to the slightly less demanding Nvidia Surround resolution of 3460x1920, and the Crazy preset shows a lowly 1 FPS decrease against the triple monitor setup.

F1 2015 in all of its racing glory doesn’t favor either of the Biostar products, and in fact shows a 3% lag behind the leader. True 4K results are similar to Ashes results, such that the GTN is beating the Killer SLI/ac by a notable margin but still can’t keep up with the oddball resolution.

The Killer SLI/ac fights back against the GTN in Talos taking the win at both resolutions at Medium and Ultra presets. Both Biostar boards are neck-and-neck at both presets, with the smallest advantage going to the GTN at Medium 4K.

Metro:LLR finishes us off with expected results, where the GTN only lags by one frame at 1080p High settings. Upping the resolution shows that Metro scales well with our current hardware, and the GTN matches the Killer SLI/ac at average framerate.

The Biostar X370 GTN performs admirably for the application and synthetic tests showing average performance values compared across all the samples. Gaming lags behind by a bit unfortunately and brings the combined comparative performance to 99%. Having undergone massive surgery to fit X370 into such a small package, the performance is pretty spot on and very comparable to larger, more endowed boards.

Mini-ITX Overclocking: Troubleshooting, Debugging & Fixing Stuff

Having put the previous Noctua coolers through the gauntlet, we are intrigued to see how the Noctua NH-L9x65 SE AM4 heatsink will overclock. Given the thermal limitations, the overclocking test starts off at a modest multiplier of 36 and no additional voltage increase. Having success with Prime95 and temperatures within reasonable levels, increasing the multiplier by 0.25 grants a boot frequency of 3625 MHz, but this setting is not successful for Prime95 extended runs.

Drilling down into the voltage bias menu, it is disappointing to lose the ability to set our desired voltage and only have access to biases off the nominal values. Making matters worse, increments of the bias were in coarse 20mV steps, nearly four times larger than most of our previous X370 samples. Increasing by one step bumps our voltages from the ~1.36V setting to ~1.38V. Again, voltages and temperatures appear to be within expectations, but either the system or the thermal solution just can’t keep up with the stress.

Thus, our journey down the software debug rabbit hole begins. Reverting back to previous versions of the UEFI, we successfully engage FID values for another successful 3600 MHz set point. In order to increase the voltage, we then decrease the VID value to equate to 1.3875V and we're surprised we are able to make it up to 3925 MHz!

This seems too good to be true, and sure enough, opening up several different versions of AIDA64 and HWMonitor show that the processor is in fact stuck at 3000 MHz. When we remove the VID increments (and subsequently decrease the FID to a safe value) we do in fact observe expected frequencies through all reporting software. So clearly, we ran into a UEFI bug that has already been fixed. Good move Biostar!

Next under debug are thermals. Sure enough, we are using the latest version of AIDA64 and to our amazement, effectively only one thermal sensor is visible to the software. We have observed two thermal outputs in all of our previous articles (CPU and CPU Diode), so we're determined to prove that Biostar is at fault. Several days of emails and screenshots of our observations prove to be most fruitful, and Biostar mentions that other boards it has tested only report the one sensor with the latest AIDA64. In a last-ditch effort, digging through our “Tom’s Hardware Installs” archive uncovers the original version of AIDA64, and lo and behold, two sensors are reported. We are beyond thrilled knowing that we're not crazy and that all of our work up to this point is in fact accurate and we can continue.

Reverting back to the AGESA 1.0.0.6 UEFI version, we can confirm that the voltages are right on and the thermals are balancing on that hairy edge of pass/fail. Moral of the story: when all else fails, prove the variables you are changing are in fact changing and that the sensors you are relying on are accurately reported. Gold star to Biostar for the assistance and producing a product that falls in line with AMD’s developer guidelines and sensor specifications.

Overclocking: Regularly Scheduled Programming

Having confirmed the test bed and product are stable for further overclocking experiments, it is time to set aside the Noctua NH-L9x65 SE AM4 cooler and install the Corsair H110i AIO for proper testing. The Biostar X370 GTN proves to be very capable when compared to some of the bigger boards. Sporting a 4+3 regulator phase design, we were guessing that this board would not go any higher than maybe 3.7 GHz, but this little board has legs. 3.8 GHz is achievable with no additional voltage setting, and incrementing just one click in bias (or +0.020V) improves stability and enables 3825 MHz for extended stability tests.

Jumping to the final multiplier setting of 38.5 gives us fairly stable results lasting 7.8 hours of Prime95 in the first attempt and 11 hours on the second attempt. Increasing to the +0.040V setting was 100% stable for extended test, but it has our processor running at an unfortunate 1.395V, blowing over the target 1.3875V.

How about memory? As we mentioned in the product description section, having only two DIMM slots is both a blessing and a curse. On the downside, if more capacity is required, more DRAM ICs and more ranks will limit overclocking success and potentially introduce form factor constraints. On the plus side though, DDR4-3200 MHz is easily achievable. Even with some of the back-level UEFI versions, we hit DDR4-3200 MHz with very little effort.

What did we learn from this? Having more voltage phases doesn’t necessarily dictate overclocking potential for a system. It is true that increasing the number of phases increases the probability of higher overclocks and more stability. Lower phase designs can also perform but might be more susceptible to voltage droop scenarios such as Windows deciding to perform a maintenance event. It would have been nice to see a programmable load line option to further tweak this board, but Mini-ITX doesn’t necessarily need that feature.

Temperatures & Power

With all the discussion about power, phases, and temperature monitoring, it is only fair to finally show the data. The Noctua NH-L9x65 represents a “real world” cooling solution for a non-overclocked compact system. No surprises here, but the Noctua NH-L9x65 performs substantially warmer, running roughly 50°C above ambient at full load. However, VReg temperatures are still reasonable despite the lack of heatsink surface area on the components.

Despite shaving off a substantial part of X370 from the board, the GTN still performs in the same ballpark as the larger motherboard solutions with power draw. Saving 10W at CPU load and running middle of the pack in terms of average system power draw comes as a slight disappointment in our testing.

Given the modest performance of the GTN and the Killer SLI/ac, efficiency takes an interesting turn and favors the GT7 this time around with an impressive win coming from the CPU+GPU power test. Even adding 30W to the GT7’s result doesn’t drastically change the efficiency calculation, further proving that the Krait really is a hog.

Value & Conclusion

Value is a delicate topic. Sure, numbers and performance metrics tell one side of the story, but features and design are also a major contributor to a product purchase. The Biostar X370 GTN is ahead in value 33% by the numbers, light years when compared to our cheapest competitor. That savings alone can bump us up from our GTX970 to a GTX 1060 or even into Vega 56 territory. Upgrading the Noctua NH-L9x65 SE AM4 cooler is also now completely feasible for a budget rig. However, this board doesn’t feel like a X370 board. With the reduced feature set and physical layout choices, there are clearly better ATX-sized boards that might suit the typical X370 builder better.

If Mini-ITX is the desired deployment, this board works. Good power consumption, good performance, and average overclockability make this board very appealing for smaller cases and budget systems. This board is a decent choice if all you need is a GPU, NVMe, a hard disk, and a couple of fans and RGB fixtures.

There are several departments that could use improvement, particularly in the header layout and UEFI software. Keep in mind, this is still an X370 stripped down beyond B350 levels. Having just reviewed the Gigabyte AB350N, the Biostar performs similarly, but chopping apart critical X370 assets does a disservice. However, the Biostar X370 GTN receives our Approved award and will keep us looking forward to more samples from Biostar.

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Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

Lately, we’ve seen custom builds sporting huge AIO coolers, lots of fans, and enough RGB to keep significant others up at night. But what happens when you trim off all that glitz and glam and get to the base requirements for a great system? And that's where the B350 comes in. AMD has placed this chipset right in the middle of its AM4 lineup where it supports both enthusiast-grade performance while shaving off enough features to satisfy our mainstream computing needs.

Specifications

Specifically, B350 grants access to a lone x16 PCIe Gen3 connector for GPUs, and reduced USB 3.1 Gen2, storage, and general purpose PCIe connections that are almost the bare minimum for enthusiast-grade systems.

Market	Enthusiast	Performance	Mainstream
Chipset	X370	B350	A320
PCIe Gen3 Graphics	1x16/2x8 (Ryzen) 1x8 (APU/Athlon)	1x16 (Ryzen) 1x8 (APU/Athlon)	1x16 (Ryzen) 1x8 (APU/Athlon)
USB 3.1 G2 + 3.1 G1 + 2.0	2+10+6	2+6+6	1+6+6
SATA + NVMe	4 SATA + 1 x4 NVMe (Ryzen) or 6 + x2 NVMe	2 SATA + 1 x4 NVMe (Ryzen) or 4 + x2 NVMe	2 SATA + 1 x4 NVMe (Ryzen) or 4 + x2 NVMe
SATA Express(SATA & GPP PCIe G3)	2	1	1
PCI Express GP	x8 Gen2 (plus x2 Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	x6 Gen2 (plus x2 Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	x4 Gen2 (plus x2 Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)
Overclocking	Yes	Yes	No

With all of those reduced features, why not refine it down even more to create a compact solution? Gigabyte does just that with the AB350N-Gaming WiFi. This mini-ITX board, the first B350 motherboard we've tested, makes compact builds feel like full-fledged power systems. As with any mini-ITX board, there are several compromises and design choices you'll need to make to accommodate such a lofty goal.

Contents of the box are sparse, with only two SATA cables, driver CDs, a Wi-Fi antenna fixture, the manual, and Gigabyte Gaming sticker. The back panel comes equipped with two USB 3.1 Gen2, four USB 3.1 Gen1, two USB 2.0, PS/2, gigabit Ethernet, and six analog audio ports. If you install an APU, you can use either DiplayPort 1.2 or HDMI v1.4 to connect displays. If the board’s name wasn't a hint, you get two SMA Wi-Fi antenna ports for 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2. The included antenna is also a unique fixture that you can mount on a desk or monitor.

The Wi-Fi module is the same Intel 3165NGW card that ASRock used in the X370 Killer SLI/ac. We prefer this implementation, however, because it is securely mounted vertically on the board below the back-panel shield, optimizing board space without vertical clearance issues.

As for expansion slots, there isn’t a lot of surface area to stick our PCBs. One PCIe Gen3 x16 port is available for the graphics card, and two single-latched DIMM slots are available for dual-channel DDR4. Four SATA3 ports max out the B350’s available SATA storage, but there's additional real estate for an M.2 NVMe drive on the backside of the board. There are headers for USB3 and USB2, front panel, SPDIF, TPM, two auto-sensing 4-pin fans (which support 2A each), and RGB and AMD fan LEDs. Overall, it is a decent assortment of connections and options.

In the power department, the Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi sports a modest 4+2 phase design using IR’s 35201 regulators. Having tested several boards with larger phase counts, it will be interesting to see how these IC’s hold up against Prime95. Gigabyte throws in a full 8-pin ECS 12V header for overclockers who need additional CPU current on their voltage rails. The board’s six LEDs are positioned on the backside of the planar close to the DIMM solder joints to provide ambiance rather than direct lighting, which is a nice change from previous products we've reviewed.

This all sounds great, right? But pump the breaks. This is mini-ITX after all. Although this list of features is sweet, the layout is very cramped. Gigabyte moved the PCH from the standard lower right quadrant of the board to the upper left, which at first seems bizarre, but doing so accommodates CPU cooling zone restrictions and reduces the footprint for additional PCH Redriver ICs.

Along with the PCH are the aforementioned headers for USB and the front panel. Given that we're still testing this board in a Thermaltake Suppressor F51, the cables were almost a hair too short for proper installation. Similarly, our 8-pin power supply cable was not long enough to be gracefully routed out the back, so we violated cable management rule #5 and draped it across our GPU. We imagine routing to the RGB-5050 header will be a similarly tricky task, although there is just enough clearance between the PCIe and DIMM latches. Our case might not have been ideal for this motherboard, but a cube or inverted mini-ITX case would probably be perfect.

Board placement quirks aside, the Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi makes lemonade out of the size constraints of the mini-ITX form factor, cramming in enough features to make it comparable to bigger solutions.

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Software & Firmware

UEFI

Hovering the mouse over the right side of the Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi main menu opens a high-level frequency and voltage readout for the CPU and memory, thus it is not always consuming screen space.

Using the M.I.T. menu with advanced frequency settings you can see the overall multiplier and resultant frequencies for memory and CPU as well as the current settings (in gray). Advanced CPU core settings grant access to downbin, C-states, and the similar features of the Zen architecture.

Even though it's a lower-end enthusiast chipset, the Gigabyte UEFI on the AB350N-Gaming WiFi doesn't leave anything out from our vantage point. Typically with lower end boards, we see reduced voltage controls, loadlines, and other finer-grained controls left out for simplicity. Gigabyte throws it down by letting the CPU, SOC, and DRAM voltages be adjusted in manual increments, along with the standard Gigabyte loadline settings.

A few features we didn’t cover much on the Gigabyte AX370 Gaming Aura 7 board we reviewed are Smart Fan 5 and RGB Fusion. Smart Fan 5 by default has a very steep fan curve, ramping up linearly as temperatures increase. Because this board uses auto-sensing for fans and pumps, some experimentation is needed to find out how best an AIO will perform with this software. Our Corsair H110i already runs at pretty high RPMs for increased performance, so we can’t tell much difference between the settings.

RGB Fusion presents standard lighting patterns for RGB lights and strips in order to enhance the ambiance of the cube. We prefer the static and pulsing patterns ourselves, as we don’t want to cause seizures in the work place.

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How We Test

Test System Configuration

Cooling	Corsair H110i
CPU	Ryzen 7 1700X
Graphics	GTX 970 G1 Gaming
Memory	(2) G.Skill Trident Z RGB F4-3200C14D-16GTZR 2x8GB DDR4-3200 CL14 (2) HyperX Predator HX432C16PB3K2/16 2x8GB DDR4-3200 CL16
PSU	Corsair AX860 860W 80 PLUS PLATINUM
Software	Microsoft Windows 10 Anniversary Update
Storage	OCZ RD400
Networking
Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Graphics	Nvidia
Chipset	AMD X370

Comparison Products

ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac

Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming 5

MSI X370 Krait Gaming

Application Tests & Settings

HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests and Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 3460x1920, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain 1920x1080 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF 3460x1920 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 3460x1920, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 267252 1920x1080 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF 3460x1920 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 3460x1920 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Synthetics & Applications

PCMark hasn’t been kind to our more recent review samples, with the Killer SLI/ac going down in a hefty defeat, even compared to the Gigabyte newcomer. The work suite is especially rough the ASRock board.

Sandra shows no favorites in the arithmetic tests, and the multimedia results are within a single percentage point between all the samples. The Gigabyte board takes a huge performance hit in Cryptography, showing double digit deficits. Hashing performance is acceptable, but we are curious if our version of Sandra could use an update to better interface with the Ryzen chipset drivers.

Cinebench shows some oddness in the single-threaded results, but engaging all of the threads shows middle of the pack performance for the B350 board compared to the bigger brothers. With Compubench, we can confirm that we are observing some driver related issues with our GTX 970, where the FaceDetect workload is performing considerably worse than it did during previous tests. Beyond that, all Gigabyte test results are within one percentage point of the sample averages.

The driver issue only surfaces once we kick in Skydiver on 3DMark workloads, showing a 5% delta from the leader. That gap vanishes once Firestrike takes over, and Firestrike Extreme performance is within expectations. Unfortunately, the trend for this board is that the Ryzen processor is just not performing up to the X370 measurements we have previously reported.

Timed Applications

During our application tests, the AB350N-Gaming WiFi comes up short, lagging behind in Handbrake by nearly one minute. Blender CPU shows similar delays, and the Gigabyte board lags behind in Lame by two seconds. Adobe applications show some mixed results, but nothing astonishing.

The big detractor here is the 7-Zip workload, where the Gigabyte board shows a two-and-a-half-minute loss behind the Killer SLI/ac.

Gaming Performance

This time around, we only tested the AB350N-Gaming WiFi with Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation to better standardize our 4k monitor methodologies across all test benches. As we know, Escalation contains improvements for the Zen architecture, so having this newer data side-by-side with older data will be interesting. At 1080p settings, we are seeing nearly a 20% performance increase on max batches at the high and crazy presets in most cases.

At 4k, the Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi and ASRock Killer SLI/ac use Escalation and the true 4k monitor, while the Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5 and MSI Krait Gaming use the pseudo 4k setup and regular Ashes. In theory, the improvements in Escalation could offset the performance loss from the increased pixel count. The big improvement comes with the Crazy preset, where the combination of Escalation and 4k actually beats the old implementation!

The test methodology for the Gigabyte AB350-Gaming WiFi nets it some positive percentage points, but still shows enough deficiencies to keep our performance metrics honest.

Metro Last Light: Redux gives us a bit of a reprieve, showing very little difference between the samples regardless of graphics driver at 1080p. At 4k, the Gigabyte AB350 performs admirably, especially since it's only running a GTX 970, and ultra-high only makes this configuration slightly less playable.

The Talos Principle continues to be the odd man out with our data set. At 1080p, gains of 10 FPS are achievable, and at 4k we enjoy the six extra frames on the minimum measurements to help keep frame rates closer to 60Hz despite playing at true 4k.

We've noticed that ever since the update to 301136 that our Talos Principle data has provided performance boosts between 5-15 FPS in our tested resolutions and detail settings. As we continue testing, we will be phasing out the older results in favor of the latest update.

F1 2015 has us puzzled. After confirming that results are repeatable and double checking several other configuration files and detail settings within our setup, this Gigabyte AB350-Gaming WiFi runs between 15-20 FPS behind our other samples at 1080p. Given the different output resolution from our Nvidia Surround 3460x1920 setup, the results line up more with what we are expecting, though they still lag behind the more standard ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac. Regardless, we observe an enjoyable experience at both resolutions and conditions.

Unfortunately for the Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming Wi-Fi, performance metrics across all of our test suites are less than average with the exception of gaming. The MSI Krait is still sitting pretty at above average marks for all genres, and the Gigabyte AX370 is a close second.

Bear in mind, this is our first B350 sample, and we expect to see a performance difference comparatively. Lagging behind by only roughly 6% compared to these more expensive boards is commendable, and with any luck overclocking might turn the tide for this mini-ITX product.

Overclocking, Temperature & Power

Overclocking was straightforward with this board. Bumping up the multiplier to 38 was painless, and the Corsair H110i kept temperatures in check. A more aggressive 38.5 multiplier boots and runs Prime95 for a few minutes, but the system eventually falls to its knees. The Aorus Gaming 7’s setup of 1.3875V at medium loadline values showed stability for 30 minutes and gave us hope that we could hit the elusive 4 GHz rate. Unfortunately, this just wasn’t enough voltage to keep the system online for longer periods. Dialing the multiplier back to 38.75 keeps us stable for about four and a half hours. The 1.3875V bump ultimately provided stability overnight at 38.5 with Prime95, which is very similar to several of the X370 boards we have tested.

And let’s not forget memory. Right out of the box the AB350 supported DDR4-3200MHz with our Trident Z kit. Updating to the latest version of the UEFI did not get us running at DDR4-3333MHz, however. Gigabyte’s website does indicate that we have access to AGESA 1.0.0.6b now, so improved stability for more memory ranks and capacities should be expected.

*Note that the ASRock Killer SLI/ac was reviewed using the Noctua U12S, while the remaining three samples employ the Corsair H110i. This Ryzen 7 1700X runs 2°C cooler on the AB350 when we compare against the average of the water-cooled systems. CPU1 Diode deltas fall in line with our observations with various products tested with this particular processor.

Mini-ITX is not our friend in this experiment. We observed regulator thermal sensor readings in the 120°C range under stress. It is shocking how the four-phase design is sturdy enough to handle that pressure. Reverting back to stock speeds to gather thermal IR readings still leaves the regulators cooking. Measuring in at 59°C above ambient, extended overclocks at this setting are not recommended. Regardless of the form factor, we think adding a few millimeters in height or adding more fins to the Vreg heatsink would have made a drastic improvement in thermal performance. As for the remaining thermal measurements, AIDA64 shows CPU measurements of 20°C above ambient, and CPU Diode measurements in the 35°C (above ambient) range, very similar to the boards we tested using the Corsair H110i cooler.

Staring at the Kill-A-Watt on our wall, each of these systems is lining up within a few watts of each other except for our notable MSI X370 Krait Gaming. The Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi draws anywhere between 5-15W more than its bigger brother. We won’t consider that a loss, but it’s definitely not a win for the small form factor board.

Efficiency, Value & Conclusion

Now that we’ve shuffled the motherboard deck a little bit, there’s more of an efficiency story. The ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac is nearly our base metric, while the Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5 and Krait are near inverse images, with the former favoring efficiency and the latter favoring . . . non-efficiency. Unfortunately for the AB350N, average performance is what drags the board down. It shows negative marks in all categories.

The Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi wins hands down in the value equation by costing $30 below the sample averages. Some may argue that we are comparing apples and oranges. Sure, the B350 chipset has fewer I/O options and less storage by definition, but it delivers where it matters for most enthusiasts at the lower end. Further, the AB350N hits overclocks similar to some of the more expensive boards, performs within 5% of the competition, and does so in a compact form factor.

We suggest either cube or inverted mini-ITX cases with this board. Take the extra $30 to the bank, shave $100 off with a Ryzen 5 or 3 CPU, and this mini-ITX solution can be a dream for anyone’s sleeper build or LAN rig. Indeed, we’d recommend this board for any mainstream budget builder looking for a compact build with no plans of expansion.

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ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

Despite a Texas summer filled with camps, family breaks, and nonstop heat at work, my home lab follows the PC Master Race mantra of keeping framerates high and temperatures low. And it welcomes back ASRock, with its X370 Killer SLI/ac motherboard, as I finally begin working through the initial launch backlog. This one has us wondering whether the company's AM4 Killer lineup blends the style of Taichi and performance of the Fatal1ty, or if it's just white noise in this ever-growing market.

Specifications

The X370 platform shouldn't be a surprise anymore, and it's showing its growing maturity with various assortments of shapes, sizes, and bundles on the shelves. Among the boxes of red and black, RGB, and preposterous bold text, the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac is a nice change of pace. The “K” on the front of the packaging slices through the black void with clean lines, sharp edges, and red accents gleaming along the blade’s edges. Flipping to the back, the black and white scheme is clean, and the extra colors do not overpower the simple elegance. Contents of the package are on par with some of our other value boards, providing a backplate, two SATA cables, two antennae, some M.2 retention screws, installation media, and the obligatory SLI HB Bridge from its namesake. Below the cardboard tray rests our specimen.

At first glance, we thought this motherboard would be just a rehash of some of ASRock’s award-winning X370 Gaming K4 Gaming K4. The X370 Killer SLI/ac just reminds us of how much the red, black, and Fatal1tyness of that board warmed our circuits. Similar Vreg heatsinks, 8+4 phase design, slot placement, and even M.2 locations make maneuvering around this board a walk down memory lane.

The back panel connectors enable APU access to one HDMi v1.4 port. All Zen processors can use the two USB 3.1 Gen2 (Type A and Type C), 6 USB 3.1 Gen1, gigabit Ethernet, five analog audio, one digital audio, and two PS/2 ports. Unlike the Gaming K4, this product has the WiFi antennae and ports installed and wired to the included M.2 card.

Along the bottom edge are our usual front panel audio, USB 2.0, fans, clear CMOS, and other various headers. Water pump headers are rated for 1.5A or 18W, which should provide adequate power to modest cooling solutions. Looking at the top edge of the planar, we have two additional four-pin fan headers, single-switched DIMM connectors, and just enough space around the 8-pin 12V connector for my stubby fingers.

Though similar in layout to the Gaming K4, the Killer SLI/ac shares black and white styling with its cousin, the Taichi. RGB headers are located in the bottom right quadrant, and AMD LED fan headers reside along the right edge with the ATX connector and USB 3.0 header.

Standard promontory storage connectivity is included, with access to six SATA 6Gb/s ports. ASRock includes an Ultra M.2 connector for NVMe connectivity when using Ryzen chips, and the bottom M.2 port is wired out for two lanes of PCIe Gen2 at 10 Gb/s. Remember that extra M.2 slot on the Gaming K4? The Killer SLI populates it with an Intel Wireless-AC 3168 802.11ac WiFi variant, complete with clashing green PCB, and wires delicately routed to the back antenna ports. Comparable WiFi modules can range from $13 on eBay to $35 on Amazon, not including cables or antenna.

Overall, there is not much to complain about regarding board placement and aesthetics. Sure, the WiFi module is green, and the lone aura of the chipset LEDs might not make the most vibrant off-the-shelf solution. But this white and black palette lends itself to a wide gamut of color combinations and contrast to make any windowed build light up the room.

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Software & Firmware

The ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac shares a similar UEFI interface to the Gaming K4. Red starts to consume the software interface as we stare into the heart of this product. Typical ASRock options are provided, with the OC Tweaker providing all the knobs for our overclocking purposes.

Voltage increments are in 6.25mV steps, frequency adjusts in 25 MHz increments, and the DDR4 frequencies range from DDR4-1866 all the way to DDR4-4000. Having spent some time staring at JEDEC specs in my GDDR3 days, the options available in the timing configuration menu are not for the faint of heart. Moving down the screen, load line settings are described fairly well, and additional voltage rails are opened up for customization.

The Advanced menu provides more of the same familiar options for SATA, Cool ‘n Quiet, and its ilk, and once again “No Help Strings” are found throughout the AMD CBS menus. One thing we didn’t cover much in the Gaming K4 review was the interface for the programmable LEDs on the product. Jumping over to Tools, each of the LED controllers can be programmed with various lighting effects, and values for red, green, and blue can be assigned in numerical fashion.

Opening up FAN-tastic Tuning slaps us in the face with red gradient, while our eyes struggle to find the blue fan curve for various usage modes. Individual fans can be programmed for different curves, but I’m lazy and stuck with “standard” for all fans. FanTuning gives the firmware thresholds for PWM control by measuring the RPM and assigning minimum and maximum settings.

Last, AGESA 1.0.0.6 is finally here, and we can’t help but mention how huge this is for ASRock boards. We haven’t loaded it onto any of our older samples, but hopefully the images provided show that we can finally run all of our DDR4 DIMMs at overclocked speeds. This is something the community has been hounding vendors for.

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How We Test

Benchmark Suite

Benchmark Settings
Synthetic Benchmarks & Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMOOpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests & Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0 Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests & Settings
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
Blender	Version 2.68aBMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark, BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0, Version 13.8.0.144PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0. 20160603.r.88 x64PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4, Build 11.4.0.90 x64PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0, Version 20.0.0 (64-bit)PCMark driven routine
Game Tests & Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 4k ~3460x1920, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 4k ~3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain 1920x1080 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF 4k ~3460x1920 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 4k ~3460x1920, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 4k ~3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 267252 1920x1080 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF 4k ~3460x1920 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 4k ~3460x1920 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a proper 4K monitor. The LG 27UD58-B is well reviewed and was on sale for $300 at my local California-inspired, big-box electronics vendor. With that in mind, we will start putting out data for 1080p, 1440p, and 4K for this test setup. With the cryptocurrency craze driving up the prices for GPUs, I’m hesitant to drop the coin on a GTX 1080 to properly drive this panel. But, if any vendors out there want to support my dire need for bleeding edge tech, help me out!

Test System Configuration

Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Software
OS	Windows 10 64-bit
Graphics	Crimson 16.10.1 WHQL

Otherwise, my “Tumbler PC” still hosts all of our components, including the Ryzen 7 1700X, Toshiba R400 NVMe SSD, and Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming. We are installing the Noctua NH-U12S for its final official test experiment and will not be substituting its overweight brother for our overclocking escapades. G.Skill is still our preferred RAM set for this Ryzen test bench, having the broadest support and highest settings we’ve achieved across all of the motherboards to date. HyperX’s memory will receive adequate screen time and will be covered only in the overclocking portion of the review.

Comparison Products

ASRock X370 Gaming K4

Biostar X370 GT7

MSI X370 Krait Gaming

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Benchmark Results

Synthetics

The Killer SLI/ac gets hit right off the bat with some unfortunate PCMark losses, lagging behind the pack by a whopping six percentage points (from the leader). However, the remainder of the Sandra synthetics are showing much closer comparisons across the samples, with the Killer winning memory bandwidth, crypto, and arithmetic workloads.

Unfortunately, the Compubench FaceDetect workload shows atypical results compared to my previous samples. Our data does line up with Compubench’s aggregate average for the GTX 970, so retests are needed to confirm repeatability. Performing a fresh install of the operating system and updating Windows and drivers to appropriate levels still shows repeatable Compubench outcomes. It would be interesting to compare some of the previous hardware with the latest Windows updates to confirm whether driver updates are the culprit.

This trend continues in the 3DMark suite, where the combined scores are comparable to other review samples, but graphic scores trail by up to five percentage points within the Skydiver benchmark. Cranking up to Firestrike Extreme evens the playing field and helps shift the focus from the board and processor to the graphics card alone.

Timed Applications

The application data was less than interesting from our perspective, showing a very narrow delta across samples such that any explanation would likely be in the margin of error. The only application of note is in 7-Zip, where the Killer SLI/ac finishes the job eight seconds before our previous leader and laughs on the sideline as its brother, the ASRock X370 Gaming K4, huffs and puffs across the finish line 43 seconds later.

Overall, a mixed success for the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac is only compounded by driver issues in the graphics department. Hopefully, this is only evident in the synthetics portion and the games will show the true story.

3D Games

To reiterate, the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac ushers in the era of true 4K gaming in my test suite, so any old 3460x1920 data represented here will clearly favor the products tested in older reviews. However, we will include it here for both academic and comparison purposes to see how this combo fairs against the older 40” triple monitor setup. True 4K data will be denoted with asterisks.

Standard Ashes of the Singularity at 1080p sets the stage for the comparisons today by showing that driver issues observed during the synthetics are no longer an issue. The High setting is still playable at all batch conditions for all systems, and Crazy settings favor the MSI Krait Gaming by nearly two frames when compared to the Killer SLI/ac. Increasing the resolution to true 4K on the Killer shows acceptable framerates across all batch conditions with high settings, and increasing the pixel count by roughly 25% only impacts performance by 10%. Even at Crazy settings, true 4K is still equally as unenjoyable as with the other samples. Note we did collect Escalation data for this sample, and will begin publishing that data in the next review. Also, we collected 1440p data, so sit in anticipation as that comes.

Yawn. F1 2015 throws the Killer SLI/ac into the middle of the pack at 1080p. We are hit by a jump scare as 4K ultra presets show that the increase in pixels drops performance by 24%, which scales nicely pixel-for-pixel. We would anticipate that this sample would perform right in line with the previous samples at the Nvidia Surround resolution of 3460x1920.

The Talos Principle takes a strange twist from the previous benchmark and shows the ASRock Killer SLI/ac leaping past the competition with a four-percentage point lead compared to the Biostar GT7 at 1080p. Even more interesting is that the increased pixel count actually shows little impact at 4K, empowering similar leads for the Killer SLI/ac. Would 3460x1920 have made the delta even larger, or does this game really just not stress this GPU enough?

Metro Last Light Redux shows similar trends compared to Ashes in that at 1080p all samples are running neck-and-neck when comparing average framerates. That 4K resolution though. Framerate impact scales fairly well and a 20% performance impact is observed across both detail settings; 4K is only recommended at lower details with the GTX 970.

Gaming on a true 4K monitor with the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac feels the same as our previous samples, and the addition of the contiguous monitor real estate is worth the decrease in frames across games. We could perform some statistical manipulation to this data to more directly compare these products with pure numbers, but we think the Killer SLI/ac is still doing well against the benchmarks.

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Efficiency, Overclocking & Final Thoughts

The ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac inherits a lot of this section from its brother, the ASRock X370 Gaming K4, due to similar component choices and placement. At idle, the Killer burns 3% more power than our efficiency king, and both load conditions continue a similar trend by slightly lagging the leader but edging out both the MSI and Biostar samples. Unfortunately, full system stress is sometimes an artifact of sample times and Furmark lining up just right with Prime95. Overall, a 2^nd place power win is impressive for this Killer.

Temperatures follow suit, and utilizing the Noctua U12 shows better performance compared to the Biostar and MSI Krait. The ASRock X370 Gaming K4 benefits here by using the monstrous Noctua dual fan product (in that review, we used the NH-D15 SE-AM4 cooler from Noctua), but regardless, either heatsink and motherboard combo work well in this chassis.

[*For MSI X370 Krait we observed that the sensors were tracking differently than with previous boards, so we had to reverse the nameing convention of the CPU thermal sensors. CPU Diode1 appears to track with other Ryzen 1700X installations.]

After scrutinizing our data, it’s unfortunate to see the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac lagging by 3% compared to the average in all metrics except applications. On the bright side, though, the odds are not stacked in its favor with the introduction of the 4K monitor and graphical hiccups on the synthetic tests. We believe this product would have performed similar to the ASRock X370 Gaming K4, putting this board into the middle of the pack.

The full system stress value skewed the efficiency results in the Gaming K4 and Biostar’s favor. Even factoring out the full system stress only barely puts the Killer SLI/ac in second place, and that pesky performance metric continues to plague this system.

Overclocking

This Ryzen 7 1700X has been a complete buzzkill in the silicon lottery, but it has proven to be fairly consistent across samples regarding both voltage and frequency. Putting in my standard settings (as seen in the UEFI sections on page 2), this sample reached a stable overclock of 3.875 GHz for an overnight run of Prime95 while running at 1.3875V. Granted, the Noctua has shown that it runs really hot under this much stress; but the system was stable and did not show signs of giving up during the extended torture test.

Our main take away from overclocking, though, comes in the memory department. As much as I hate overclocking memory, due diligence pays off. Starting with UEFI P2.40 enables me to run the standard DDR4-2400MHz for only the G.Skill Trident-Z memory kit when fully populated. Removing two sticks grants me 2933 MHz speeds, but 3200 MHz just wasn’t stable. And the HyperX Predator kits were complete letdowns, not letting me run any configurations above 2133 MHz.

Determined to succeed, updating to P2.5 was the cat’s pajamas. Instantly, half populated HyperX Predator DIMMs ran similarly to the G.Skill kits with stability achievable at DDR4-2933. The Predator configuration did not run above 2666 MHz with DIMM slots fully populated, but this is a drastic improvement from where we were at launch day. Switching back over to Trident-Z, fully populated DDR4-3200 only produced errors during moderate to heavy usage. Fully populated DDR4-2933 is where we settled, and we can now sleep soundly at night knowing that memory seems to be fixed on at least this AMD platform.

Value

The ASRock X370 Gaming K4 sets the bar for all metrics here, representing a near perfect average representation for value, performance, and price at the time of publication. For the Killer SLI/ac, performance has been back and forth. But lagging behind the average by nearly 2% does not completely invalidate a product’s existence. It only proves that testing methodologies, software version releases, and the current phase of the moon can impact results both in favor and against any particular sample. Heavily in favor for the Killer though, is price. Shaving $10 off the Gaming K4 makes this sample more appealing, while providing a slightly larger feature set and still delivering similar fundamental designs.

The ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac at first felt like an attempt to repackage a product with a different skin. However, this repackaging grants us WiFi, similar overclocks, and average efficiency, while dolling out value comparable to our other Recommended award winner, the MSI X370 Krait Gaming. It is only fitting that we do the same here, especially when the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac ditches the red and black and gives customers what they need.

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Extreme Overclocking: 10 Ryzen CPUs Under LN2

Jean Michel "Wizerty" Tisserand — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction

AMD's Ryzen processors offer a compelling price/performance ratio right out of the box. But despite their many overclocking-friendly knobs and dials, most enthusiasts struggle to take the CPUs beyond 4 GHz. Given that we know the ins and outs of extreme overclocking, though, we have a solution. It's time to break out the liquid nitrogen!

Allow us to take you on a cryogenic journey, where we'll explore Ryzen's behavior when it's cooled to -196°C. Our experiment will allow us to correlate frequency scaling to temperature, voltage, and core count. We also have some tips on hardcore modding, such as lapping (sanding smooth) the processor.

Note that we previously published an article on overclocking Ryzen using air and water cooling. Check out How To Overclock AMD Ryzen CPUs for more.

If, after reading through everything, you have questions about your own overclocking endeavors, don't hesitate to ask them in our comments section. We'll be keeping an eye out in order to help however possible.

Test Configuration

We don't want to limit our quest to just one sample, or even one model. Thanks to AMD's generosity, we were able to get our hands on every SKU in the Ryzen family. Here's what we have access to for today's overclocking adventure:

2x Ryzen 7 1800X
1x Ryzen 7 1700X
3x Ryzen 7 1700
1x Ryzen 5 1600X
1x Ryzen 5 1600
1x Ryzen 5 1500X
1x Ryzen 5 1400

The processors used for this test are different than the chips used for our previous article on overclocking with air and water cooling. Therefore, we expect to see different results.

In the interest of truly torturing these CPUs, we surrounded ourselves with some of the best hardware available for testing:

The motherboard we're using is Asus' Crosshair VI Hero, equipped to facilitate extreme overclocking. The only feature it's missing is a second BIOS, which could have come in useful for recovering from a corrupted configuration.

This ROG-series motherboard is armed with two sticks of G.Skill Flare X DDR4 memory. These modules were specially developed for Ryzen. Furthermore, they are equipped with Samsung B-die ICs, known for their overclocking headroom.

Last of all, we use a Cooler Master MasterWatt Maker 1200 power supply.

AMD Ryzen 7 1700XView Deal

AMD Ryzen 7 1700View Deal

AMD Ryzen 5 1600XView Deal

AMD Ryzen 5 1600View Deal

AMD Ryzen 5 1500XView Deal

AMD Ryzen 5 1400View Deal

G.Skill Flare X (2x 8GB)View Deal

Cooler Master - MasterWatt Maker 1200View Deal

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Preparing The Motherboard

Measurement Points

We begin with a little modification to the motherboard. Test points are available on the PCB, but Asus sadly neglects to include connectors. As a result, it's on you to precisely touch the indicated pads with a multimeter in order to take measurements.

Normally that's not an issue. But when it comes to extreme overclocking, voltages have to be watched more closely and we don't always have our hands free. Right away, we add something to plug our volt meter into for easier measurements.

LN2 mode

Some preparations are easier than others. In this step, we simply move the jumper labeled “LN2 MODE” in order to activate it. Once enabled, the motherboard automatically starts up with higher supply voltages. This will offer better support for the extreme conditions we're planning to apply. Certain hidden profiles in the BIOS are also unlocked.

Don't enable the LN2 MODE jumper if you plan on overclocking at ambient temperatures. Following the activation of this mode, the PLL (Phase Locked Loop) will transition from 1.8V to 2.1V. If you read our previous article, we revealed that raising PLL from 1.8 to 1.9V caused an 8°C temperature increase. Raising the PLL to 2.1V on air cooling should be avoided!

Isolation

When overclocking with liquid nitrogen, special care must be taken to protect your hardware. Ice will form and you don't want to risk water droplets falling onto the electrical components. We presented a number of ways to approach this in De-Lidding and Overclocking Core i7-7700K with Water and LN2.

To start, we remove the heat sink covering the motherboard's VRMs. This step isn't obligatory; it most depends on the overclocker's preference. In our opinion, though, this sink is useful for extreme overclocking, so we prefer to take it off. This facilitates the insulating steps that follow, and even more important gets rid of a big metal mass. That could be a big risk for forming condensation otherwise.

Once we're down to the bare motherboard, we craft a “shield” made from shop towels. This protective layer must be fitted as tight as possible in order to prevent condensation from reaching the PCB.

Unused RAM slots are filled with towels. The space between surface-mounted components gets the same treatment, too. To finish, a section of neoprene is fitted around the socket. This protection serves as a last defense, though we hope that condensation is stopped well before this stage.

If it is properly made and placed, this ultimate protection is sufficient to shield the hardware without damaging it, and can be easily removed. Once the cooling pot (which holds the liquid nitrogen and cools the CPU) is in place, we pack on more shop towels. The pot is wrapped in neoprene, then towels, and any exposed portions of the motherboard are covered with several more layers of towels.

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Preparing The RAM

During our first extreme overclocking sessions, we didn't put much effort into preparing the memory. We simply installed the modules into slots with their factory heat sinks in place. This strategy didn't work all that well, as we had to stop our tests multiple times when the hardware refused to start up. Although we can't say for sure, it's likely that humidity around the memory stick closest to the pot was responsible for these failures.

After drying the hardware, everything worked once again. And since this happened more than once, removing the RAM sinks just seemed like a prudent idea.

If you choose to follow suit, be careful: some heat spreaders are so firmly attached to the memory chips that they can pull ICs right off the PCB. To improve our chance of success, we warmed the module up first. Even then, it took a lot of effort to achieve our goal.

Before masking off the chips, we take advantage of their exposure to verify that our sticks are endowed with Samsung B-die memory. Without question, they're the best for overclocking.

The type of the IC is indicated on the chip, just above the red line we drew, “5WB”. If these were E-die chips, we'd see 5WE, or 5WD for D-die. Other manufacturers use different identification marks.

To protect our memory stick, we cover it with adhesive tape. The impermeable nature of this tape should keep condensation from ruining our day. Don't worry, the missing sinks pose no challenge to stability. Even at 1.6V, the chips remain cool.

The small pins at the bottom of the module are too close to the slot to be covered. They're buried under layers of absorbent towels though, and therefore less exposed.

Even without the sinks in place to trap condensation, the surface of the RAM doesn't seem to be much less humid. This picture was taken at the end of an overclocking session, and you can clearly see drops of water on the stick's most exposed side. Nevertheless, our efforts pay off: we didn't have any issues with system cut-outs.

It would have been easier to pile paper towels around the RAM to keep water from collecting on the PCB. But then the modules would have cooled down even more through the motherboard. Given that Samsung's B-die memory dislikes freezing temperatures, they could have then failed to function at high frequencies. For better or worse, nothing is ever simple with extreme overclocking.

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1800X: First Test Of Scaling With LN2

By luck, we chose the best Ryzen 7 1800X for our scaling trials right out of the gate.

Ryzen 7 1800X : Frequency As A Function Of Temperature At 1.5V

This first experiment explores how the processor behaves at different temperatures with its core voltage fixed at 1.5V. That seems really high for a test at ambient, and we don't want to damage our CPU just for the sake of generating a chart. On the other hand, once the 1800X is at -196°C, a voltage of 1.5V is actually pretty conservative. In the end, we picked this value as the best compromise between risk at ambient and extreme overclocking performance.

At room temperature (20°C), the processor passes a Cinebench R15 run at 4175 MHz. This is a high frequency for Ryzen, achieved at significant risk. Don't try this at home: warm silicon doesn't like aggressive voltage settings.

By lowering the temperature to 0°C, we're able to dial in a 100 MHz frequency increase. So far, we have an improvement of around 5 MHz/°C.

We continue to lower the temperature by pouring liquid nitrogen in the cooling pot until we arrive at -50°C. The frequency gain is now 250 MHz. Our progression remains constant with the same rate of 5 MHz/°C.

Next we see -100°C, giving us an additional 200 MHz. The trend begins to flatten, indicating that the scaling progression is slowing down slightly (4 MHz/°C).

An additional 50°C drop in temperature shows a gain of only 175 MHz at -150°C. The increase is 3.5 MHz/°C.

For the last step, we reach full pot. At -196°C, with a 46°C drop in temperature, the clock rate stabilizes at 5025 MHz (2.7 MHz/°C).

A full pot signifies that our chamber is filled to the brim. We are at the minimum temperature permissible with liquid nitrogen, which is -196°C. To go any lower, you'd need liquid helium: -269 °C.

Thanks uniquely to the reduced temperature, our sample passes Cinebench R15 with an additional 850 MHz overclock. When you hear that these processors love the cold and are damaged by heat, here is the proof.

Ryzen 7 1800X : Frequency As A Function Of Core Voltage At -196 °C

The next experiment tracks our CPU's behavior at various core voltages with a temperature held constant at -196°C. Only the voltage changes; all other parameters remain unchanged.

At 1.5V, we hit the same clock rate seen in the previous set of tests. This makes sense, of course. However, we'll take the time to mention how well our sample scales. In fact, some of the CPUs we tested couldn't hit 4175 MHz even at a core voltage of more than 1.8V.

With an additional 0.1V, the frequency increases 100 MHz. This is significant, but not exceptional. As a reminder, we saw the same gain under air cooling when transitioning from 1.3 to 1.4V, while the shift from 1.0 to 1.1V offered a superior increase of 250 MHz. Before starting these tests, we would have guessed that the clock rate gained by increasing voltage would be amplified at lower temperatures. That's not the case, though.

The same observation applies when we raise the core voltage an additional 0.1V to 1.7V (+100 MHz).

For the next step, we stabilize 75 MHz higher at 1.8V. This frequency is remarkable: 5300 MHz. Such a clock rate is not common with Ryzen.

We halt the trial at 1.85V. Going any higher yields no frequency increase, and the voltage settings start becoming hazardous to our guinea pig.

The progression we just saw cannot be extrapolated to all Ryzen CPUs at the temperatures and voltages we used for testing. Certain specimens will fare worse when cold, some won't accept more than 1.75V, and others will continue scaling beyond 1.9V. This sample is above average though, even if it's always possible to find something better.

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Lapping The CPU

As we ran our tests, we realized that this sample was above average. So, we tried to land a record for eight-core processors, including AMD and Intel CPUs. The combat was relentless. On one hand, there were some very good results obtained by overclockers right around the time Ryzen was released, and it isn't hard to imagine that they had access to a sizeable quantity of hand-picked chips. On the other hand, Intel's Core i7-5960X compensates for its age with frequencies beyond 6 GHz under liquid nitrogen cooling.

We therefore decided to concentrate our efforts on two benchmarks: Cinebench R15 and GPUPI. In both cases, we succeeded in taking second place, in front of the -5960X contenders running around 6200 MHz (in the case of GPUPI).

Lapping In Pursuit Of MHz

At that time, our highest clock speed in GPUPI was 5390 MHz. The leader, Der8auer, was at 5440 MHz. First place, while so close, seemed out of reach. Without a better 1800X at our disposal, we decided to lap our sample in the hopes of better thermal transfer.

During our tests, we saw a gain of 2.7 MHz/°C at -196°C. If lapping helped us gain 15°C, which is not impossible given the high voltages we were using, 5430 MHz should be attainable.

The process proved more laborious than we expected. Within the first few minutes, defects began appearing in the CPU lid's shape. A flat processor should be “worn” completely on the surface in a homogeneous manner. However, we were uniquely attacking the edges of the IHS.

There were two possible scenarios: either the processor was not actually flat, or we were lapping incorrectly. To remove any doubt, we took a brand new razor blade and placed it on the CPU's surface. There it was: the blade only touched the borders, allowing a seam of light to shine through in the center.

Our lapping effort resumed. We used emery cloth (comparable to sand paper and intended for use in sanding metals) attached to a piece of glass to guarantee a uniform surface. We started with a course grit to rapidly remove (relatively, of course) the extra material on the edges.

This is the progress we made in one hour. The nickel coating is removed, revealing copper on the sides. Gradually as we eroded the surplus material, our uniform area grew in size. In the end, almost the entire IHS appears to be copper. Two visible spots persist, but the defect is sufficiently small to be ignored. The processor doesn't need to be polished any further. Having a flat surface is top priority. Fine scratches won't affect performance.

At this point, we resumed our trials with liquid nitrogen, confident in our work and hopeful that we'd realize our estimated gains.

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BIOS Settings

New BIOS features allowing the adjustment of RAM timings, which were previously greyed-out, became available during our testing. Unfortunately, those updates started rolling out too late. Given that there is only one BIOS chip on our test platform, and that we had already generated quite a bit of data beforehand, we decided to continue with BIOS version 0083 in order to maintain our methodology.

While some overclockers saw improvements from BIOS version 1201, this wasn't the case for everyone. Memory controller quality played a big role, too.

We already explained the BIOS settings in our previous guide, so we won't dive back into the details. Here's what the voltages we used look like, though:

CPU Core Voltage: Set to 1.5V on our sample. It can be raised to 1.8 or even 1.9V without worry when the cooling pot is at -196°C. During our first tests, we started at 1.5V in the BIOS and then stepped higher through the operating system. After a while, we determined it was safe enough to simply start off with the desired value.
VDDSOC: As with air cooling, avoid setting this any higher than 1.25V. For example, you can set VDDSOC to 1.2V, find the maximum stable frequency for your RAM, and then try to lower the setting to 1.18 or 1.15V. In short, seek the minimum value necessary.
DRAM: For our memory sticks, 1.6V was sufficient for 3200 MT/s at 12-12-12 timings. The most important variable is the quality of processor's memory controller, but aside from switching processors, there is no silver bullet!
1.8V PLL: We didn't see any gains when increasing the PLL voltage. The LN2 mode jumper adjusts this to 2.1V, but you can leave it at 1.8V without risking any problems.
1.05V SB: 1.3V does not seem to pose a problem; however, we didn't realize any performance gains by increasing this parameter.

The Case For LLC

In the “External Digi+ Power Control” sub-menu, you find the CPU Load-line Calibration option. We tried multiple modes available on Asus' Crosshair VI Hero and recorded their voltages with a multimeter. With a voltage setting of 1.8V in our BIOS, we observed the following values under load:

LLC 2: 1.78V
LLC 3: 1.83V
LLC 4: 1.85V

During our test under air cooling, we were surprised to see that even the lowest level of LLC was already too high. With LN2 and higher voltages in play, Level 1 and 2 are no longer sufficient, though. But also be careful not to overdo it, since Level 4 and 5 were too severe. Therefore, we recommend LLC 3 for voltages near 1.8V.

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AM4_PCRATIO: A Frequency For Each Core!

Hiding behind this obscure name is a small utility allowing one core to be overclocked, or to set one CCX (CPU Complex) to a different frequency than the other one. If you don't know why you'd bother, allow us to explain in a little more detail.

When overclocking a processor, all of the cores operate at the same clock rate, and this is great for most folks. On the other hand, if you're gunning for a single-threaded benchmark record, performance is held back by the least-scalable silicon.

Take a quad-core processor as an example. Some of its cores are capable of running at 4 GHz, while others hit 4.2 or 4.4 GHz. Without utilizing special tools, you'll lock up as soon as you try pushing past 4 GHz since some of the cores aren't capable of going any higher. Talk about a frustrating situation: the best cores are held back by the worst.

The CCX Version

Using am4_pcratio_ccx (instead of am4_pcratio_focus) allows the frequency of all cores in one CCX to be changed, while the other CPU Complex's cores are automatically adjusted down to a lower clock rate.

Here is an example of three processors: A, B, and C. The value shown in blue indicates the maximum frequency that the cores are capable of operating at.

A: In this example, whether you deactivate cores from the BIOS or from AM4_PCRATIO, you won't see much of a gain because they're all identical.
B: Core 0 is the best one. You can can choose to uniquely activate it from the BIOS, while the others are turned off. With fewer active cores, the processor generates less heat and you can overclock even further. Another method would be to use AM4_PCRATIO with a focus on Core 0. The result would be roughly identical, but you'd end up with other active cores. For instance, Windows would run on some cores at 2 GHz, allowing the benchmark to have unique control of the fastest core.
C: Now the fastest core is Core 3. It isn't possible to reserve only this one using the BIOS. So, using AM4_PCRATIO is your best chance for an improved benchmark score.

Given that each processor is different, it is difficult to quantify the gain from this manipulation. Worst-case, if you spend time trying each core and discover their limits are all the same, you wasted a couple of hours. On the other hand, if your sample is more like our second or third example, the gains can be substantial. Knowing that a competition can be won with a 10 or 20 MHz advantage, this is far from anecdotal.

Put your hard work in at room temperature. That'll allow you to conserve several liters of LN2.

With a bit of experience, it's easy to figure out the limits of individual cores quickly. All you need to do is overclock each one, raising their frequencies individually until your PC crashes. Since we have to run our benchmark multiple times, choose a 10- to 15-second test for brevity.

Our strategy was as follows:

Start by finding the limits of Core 0, then focus on Core 0 by using AM4_PCRATIO and execute GPUPI.
If the benchmark completes, note the stable frequency and proceed to a higher clock rate. Repeat this operation until the system freezes. We now know the maximum frequency for Core 0. If the test completes at 4000 MHz, 4025 MHz, and 4050 MHz, but fails at 4075 MHz, we conclude that 4050 MHz was the limit.
Restart the PC and change focus to Core 1. If 4000 MHz is OK, but 4025 MHz causes a crash, Core 1 isn't as good, so we don't use it.
Repeat this process across the CPU to determine its strongest core.

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OC: Ryzen 7 1800X

Since we have multiple Ryzen 7 1800X CPUs, each one gets its own number. Our freshly lapped processor is first.

Ryzen 7 1800X #1: 5411 MHz

The temperature drops, frequencies increase, but our optimism does not last for long. This CPU wouldn't stabilize at 5420 MHz, and it's just barely able to run at 5400 MHz. With a little work, and by tweaking the settings, we manage to pass GPUPI at 5411 MHz, reducing the three-second delta to just 0.9s.

We score a beautiful 2430 points in CineBench R15 at 5323 MHz, again falling short of first place. Our CPU is a good one, but it isn't setting any records.

Before moving on to other samples, we make note that this chip's IMC is quite average. Under LN2 cooling, it's impossible to push our memory beyond 3000 MT/s. Unable to achieve higher data rates, we instead tighten timings to 11-11-11-26 and use a REF_CLOCK setting of 139 MHz to boost our score a bit.

Ryzen 7 1800X #2: 5200 MHz, DDR4 At 3310 MT/s

Our second sample isn't quite as good as the first one. As a result, we didn't spend a lot of time trying to push its performance. After assembling and waterproofing our platform, we spent another two hours toying with the chip's limits. In the end, Cinebench ran successfully at a little higher than 5200 MHz.

Incidentally, this CPU's memory controller is quite good. It allowed us to complete SuperPI 32M with a memory frequency of 1655 MHz (3310 MT/s).

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OC: Ryzen 7 1700X & 1700

Ryzen 7 1700X: 5310 MHz

Our overclocking approach didn't change for AMD's Ryzen 7 1700X. The cores in this specimen aren't that great, but they aren't bad either.

Just for giggles, we again tried for some records and ended up taking first place in all of the benchmarks we ran except for SuperPi 32M, which requires a lot of optimization. Sadly, we didn't have enough time to spend hours tuning for each metric. There are a lot more CPUs to get through!

What we have, then, is an average CPU that's easy to benchmark and fairly comparable to our 1800X samples.

Curiously, the scores we obtained in Wprime 32M are systematically very poor on all of our eight-core processors, and we can't explain why. Some overclockers see times between four and five seconds, while others dip under three seconds. While differences from one system to another are normal, the deltas shouldn't be 100%.

Ryzen 7 1700: 5150 MHz And Major Bugs

While we were testing our first Ryzen 7 1700, our friend Niuulh was testing a second sample we lent him for a competition. If you are familiar with the term poisoned chalice, this inadvertently became one in every sense.

We started by overclocking with air cooling, and quickly hit a brick wall. In the first minutes of our effort, the processor was stuck at 1550 MHz. Obviously something was wrong, since the chip's stock clock rate is higher than that.

And yet, the BIOS settings were unchanged from our trials with the 1800X and 1700X. The values indicated in Asus' software even matched those we set in the BIOS. Still, the processor remained fixed at 1550 MHz.

Moving to MSI's X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium didn't solve our problem. Two CPUs, separated by 600km, were suffering the same symptoms. The motherboard didn't seem to be the cause, the operating systems were unique installations, and the overclockers were different. Without a doubt, this was a problem with our processors.

After spending many hours tweaking BIOS parameters, the only solution was to not modify the supplied voltage via the BIOS, modify the OFFSET mode, or raise the REF_CLOCK setting. Whatever was going wrong, this was not business as usual.

The problem became even more severe under LN2 cooling. Once the temperature dropped below -20°C, the processor got stuck at 1550 MHz and nothing would free it.

Since our two processors were affected identically, we came to the conclusion that Ryzen 7 1700 cannot be used with LN2 cooling. We were condemned to powering on at -20°C and dropping the temperature to -196°C after booting to Windows. When the system crashes (every four to five minutes), you have to raise the cooling pot's temperature back to -20°C with a gas heating torch and start over. This eats up a ton of time, nitrogen, and gas, and it sucks the fun right out of overclocking.

Seeing that our Roman and Indonesian friends were able to overclock Ryzen 7 1700 with LN2, we asked them how they did it. Their answer: they didn't do anything special at all.

We decided to test our last 1700, and to our surprise, it had no problems under air or LN2. There went our hypothesis. By comparing processor batches, we determined that the two problematic processors were fabricated on the same date, while the third chip was older. Could this be a manufacturing issue? For now, we don't know.

As far as maximum clock rate goes, our three samples completed Cinebench R15 at anywhere from 5050 and 5150 MHz.

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OC: Ryzen 5 1600X & 1600

We have two processors endowed with six cores and two others with four. Which one will overclock the best? Now's the time to place your bets.

Ryzen 5 1600X: 5250 MHz

During our air cooling tests, the 1600X wouldn't cooperate. Bugs kept popping up and holding back the frequency. We assumed things would get worse once we introduced LN2. In the end, while our sample didn't have any issues with liquid nitrogen cooling specifically, it still proved difficult to get running.

At this point, it's pretty safe to conclude that you never know what you're going to get. The behavior of these processors is much too variable from one to the next, even among identical models.

After spending two hours with LN2, we only saw Windows twice. Two times in as many hours is a poor showing, to say the least, which explains the absence of a score.

We hit 5.1 GHz at 1.7V, and even saw 5250 MHz once at 1.85V. The cores are pretty good, but far from Der8auer's diamond in the rough that exceeds 5.4 GHz. Still, the clock rate we recorded was good enough to land second-highest for a Ryzen 5.

For reasons pertaining to our mental health, we didn't bother trying to squeeze any more performance from the processor's memory controller.

At the end of this chip's trials, as we were removing the cooling pot, our Ryzen 5 1600X got stuck to the bottom and was pulled from its socket. This isn't the first time we've seen that. Either the socket doesn't grip tightly enough, or the thermal paste has too much suction. Fortunately, nothing was damaged.

R5 1600: 5075 MHz

Unlike the six-core chips we just finished testing, our 1600 didn't suffer any show-stopping bugs. Whether it be air or LN2 cooling, its behavior is normal. This processor loves high core voltages and exhibits progression up to 1.92V. With that said, it's not a great performer, plateauing at 5075 MHz. The IMC is nothing exceptional; we timidly reached 3000 MT/s at CAS 12, but were stable around 2800 MT/s for our memory-intensive benchmarks.

This doesn't mean that all 1600s will behave this way. We'd guess that fewer active cores would enable higher maximum clock rates. But that doesn't prove to be the case today.

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OC: Ryzen 5 1500X & 1400

Ryzen 5 1500X: 5030 MHz

We won't drag things out on you. As we dropped down AMD's Ryzen stack, the maximum frequencies continued to fall. Despite starting off great with a Ryzen 7 1800X that exceeded 5.3 GHz, our 1500X barely crossed the 5 GHz mark. It managed to complete Cinebench successfully at 5030 MHz and a voltage of 1.85V.

When we ran our benchmarks, there were no results on HWBOT using LN2 cooling. So we took advantage of the opportunity to fill the ranks with 13 first-place finishes. To be honest, though, there is no glory in breaking a record when the best competition is only using water cooling. At least future extreme overclockers have a challenge to beat now.

Ryzen 5 1400: 5000 MHz

The last of our 10 processors is the worst of all. It simply doesn't like high voltages, and it stops progressing at 1.8V. Under these conditions, 5 GHz was the limit for Cinebench R15.

This is a disappointment for the enthusiasts who hoped lower core-count Ryzens might be capable of higher clock rates. But it's a logical outcome, given the way AMD bins its dies. The best performers naturally turn into 1800Xes, with all of their cores activated and operating at the highest frequencies.

At least this chip's IMC isn't terrible. It reached 3100 MT/s at CAS 12. The processor didn't have any issues with bugs, and it accepted -196°C without a problem. The test would have been downright enjoyable if we could have squeezed out an extra 300 MHz.

As with the 1500X, we took advantage of the absence of LN2-based scores to place our own.

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Overclocking: Air Vs. LN2

Before wrapping up, we wanted to see if there was a strong correlation between a processor's maximum frequency with liquid nitrogen cooling and what it is capable of with air cooling. This has significant appeal: why bother spending precious time and an enormous quantity of LN2? It could be sufficient to pre-select the best processors based on their performance under air cooling, and then test only the best contenders using liquid nitrogen cooling.

So we revisited our 10 Ryzen CPUs and found the maximum frequency of each at 1.35V. The table below allows us to make a comparison between the room temperature results and those with liquid nitrogen.

Sample	Date of Fabrication	Max Freq. @ 1.35V (MHz)	Max Freq. @ -196°C (MHz)	Ideal Voltage @-196°C (V)
Ryzen 7 1800X #1	1703PGT	4050	5320	1.85
Ryzen 7 1800X #2	1711SUT	4025	5220	1.85
Ryzen 7 1700X	1711PGS	3975	5170	1.85
Ryzen 7 1700 #1	1713PGT	3900	5050	1.85
Ryzen 7 1700 #2	1709PGT	3900	5120	1.85
Ryzen 7 1700 #3	1713PGT	3925	5150	1.94
Ryzen 5 1600X	1711SUT	3975	5250	1.85
Ryzen 5 1600	1713SUT	3900	5075	1.92
Ryzen 5 1500X	1712SUT	3850	5030	1.85
Ryzen 5 1400	1714SUT	3900	5000	1.8

At the top of the table, the 1800X CPUs dominate with air, just as they did in our LN2 tests. It seems like a processor capable of passing Cinebench R15 at 4 GHz with air cooling could be able to do 5.2+ GHz under the influence of LN2. The difference between our first and second samples is nevertheless more pronounced with liquid nitrogen than cooling at room temperatures.
The 1700X tends to reinforce our observation; it finishes just below the 4 GHz mark with air, and just below 5.2 GHz with LN2.
The same observation applies to our 1700s. The best with air cooling is also the best with LN2, but an important variable also comes into play: ease of use. Our notes show that these processors gave us a hard time. The samples that struggled under LN2 cooling were problematic under air, too.
Looking back at the Ryzen 5 CPUs, we could say that a processor able to hold 3.9 GHz at ambient should be capable of benching at around 5.1 GHz. Obviously, these numbers aren't always exact, but they do illustrate a trend. This pattern seems to prove correct with the exception of Ryzen 5 1400, which should have been able to reach a higher frequency with LN2. It may have, too, had it not stopped progressing before 1.8V.

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Conclusion

While life isn't always black and white, you could say that overclocking Ryzen CPUs using LN2 is definitely cut-and-dried. On one hand, you have some processors that handle cryogenic temperatures and high voltages without a problem. They can reboot without issue at -196°C, allowing you to continue your pursuit of higher clock rates. In other words, they're every overclocker's dream.

But some Ryzen processors are stubborn to the point of being nightmarish. Having to go from -196°C to -20°C after every crash is not pleasurable. The resulting consumption of nitrogen, gas, and patience is downright frustrating.

AMD's Selection Methodology

Enthusiasts in the habit of trying multiple CPUs and keeping only the best won't be bothered. They'll toss stubborn samples aside for someone else to worry about. But if you're on a budget and only have one processor to experiment with, the luck of the draw is particularly unforgiving right now.

Strangely enough, while we expected the processors with the fewest cores to overclock best, the opposite proved true. With only 10 samples on-hand, it's hard to draw statistically reliable conclusions. According to our tests, though, the Ryzen 5 CPUs couldn't stand up to the clock rates achieved by our Ryzen 7s. This is most certainly due to AMD's binning process. Lower-performing chips have some cores deactivated and their clock rates reduced. The best dies go into the Ryzen 7 1800X model.

Thus, your best bet for a good overclock under LN2 is AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X. In our air cooling tests, one Ryzen 7 1700 was able to keep up with the 1800Xes.

Ultra-Solid Processors

To end on a positive note, we want to emphasize that, despite tens of hours testing with liquid nitrogen cooling, using high voltages at cryogenic temperatures, and building/tearing down our test platform (with water everywhere), not a single component was damaged. Ryzen appears solid, despite its relative youth. And when you stumble across a gem of a sample, it's a pleasure to overclock.

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Intel Core i7-7740X Kaby Lake-X Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Kaby Lake Paddles Into HEDT

Last month, Intel's Skylake-X processors debuted at lower price points than we might have expected, given the company's previous high-end desktop CPU launches. The new chips also feature hefty core counts, higher Turbo Boost frequencies, a revamped implementation of Turbo Boost Max 3.0, a realigned cache hierarchy, and a new mesh topology. If you haven't read our review yet, check out Intel Core i9-7900X Review: Meet Skylake-X.

Interestingly, the seven new Skylake-X models are accompanied by two quad-core Kaby Lake-X SKUs. In the past, Intel's entire HEDT portfolio lagged at least a generation behind the mainstream offerings. But Kaby Lake-X puts Intel's most modern architecture in the LGA 2066 interface.

It's only unfortunate that this attempt at rejuvenating the high-end desktop leads to a confusing mix of features on the X299 platform, many of which Kaby Lake-X simply does not support. Fewer PCIe lanes and a dual-channel memory controller are an obvious mismatch with expensive LGA 2066-equipped motherboards, and that's bound to create a dubious value proposition.

Kaby Lake-X Becomes Core i7-7740X

There are slight differences between the familiar Core i7-7700K (Kaby Lake-S), which drops into LGA 1151, and the new Core i7-7740X (Kaby Lake-X) designed to complement the X299 chipset.

Intel increases the -7740X's base frequency by 100 MHz to 4.3 GHz, but leaves the 4.5 GHz Turbo Boost clock rate and 8MB of last-level cache unchanged. The chip's TDP does jump from 91W to 112W, but that's not from any gain in host processing resources: we're still looking at four IA cores and the GT2 configuration of Intel's graphics engine with 24 EUs.

Although the HD Graphics 630 hardware is physically present, Intel fuses it off. This eliminates many of the multimedia features that benefit the mainstream market. Perhaps they won't be as missed in the enthusiast space, though. You do lose Quick Sync, which is useful for accelerating streaming, along with HEVC encode/decode and PlayReady 3.0 "enhanced content protection" support. On the other hand, X299 enables a more robust power delivery system, so cutting out HD Graphics could prove beneficial to our overclocking efforts. After all, the disabled hardware serves as dark silicon, absorbing waste heat from the active on-die components.

Purportedly, a larger heat spreader and package add to Core i7-7740X's capacity for dissipating thermal energy. Since CPUs vary in their ability to sustain Turbo Boost clock rates depending on their thermal headroom, the -7740X might also enjoy a larger window of higher frequencies, improving performance in our benchmarks compared to Core i7-7700K. It's too bad that Kaby Lake-X uses the same thermal interface material as the mainstream models, instead of indium solder.

The -7740X shares a 16-lane PCIe 3.0 controller with Intel's Core i7-7700K, and we'll dive into that liability shortly. DDR4 memory support is officially extended to 2666 MT/s, at least. That's a small improvement over the S-series’ sanctioned 2400 MT/s ceiling. The speed-up isn't related to any architectural enhancement. Rather, Intel tells us it adjusted the dual-channel controller's spec based on “significantly more test and manufacturing data” that suggested an increase was safe.

Surprisingly, the Core i7-7740X bears the same price as Core i7-7700K. So, in short, it looks like Intel took an existing CPU, tweaked a couple of knobs, and adapted it for the larger LGA 2066 interface with different packaging. The end product does overclock a little better than Core i7-7700K, we've noticed.

The Motherboard Land Of Confusion

The new X299 chipset, code-named Basin Falls, goes hand-in-hand with the LGA 2066 interface. Intel moved away from its normal tactic of recycling an enterprise-oriented platform controller hub and instead built X299 to be a beefed-up version of the Z270 chipset.

The Core i7-7740X's 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and two memory channels present issues, though. X299 must naturally accommodate Core i9-7900X with its 44 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and quad-channel DDR4 controller, but has to be flexible enough to take the Core i7-7740X, too. That means the lower-end CPU limits you to using four of the eight DIMM slots found on corresponding motherboards. Moreover, some PCIe or M.2 slots might not work when you drop in a -7740X.

The processor still features a DMI 3.0 link to X299, which is similar to a four-lane PCIe 3.0. The chipset supports a hefty 30 HSIO (High Speed I/O) lane allotment that vendors can carve up for expanded functionality. X99 did not support HSIO lanes, so that's a significant addition.

With Core i7-7740X, there isn't a difference between the features you can use on the X299 platform compared to what is already available from the Z270 chipset. X299-based motherboards are undoubtedly high-end parts, and they bear the price premium (~$150) to prove it. That means you're paying for features that you cannot use, which is never a positive selling point.

To reduce costs, Intel tells us that motherboard partners can build Kaby Lake-X-specific platforms with only four DIMM slots to accommodate the new processors. We haven't seen any, though, and we haven't had a single vendor tell us they're working on one.

To make matters worse, none of Skylake-X’s unique features are available from Core i7-7740X, including Turbo Boost Max 3.0, AVX-512 support, the integrated vROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) controller, or Intel's mesh/cache adjustments.

All of these factors combine to create a questionable addition to Intel's high-end desktop portfolio. The company tells us that Kaby Lake-X offers a cheaper way into X299 with an upgrade path for later. We don't think many enthusiasts are interested in paying more now for the potential to upgrade later, though. Can Intel prove us wrong?

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Test Setup

Test Systems

We're using the MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC for testing. We disabled the all-core Turbo Boost feature to ensure a level playing field.

There were several demonstrations of memory overclocking beyond DDR4-4000 with Kaby Lake-X processors at Computex, but we settled on DDR4-3200 for our overclocked config to match the memory data transfer rates of our Ryzen models.

We introduced our new test system and methodology in How We Test Graphics Cards. If you'd like more detail about our general approach, check that piece out.

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X

AMD Ryzen 7 1700X

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

The only updated components in our German lab are the CPU, system memory, motherboard, and new cooling solution, so we'll just provide a quick overview in the following table:

Test Equipment and Environment
System	Germany Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900X, i7-7740X Core i7 7740X, Core i5-7640X Core i7 7740X, Core i5-7640XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 4GB G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4-2600AMD Socket AM4 WorkstationAMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1600X, 1500XMSI X370 Tomahawk2x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200Intel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900KMSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium4x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400Intel LGA 1151Intel Core i7-7700K, i5-7600KMSI Z270 Gaming 72x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @2400 MT/sAll SystemsGeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition (Gaming)Nvidia Quadro P6000 (Workstation)1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (All Updates)Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850W Power Supply Unit (PSU)Windows 10 Pro (Creators Update)U.S.Intel LGA 2066Intel Core i9-7900XMSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC4x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sIntel LGA 2011v3Intel Core i7-6900K, Core i7-6950XASRock X99 Extreme44x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 @ 2666 and 3200 MT/sAMD Socket AM4 Workstation AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 5 1600XMSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2666 (stock), and 3200 MT/s Intel LGA 1151 Intel Core i5-7600K, i7-7500 MSI Z270 Gaming M7 2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @ 2400 All EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE 1TB Samsung PM863 SilverStone ST1500, 1500W Windows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	GermanyAlphacool Eiszeit 2000 ChillerAlphacool Eisblock XPXThermal Grizzly Kryonaut (For Cooler Switch)USCorsair H115iCorsair H100i v2Arctic MX4
Monitor	Eizo EV3237-BK (Workstation, Office, HPC)
Power Consumption Measurement	Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply 2x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function4x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) 4x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) 1x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurement	1x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect Real-Time Infrared Monitoring and Recording

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VRMark, 3DMark & AotS: Escalation

Futuremark's VRMark test lets you gauge your system's suitability for use with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, even if you don't currently own an HMD. The Orange Room test is based on the suggested system requirements for current-generation HTC Vive and Oculus Rift HMDs. Futuremark defines a passing score as anything above 109 FPS.

As expected, we notice slight variation between the stock Core i7-7700K and its near-identical -7740X counterpart. Testing at each chip's default memory settings (DDR4-2400 for the -7700K and DDR4-2666 for the -7740X) likely contributes some of the difference. And we notice the same behavior with the stock and overclocked settings.

3DMark's DX11 and DX12 tests follow a similar pattern. The beefier multi-core CPUs leverage their extra threads to take commanding leads in these compute-intensive tests. But tuning brings the -7740X within striking range of the overclocked six-core Ryzen 5 1600X. Intel's Kaby Lake-X model enjoys a greater lead over the -7700K in the DX11 physics test, which we chalk up to an extra 200 MHz of overclocking headroom.

We encountered some strangeness during the 3DMark API overhead test. Core i7-7740X lags its -7700K sibling by a large margin during the DX12 and Vulkan sequences; overclocking does little to correct the disparity. We suspect that this is a 3DMark-specific issue, since most of our DX12-based gaming benchmarks don't concur with these results. The API test is relatively new and has received a few recent updates. It's possible that we see another patch to address this unexpected measurement.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation favors core count over other factors, so we observe the expected variance between 4C/8T Core i7 CPUs and the more well-endowed processors.

Core i7-7740X exhibits a minor gain compared to the -7700K at both stock and overclocked settings. Interestingly, we encounter less variability and frame time outliers with the -7740X than the -7700K, which could be a result of slightly more aggressive memory settings. The slight bump in overclocked frequency only equates to a 2.34% advantage, though.

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Civilization VI & Battlefield 1

Civilization VI AI Test

Clock rate and IPC throughput tend to win the day in this test, so it isn't surprising to find both Core i7s vying for supremacy.

It was less expected to find the 10-core Core i9-7900X mixing it up. Surely, a tuned Core i7-7700K would be faster at 4.9 GHz, right? The new Skylake-X model likely benefits from to its reworked cache hierarchy.

Again, the differences are slight between Kaby Lake-X and Kaby Lake-S. They're such similar processors, after all.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Speaking of the -7900X's reworked cache hierarchy, as we noticed in our initial review, the processor does suffer from mesh-imposed performance limitations in some titles. That comes into play during this benchmark.

The 10-core Broadwell-E-based chip leads, but both tuned Core i7s are competitive with the rest of our contenders. The difference between Core i7-7700K and -7440X is negligible at stock settings, and therefore unnoticeable during gameplay. But the -7740X's extra bit of frequency headroom yields a larger delta when we overclock.

Battlefield 1 (DX11)

Our armor-laden walk through the O La Vittoria scene in Battlefield 1 yields large performance variations when we test less-powerful processors. The differences shrink as we benchmark higher-end CPUs, mostly because we're graphics-bound.

We encountered an almost-predictable variance between the two Core i7s in most tests, and that plays out in Battlefield 1 when we measure the stock configurations. A 0.2 FPS delta is simply imperceptible.

The story changes with the application of a robust overclock, though. Try as we might, we simply could not get Intel's -7740X to match the -7700K in an overclocked state. That's particularly baffling due Kaby Lake-X's higher overclocked frequency. Nevertheless, the results for both overclocked Core i7s are repeatable, so it's possible that BIOS updates or chipset drivers could improve performance down the road.

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GTA V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

A now-familiar pattern emerges during the Grand Theft Auto V test sequence. There's a slight difference between the two Core i7s at stock settings, which widens as we dial in the -7740X's higher overclock. We're looking at a 2% advantage favoring Kaby Lake-X; the 2 FPS gain certainly doesn't warrant a step up to the much more expensive X299 platform, though.

The Core i9-7900X is brutally competitive in this test, which runs counter to our expectations of Intel's massively-parallel HEDT CPUs that historically prioritize core count over clock rate. If the -7900X could consistently deliver this level of performance in all titles, it would be even more impressive.

Hitman (2016)

A stock Core i7-7740X trails the -7700K, though tuning changes that dynamic. Both Core i7s stand out from the pack at higher frequencies.

AMD's Ryzen processors lag notably behind their Intel competitors. Still, they average more than 110 FPS.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The graphics bottleneck is apparent in Shadow of Mordor. A 1.7 FPS delta between the fastest and slowest processors doesn't give us much to comment on. It's most notable, then, that even an affordable Ryzen 5 1600X can push EVGA's beefy GeForce GTX 1080 FE to its fullest in some games.

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Project CARS & Rise of the Tomb Raider

Project CARS

We spot a bit more variation between the stock Core i7s, perhaps suggesting some sensitivity to memory frequency. Project CARS scales very well with increased host processing resources, so the brawny Core i9-7900X unperforms our expectations. Again, the -7740X's gain over the -7700K from overclocking is a mere 1.4%.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider recently received a patch that significantly improves Ryzen's DX12 performance, making this one more title optimized for AMD's latest platform. We're still sticking to DX11-based testing, though, to keep the playing field as level as possible.

A stock Core i7-7740X loses by 1.3% to the -7700K, but a bit of overclocking turns the tables by 1%. That certainly isn't worth the X299's price premium.

We clearly see the delta between AMD's Ryzen and Intel's Core processors grow at the test sequence's tail end, where it becomes more CPU-intensive. Core i7-7740X encounters a notable frame time outlier towards the end of the test. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 1600X briefly spends time under the 90 FPS mark.

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Workstation & HPC Performance

Preamble

If you want to know more about our HPC benchmarks, check out the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU Review. We didn't just copy results from that story, though. Rather, after a number of BIOS updates and software configuration changes, we retested everything. This gives us a more up-to-date picture, reflecting improvements of up to 15% that AMD worked hard to enable.

As we dig through these results, remember that semi-professionals almost never overclock their systems. Also, CPUs like Intel’s Core i9-7900X can be hard to keep cool. Consequently, our CPUs are now running at their stock frequencies.

2D Benchmarks: DirectX & GDI/GDI+

Adding Intel’s new CPU to our AutoCAD 2D and GDI/GDI+ graphics benchmarks doesn’t yield any surprises. The newcomer falls into place exactly where you’d expect based on its clock rate.

2D Benchmarks: Adobe Creative Cloud

The outcome depends on frequency again in this next round of benchmarks.

Interestingly, the Kaby Lake-X CPU lands right behind Core i7-7700K, if only by a hair. This won’t be the last time we see this inexplicable phenomenon.

3D Benchmarks: DirectX & OpenGL

In some instances, Core i7-7740X pulls ahead of the -7700K. In others, it's beaten slightly. Either way, the performance differences are generally very small and within the measurement error range. The only discernible pattern seems to be that Kaby Lake-X leads when compute tasks run in parallel with graphics output. This means the differences could be platform-oriented.

CPU Performance: Workstation

The 3D graphics performance we just measured isn’t all that matters to professional rendering titles. Applications run many other tasks (like simulations, compute jobs, preview rendering) on the CPU simultaneously. The full picture’s only achievable by looking at both of them together.

Intel's Core i7-7740X does well in workloads that emphasize high clock rates over core count.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Final rendering doesn’t need a jack of all trades. Instead, efficiency and fast parallel computation are key. This is why photorealistic rendering gets its own test section.

AMD’s Ryzen CPUs do really well, while Kaby Lake-X doesn't. Hyper-Threading keeps Core i7-7740X from losing sight of the field, but we have to wonder whether it deserves a place in Intel’s high-end desktop line-up.

CPU Performance: Encoding & Compression/Decompression

The Kaby Lake-X-based processor fares reasonably well when asked to perform simple decompression. However, all of the other tasks in this category end in total defeat.

High-Performance Computing (HPC)

This final benchmark discipline spells doom for Intel’s Core i7-7740X. Its designation as a high-end desktop part suggests it should do well, but that's just not the case. With four Hyper-Threaded cores, the -7740X carves out a spot in the back of the field.

Intel’s Core i9 processors might be decent options for the workstation space, but the same cannot be said for Core i7-7740X. This is a consumer CPU that was given the wrong moniker. Despite its lower price point, the expensive X299 platform negates a lot of those savings.

Furthermore, the new Kaby Lake-X-based model doesn't really outperform the mainstream version. Core i7-7700K is positioned correctly, and its successors should have continued along those lines instead of pretending that they are something they're not. Case in point: the performance differences between -7740X and -7700K in the workstation and HPC space are even smaller than in our gaming benchmarks. So, an expensive platform doesn't get you very far.

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Power Consumption & Overclocking

Intel isn't using a soldered integrated heat spreader (IHS) for Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X. Instead of the metallic solder most enthusiasts want to see, heat moves from the die to the IHS through inexpensive thermal interface material, which is just a fancy name for common thermal paste. This decision has implications for both our power consumption measurements and overclocking efforts. Fortunately, in light of the lower amount of waste heat produced by Core i7-7740X compared to Core i9-7900X, this isn't as much of a problem.

In order to produce comparable results, we used our industrial-grade Alphacool Eiszeit Chiller 2000 cooler that was needed for the Skylake-X review. A decent all-in-one liquid cooler would have been fine, though.

Power consumption is measured after the voltage converters and CPU, using points on the motherboard. These numbers need to be part of the equation for sizing your PSU. And depending on the motherboard you pick, they can differ by up to 30W. Consequently, our numbers are for the CPU only.

Power Consumption

At idle, Intel’s new Kaby Lake-X model does a lot better than -7700K. It also pulls ahead of AMD's Ryzen processors. Most likely, a lot of this is due to the disabled HD Graphics engine.

AutoCAD 2015 doesn’t stress CPUs all that much, since it can't fully utilize their available resources. Still, Intel’s Core i7-7740X consumes more power than its predecessors. Admittedly, the difference isn't huge. However, it is larger than our measurement error range and completely reproducible.

The situation is similar in our gaming workload. Interestingly, the average frame rates are almost identical as well.

The stress test produces somewhat surprising results. Intel’s Kaby Lake-X model edges out the -7700K. We don't know why the pattern reverses under full load. However, the delta is almost imperceptible in the 2W range.

Overclocking & Stability

Does a larger heat spreader and disabled graphics engine yield a meaningful advantage to Core i7-7740X's overclocking headroom? Before we start tweaking, we’d like to provide some background by showing a graph based on a motherboard manufacturer’s binning program. The voltages needed for Core i7-7740X are very informative:

The Core i5-7640X we'll be reviewing soon made it all of the way to 5.1 GHz, putting it in the middle of the pack. In other words, we have a thoroughly average sample.

We tested for stability at every frequency step using Cinebench R15, The Witcher 3, LuxRender, and Battlefield 1. Notice the deliberate exclusion of the AVX-heavy Prime95.

The Core i7-7740X's curve stays fairly straight, which means that power consumption doesn’t explode as clock rate goes up. Rather, the CPU chugs along until it just quits all of a sudden.

A closer look at the performance and power consumption curve shows that performance scales in an almost completely linear fashion with frequency, whereas power consumption increases faster, but not extremely so. Relating single-core performance to the necessary power yields a very similar picture. The resulting waste heat isn’t as bad as some might have feared. At 5.1 GHz, we’re looking at 90W. A good closed-loop liquid cooler should be able to handle this.

In spite of our sample being average, it yielded a good overclocking experience, especially since performance gains and power consumption increases never drifted too far apart.

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Temperature Curves & Delta Values

Cooling Nuclear Option: The Chiller

Again, we used our Alphacool Eiszeit Chiller 2000 to produce results that are comparable to those from our Core i9-7900X review. We also used this cooler in all of our AMD Ryzen reviews, which means that those results can be compared as well.

High Temperature Differences Challenge Cooling Performance

Kaby Lake-X suffers from Intel's use of thermal paste between the die and heat spreader. Solder would have been the way to go. The difference between the water block’s temperature, which is held at a constant 20°C, and the CPU temperature (according to its sensors) demonstrate this point nicely.

The curve below shows clearly that waste heat isn't dissipated quickly enough. Just as we did in our AMD Ryzen and Intel Core i9 launch articles, we used a very thin copper plate to measure the heat spreader's temperatures as well.

The next graph represents the temperature difference between the top of the CPU's heat spreader and cores.

Our cooling solution is one of the best you can buy. Nevertheless, we measure a 48°C difference between the top of the Core i7-7740X's heat spreader and its cores. This isn't a horrible result, but it could have been a lot better.

Leakage

Next, we measured power consumption at an identical load using different cooling solutions. The leakage currents were below our measurement equipment’s accuracy range. For this reason, we didn't bother with a graph. Kaby Lake-X doesn't have a problem with leakage currents that could increase power consumption in a meaningful way.

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Final Analysis

Superficially, Intel’s idea to transplant Kaby Lake onto its high-end desktop platform seems like it'd make sense. But ultimately, X299's excessive cost hamstrings Kaby Lake-X. In many ways, the Core i7-7740X reminds us of Intel’s Core i3-7350K. It's a great chip forced into a platform that doesn't match up with its price point.

Core i7-7740X is nearly identical to the existing -7700K; even its price is similar. At stock settings, the -7740X performs a lot like its mainstream counterpart, despite slightly higher base and Turbo Boost frequencies. We noticed the same performance characteristics as -7700K in lightly threaded workloads, such as gaming and most common desktop apps. But the -7740X pales in comparison to the brawnier Skylake-X models in heavy application tests. Lower idle power consumption numbers are likely a result of the -7740X's disabled graphics engine. However, the overall power and thermal measurements come out to be almost the same. Though we still don’t approve of the thermal paste Intel uses between its die and heat spreader, at least closed-loop liquid coolers are fine for this 112W chip.

The “X” in Kaby Lake-X promises extreme overclocking action, and we did eke out a few hundred megahertz over Core i7-7700K. That extra headroom is nice, but it doesn't translate to large gains in our gaming suite. In fact, at stock settings, the -7700K achieved higher average frame rates, while overclocking gave the -7740X a 1.19% advantage. The 99^th percentile variances between the chips both fell under 1%, with the advantage going to Core i7-7700K in stock and overclocked configurations. In either case, the difference between these two CPUs is imperceptible, even after overclocking them both. Perhaps that'll improve as X299-based motherboards receive more fine-tuned firmware.

Intel's Core i7-7700K is one of the fastest gaming processors we've ever tested, so matching it is a good thing. But the -7740X doesn't make sense as an equal when we factor in the X299 platform. You are going to pay an extra ~$150 for an X299 motherboard compared to a more mature Z270-based setup, and gain exactly zero features. In fact, you lose the integrated GPU that could be useful for other tasks, such as Ultra HD Blu-ray playback. Dropping the -7740X into LGA 2066 actually disables motherboard features you're paying for like extra DIMM slots, Skylake-X's more robust power delivery, and hamstrung chipset functionality.

Our motherboard contacts have expressed a general reluctance to create Kaby Lake-X-specific motherboards, and unless that changes, there is little reason to jump up to the X299 with a Kaby Lake-X chip. Certain enthusiasts will pursue a stouter overclock from the Kaby Lake architecture, and -7740X delivers in that regard. Intel's pitch is that Core i7-7740X serves as an entry point to X299 that paves the way for upgrades to Skylake-X later. We don't believe there's a big market for an expensive path like that, though. For those with the upgrade itch, either stay with the Z270 and spend bigger on a high-end GPU, or splurge on a true HEDT-class processor.

Intel has its Coffee Lake CPUs coming to market later this year, and we've heard rumors of a six-core model landing on the mainstream desktop. Consider waiting for more information on that prior to going the X299/Kaby Lake-X route, if you're still interested in Core i7-7740X. Also, AMD's Ryzen Threadripper is coming soon. There are just so many reasons not to buy this thing...

Core i7-7740X doesn’t give you anything new. Yes, it's one of the fastest gaming chips ever made, but you can get similar performance from the mature Z270 platform for significantly less money. We appreciate the higher overclocking ceiling, but that doesn't translate into enough benefit to justify the extra investment.

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Biostar X370GT7 Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

Long ago, in the age of AMD Athlon XP 1800+, I fell victim to the “don’t buy Biostar" mantra spinning in various enthusiast communities, and for whatever reason, despite never having owned a Biostar motherboard, I’ve maintained that stance. In the meantime, various media outlets and reviewers have given Biostar products various awards.

With an open mind and a little bit of wisdom under my belt, I welcome the chance to review the Biostar X370GT7 with our Ryzen test rig. Will Biostar’s X370 offering vindicate the company's offerings in my mind? Let's find out.

Specifications

Features

Biostar’s X370GT7 comes from its Racing lineup and dons a carbon fiber graphical texture across the box that is just small enough not to clutter the packaging. In an attempt to replicate a hood, the GT7 box opens like a large Calvin & Hobbes book, providing ample feature descriptions and a high-quality diagram of the board and its connectivity options. Though we appreciate the text being diverted from the back of the box, some of the descriptions are oddly worded and repeated across several sections. We enjoy the clarity of the items described on the back and product table but we have to nitpick that including the back-panel diagram dominates valuable space that could have been used to enhance the layout.

Contents of the box are . . . different. Rather than stick to the basics or include things like twist ties and stickers, Biostar includes a 120mm LED fan. This product is not featured on its site, nor is the supplier marked on the fan, but it appears to be a non-PWM Apevia AF312L-SBL variant that provides 5050 LEDs, anti-vibration pads, and is powered by either a motherboard fan header or ATA drive plug. Though we don’t need an extra fan for our rig, this is an easy way for aspiring RGBers to get an entry level fan with programmable lighting.

Slicing open the anti-static bag reveals our carbon fiber clad motherboard, complete with checkered flags on the heatsinks and across the planar. Lighting effects are subtle yet effective, with blue lights emitting from the Vreg heatsinks, IO guard, audio panel, and promontory heatsink that match perfectly with my Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming card. We would have preferred a cleaner wiring method for the heatsinks so that the cables aren’t draped across a very noticeable chunk of real estate. Two additional RGB ports are available on board to further enhance lighting effects through the company's Vivid LED tools.

We left Biostar’s M.2 cooler off for testing. We’ve read conflicting reports regarding attaching M.2 heat spreaders so we recommend running M.2 solutions the way the manufacturer delivers it. If the spreader is installed, it is fastened to the motherboard by two screws to ensure contact to the device. The GT7 provides a unique capacitive button board in place of standard switches and buttons for open case builders, though it would have been nice to be able to deactivate or change the color of the backlights. An LED Debug3 display is provided on the bottom right of the board for quick diagnosing of UEFI issues.

Outside of aesthetics and a couple board enhancements, this offering is as close as it gets to a reference motherboard design. Five analog audio, one SPD/F, gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.1 Gen1, two USB 3.1 Gen2 (Type C and Type A), and a single PS/2 port are available to the back panel. DVI-D, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort enable video output when using an APU. Two PCIe Gen3 x16 ports (x16 or x8/x8) are powered by the Ryzen chip and the bottom x16 port is wired out for PCIe Gen2 x4 connections. Three PCIe Gen2 x1 ports are provided for additional IO, and these ports do not share bandwidth with any of the other devices--a plus when compared to some other competitors.

The M.2 device is wired for PCIe Gen3 x4, which is compliant with NVMe requirements, but nowhere in the documentation does NVMe get listed. Six SATA 6Gb/s ports can be configured with RAID 0/1/10 through the X370 chipset, and five 4-pin fan headers are sprinkled across the board for cooling. Four single-hinged DDR4 slots are provided, similar to the ASRock boards we’ve reviewed.

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Software & Firmware

Software

Let's run through some other features and the software. FLY.net is Biostar’s attempt at optimizing network traffic without licensing the Killer branded solutions from Rivet. By running FLY.net, applications can be given priority automatically through the program, or you can define how to apply your precious bandwidth resources. For instance, streaming a Battlegrounds match to Twitch at 770 Kb/s was throttling my Netflix window, but when I swapped the priority to “Browser” the quality of Netflix noticeably increased. If more thorough analysis is desired, let us know in the comments section.

The Racing GT app is also enabled for the GT7 and proides access to the Vivid LED DJ interface through the operating system. Permanent modes kept the LED portions of the board lit with the color, while breathing provided a fade to black effect that was similar to that of our Trident-Z memory. The shine effect sounds appealing in theory, but when we applied it through the tool it just looked like it strobed on and off like something was broken.

Though not entirely new, the Lightening Charger design supports QC2.0 and Apple output specifications of 12V/1.5A and 5V/2.4A respectively. This design is also compliant with the BC1.2 protocol.

The GT7 also includes Infineon’s PowIRstage IC, which is reported to increase response time within the voltage regulator circuit, reduce regulator temperature, and provide up to 60A of power delivery from each phase. We find it interesting that the marketing material specifically provides an accurate part number for these components, so if you are into that sort of thing, follow the link. With an 8+4 phase regulator design, the GT7 is on par with other offerings in this AM4 segment.

At the time of this writing, Biostar is bundling in a free World of Tanks premium account. Don’t be fooled by NewEgg; there was once a package that offered a bundled SSD M.2 drive with the motherboard, but that is not the package being shown today. (Editor's Note: One is included in the Biostar Z270GT9 we recently reviewed.)

Firmware

The racing theme continues into the UEFI with the checkered flag residing at the bottom of the main viewing area. To the left, tachometers represent both the CPU and memory speed with voltages shown below their respective operating frequencies.

We like that the high-level health status is shown throughout the menus without eating up too much space and saving us the drive through several different menus. The bottom edge of the screen shows the main menu components.

Just as with ASRock samples, Biostar enables many of the extremely low-level Ryzen options through the UEFI, particularly the CBS, promontory, and memory customization options.

Smart Fan Control lets the UEFI control the fans with 4-pin PWM. After calibrating the fans, start and sensitivity values are updated and you can set them to aggressive, quiet, or manual fan modes.

The O.N.E. menu option is where we find our overclocking settings and options for Vivid LED control. For voltage control, you can select auto mode to “set it and forget it” or enable override or adaptive mode. Override lets you set specific voltage points, and adaptive mode allows for a plus or minus voltage bias to be applied from nominal values.

Override works best for our CPU core voltage, since we know the maximum we want to use. SOC voltage is set at adaptive mode so we can increase the voltage slightly without knowing what nominal is.

After doing some Googling, we determine that overclocking is enabled through the AMD Pstate Configuration menu where we must define the specific FID hex code that corresponds to our desired frequency. Each increment in hex increases the frequency by 25 MHz. Though not advised, users can also bypass the voltage specified for the module and increase it in 6.25mV steps by reducing the VID code by 1 hex increment, with a maximum setting of 1.55V.

You can overclock memory in two separate ways: either through enabling the XMP profile or selecting the appropriate memory frequency from the table. Both options worked for us for maximum memory bandwidth. Timings are tunable through the DRAM Timing menu if maximum tweaking is desired.

Load line settings between level 1 and 6 are available for overclockers, but Biostar suggests disabling the load line altogether to reduce voltage oscillation on the supplies and reducing the impact of Vdroop events. I do not like running without load lines, but for the sake of this review that’s what I ended up using. (Editor’s Note: We’ve seen past samples where Biostar’s “VCore LoadLine: Disabled” functions similarly to other manufacturer’s “LoadLine Compensation: Enabled.”)

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How We Test

For this article, we’ve let the Corsair H110i take a breather to run some different heatsink solutions through their paces. We had very good success with the Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4, so we thought we'd give its little brother, the NH-U12S SE-AM4, a shot. Being roughly half the size of its larger sibling, we hope that it can still perform adequately enough on our test processor. With its reduced size, we also gain visibility to more motherboard planar and thus, more RGBness from the G.Skill Trident-Z kits.

The HyperX kits are our primary test vehicle this time because for some reason we could not run DDR4-2400 on this board with both Trident-Z kits installed. Regardless, both kits get adequate testing in this review. The “Tumbler” is still our enclosed test rig, hosting our GTX 970 GPU, OCZ RD400 M.2 drive, Corsair AX860 PSU, and various other drives.

Test System Configuration

Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Graphics	NVIDIA
Chipset	AMD X370

Benchmark Settings

Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613 Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21 CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write 128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMO OpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8 Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests and Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0 Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests and Settings
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests and Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 3460x1920, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain 1920x1080 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF 3460x1920 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 3460x1920, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 267252 1920x1080 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF 3460x1920 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 3460x1920 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

Comparison Units

ASRock X370 Gaming K4

ASRock X370 Taichi

MSI X370 Krait Gaming

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Synthetics & Applications

We’ve omitted the Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5 in order to compare feature sets and prices of some of the similar competitors. PCMark shows an average 1% lead for the Biostar X370GT7 over the ASRock Taichi across these automated workloads. On the flipside, the GT7 lags behind by up to 3% in the Sandra Suite.

Cinebench is clearly in the GT7’s favor, while Compubench isn’t picking favorites, allowing all boards a win or two when including the Fluid 64k and FFT tests into the mix (those just aren’t shown because they blow out the scale of the graph).

On the application front, the GT7 again puts up solid performance in Handbrake, Blender, and Lame, but Adobe and 7-zip are still showing better results with other boards.

In 3DMark, Skydiver shows roughly average scores for the GT7, while Firestrike performance is on par with the Gaming K4. Firestrike Extreme rounds out the synthetics with a virtual tie between the GT7 and Taichi.

Overall, the synthetic benchmarks present a solid case for the Biostar to get the performance win today, but with less than four percentage points separating the winners from the losers on each individual workload, the Biostar has to split from the pack and start putting up some impressive frames.

Games

Ashes of the Singularity clearly shows the MSI Krait’s success at 1080p in both High and Crazy detail settings. Oddly enough, the GT7 and the ASRock Gaming K4 mirror each other, just like Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. in Talladega Nights. The slingshot maneuver fails at 3460x1920, and the Krait still puts up impressive framerates that the GT7 just can’t match, especially at the Crazy preset.

The Talos Principle on the other hand shows that the Biostar X370GT7 doesn’t need assistance and zooms past the other boards at 1080p and quasi-4k. Double checking through the logs confirms that all three individual runs were comparable to the other test samples, so that’s a solid win for the GT7.

Metro Last Light Redux shows no preference to any boards at 1080p, showing minute (1 FPS) average frame rate variances. Increasing the resolution doesn’t appear to change the results much either, but an important takeaway is that the Taichi shows consistently higher maximum frame rates.

F1 2015 draws the checkered flag for these competitors, and at 1080p the GT7 shows a disappointing two frame loss to the MSI Krait Gaming. But in the 3460x1920 class, the Biostar X370GT7 does gain two frames over the Krait and performs roughly 10% better than the ASRock Gaming K4. In any case, the GTX 970 under the hood performs well enough for each of the boards in this workload.

Moving forward, we’re going to start supplementing our AM4 datasets with the Ashes: Escalation workload in order to start filtering in some of the new game improvements for the Ryzen architectures. If there are other games we should consider into the charts please let us know in the comments!

Power, Thermals & Performance

Unfortunately, performance again comes at the cost of electricity. Though not as bad as the MSI Krait, the Biostar X370GT7 definitely could spare to shed a few extra watts across all work conditions. At idle, a modest 75W is being reported from my Kill-A-Watt, though it still is 9% higher than the ASRock Gaming K4. In both load scenarios, the ASRock boards show superb results and the GT7 still draws up to 12% more energy from the wall socket. In an unlikely turn of events, the GT7 sucks in its gut and shaves nearly 70W off the Krait’s value at full load. It even pulls a 20W lead from our efficiency king. Averaging all use cases into account, the GT7 is only 3% behind the Gaming K4, which is a reasonable result in our book.

For thermals, we have to remember that this system is using the smaller Noctua heatsink compared to both of the ASRock boards and the Krait. These used the Corsair H110i. As expected with air passing across the Vreg heatsinks, the regulators measure in the same ballpark as those cooled with the bigger Noctua heatsink. And sure enough, the smaller CPU heatsink just can’t keep up with the larger and heavier big air solution. Performance aside, this cooler works fine at cooling the Ryzen 7 1700X, and this motherboard is reporting the expected Tctl delta that we love to hate.

From an outright performance perspective, the GT7 is a solid competitor, besting the Krait in all metrics, even if it’s only by 0.1%! These results nearly knock both ASRock boards into the 99s, but synthetics and application results keep them in the running. Tacking on the power values for the systems, the GT7’s performance result nearly outmatches the Taichi’s power profile from an efficiency perspective. Overall, a fairly balanced board where my test suite is concerned.

Overclocking

As successful as we were overclocking the Biostar X370GT7, it sure was painful. Starting with the memory troubles, this board does not like fully populated systems. Despite the G.Skill Trident-Z working at DDR4-2666MHz on several samples, it would not work at any speeds above DDR4-2133MHz on the GT7 board regardless of settings and voltages. Swapping in the HyperX DIMMs let us use our test standard DDR4-2400MHz for comparable analysis with the previous systems.

Pouring salt into the wounds though, those HyperX DIMMs did not want to run any faster regardless of module configuration. Looking into the Memory Compatibility sheet provided by Biostar, the company's testing only confirmed three different HyperX products to 2400MHz. Yikes. Hoping for better luck, we swapped in the Trident-Z kit (only 2 DIMMs), and they worked flawlessly at DDR4-3200MHz. It perplexes us that four DIMMs at 2400MHz is unusable, but two individual sticks can go the full range.

As always, bumping up the FID to an equivalent frequency of 3800MHz worked with no other setting changes. Default load line settings and voltages allowed our Ryzen 7 1700X to run Prime95 for 20 minutes, but it was cooking at 82°C CPU and an impressive 102°C Tctl. Throwing caution into the wind, this little Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 ran 3850 MHz of Prime95 for another 20 minutes. Unfortunately, 3900MHz was unachievable with the smaller cooler, regardless of settings, and we landed at 3875MHz at 1.3875V using the default loadline setting. Rather than cook the processor overnight, I ran AIDA64 FPU stress overnight with comfortable temperatures.

People might say: That’s not the same way you’ve tested other motherboards. They would be correct. However, we proved we can run a fairly standard workload overnight with CPU Diode temps of 100°C and 265W from the Kill-a-Watt without breaking the processor.

To thoroughly test the product though, the big Noctua was reinstalled to match testing conditions with other products. As expected, the extra surface area and increased airflow decreased temperatures under 100% load by nearly 10°C. Comparable wattage was measured at the wall when bumping the frequency back up to 3900MHz and successfully running Prime95 for 20 minutes. Adjusting back down to 3875MHz enabled us to run Prime95 overnight with more palatable temperatures.

In short, this motherboard performed admirably in the overclocking department, even if it was less refined than some of our other products we’ve reviewed. Both Noctua coolers allowed the same overclock, but just keep in mind that extended runtimes with elevated voltages and temperatures are bound to cause trouble.

Value & Conclusion

We’ve worked our way through our initial batch of X370 boards from various manufacturers, and the Biostar X370GT7 performs just as well as any of them. Though rough around the edges and lacking in several features we’ve become accustomed to, this board is as close as you can get to a reference board without invading the AMD labs.

Unfortunately, the extra flare added by Biostar isn’t worth the price premium and subsequently misses out on any value awards at its given MSRP. The MSI Krait and ASRock Gaming K4 still provide better value and features than the GT7, despite its good performance.

However, after reviewing this board I have learned my lesson: sometimes it’s best to put old biases aside and try out something new from time to time. Hopefully, Biostar will get its Mini-ITX X370 board in my hands so I can write an HTPC/LAN box build review of this exciting platform. As always, let us know in the comments if there are any questions regarding the product or have suggestions for future articles!

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AMD Ryzen 5 1600 CPU Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Mon, 29 May 2017 13:00:01 +0000

Introduction

AMD's Ryzen line-up shook up the CPU market with more cores and threads at lower price points than competing Intel processors. But the series' universally unlocked ratio multipliers are the real key to extracting maximum value from Ryzen.

The Ryzen 7 family redefined what an 8C/16T CPU cost, and the Ryzen 5s do the same in their segment with a powerful duo of affordable 6C/12T options. AMD's Ryzen 5 series also includes the 4C/8T 1500X and 1400, but we think AMD's $220 Ryzen 5 1600 is much more interesting.

Like its $250 1600X counterpart, the Ryzen 5 1600 features six cores and 12 threads. AMD bins the 1600X as a 95W part, while the 1600 falls into the 65W TDP range. As expected, the 1600's lower TDP boils down to reduced voltages, imposing lower stock frequencies and thermal output. The Ryzen 5 1600 features a 3.2 GHz base clock rate compared to the "X" model's 3.6 GHz, and it also incurs a similar 400 MHz deficit to the dual-core Precision Boost frequency.

Ryzen 5 1600 falls neatly into the $40 price gap between Intel's Core i5-7500 and -7600K. Both competitors are quad-core models lacking the benefit of Hyper-Threading. That should make for a lopsided battle favoring AMD in heavily-threaded workloads, such as content creation and rendering. Ryzen processors also provide acceptable performance in lightly-threaded workloads. The Intel CPUs do come with on-die graphics for those who need it, while AMD dedicates all of Ryzen's transistors to host processing. Discrete GPUs are a must-have for enthusiasts anyway, so it makes sense to go the route that AMD chose.

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AMD indicates that its non-X models do not feature XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) functionality, which allows the CPU to dynamically adjust its clock rate (for two cores) above the Precision Boost rating based on available thermal headroom. During a single-core Cinebench test, we recorded frequencies that regularly jumped to 3.7 GHz on two cores, so it appears the Ryzen 5 1600 also features XFR. Many of the architecture's other features remain unchanged, including its spacious 16MB of L3 cache, SenseMI suite, and unlocked multiplier.

Intel's carefully segmented stack, which relies on locked multipliers to force specific performance profiles, serves as a liability in the face of AMD's unlocked approach. As we've seen from other Ryzen models, the non-X SKUs tend to hit their overclocking ceilings at lower frequencies and offer less consistent memory overclocking. But your access to the platform's many knobs and dials is the same, no matter which Ryzen CPU you purchase. A bit of tuning often pulls the non-X models into range of their more expensive counterparts, also helping close the gap with Intel's mid-range Core CPUs in lightly-threaded apps.

Much like Intel's K-series CPUs, AMD's X models don't come bundled with thermal solutions. So, their additional frequency headroom is accompanied by a higher platform cost. AMD sweetens the Ryzen 5 1600's value proposition by giving you its 95W Wraith Spire cooler. The 1600, like all other Ryzen chips, drops into Socket AM4. Combining the budget-minded processor with an affordable B350-based motherboard results in a capable 6C/12T rig with plenty of horsepower in reserve for any number of enthusiast workloads.

A lot has been written about Ryzen's challenges in some games, but improved memory support and a trickle of software patches have addressed the most glaring issues. The Ryzen processors are good enough for gaming. But the question is whether they offer enough performance to unseat Intel's incumbents in the important price-to-performance ratio comparison. Let's see if the 1600 has what it takes to usurp Core i5.

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Overclocking & Test Setup

Overclocking

The Ryzen 5 1600 is based on the same die as Ryzen 5 1600X, albeit with a lower 65W TDP. So, we expect a fairly similar overclocking experience.

We dialed in a Prime95-stable 3.9 GHz using a 1.425 vCore setting and 1.2V CPU NB voltage (CPU Loadline Calibration set to Auto). We've seen others achieve 4 GHz overclocks with lower voltages, so it's possible that we have a lower-quality sample. We recorded 84°C (per AIDA) with Noctua's NH-U12S SE-AM4 cooler during extended stress tests.

Our vCore voltage is higher than AMD's recommended limit of 1.35V for long-term overclocks. AMD notes that Ryzen processors can withstand more than 1.45V, though a setting that high may have an impact on longevity. Of course, the warranty doesn't cover damage from overclocking of any sort, so proceed at your own risk.

We were able to use our G.Skilll FlareX DDR4 memory kit at 2999 MT/s with relaxed 16-16-16-34 timings, but were unable to achieve 3200 MT/s in tandem with our 3.9 GHz overclock. Notably, we ran the Ryzen 5 1600X with the same kit at 3200 MT/s and 14-14-14-34 timings on the same motherboard. As we've seen with other non-X models (and the Ryzen 5 1500X), it's possible that the memory overclocking disparity is attributable to AMD's IMC (Integrated Memory Controller).

Ryzen Memory Support	MT/s
Dual-Channel/Dual-Rank/Four-DIMM	1866
Dual-Channel/Single-Rank/Four-DIMM	2133
Dual-Channel/Dual-Rank/Two-DIMM	2400
Dual-Channel/Single-Rank/Two-DIMM	2677

After experimenting with the recently-exposed ProcODT (on-die termination signal) motherboard firmware setting, we found that it has a profound impact on memory overclocking and compatibility. The 40- to 60-ohm range allows us to use various memory kits with Ryzen processors that were previously unusable.

AMD recently released a new v1.0.0.6 AGESA update. Motherboard vendors build firmware upon the AGESA bedrock, so improvements to the underlying code allow manufacturers to provide more options through their own BIOS builds. The latest version exposes 26 more settings that should improve memory overclocking, such as allowing either 1T or 2T command rates (previously limited to 1T) and an expanded range of multipliers that allow 4000 MT/s without BCLK overclocking. We will revisit the 1600's memory overclockability when the final firmware revisions become available.

Comparison Processors

Intel Core i5-7400

Intel Core i5-7500

Intel Core i5-7600K

Test Setup

We conducted gaming testing with the MSI B350 Tomahawk. To streamline our workflow, we employed Asus' B350-Plus for application testing. The Ryzen gaming story has changed quickly since the launch as a string of motherboard firmware and chipset drivers, along with game updates, have come to fruition. As such, we retested all processors with updated firmware and drivers.

Test Systems and Measurement Setups
Systems	AMDRyzen 5 1600, 1600X, 1500XMSI B350 Tomahawk (games)Asus B350-Plus (applications)2x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @2666 (stock), 2933 (1600 and 1500X) and 3200 MT/s (1600X)IntelIntel Core i5-7600K, i7-7500MSI Z270 Gaming M72x G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 @2400 and 3200 MT/sAllEVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE1TB Samsung PM863SilverStone ST1500, 1500WWindows 10 Creators Update Version 1703
Cooling	Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4Arctic MX-4

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VRMark & 3D Mark

VRMark

Futuremark's new VRMark test lets you gauge your system's suitability for use with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, even if you don't currently own an HMD. VRMark features both HMD and Desktop modes. Desktop mode works both with and without an HMD attached. If you do have one connected, software caps the frame rate at the HMD's refresh rate (90Hz for both the Vive and Rift), and Futuremark doesn't recommend wearing the HMD during the test. We conducted our tests in Desktop mode on a standard monitor, outputting the same resolution and view (for each eye) as an HMD, but without the 90 FPS cap.

The Orange Room test is based on the suggested system requirements for current-generation HTC Vive and Oculus Rift HMDs. Futuremark defines a passing score as anything above 109 FPS (for both tests), so all of these processors paired with a GeForce GTX 1080 are suitable for modern VR experiences.

An overclocked Ryzen 5 1600X outpaces Intel's stock Core i5-7600K, but the overclocked Ryzen 5 1600 lags behind slightly. The Ryzen 5 1600 outpaces its four-core 1500X counterpart, while the Core i5-7500 bests the stock 1500X and 1600.

The Blue Room metric performs a grueling 5K resolution benchmark that mimics the expected performance requirements for future VR devices. It's clear that we're butting up against a graphics bottleneck during the test.

3DMark

3DMark's DX11 physics and DX12 CPU tests quantify the amount of processing power available to a game engine.

The stock and overclocked Ryzen 5 1600X configurations unleash beastly performance during the DX12 physics workload. The 1600 also posts strong results that either beat or challenge the overclocked Core i5-7600K.

AMD's Ryzen processors win the DX11 physics tests. The Intel CPUs fare better during the 3DMark API tests, but Ryzen naturally provides strong threaded DX12 draw call performance.

As we've come to expect, Intel processors perform well in single-threaded DX11 metrics. Even AMD's overclocked CPUs can't match them there. Strong per-clock performance helps explain Intel's advantage in lightly-threaded benchmarks where Ryzen's core count advantage is neutralized.

Once again, even after Futuremark's recent API test update, we note a reduction in multi-threaded DX11 draw call performance for the overclocked six-core Ryzen processors compared to their stock configurations.

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AotS: Escalation & Battlefield 1

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity was one of the first games to receive a Ryzen-specific patch, so it illustrates what can happen when a developer spends time optimizing for the Zen architecture's intricacies. We recorded impressive performance boosts after the update.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation scales exceedingly well with more cores/threads, rewarding the six-core Ryzen processors in both stock and overclocked configurations. Intel's Core i5-7600K has much more overclocking headroom, however, allowing it to take the pole position. In its stock configuration, the -7600K falls into the same range as the other four-core processors.

Notably, AMD's four-core Ryzen 5 1500X bests the Intel Core i5-7500, largely due to improved utilization, which is enabled by its SMT implementation.

The stock Ryzen 5 1600 experiences the most apparent frame time outliers during the test, but a bit of overclocking provides a drastic improvement.

Battlefield 1 DX12

We dialed Battlefield 1 up to the Ultra preset and took an armor-laden stroll across the O La Vittoria landscape.

The Ryzen 5 1600 bests a four-core 1500X, but trails the rest of the field. Overclocking helps propel it to similar performance as the overclocked Ryzen 5 1600X.

Battlefield 1 DX11

In Battlefield 1, under the DX11 API, Ryzen processors tend to score better relative to Intel's Core chips. Presenting benchmark results using different settings helps illustrate how even one game can paint different pictures of performance, depending on how it's set up.

The stock Ryzen 5 1600 beats Intel's Core i5-7500, and overclocking widens the gap. We notice a much larger delta between the overclocked Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600X (3.25%) in this test. Then again, there is a 100 MHz difference in clock rate between the two processors (2.5%). The 1600X's 3200 MT/s memory data rate is also higher than the 1600's 2966 MT/s, and given the increased performance we find with faster memory, that likely contributes to the disparity. AMD's forthcoming AGESA update might improve memory overclocking with the Ryzen 5 1600, which would help get it closer to the 1600X.

Those big blue spikes in our frame time over run chart belong to the Ryzen 5 1500X. Not good.

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Civilization VI & Dues Ex: Mankind Divided

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization VI's demanding AI test isolates host processor performance, and historically responds better to high clock rates and IPC throughput than more cores.

Not surprisingly, then, Intel's Core i5-7600K leads in both its stock and overclocked configurations.

The overclocked Ryzen 5 1600 nearly matches the more expensive 1600X. However, AMD's 1500X beats the 1600 in a stock configuration due to its higher base and boost clock rates.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The stock Ryzen 5 1600 encounters some frame time turbulence during the graphics test, but once again, tuning helps smooth out the wrinkles.

Intel's Core i5-7500 falls to the bottom of the group, while its stock Core i5-7600K also struggles. Interestingly, the latter Core i5 still achieves a notably higher minimum frame rate than the stock 1500X and 1600.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex continues to favor AMD's Ryzen processors, while the Intel CPUs hit a ceiling of some sort around 58 FPS. The average FPS chart reflects this dichotomy.

The game also doesn't respond well to overclocked Ryzen processors. Our 1600X and 1600 samples yield the same average FPS and frame time measurements in stock and overclocked configurations.

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Grand Theft Auto V & Hitman

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

Intel's overclocked Core i5-7600K enjoys an undisputed lead over the other processors. Even the stock -7600K beats the rest of our field.

The overclocked Ryzen 5 1600X and 1600 land one after the other.

In spite of the overclocked Core i5's commanding win, it continues demonstrating the same disturbing frame time outlier we've seen previously. Curiously, it isn't affected if we leave its stock clock rate alone.

Hitman

The overclocked Ryzen 5 1600 falls in line beneath the 1600X by nearly the same percentage observed in previous tests. The Core i5-7500 settles in at the bottom of our chart, and Intel's stock Core i5-7600K lands under both six-core Ryzen chips. Overclocking propels the unlocked Kaby Lake-based CPU into a compelling lead, though.

Separately, the stock Intel processors serve up higher minimum frame rates than AMD's stock Ryzen processors.

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Shadow of Mordor & Project CARS

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The value of an unlocked multiplier becomes clear during this benchmark. AMD's stock Ryzen processors land at the bottom of our chart. However, overclocking them adds enough performance to challenge Intel's Core CPUs.

As expected, the Core i5-7600K leads in this older game. But the overclocked Ryzen 5 1600X isn't far behind. A tuned Ryzen 5 1600 lags behind the 1600X by a mere 1.2 FPS on average. We suspect there'd be little difference between them at 4 GHz, in the event your sample is more flexible than ours. The overclocked quad-core 1500X offers nearly the same performance level, too. A stock Ryzen 5 1500X beats the 1600 during this lightly-threaded benchmark by virtue of its 200 MHz XFR advantage.

At the end of the day, all of these processors facilitate a smooth experience in Middle-earth, and their performance is quite similar.

Project CARS

Project CARS responds most readily to high clock rates and IPC throughput. The overclocked Core i5-7600K offers the highest average FPS, but a few frame time outliers crop up during the benchmark. Intel's Core i5-7500 also experiences a few spikes that show up on our chart.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider & The Division

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Ryzen processors endure a massive performance deficit under Rise of the Tomb Raider and DX12, so we're switching to DX11 to see how the picture changes.

Intel's processors still enjoy a healthy lead, despite our different API settings. Rise of the Tomb Raider could be a good candidate for a Ryzen-optimized patch. Alternately, if Nvidia's graphics driver is negatively affecting performance under DX12, pairing Ryzen with a capable AMD graphics card (Radeon RX Vega, anyone?) could be what equalizes performance between CPU vendors.

Tom Clancy's The Division

Tom Clancy's The Division is fairly graphics-bound, so, outside of minimum frame rates, it doesn't show much variation between host processors. As we've noted in the past, the Ryzen 5 1500X suffers a distressing drop in performance during the opening section of the scene, which is visible as severe stuttering.

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Application Benchmarks

Microsoft Excel 2016 - Word, Excel & PowerPoint

Benchmarking Microsoft Office isn't particularly exciting, but it is representative of software many of us use on a daily basis. The Ryzen processors gain a bit of steam during the PowerPoint workload, but Intel's processors enjoy a lead through most of the tests.

Notably, the overclocked Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600X offer almost identical performance. In either case, aside from the tuned Core i5-7600K, the difference between the various processors is relatively small.

Adobe Creative Cloud

The same trends emerge throughout the Adobe suite, as Intel's Core i5-7600K largely enjoys a lead due to its per-clock performance advantage.

AMD's overclocked Ryzen 1600X and 1600 achieve a higher cumulative score than the Core i5-7500, and the -7400 falls to the bottom of the chart.

Rendering

The six-core Ryzen processors shine during heavily-threaded workloads. Ryzen 5 1600X and 1600 establish convincing leads through our suite of rendering tests, while the overclocked Core i5-7600K jostles for position with Ryzen 5 1500X during a few benchmarks.

The Core i5-7600K, in both stock and overclocked configurations, enjoys a healthy lead in the single-core rendering tests. The tweaked Ryzen CPUs trade blows with the Core i5-7500 in those same metrics, and beat the -7400 during the single-core POV-Ray and Cinebench tests.

Web Browser

During the Kraken Javascript benchmark, Intel's Core i5-7600K leads in its stock and overclocked configurations. But the overclocked Ryzen processors make short work of Intel's multiplier-locked models. Ryzen 5 1500X can't quite keep up with Core i5-7500 during the MotionMark browser benchmark, but the overclocked Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600X both provide a benefit over the locked -7500 and -7400.

SiSoftware's cryptographic test measures performance for both AES-256 and SHA algorithms. Aside from the overclocked Core i5-7600K, Ryzen's hardware AES units provide a tangible performance benefit over the Intel processors in both single-core and multi-core encryption/decryption tasks. The processors also provide faster SHA2-256 AVX hashing performance.

Encoding & Compression

The overclocked Core i5-7600K enjoys a substantial lead in the LAME workload, but the tuned Ryzen 5 1600X and 1600 also provide competitive performance. AMD's six-core Ryzen processors leverage their thread count advantage to great effect during the compression workload. A similar trend emerges during the HandBrake benchmark.

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Final Analysis

As we observed with the Ryzen 7 1700X and 1700, AMD’s unlocked multipliers and similar overclocking ceilings are great for enthusiasts on a budget. You're able to buy a cheaper CPU and realize almost the same performance as higher-end models after a bit of tinkering. We couldn't achieve a 4 GHz overclock with Ryzen 5 1600, which would have matched our results with the 1600X. According to other tests we've seen, though, it’s certainly possible to find a sample capable of 4 GHz. We also couldn't match the 1600X's 3200 MT/s memory speed, but that is fairly common from non-X Ryzen CPUs. Motherboard vendors should have a wave of new firmware versions coming soon that might improve memory overclocking.

We use a geometric mean of average and minimum FPS through our benchmark suite to generate a gaming price efficiency chart. This includes six titles released in 2016 and four older games that launched in 2015.

In the suite, a stock Ryzen 5 1600 provides nearly the same average frame rate as Intel's Core i5-7500. But a bit of overclocking propels it into the lead. An overclocked 1600 can't quite reach the performance of a tuned Core i5-7600K, but it sells for $20 less and comes awful close paired up to high-end graphics. Most systems in this price bracket utilize less powerful GPUs, and the Ryzen 5 1600 should provide enough horsepower to propel mid-range builds to smooth gameplay.

The story changes when we remove older games from our calculation. The second average frame rate chart, which only includes modern games that tend to utilize processing resources more efficiently, places the stock Ryzen 5 1600 ahead of Intel's stock Core i5-7600K. That's quite an impressive feat considering the 1600 also has plenty of spare threads available for more taxing productivity applications. Notably, Intel's CPUs continue to enjoy a substantial lead when we look at minimum frame rates in new and old games alike.

The 1600's low price point is hard to ignore. This CPU features the lowest price-per-core through AMD's Ryzen portfolio, and in light of its solid showing through our application and game suite, it also provides an impressive price-to-performance ratio. The addition of a bundled 95W cooler magnifies the savings relative to Intel's Core i5-7600K and AMD's Ryzen 5 1600X, neither of which include a thermal solution. The Ryzen 5 1600 also provides more performance than Core i5-7500 in a wide range of applications for a little extra money. That should get you thinking about stepping up to AMD's $220 Ryzen instead of buying a locked Intel model.

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AMD Processor Price List

Michael Justin Allen Sexton — Sun, 14 May 2017 01:00:00 +0000

AMD Processors

AMD recently breathed new life into its microprocessor business with the release of its Ryzen CPU architecture, which is significantly faster than the company's older Bulldozer, Piledriver, and Kaveri based processors. While Ryzen occupies the high-end of the CPU market, AMD still produces APUs and CPUs based on its older microarchitecture designs to handle the low-end.

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Socket AM1

Sempron

AMD Sempron 2650View Deal

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Socket FM2

A4

AMD A4-6300View Deal

AMD A4-7300View Deal

A6

AMD A6-5400KView Deal

AMD A6-6400KView Deal

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MORE: Best Deals

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Socket FM2+

Athlon

AMD Athlon X4 860KView Deal

AMD Athlon X4 870KView Deal

AMD Athlon X4 880KView Deal

A6

AMD A6-7400KView Deal

A8

AMD A8-7600View Deal

AMD A8-7650KView Deal

A10

AMD A10-7860KView Deal

AMD A10-7870K Black EditionView Deal

AMD A10-7890K w/WraithView Deal

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Socket AM3+

AMD FX

AMD FX-4300View Deal

AMD FX-4350View Deal

AMD FX-6300View Deal

AMD FX-8300View Deal

AMD FX-8320EView Deal

AMD FX-6350View Deal

AMD FX-8320View Deal

AMD FX-6350 w/WraithView Deal

AMD FX-8350View Deal

AMD FX-8350 w/WraithView Deal

AMD FX-9590View Deal

AMD FX-9370View Deal

AMD FX-8370 w/WraithView Deal

AMD FX-8370EView Deal

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Socket AM4

Ryzen 5

AMD Ryzen 5 1400 w/Wraith StealthView Deal

AMD Ryzen 5 1500X w/Wraith SpireView Deal

MORE: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X CPU Review

AMD Ryzen 5 1600 w/Wraith SpireView Deal

AMD Ryzen 5 1600XView Deal

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Ryzen 7

AMD Ryzen 7 1700View Deal

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AMD Ryzen 7 1700XView Deal

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AMD Ryzen 7 1800XView Deal

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MSI X370 Krait Gaming Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Mon, 08 May 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

AMD is certainly making a splash these days. First, we had the Ryzen 7 launch, which drew mixed reviews of the CPU's gaming performance. Next came Ryzen 5, which elicited a collective sigh of relief, because AMD had released a proper value-based CPU. CPUs took a break for a moment, giving way to new Polaris GPUs (the 500 series).

Over in my neck of the woods X370 is still the king of the AM4 world, despite B350 hitting the ground running. So let's continue with this X370 motherboard review series.

Specifications

The MSI X370 Krait Gaming finally hits the test bench, and we're ready to relive the glory days of the MSI 990FXA Gaming. We’ve had a pretty good track record with MSI and AMD products ever since the Kaveri APU. We're even rocking a donated Nvidia GT 730 GPU in one of our small form factor boxes. At the risk of sounding too much like Uncle Rico, let's get back to 2Q 2017.

Product Description

People say to not judge a book by its cover, but we found the box art unappealing. The metallic scales make the box incredibly busy, and we found the font for “Krait Gaming” to be atrocious. The MSI 990FXA Gaming box art was much more palatable. On the other hand, limiting to six the prominent features of this motherboard listed on the back helps keep the information concise yet descriptive enough for the average consumer.

The motherboard greets us as we open the box and beneath it are manuals, installation media, IO back plate, two SATA cables, stickers, and a standard flexible SLI bridge. Although the contents aren’t exactly on par with those for the X370 boards we've reviewed to this point, the reduced clutter is a welcome deviation.

The mystical Krait apparently dipped its claws into white paint and slashed this board at a bias, giving this product battle scars that look a bit like inverted zebra stripes. Again, the horrid text covers the IO shield for the back plate and just looks out of place. This board misses the plastic audio coverings for the bottom left of the board, but it is still illuminated and isolated from the rest of the circuitry.

The heatsinks for the Vregs are a different design than we see on some competitors, ditching the fin approach to apply more metal and slotted vents to increase mass rather than surface area. The Krait takes a more subtle approach to product illumination by incorporating white LED as an ambient effect behind the motherboard as well as including one header for programmable RGB strips, manipulated using the company's Mystic Light app.

The Gaming G Series badge covers the Promontory chipset and rounds out the visual adornment. Overall, it appears the marketing department took a complete 180 from the previous 990FXA Gaming appearance, but then again who cares, if this thing is just going to be stuck inside a closed case.

The MSI X370 Krait Gaming back panel has access to one PS/2, two USB 2.0, one DVI-D, one HDMI 1.4, one RJ-45, four USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A, one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A and Type-C, and six audio jacks, but lacks the SPDI/F port that our previous review samples have had. We don't think you're missing anything there. The bottom edge has all the usual suspects: two USB 2.0 headers, one USB 3.1 Gen1 header, TPM, Serial, and Parallel ports.

The bottom right edge of the board has six angled SATA3 ports and are accompanied by an angled USB 3.0 header. The M.2 port supports both PCIe 3.0 and SATA-based drives, where Ryzen CPUs provide four lanes and lesser CPU/APUs will support two lanes. Moving up to the top, three 4-pin fan headers are available, and the pump fan supports up to 2A of current draw for water cooling needs.

The top half of the planar hosts four dual-latched DDR4 DIMM slots that give that reassuring click when successfully engaging both latches. Beneath these honkin’ heaps of alloy, an 8+2 phase design powers various power rails on the board (8 Vcore and 2 VSoC). Connectivity options for PCIe are standard for the MSI X370 Krait Gaming, where the top two PCIe slots support Gen3 x16/x0 or x8/x8 configurations, and the bottom slot drives a Gen2 x4 connection, which is shared with the various x1 ports. This board also employs VR Boost, which aims to increase the signal integrity of attached VR devices to improve data transmission.

This board layout is fairly standard with hints of tweaks for enthusiast builds, such as the angled USB 3.0 header for tucked away cables and fan headers readily accessible to typical fan and radiator locations. The elevated M.2 port is a welcome addition since its location tends to be where fans are constantly dumping hot air from components running around 80°C. For the price point, this board is delivering exactly what we expect: practical performance with the potential for user added flair.

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Firmware & Overclocking

Speaking of user added flair, G.Skill provided two 2x8GB DDR4-3200MHz Trident Z RGB DIMM kits. By default, these DIMMs throw a fluid transition of RGB goodness inside the case. Different color pallets and flow patterns can be programmed using the G.Skill software.

Unfortunately, the software is beta and somehow our programmed scheme got lost while rebooting in the overclocking segment. Regardless, these things rock. The HyperX Predator RAM kits make a brief appearance in this review but only to confirm overclocking performance. This system doesn’t need any more black components!

ASRock X370 Gaming K4

ASRock X370 Taichi

Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming 5

Test System Configuration

Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Graphics	NVIDIA
Chipset	AMD X370

UEFI – Stable From the Start

The standard MSI UEFI is black and white, to match the board, and has scales to match the product packaging. Spamming the delete key upon boot opens the UEFI to the Advanced Mode by default, which has access to motherboard and OC settings as well as links for the hardware monitor, BIOS profile menu, and board explorer. The EZ mode provides a cleaner interface, with basic information about the hardware configuration along with access to similar menus.

Jumping into the OC menu from Advanced Mode, the first option for either Expert or Normal only enables the CPU Memory Changed Detect option, which only informs you if the memory configuration changed.

Moving down the menu, CPU frequencies increase in increments of 25MHz and max out at an impressive 6375MHz. For memory tweaking, you can either manually increase the DRAM frequency up to 3200MHz along with appropriate timing and voltage settings or use A-XMP to enable XMP profiles for DIMMs. For us, A-XMP worked as advertised.

We did observe that when increasing the memory frequency manually, the DRAM voltage was increased to 1.35V by default. There are additional voltage controls, and the CPU features option directs us to the basic Ryzen-specific options. Beware of Game Boost; it'll increase processor clock rates by 500MHz, which may be unstable for any system.

Overclocking

On to the main event: overclocking. It comes as no surprise that the first step was to increase the processor multiplier to 38 and let Prime95 do its thing. This initial step was successful for all cores for extended runtimes. Bumping up to the 38.5 multiplier setting was also successful without any additional tweaking. Feeling comfortable with our temperatures at about 82°C, increasing the multiplier to 39 was successful for 19 minutes. Extended run times were obtained by setting the voltage to 1.375V through the UEFI. Still observing temperatures under 90°C, we increased the multiplier to 39.5 and unearthed the dreaded black screen.

Changing the load line to Mode 3 increased stability slightly, but slowing down to 3925MHz as our final overclock allowed the system to run overnight successfully.

After receiving some clarity regarding load line settings from MSI, it appears that the MSI X370 Krait Gaming is running the processor at a higher voltage than intended, and generally, the lower Mode settings have lower Vdroop values (i.e., Mode 1 has less Vdroop than Mode 8). By default, overclocking sets the load line to Mode 3, so there must have been some variance boot-to-boot between my attempts. Net: Using load lines above Mode 4 will set your voltages higher than what you intended in the voltage setting. Of course, settings should only be compared against sensors and equipment that are proven accurate and calibrated, so use caution!

For the undercard, memory overclocking has some interesting twists, now that we have two different sets of high-end RAM. This platform is tested with all four DIMM slots installed, and that is how we performed initial overclocking.

Compared against the MSI memory support matrix, there are no DIMMs listed that have been verified to run faster than DDR4-2667 in our configuration. We reached those confirmed levels with the Trident Z memory easily and attempts at DDR4-2933 were unfruitful. Upgrading to the latest official UEFI level 1.1 did not improve our results and nor did loading the beta version provided by MSI.

Upon removing DIMM 1 and DIMM 3, both the Kingston and HyperX memory kits had no problem reaching their advertised settings and timings at DDR4-3200MHz. We'll be revisiting our previously tested ASRock and Gigabyte boards with updated UEFIs for more memory OC goodness.

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Benchmarks & Final Analysis

Corsair’s H110i still cools this Ryzen 7 1700X sample, and we apply a fresh application of thermal compound. The “Tumbler” is still our enclosed test rig, hosting our GTX 970 GPU, OCZ RD400 M.2 drive, Corsair AX860 PSU, and various other drives.

Benchmarks

Synthetic Benchmarks And Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613 Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21 CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write 128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMO OpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8 Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests And Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0 Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests And Settings
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests And Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 3460x1920, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain 1920x1080 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF 3460x1920 - UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 3460x1920, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 267252 1920x1080 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF 3460x1920 - Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 3460x1920 - Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

Synthetics & Applications

After that overclocking segment, we want to slow things down with some good ol’ synthetic data. Synthetic performance can be exceptionally boring, but it is a necessary evil to confirm base level performance and confirm theoretical and marketing specifications as a sanity check. PCMark results come as no surprise with less than one percentage point separating all four boards when comparing average metric scores. The Adobe portion of these tests shows the largest score delta, with the ASRock Taichi showing strong performance and the MSI Krait bringing up the rear.

For Sandra Arithmetic and Multimedia, the Krait's performance is average. Cryptography and memory bandwidth scores hand the Krait a first and second place finish, respectively. (Note at DDR4-3200MHz, bandwidth for the Krait is at 36GB/s.)

If it wasn’t for the FaceDetect workload in CompuBench, the MSI X370 Krait Gaming would have swept these tests, but sometimes workloads just act funny.

Shifting the focus to the GPU for synthetics, 3DMark shows a combined score win for the Krait in the Skydiver workload, a third place finish in Firestrike, and the checkered flag in Firestrike Extreme.

Application data is also less than exciting. Handbrake, Blender, Lame, and Adobe all show instances where seconds are separating the different samples. 7-Zip bucks the trend showing a 30-second lead for the MSI X370 Krait Gaming.

Gaming, Performance, And Efficiency

Driving around the track in Abu Dabi in F1 2015 is always a pleasurable experience, and the Krait shows good results across the board with consistent wins at 1080p and 3460x1920 across metrics, but it falls short with a minimum frame rate loss to the Taichi at quasi-4k.

Mother Russia also favors the Taichi in Metro Last Light Redux at 1080p with higher max frame rates, but average rates for all products are more than acceptable. Turning on the other two monitors in Nvidia Surround increases the graphical strain on the system and average rates level out for this GTX 970 across samples, though we still observe higher rates on the Taichi.

Ashes of the Singularity is notorious for CPU bottle-necking, but for some reason the Krait is less susceptible. At 1080p, the MSI X370 Krait Gaming is running right in front of the pack for the High preset, but when Crazy is engaged it claims an almost three frame lead over the competition; this result is repeatable and consistent. 3460x1920 shows a similar trend, where High demonstrates similar performance across all samples, and the Krait squeaks away with the win at Crazy. Just to make sure the game didn’t get updated, we confirmed that all installations of Ashes are running the same version; no Ryzen improvements are applied.

The Talos Principle rounds out the gaming suite with slightly more variance between the Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5 and the MSI X370 Krait Gaming at 1080p and a slight surge when Ultra is turned on, besting the ASRock boards by five frames. 3460x1920 levels the playing field for all boards and shows a one percentage point difference across samples.

Power, Heat, And Efficiency

Cranking up the load on the Krait shows its weakness: power consumption. The Krait’s hunger for performance shows, and at idle it consumes 12W more than our residing efficiency king. The system draws an additional 30W at CPU load and 40W at GPU load. Full system load brings that delta to 54W, which is the TDP spec for some lower power processors!

Across the range, that is nearly a 14% difference. My statement from the overclocking section couldn’t be truer: MSI is running higher default voltages and/or lower load lines than its competitors. Thermal deltas appear to be consistently large as well, going 10°C above the Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5 sample using the same cooler, though this could be due to CPU sensor differences across vendors.

Note the asterisk in the chart: we did observe that the sensors were tracking differently than previous boards, so reversing the naming convention of the CPU thermal sensors was necessary. CPU Diode1 appears to track with the other Ryzen 1700X installations, so we think temperatures are still cool enough. The bulky Vreg heatsinks do not work as well as we would hope. However, with the extra voltage going through the Vregs, extra temps are expected.

With our M.2 finally back at idle and the averages of the averages all munged together, synthetics, games, and application results show the MSI X370 Krait Gaming with an above average rating in all fields. The three remaining competitors have two or three metrics that show sub-average performance. The closest competitor is the ASRock X370 Gaming K4, and our Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5 brings up the rear.

Stacking that with power draw, the ASRock X370 Gaming K4 is still our efficiency king, and the MSI X370 Krait Gaming is the beef cake in the corner. Oh well, the 1.1% performance win is going to go on its name tag.

Value And Conclusion

Coming in nearly $30 below the average price of the competition, the MSI X370 Krait Gaming cuts corners where it counts and puts performance first to win itself the value award among the X370 boards we’ve tested so far.

The MSI X370 Krait Gaming is not the most polished product out there, and its feature set is not anything to write home about (good thing it doesn’t have a post card), but saving bucks bypassing a few features or extra in-box goodies makes this board a win in our book. UEFI support out of the box was by far the best we’ve seen from a Ryzen board to date. The Krait consumes more power than the competition, but this is usually not a high priority for the typical enthusiast. We would have liked a bit more flair to make this board pop, but if it’s going to spend its life tucked behind a panel for a more traditional performance rig, we'll give the MSI X370 Krait Gaming a Tom’s Hardware Recommended award.

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How To Overclock AMD Ryzen CPUs

Jean Michel "Wizerty" Tisserand — Thu, 04 May 2017 15:30:00 +0000

Our Ryzen Overclocking Platform

Unless you've been living under a rock, then you already know that Ryzen is AMD's newest brand that now covers eight-, six-, and four-core desktop-oriented CPUs. In the months to come, we'll also see Ryzen-branded APUs that you can see in our CPU Benchmark Hierarchy.

For now, though, we're interested in how receptive the available host processors are to CPU overclocking. After all, AMD arms the entire portfolio with adjustable ratio multipliers, practically inviting enthusiasts to throw their skill and cooling budgets up against the company's first 14nm CPUs.

Is Ryzen an overclocker's dream, then? We did some preliminary tuning for our launch coverage using early firmware. And as AMD fills in its Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 families, we revisit the architecture's headroom using fairly high-end air and closed-loop liquid cooling. But so far we've seen a common ceiling in the 3.9 to 4 GHz range.

We've already done quite a bit to explore Ryzen's performance in stock and overclocked form. For more, check out our:

Today's story goes a step further. We're tweaking the BIOS in every direction using an eight-core model to gauge the impact of various settings on your overclocking experience. For cooling, we're going with water-cooling, though liquid nitrogen will follow as the platform matures. And we'll test the influence of memory speed and reference clock rate.

Test Configuration

Some of our labs got their CPUs from AMD, some received processors from motherboard manufacturers, and others had to buy retail chips when AMD's supply ran out. Tom's Hardware France was fortunate enough to receive all three launch models, Ryzen 7 1700, 1700X, and 1800X, from the source. To torture them, we surrounded ourselves with some of the best hardware available.

G.Skill Flare X (2x 8GB)View Deal

Cooler Master - MasterWatt Maker 1200View Deal

For cooling, we chose the Silent Loop 280 liquid cooling kit from be quiet! Although our various offices are using different motherboards, we went with Asus' Crosshair VI Hero for this story. We're arming it with two memory modules from a G.Skill Flare X kit, which was developed specifically for Ryzen. In fact, the kit employs Samsung B-die ICs, considered some of the best for overclocking. Is this a perfect combination? We'll see. To avoid graphics bottlenecks, we're using an Asus ROG Strix GTX 1080. To finish, our faithful Cooler Master MasterWatt Maker 1200 is tasked with providing clean power to our platform.

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AMD Ryzen 7 1700View Deal

BIOS Options

Overclocking Options

Overclocking through Windows is convenient, but we still prefer locking in new settings through the BIOS. This is doubly important, we think, when it comes to a brand new platform like AMD's Ryzen.

What follows are the most notable settings from our Asus board's BIOS:

Ai Overclock Tuner: Set this to manual for access to reference clock adjustments, or set it to D.O.C.P. to pick a memory overclocking profile (related parameters are adjusted automatically).
BCLK Frequency: We'll come back to this very important setting later in the article. It can be adjusted from 85 to 145 MHz, according to the settings. By default it should be near 100 MHz, but we have recommendations of our own.
CPU Core Ratio: This is a multiplier used to determine the processor frequency. Raise it to overclock your CPU. Be careful, though. When the ratio is not set to Auto, AMD's XFR technology is deactivated. The processor switches automatically to overclocking mode and all power-saving features are deactivated. It is adjustable in increments of 0.25x.
Memory Frequency: System memory frequency, from 1333 to 3200 MT/s. You can go even further using the BCLK Frequency field. This is a very important parameter for optimizing performance, and we'll go into more depth on it shortly.
SMT Mode: Simultaneous Multi-Threading is similar to Intel's Hyper-Threading. Be careful; we had trouble with our motherboard when this option was set to Activated. Leave it on Auto; SMT will still be activated and you won't run into the bugs we did.
CPU Core Voltage Override: This allows you to regulate your processor's core voltage. Asus advises against exceeding 1.4V. AMD recommends a 1.35V maximum voltage for long-term overclocks, and although the company says Ryzen can withstand 1.45V, longevity may be affected.
DRAM Voltage: Raising the RAM voltage can help stabilize an overclock. A value of 1.35V is generally sufficient. For lofty overclocks coupled with aggressive timings, this can be raised up to 1.8V without additional cooling if you're using Samsung B-die chips.
PLL Voltage: We recommend manually locking this to 1.8V. If you leave it set to Automatic, there's a risk that your motherboard will raise it, resulting in a temperature increase. It's a useful knob to have when overclocking under liquid nitrogen (notably for the RAM).

If you click on the External Digi+ Power Control sub-menu, you get these options:

Load-line Calibration: According to our testing, Level 1 yields the best results.
CPU Current Capability: To avoid overclocking limitations, we recommend raising this to 140%.

As a reminder, LLC helps stabilize the core voltage under taxing CPU loads. When the processor is at rest (idle), it consumes little energy; therefore, the 1.35V it needs is easily supplied. Once the workload intensifies, though, voltage drops a bit (to 1.3V, for example). Obviously this is not good for stability. Motherboards equipped with load-line calibration functionality can increase core voltage under load to offset this effect.

LLC Testing

We tried a number of the modes offered by Asus' Crosshair VI Hero, and recorded their results using our voltmeter.

With the CPU set to 1.35V, all of these profiles fed our sample close to 1.357V at idle. Under load, however, they can increase significantly.

Setting	Idle	Load
LLC 1 (Auto)	1.357V	1.36V
LLC 2	1.357V	1.37V
LLC 3	1.357V	1.4V
LLC 4	1.357V	1.42V
LLC 5	1.357V	1.44V

It looks like the LLC setting is a little aggressive, given the voltage overshoot at idle. At Level 1, the increase under load is reasonable and won't cause any problems. Our testing showed the Auto mode's results to be similar, but lock in Level 1 just to be sure.

The last level is fairly crazy, pushing 1.44V instead of 1.35V.

Be careful with CPU voltage. Setting 1.35V in the BIOS does not mean the processor receives this voltage, proven here with LLC 5, which adds nearly a tenth of a volt. For the remainder of today's story, the values we're reporting are verified with help from Asus' test points.

	Ambient Recommended	Ambient Maximum	LN2 Recommended	LN2 Maximum
CPU Core Voltage	1.40V	Up to 1.45V	1.80V	Up to 1.95V
SOC Voltage	1.15V	Up to 1.30V	1.20V	Up to 1.40V
DRAM Voltage1	1.40V	Up to 1.90V	1.80V	Up to 1.90V
1.8V PLL Voltage	1.80V	Up to 2.10V	3.00V	Up to 3.20V
1.05V SB Voltage	1.05V	Up to 1.40V	1.30V	Up to 1.40V
1.8V Standby Voltage	1.80V	Up to 2.10V	2.10V	Up to 2.30V
2.5V SB Voltage	2.50V	Up to 2.80V	2.70V	Up to 2.80V
1 Depends on the DRAM sticks; the limit is considered from CPU IMC side.

DRAM Timings

The DRAM Timing Control sub-menu grants access to memory timings. No, you aren't seeing things; there are currently only five options. The right memory settings are very important on this platform, so we'll dedicate an entire page to optimizing them properly.

Not all of the other parameters available in the DRAM Timing Control After Training menu are applied. At least, that's the case in firmware version 5803, which we used. Perhaps AMD will allow motherboard manufacturers to unlock these settings in future BIOS releases.

A BIOS Cheat?

To improve performance in Windows, AMD recommends using the High performance power plan. What impact does this have? In order to answer that question, we tried it out.

Also, we turned on the BIOS-based “Performance Bias” option and ran Geekbench 4. This option purportedly allows overclockers to score more points in competitions. Our Geekbench scores are the average of three consecutive runs.

Geekbench 4

Configuration	Single-Core	Multi-Core	Mem. Copy	Mem. Latency	Mem. Bandwidth
Mode: NormalBias: Auto	4705	23774	8183	5878	7276
Mode: PerformanceBias: Auto	4729	24240	8278	5885	7312
Mode: PerformanceBias: Geekbench 4	4756	24739	8528	6004	7369

Setting the power plan to High performance does yield a speed-up (a small one in our case). But it's going to have more of an impact on a CPU that hasn't been overclocked, and can drop its frequency lower at idle.

The “Performance Bias” option found in the BIOS adds even more performance to Geekbench, even set to the default Auto mode. By changing it from Auto to Aida/Geekbench, we record gains in each of the five values tested. Certain motherboard reviewers may see this as cheating, but it'll be a blessing during overclocking competitions.

AMD Ryzen 7 1700XView Deal

Overclocking BCLK Frequency & PCIe

Software: Asus TurboV versus Ryzen Master

Even though we don't think that Asus' TurboV Core software is practical for daily usage, it does facilitate BCLK frequency adjustments from Windows (though it's called APU Frequency for some reason). To its credit, TurboV Core is very comprehensive, allowing you to modify a number of different voltages, along with multiplier coefficients, on the fly.

We did find several bugs while using TurboV Core. During testing, we fiddled with various voltage settings. We'd make our adjustments via Windows and observe their effect on temperatures. Suddenly, after setting the core voltage to 1.2V, the temperature shot from 50°C to 120°C in one-tenth of a second. Cinebench R15 didn't even have a chance to display its first pixel. We though we had applied a bad setting. Several minutes later, we were at +114°C again, just before another crash (at least the built-in protection features work). Finally, as we were setting the voltage to 1.1V, the temperature spiked at 98°C. This time the OS didn't crash. So we grabbed our voltmeter and carefully read the supply voltage.

The result? Nothing died, but we discovered a 1.1V software setting was really 1.7V on the board. We have no idea what voltage was applied when the temperature offsets were showing +120°C. But if 1.7V pushed our chip to "only" 98°C after a few seconds, then the voltage needed to immediately hit 120°C must have been close to 2V. These Ryzens must be pretty robust.

The bug was reported to Asus, and a representative told us it'd be corrected in the next version of TurboV Core. Just before publishing, we tried the latest version of TurboV Core and discovered that, instead of dialing in an incorrect voltage, the application now crashes instead.

Bugs aside, we prefer Asus' software to AMD's Ryzen Master utility. The latter can be difficult to use, it exposes fewer settings, and our performance numbers simply tumble when it's open.

Overclocking BCLK Frequency

Overclocking Ryzen isn't that different from other platforms. There is a reference clock that Asus calls the BLCK Frequency, and it's more or less equivalent to the BCLK you already know from Intel's CPUs.

It's particularly important in this case because the setting is linked to several subsystems: the processor and memory clock rates, as well as the USB ports, the PCIe bus, and the SATA interfaces. Increasing it effectively overclocks almost everything on your motherboard.

Raising the BCLK Frequency setting can create stability problems with each interface. Asus therefore suggests using the interfaces connected directly to the processor, which hold up to overclocking well. Asus even recommends using M.2 storage when you're going for an aggressive overclock, since it's attached to the CPU via PCIe.

Modifying BCLK Frequency

Many motherboards do not allow the BCLK Frequency to be modified, locking it down to 100 MHz. But certain manufacturers include an external clock generator on their high-end platforms. If you plan on exploring BCLK Frequency, make sure the board you pick does indeed feature an external clock generator. At the time of this writing, only three or four models do.

On our configuration, we achieved a stable BCLK Frequency of 148 MHz with no USB- or SATA-related issues. To prevent the reference clock frequency from rising too high, it is necessary to lower the CPU and memory multipliers. The PCIe bus does have a hard time with this frequency increase, though.

Bug: To go beyond 110 MHz on our motherboard, we were forced to leave the motherboard's SMT option on “Auto.” SMT is active in that state, but when we set the option to “Activated” instead, it prevented us from booting above 110 MHz.

Back on the subject of BCLK Frequency, here is an example of the progression trends we achieved in Windows. Of course, you aren't going to boot at 100 MHz and then switch to 150 MHz from the operating system. But there is a small amount of headroom, though slippery and inconsistent. In the table below, we indicate the frequency at boot, followed by the maximum in Windows before locking up.

Boot	OS
100 MHz	104 MHz
110 MHz	115 MHz
120 MHz	127 MHz
130 MHz	138 MHz
140 MHz	148 MHz
148 MHz	154 MHz

PCI Express Management

The Socket AM4 platform manages the third-gen PCIe. When you increase the BCLK Frequency beyond a certain point, though, the motherboard rolls back to PCIe 2.0. The higher the frequency you select, the higher the offset frequency increase. Thinking that this was tied to the PCIe bus, we tried to impose first-gen transfer rates, but saw no change.

BCLK Frequency Interval	PCI Express Bandwidth	Real Bandwidth Per Lane
85 to 104.8 MHz	Gen 3, 8 GT/s (985 MB/s)	837 to 1032 MB/s
105 to 144.8 MHz	Gen 2, 5 GT/s (500 MB/s)	525 to 724 MB/s
145 MHz+	Gen 1, 2.5 GT/s (250 MB/s)	313 MB/s+

Graphics performance isn't significantly affected by these changes, at least not in any of the benchmarks we ran with our GeForce GTX 1080. As such, we suggest using either 104.8 or 144.8 MHz. If you want, you can manually lock in the PCIe generation you want through Asus' BIOS. Be careful, though: too high of a BCLK Frequency setting with a transfer rate that doesn't adapt well risks introducing instability on the PCIe bus.

AMD Ryzen 7 1800XView Deal

Temperatures & PLL Impact

As you may know, Ryzen processors contain numerous sensors that allow the frequency and voltages to be driven as a function of CPU temperature. It is therefore important to study this relationship. Once the chip's temperature exceeds 95°C, performance is throttled.

Throughout the course of our benchmarks, we were surprised to see high temperatures, especially at idle, on our 1800X. We were even further astonished when we started trials with the 1700. Since then, AMD has published a community update that explains offsets in Ryzen temperature reporting. To figure out the “real” temperature on the R7 1800X and R7 1700X, you must apply an offset of -20°C. For the 1700, no correction is necessary.

Also, we observed that this offset of 20°C is a loose approximation, and that it can change as a function of the voltage and load applied to the processor. As a result, our measurements and temperatures for the 1700X and 1800X are not assuredly precise.

PLL Influence

As a reminder, we're using be quiet!'s Silent Loop 280 liquid cooling kit. The processor was tested at a range of voltages, and each time an appropriate frequency was applied. Logically, the higher the voltage, the higher the temperature.

Settings (V)	Frequency (MHz)	PLL Voltage @1.8V Temperature (°C)	PLL Voltage @1.9V Temperature (°C)	PLL Voltage @1.8V Corrected Temp. (°C)	PLL Voltage @1.9V Corrected Temp. (°C)
1.0	3450	46	55	26	35
1.1	3700	52	60	32	40
1.2	3850	56	65	36	45
1.3	4000	63	71	43	51
1.4	4100	69	78	49	58

Our table shows the temperature we measured at the default PLL voltage of 1.8V, but also 1.9V. Why? Simply because the motherboard changes this parameter on its own any time you raise the core frequency. Therefore, we ended up with incoherent data. After a deeper analysis, we realized that this voltage varied, and that it had a significant influence on temperature. So we redid our tests while setting the PLL Voltage to a fixed value of 1.8V, which posed no stability problems.

It does not seem useful to increase this voltage. We did not see any frequency gains, while the temperature rose 8°C on average. We recommend that you manually fix the PLL Voltage to 1.8V, or even less if your processor remains stable. The last two columns show the corrected temperatures (with the -20°C offset applied).

We plotted curves with the measured data points, and the temperature increase is practically linear. The straight lines show the corrected temperatures with -20°C offset applied. An interesting observation, by fixing the PLL Voltage at 1.8V we can add an additional 0.15V to the Vcore without even hitting the temperatures measured with the PLL set to 1.9V.

AMD Ryzen 7 1700View Deal

Overclocking Ryzen 7 1700 vs 1700X vs 1800X

Overclocking at Equal Voltages

Knowing that all of these processors are identical and come from the same manufacturing line, we have to ask whether there's any real reason to splurge on the highest-end model. To that end, we compared their base frequencies and maximum overclock with all eight cores under load. The memory was set to 3200 MT/s, and all of the other BIOS settings were left at their defaults.

Model	Frequency (MHz)	Voltage (V)	Temperature (°C)
Ryzen 7 1700	3200	1.07	35
Ryzen 7 1700X	3500	1.16	52 / 32
Ryzen 7 1800X	3700	1.23	58 / 38

The "entry-level" Ryzen 7 1700 seems to have an advantage, given a base core voltage of 1.07V (compared to the 1.16 and 1.23 volts measured on the pricier chips). Temperature is affected by the Vcore of course, but our comparison is made imprecise by AMD's offsets.

We applied the recommended -20°C offset, but again, we're reminded that the correction isn't perfect. The discrepancy between the reported and real values isn't constant. It changes as a function of multiple parameters. Applying this offset gets us closer to the right temperature, but it isn't guaranteed to be accurate.

Model	Frequency (MHz)	Voltage (V)	Temperature (°C)
Ryzen 7 1700 OC	3975	1.35	45
Ryzen 7 1700X OC	3950	1.35	63 / 43
Ryzen 7 1800X OC	4050	1.35	66 / 46

While the 1800X has a clear base advantage, the difference diminishes after overclocking. If tuning your CPU doesn't scare you, we recommend going for the Ryzen 7 1700 in light of its more attractive price.

Performance

The Ryzen 7 1700 serves as our baseline. Operating at just 3200 MHz (across eight cores), it obtains a score of 1438 points in Cinebench R15. That's a long way from the Ryzen 7 1800X's 1640 points. Given the 1800X's 500 MHz advantage, though, we don't have a difficult time explaining the 14% performance difference.

Overclocked, that delta disappears. Our Ryzen 7 1700 even beats the 1700X. Of course, you can expect overclocking results to vary from one CPU to another, as we mentioned in our Kaby Lake overclocking test.

The 1800X maintains a less-than 2% lead over AMD's Ryzen 7 1700. It is quite astonishing that the 1700X achieves a lower score; this cannot be explained simply by a lower frequency. Even at the same clock rate, our 1700X sample consistently fares worse than the 1700.

MORE: How to Overclock a CPU

AMD Ryzen 7 1700XView Deal

1800X: Maximum Overclock & Scaling

With the 1800X as our best overclocking candidate, we shift our focus to it for the rest of our experiments.

This section explores how the processor behaves at various core voltages. We begin with an under-volting scenario and finish with overclocking. In the interest of time, we're using a fairly brief test (Cinebench R15), so the reported values probably aren't their stable ceilings. However, under a heavier load, the observed progression should be similar.

Voltage (V)	Frequency (MHz)	Score (pt)	Temperature (°C)	Frequency %	Score %
1.0	3450	1540	46	0.0	0.0
1.1	3700	1642	52	7.2	6.6
1.2	3850	1710	56	11.6	11.0
1.3	4000	1770	63	15.9	14.9
1.4	4100	1822	69	18.8	18.3
1.4 SMT Off	4175	1318	62	21.0	-14.4

With a core voltage of 1.0V, we had to lower the frequency to 3450 MHz. This serves as our comparison's starting point.
Moving to 1.1V, the frequency jumps 250 MHz. That's a progression of 7.2% for a performance gain of 6.6%.
At 1.2V, we are slightly under the default core voltage. The frequency can be increased to 3850 MHz. The overclocking headroom, with respect to XFR frequency, is not high on the 1800X.
With 1.3V we reach the 4 GHz.
Our last increase is to 4100 MHz at 1.4V.
Since there are certain applications that do not use SMT, we wanted to see if deactivating the feature would allow us to push clock rate higher. Without SMT, we picked up an additional 75 MHz. The temperature also benefited: it dropped 7°C.

As is true with most components, a small increase in voltage allows a clear gain in frequency. But the magnitude of this gain lessens as Vcore goes up. Transitioning from 1.0 to 1.1V allows us to boost clock rate by 250 MHz, but going from 1.3 to 1.4V only yields 100 MHz.

Given these conditions, it is difficult to recommend a core voltage in excess of 1.3 to 1.35V for daily usage. For benchmarking, the voltage can be pushed to 1.4V without much risk.

Performance in Cinebench is heavily dependent on clock rate, so we naturally see a strong correlation between frequency and score. But it's also a threaded benchmark. While deactivating SMT (and thus eight of the 16 logical cores) helps us hit a higher clock rate, it also heavily penalizes our results.

AMD Ryzen 7 1800XView Deal

Memory Performance

Overclocking the execution cores is limited by available headroom. But if you really want to improve this platform's effectiveness, you cannot overlook the memory bus.

We begin by illustrating the gains achievable by moving from DDR4-2400 to -3200. On our Crosshair VI Hero, the 2400 MT/s is actually the default. On other motherboards, it may be lower (and not without consequence).

Cinebench R15

This test is not sensitive to memory bandwidth or latency, so the gains we measure should be trivial. Still, the influence of RAM performance is quantifiable, given a ~1.4% improvement.

Configuration	Score
2400	1639
3200	1663

Geekbench 4

This test stresses both the host processor and memory subsystem. Its single- and multi-core metrics reveal a performance increase of 5 and 6% from dialing in a faster data rate. That's quite a gain from simply modifying a multiplier setting, and memory capable of supporting 3200 MT/s isn't extremely expensive. Again, our Geekbench 4 scores are an average of three consecutive runs.

Configuration	Single-Core	Multi-Core	Mem. Copy	Mem. Latency	Mem. Bandwidth
2400	4417	20786	6229	4697	5568
3200	4635	22150	7546	5651	7094

Time Spy

Graphics-bound workloads don't benefit as much from a memory bandwidth increase. We do measure a gain in the overall score, but it's very small. Conversely, the CPU-oriented benchmark jumps by 343 points.

Configuration	Graphics	CPU	Score
2400	7204	8010	7314
3200	7217	8353	7367

AMD Ryzen 7 1700View Deal

BCLK Frequency

With our G.Skill Flare X memory kit, we have five preset RAM profiles through the Crosshair VI Hero's D.O.C.P. (Direct Over Clock Profile) menu. This is an Asus/AMD implementation analogous to Intel's XMP.

Each profile uses a final data rate of 3200 MT/s and a principal timing setting of 14, but with different BCLK Frequency values to get there. The bottom section of our screen capture explains each mode:

D.O.C.P. 1: This is purportedly the system's optimal setting, which offers the best compatibility by trading off performance.
D.O.C.P. 2: A 2133 DRAM ratio and 150 BCLK Frequency are used to arrive at a 3200 MT/s data rate.
D.O.C.P. 3: 2400 DRAM ratio and 133 MHz BCLK Frequency.
D.O.C.P. 4: 2666 DRAM ratio and 120 MHz BCLK Frequency.
D.O.C.P. 5: 2933 DRAM ratio and 109 MHz BCLK Frequency.

Why go through all of this trouble? Well, AMD locked a number of RAM timings in the BIOS, so they are not accessible to the user. That is to say they aren't directly accessible.

Here is a copy of the timings we achieved by booting the system with different memory ratios, highlighted with a yellow box in each of the six screenshots (you can enlarge the image above by clicking on it to see the details). The principal timings are marked in blue. These change as a function of the memory ratio, but can be manually forced in the BIOS.

Other timing components are shown in green, and these are not accessible. If you look carefully, you can see that the higher the RAM ratio, the higher these values appear. Higher timings reduce performance, so we have every interest in keeping these as low as possible.

To ensure that you understand what we are talking about, here are two examples where the RAM is set to 3200 MT/s:

2133 ratio and 150 MHz BCLK Frequency -> RAM frequency is 150 MHz x 21.33 = 3200 MT/s, tRC is 51, tRTP is 8, tFAW is 23
3200 ratio and 100 MHz BCLK Frequency -> RAM frequency is 100 MHz x 32.00 = 3200 MT/s, tRC is 75, tRTP is 12, tFAW is 34.

It goes without saying that the first configuration should be faster. Let's see how this translates to actual performance. The reference clock is modified, then we manually adjust the multiplier coefficient of the processor so that its final frequency is as close as possible to 4050 MHz. We didn't run into any stability issues during these changes.

Cinebench R15

We begin again with Cinebench R15. Still just as insensitive to memory throughput/latency, the gain between D.O.C.P. 5 and 2 is small. While 10 points can be a mountain for a competitive overclocker, it isn't that interesting for a regular user. By manually changing the timing settings to 12-12-12-12 instead of 14-14-14-14 we gain another five points.

Configuration	Score
3200 D.O.C.P.5 - BCLK Freq. 109	1803
3200 D.O.C.P.3 - BCLK Freq. 133	1810
3200 D.O.C.P.2 - BCLK Freq. 150	1812
3200 C12 - BCLK Freq. 150	1817

Geekbench 4

Single-core performance tests are usually less sensitive to RAM, and this one reflects a 2% speed-up from D.O.C.P. 5 to 2. Tightening up the timings yields an additional 1% gain.

We do 4% better in the multi-core test. Put another way, by assuming that the score progression is perfectly linear, this 4% increase would be the equivalent of a 200 MHz clock rate boost.

Configuration	Single-Core	Multi-Core	Mem. Copy	Mem. Latency	Mem. Bandwidth
3200 D.O.C.P.5 - BCLK Freq. 109	4649	23640	7730	5677	7062
3200 D.O.C.P.3 - BCLK Freq. 133	4726	24397	8845	5899	7456
3200 D.O.C.P.2 - BCLK Freq. 150	4741	24603	8505	5926	7470
3200 c12 - BCLK Freq. 150	4786	24634	8706	6106	7456

If we take into account the 6% gain from increasing the RAM from 2400 MT/s to 3200, we have an overall increase of 10%. That's equivalent to almost 500 MHz. Not bad!

The results of our mem copy test are difficult to reproduce. The trend is visible, but hundreds of points separate the best runs from the worst. Take those results with a grain of salt, even if the values we provide are an average of three passes. It is clear in this test that there is a a visible gain, with a 12% difference between the best and the worst profile. The two remaining columns show gains between 5 and 7%.

Time Spy

The graphics-bound benchmark didn't seem to appreciate a higher memory data rate. Let's see if tighter timings can improve this: the faster the memory, the more the score drops!

At barely 0.5%, the differences are small. This represents barely 0.2 frames per second lower in a test that averages 30 FPS. These results are quite surprising, particularly since the CPU score soars at the same time.

Configuration	Graphics	CPU	Score
3200 D.O.C.P.5 - BCLK Freq. 109	7198	8893	7410
3200 D.O.C.P.3 - BCLK Freq. 133	7180	9291	7433
3200 D.O.C.P.2 - BCLK Freq. 150	7177	9336	7434
3200 c12 - BCLK Freq. 150	7161	9485	7427

Ashes of the Singularity

We made one last comparison using the Ashes of the Singularity benchmark. Our settings included the Crazy preset, and we chose the CPU-oriented metric. The test was run before this game was patched to optimize for Ryzen, but in relative terms, its utility is the same.

Compared to a data rate of 2133 MT/s, pushing the memory to 2400 MT/s increases our score by 4.1%. The frequency is higher, yes, but timings are also more relaxed, so the two effects partially cancel one another.

Changing to 3200 MT/s jumps us up 13%. This test is therefore very sensitive to memory bandwidth, and we suspect that lots of data must be transferred from one CCX to another. With the interface between CCXes affected by memory frequency, it seems natural that this bottleneck would clear by increasing RAM performance.

By applying the technique we're showing, optimizing memory timings with a higher data rate (achieved by increasing the BCLK Frequency setting), our scores jump by no less than 31%.

Ryzen 7 1800X Configuration	Within-Core Latency Range	Within-CCX Core-to-Core Latency Range	Cross-CCX Core-to-Core Latency Range	Cross-CCX Average Latency	Bandwidth	Std. Deviation
1333 MT/s	14.6 - 14.8ns	39.5 - 41.7ns	230 - 243.4ns	237.65ns	43.74 GB/s	2.84ns
2666 MT/s	14.6 - 14.8ns	39.6 - 42.3ns	117.8 - 124.6ns	120.4ns	50.16 GB/s	1.86ns
3200 D.O.C.P. Standard - BCLK Freq. 100	14.6 - 14.8ns	40.1 - 42.1ns	108 - 114.6ns	114.66ns	52.02 GB/s	1.69ns
3200 D.O.C.P.3 - BCLK Freq. 133	14.6 - 14.9ns	39.4 - 42.0ns	108.4 - 112.4ns	111.51ns	55.24 GB/s	0.90ns

Maximum RAM Frequency

Having heard many times that Ryzen doesn't have a lot of headroom for memory overclocking, we wanted to find out for ourselves. After all, achieving DDR4-3200 at CAS12 wasn't difficult. What comes after, though?

In all honesty, it's pretty easy to hit 3400 MT/s. You select a setting in the BIOS and the motherboard boots up. At least, that's the case with our Crosshair VI Hero. Early on in this platform's life, other models seemed to struggle more. Fortunately, the situation does seem to be improving.

Once you get to 3400 MT/s, overclocking gets more complicated. The results seem to vary from one processor to another and are strongly dependent on your motherboard. Between 3400 and 3650 MT/s, we saw crash after crash. It was impossible to get the system to boot. There was, however, a very small “magic zone” at 3800 MT/s where the system was usable. The timing defaulted to CAS14, but manually specifying CAS12 didn't pose a problem.

Of course, we tried to run our tests at this data rate, but the system was too unstable. After three hours of trying to get a result from Cinebench, we threw in the towel.

The take-away is that Ryzen can hit these frequencies. It's difficult today due to platform immaturity. Asus' board is one of the better ones out there, but it's not perfect. In the future, after additional BIOS updates, it's possible that everyone will gain access to higher data rates and the additional performance they enable.

AMD Ryzen 7 1700XView Deal

Conclusion

The many hours we put into overclocking Ryzen and Asus' Crosshair VI Hero were made more difficult than we're used to due to the many bugs in AMD's nascent Socket AM4 platform.

Of course, it is never easy to start with a new platform in-hand, but when every single component is unfamiliar, and complicated by the fact that AMD seems to have rushed its launch without disseminating information to everyone who needed it, don't even bother counting the hours you spend trying to explore various settings for the first time.

The target is constantly moving, too. Regular BIOS updates intended to smash show-stopping bugs often require trashing old results and starting over from scratch. We didn't think we'd ever finish. And indeed, many updates have happened since this piece was published on Tom's Hardware's French site.

At a certain point, though, with all of the data in front of us, overclocking Ryzen becomes child's play. Increase a multiplier, fiddle with the memory data rate; it's naturally pretty intuitive.

The BCLK Frequency & RAM Surprise Attack!

G.Skill Flare X (2x 8GB)View Deal

If you want to add 4 to 5% more performance, you must have a motherboard that lets you modify the reference clock, such as our Crosshair VI Hero. You'll want to pore over our data and try replicating some of our experiments using the options and settings we dialed in.

For tinkerers, Ryzen 7 1700 is the eight-core model we suggest. Once these CPUs are pushed to their limit, the final difference between them is negligible.

Be sure to configure your memory with relation to the BCLK Frequency setting, which can significantly improve gaming performance. Don't hesitate to spend extra on high-performance memory. G.Skill's Flare X kit proved to be very practical thanks to Asus' D.O.C.P profiles.

The Ryzen platform, in all of its newness, still suffers from several bugs. Watch carefully for BIOS updates from your motherboard vendor. Little by little, these will correct problem spots, improving stability and increasing performance.

MORE: Best CPUs for Gaming
MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
MORE: How to Overclock a CPU

AMD Ryzen 7 1800XView Deal

Acer Reveals New Ryzen Desktops, Predator Gaming Laptops

Nathaniel Mott — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 18:20:00 +0000

Acer teased new Aspire GX desktops featuring AMD's Ryzen 7 1700X processor and revealed the Predator Helios 300 and Predator Triton 700 gaming laptops at an event in New York today.

The company offered the least information about the new Aspire GX desktops. We received a few pictures of one product, were told that the "performance oriented" desktops are supposed to be "capable of handling graphic-intensive tasks for smooth everyday entertainment and gaming," and got a May 2017 release window. Besides those tidbits--and mention of the Ryzen 7 1700X--Acer didn't offer any details about the Aspire GX.

It was a little more forthcoming about the Predator Helios 300 and Predator Triton 700. We still don't have full specs, nor do we know in what configurations these laptops will be available, but we at least have some more details about what Acer built into its newest gaming laptops.

The Predator Helios 300 features an Intel 7th Generation (Kaby Lake) Core i5 or i7 processor, GTX 1060 or 1050 Ti graphics, and up to 16GB of DDR4 memory on-board. (This can be expanded to 32GB after purchase.) Certain models also include a 128, 256, or 512GB and up to 1TB HDD. Acer said in a press release that an access compartment in the bottom of the notebook "makes it easy to upgrade memory or storage."

The Predator Helios 300 will feature either 15.6" or 17.3" Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS display. It's cooled by the dual-fan AeroBlade 3D Fan system and comes with PredatorSense, which allows you to access real-time system information and manage overclocking, pre-installed. It also includes a USB 3.1 Type-C port, a USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, and an HDMI 2.0 connection, along with 2x2 802.11ac wireless and a Gigabit Ethernet port.

Acer also announced the Predator Triton 700, which boasts a Kaby Lake CPU, Nvidia 10-series GPU, and up to 32GB of DDR4-2400 memory. The company didn't specify what processor or graphics card will be used in the laptop--we suspect this is because numerous options will be available, but with a dearth of information in the company's announcement, press release, and website, it's hard to be sure.

Many of the Predator Helios 300's features (PredatorSense, a 15.6" Full HD IPS display, AeroBlade 3D Fan cooling) make a return on the Predator Triton 700. Acer also added a mechanical keyboard, Thunderbolt support, and Nvidia's G-Sync to its higher end offering. The Predator Triton 700 includes two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, and a DisplayPort connector. It also uses Killer DoubleShot Pro to automatically pick the best networking option between wired (via the Gigabit Ethernet port) and wireless (handled by the DoubleShot Pro) for high priority traffic.

Predator Helios 300 laptops with a 15.6" display will start at $1,299 and laptops with a 17.3" display will start at $1,399. Both will head to North America in July. The Predator Triton 700 will start at $2,999 when it debuts in North America in August.

Model	Predator Helios 300	Predator Triton 700
Display	15.6" or 17.3" Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS	15.6" Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS
Processor	Intel Core i5-7300HQ or Intel Core i7-7700HQ	Intel Core i5-7300HQ or Intel Core i7-7700HQ
Memory	Up to 16GB of DDR4 (Expandable to 32GB)	Up to 16GB of DDR4 (Expandable to 32GB)
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or GTX 1050 Ti	Nvidia GeForce GTX 10-series
Storage	128 / 256 / 512GB SSD1TB HDD	Up to 512GB SSD
USB	1 x USB 3.1 Type-C1 x USB 3.02 x USB 2.0	2 x USB 3.01 x USB 2.0
Dimensions (WxDxH)	15.6": 390 x 266 x 26.75mm17.3": 432.32 x 289.91 x 29mm	393 x 263 x 18.9mm
Weight	15.6": 2.7kg17.3": 3kg	2.6kg
Price	15.6": Starts at $1,29917.3": Starts at $1,399	Starts at $2,999

Gigabyte Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Features & Specifications

Even though it's spring cleaning time, and my office has been relegated to a corner of the kids' playroom, the March 2 AMD Ryzen CPU release has kept a steady flow of UPS and Fedex boxes at my doorstep. The fun is just beginning as we continue our X370 motherboard review series.

Specifications

ASRock was first to get AM4 motherboards in our hands for review, but it’s time to start looking at offerings from some of the other manufacturers. Gigabyte’s AX-370-Gaming 5 has received some pretty good remarks from fellow enthusiasts around the web, and it just so happens that the company has sent us a sample to run through the paces. The Aorus line is known for its top shelf lighting customization, but Gigabyte packs a ton of other features into this package that will surely also turn a few heads.

Product Description

The GA-X370-Gaming 5 from Gigabyte sports a matte black textured box that always pleases my fancy. The Aorus Falcon prominently displays itself on the front of the box, dwarfing the various marketing icons typically seen on the sides of our older Gigabyte boards. Flipping to the back, the branding focuses on this board’s lighting, audio, cooling, and network connectivity solutions. Gigabyte packs in four SATA cables (two straight, two angled), tie straps, G-Connector, installation guide and CD, manual, and stickers. Bonus items include RGB lighting header extension, metal-shielded high bandwidth SLI connector, and two external thermistors for probing additional locations in the system for temperatures.

PCIe connectivity is what you'd expect at this end of the motherboard spectrum, with two x16 PCIe Gen 3 ports for graphical and higher bandwidth solutions and a third x16 PCIe port wired for x4 Gen 2 cards. There are also three x1 PCIe Gen 2 slots, but using these will reduce the bottom x16 slot to x1 or x2 modes. This is a feature we wish the ASRock X370 Gaming K4 would have employed for its bottom M.2 slot.

Speaking of high speed IO, the GA-X370-Gaming 5 has one traditional M.2 port and deploys a U.2 connector on board. Upon closer inspection, this connector looks to be an SFF-8639, which happens to be used regularly in the enterprise realm. Regardless, kits are available to convert from this U.2 interface to standard M.2, but be warned: only the M.2 or U.2 interface can be enabled at any time. RAID 0/1/10 is enabled by the Promontory chipset and supports eight SATA 6Gbps connections. Included in these eight ports are two SATA Express ports.

This board is rather plain with only slight style elements coming from the shapes of the heat spreaders and back panel cover. But once power is applied, this board is gorgeous. LEDs line the two Gen3 PCIe x16 ports, regulator section, Amp-Up audio, and all four memory DIMM slots. Top it all off with a swappable overlay next to the power connectors and the system just oozes swagger. These locations are strategic and truly engulf any component with system wide color schemes. Tie that in with RGB Fusion and RGBW compatible headers and this system could rival the former Osborne Family Spectacle at Disney World.

I am no audiophile and don’t pretend to understand the difference between versions of codecs or amplifiers, but the Gigabyte AX-370-Gaming 5 provides a unique solution. Rather than route the audio signal through an amplifier to the front panel, dual ALC1220 codecs provide both the front and back audio ports their own dedicated audio source. Bundled with the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB5 software, this audio suite can support high impedance headphones plugged into the front audio ports while you plug a 7.1 audio system into the back for a more cinematic experience.

Eight 4-pin fan headers are rated up to 2A current draw to let you plug in radiators or pumps directly without killing the board or decreasing performance. Coupled with SmartFan 5 and various internal and external temperature sensor data, you can create custom fan curves and zones so that proper cooling is provided to the right component. We were pleasantly surprised when AIDA64 reported that all sensors appeared to be credible and tracked with various load conditions on the board, a feature that was still lacking on ASRock samples.

Other notable mentions: the back panel has access to one PS/2, HDMI 1.4, USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, three USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, six USB 3.1 Gen 1, Killer E2500 and Intel gigabit Ethernet, S/PDIF, and five audio ports. For open-air case builders, several buttons are available above the 24-pin ATX connector including power, reset, clear CMOS, and OC.

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Test Setup, BIOS & Overclocking

Along with the review sample, Gigabyte sent out a PR kit to further enhance our test experience and add some more comparison data to our X370 review series. The biggest addition to the test bench is a Corsair H110i all-in-one cooling solution. This 280mm radiator solution uses the Corsair Link software to program the LED, fan speed, and pump rate while monitoring various sensors available to the interface.

Gigabyte also teamed up with HyperX to send two Predator 2x8GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM kits. This single rank SK Hynix DRAM has been reported to hit 3200MHz on this particular motherboard model, so we look forward to seeing what our Ryzen sample can drive.

ASRock X370 Taichi

ASRock X370 Gaming K4

Test System Configuration

Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Graphics	NVIDIA
Chipset	AMD X370

Benchmark Settings

Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, CryptographyMemory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMOOpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests and Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default PresetTest Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default PresetTest Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests and Settings
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9Sintel Open Movie Project4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0Version 13.8.0.144PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.020160603.r.88 x64PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4Build 11.4.0.90 x64PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0Version 20.0.0 (64-bit)PCMark driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68aBMW 27 CPU Render BenchmarkBMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests and Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAAHigh Preset - 3460x1920 Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	1920x1080, 2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, RainUltraHigh Preset, 16x AF3460x1920, 2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, RainUltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64High Quality, 1920x1080, High TesselationVery High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High TesselationHigh Quality, 3460x1920, High TesselationVery High Quality, 3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 2672521920x1080, Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF1920x1080, Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF3460x1920, Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF3460x1920, Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

The “Tumbler” is still our enclosed test rig, hosting our GTX 970 GPU, OCZ RD400 M.2 drive, Corsair AX860 PSU, and various other drives. The Noctua heatsinks are taking a short break, but rest assured they’ll get their chance to go up against the H110i.

BIOS And Overclocking

I've preferred Gigabyte’s more traditional BIOS façade in previous reviews. Plain text in a logical arrangement gets my computer mojo going. This AX-370-Gaming 5 UEFI takes that same approach and tacks on a 90s futuristic motif in an attempt to modernize the interface.

Although we do appreciate the text based feel and the removal of the super-low-level Zen, the lack of descriptions, prompts for +/-, or menu selections make this UEFI pretty confusing. If Gigabyte would have provided a text overlay describing the selection methods and moved away from the 1024x768 window we'd have been much more thrilled (though that could be because I use DisplayPort).

In our attempt at overclocking memory, we are once again battling against early release UEFIs and stability issues. With the first attempt, these HyperX Predator DIMMs do not want to run anywhere above DDR4-2400MHz. Browsing to the Gigabyte support page, UEFI version F5d boasts “improve DDR compatibility,” so we download that and give it a whirl. Again, neither of the XMP SPD settings work and manually adjusting various frequencies and timings fails to improve the situation. We contacted HyperX directly and the company confirmed that this kit could hit 3200MHz on the F4 version of the UEFI. Abandoning the “improve DDR compatibility” version did in fact enable us to get to the XMP Profile2 at DDR4-2933MHz, but 3200MHz was unachievable. Our guess: this Ryzen sample just can’t play with the big boys in the overclocking department. Upon further inspection, it turns out the Gigabyte download link pointed us to release F3n, and that’s not confusing at all (/sarcasm).

Our Ryzen overclocking approach from previous reviews still applies, but with the improved cooling solution we expect to hit something higher than 3850MHz! As usual, increasing the clock multiplier to 38 results in a comfortable system setting in terms of stability and temperature. The Gigabyte AX-370-Gaming 5 lets us increase clock rates in 25MHz increments, so increasing three clicks to 3875MHz lets us launch Prime95 and run for about 10 minutes before dropping to the black screen. Increasing voltages to 1.375V lets the system run for another 30 minutes, so we make the jump to 3900MHz. Disappointment follows success when our screen goes black after an hour. Increasing the loadline setting to High, we gain 30 minutes, but still Prime95 bests our components and cooling solution. After more tinkering with settings to get 3900MHz to stabilize, the 38.75MHz multiplier is the only point at which the overclock would run overnight without fault.

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Benchmarks & Final Analysis

This overclocking experience has us bewildered. On the one hand, version F5d lets us report voltages and temperatures accurately, in a way that neither of the ASRock boards did consistently. However, memory overclocking is only successful with the older F4 version, which maps both CPU thermal readings to the same elevated CPU Diode1 value.

Maybe it’s our sample, or still early UEFI versions, but what a painful process.

Synthetic Data And Applications

PCMark gives us consistent data across all three X370 samples, and each product is within half a percentage point of the average value. The Gigabyte AX-370-Gaming 5 trails behind the ASRock boards by a few points in the Sandra benchmarks. But overall, this board still performs right in line with the ASRock X370 Gaming K4. Cinebench behaves as expected, and Compubench results dance around the Gaming K4’s results.

Applications are another snooze fest with the Gigabyte AX-370-Gaming 5 performing right on par with the Taichi. The AX-370-Gaming ends up in the middle of the pack in the 3DMark test suite, including all three resolutions and workloads. Overall, the Gigabyte’s sample is within 1% of either ASRock sample.

Gaming At 1080p (And Quasi-4k)

With the number of presets and resolutions being reported in the charts, we’ll start splitting them apart as I go forward. Though we enjoy having a test matrix of data points, let us know in the comments section if we should drop any presets or resolutions.

F1 2015 is up first, and we see no surprises when comparing either 1080p or 3460x1920 at the ultra high preset. We observe a barely noticeable 3 FPS loss for the Gigabyte sample at 1080p, but at ~4k the 3-frame loss translates to a 10% defeat to the Taichi when comparing minimum frame rates.

The Talos Principle continues the trend for the Gigabyte AX-370 Gaming 5, which shows a lackluster 7.5% delta from the leader at 1080p. 3460x1920 shows promising results for the board, with a 0.5% edge over the Taichi at medium settings and a 1.1% lead at ultra over the ASRock X370 Gaming K4.

Metro Last Light Redux has some wicked frame stuttering during its benchmark, and each sample reports extremely high and low frame rates, regardless of vendor. To mitigate this, my highly-calibrated eyes attempt to find the smallest continuous string of frames to designate a minimum and maximum metric. 1080p resolution sees the most of this measurement anomaly, and for comparison’s sake, average framerates show that the Gigabyte again misses out on five frames compared to the competition. That lead shrinks to a virtual zero when resolutions increase and the benchmark begins to hammer at the Tumbler's GPU.

Ashes of the Singularity again thrashes this Ryzen 1700X and shows the CPU bottleneck that has plagued the Zen architecture. Regarding motherboard performance though, the Gigabyte AX-370-Gaming 5 shows similar results to the ASRock Gaming K4 sample at 1080p and matches the Taichi at the bezel-corrected 3460x1920 resolution. All-in-all, the AX-370-Gaming 5 performs admirably against the two other samples, but the data reflects that the product trails by up to three percentage points in the gaming department.

Thermals, Watts, And Efficiency

The Gigabyte AX-370-Gaming 5 employs a 6+4 regulator design, which competes with the 12+4 and 8+4 designs of the ASRock samples. At idle, the lowest outlet power draw recorded from our Kill-a-Watt was 73.7W, which translates to a 5W delta between the samples. That delta increases to 9W when running Prime95 on all 16 threads on the 1700X. Considering GPU power under full system load, the AX-370-Gaming 5 finally gets close to the Taichi’s result, but the Gaming K4 from ASRock still takes the cake. Again, at maximum system utilization, getting the GPU fully engaged for a longer duration requires all three monitors to be engaged and closely watching the power meter.

Our thermal comparison is only referencing the F5d UEFI version’s sensor output to the system, which reflects the expected delta between Tj and tCTL from previous articles. At full load with Prime95 engaged, the Gigabyte/Corsair combo can mimic the results of the Gaming K4/Noctua at the cost of increased CPU Vreg temperatures. This is a known issue with using AIO coolers since airflow is not directly targeted across the heatsinks on the Vregs but rather loosely guided in the general area. Given the similar performance between systems, we don’t find the need to test this sample with the Noctua solution, but if the comment section desires we will make it so.

Factoring in average performance and average system power, the Gigabyte AX-370-Gaming 5 takes a pretty significant blow in the efficiency department, by nearly 5% compared to the ASRock X370 Gaming K4. The Taichi comes out in the black this time while taking the average performance win.

Value, Verdict, Lessons Learned

Coming in $6 more than the average board price of these samples, this motherboard might lose the outright value prize, but it beats the Taichi when it comes to high end feature sets at reasonable prices. If outright gaming is not the end goal, the Gigabyte AX-370 provides an excellent mix of customization, storage, and expand-ability -- a combination required by the well-rounded enthusiast.

The AX-370-Gaming 5 probably has one of the more compelling feature sets of any motherboard on the market. The board layout is great, connectivity options are right where we want them, but the UEFI and performance of this one sample fall short of what we've seen with previous Gigabyte samples.

We'd call the overclocking experience a success from the processor’s viewpoint, but memory compatibility still has a long way to go. Gigabyte claimed that memory compatibility and validation are the chief concern, and maybe this one SK Hynix sample just hasn’t hit the company's lab yet given HyperX’s recommendations during our testing.

Maybe we'd have better luck with different RAM on F5d. Maybe an 1800X would go to 4.1GHz on this board, given our shorter duration OC success. One data point alone is not enough to overlook a product. In the grand scheme of things, this motherboard is a hardware success, and the software can be fixed in time.

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AMD Ryzen AMA

Tom's Hardware Community — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 13:00:00 +0000

TDP, RAM Performance, and APUs

[Updated 4/17/2017 at 1:15 pm PDT to include a clarification regarding APUs. That answer is on this page toward the end.]

First off, let's give a big thank you to AMD for stopping by to answer all the insightful questions presented by our community members. Scheduling this AMA took a bit of work on their end, especially during such a busy launch year, and for that, the Community Staff as well as our readers are much obliged to everyone at AMD for taking the time to engage with the enthusiastic members of our community.

And of course, we're deeply appreciative of Don Woligroski for the in-depth responses given to each question posted by the Community. We'd also like to thank Sam Tehrani and Erin Maiorino for all their help putting this together.

Want to read the AMA in its original format? You can check out the original thread here. While you're there make sure to enter our second and final giveaway for the ASRock X370 Taichi AM4 Motherboard. Below you'll find the AMA in its entirety, formatted for your convenience and edited for clarity.

Our AMA With AMD

turkey3_scratch: When it comes to TDP, how exactly are the values created? I notice both the Ryzen 7 1800X and 1700X are labeled as a 95W TDP, however, there are differences in the frequency between the two, and looking at the data on these processors I would think the 1700X would use less power than the 1800X. How come the TDPs are the same?

Do you think the current TDPs for these processors best exemplify average power under maximum load (i.e. torture test) or a typical heavy load (i.e. gaming)? Do you think any more data relating to the power of these processors would be helpful to consumers under the specifications, such as the peaks in an oscilloscope graph?

A lot of people like to overclock but when overclocking the TDP no longer is the same and requires some guesswork. Do you think there could be some form of data presented to consumers that could tell them more about the power requirements of the processor if they overclock to certain amounts and voltages, or do you think it's too unpredictable and/or best left to third party sites' independent testing?

DON WOLIGROSKI: This is a can of worms, but I'll do my best. A couple points to frame the conversation:

1. TDP is not electrical watts (power draw), it's thermal watts.

2. Published processor TDPs are often rounded up to fit a desired specification. For example, AM4 motherboards are specd to run processors with 65W and 95W TDPs. It gives motherboard manufacturers and system builders a thermal framework to fit within. At AMD we call the Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 7 1700X, and Ryzen 5 1600X 95W processors, but in practice there might be a couple of thermal watts difference during operation due to a number of factors.

So right off the bat, power draw conclusions based on processor TDPs are probably not going to be perfect, although they can give you a rough idea.

To be frank, people tend to overspec the heck out of their PSUs. Primarily I think important to look for a well-reviewed model from a reliable manufacturer, rather than to worry about processor power draw on 95W Ryzen CPUs. Heck, 125W FX processors tend to run fine on a decent 450W juice box from my experience, but Igor at Tom's Hardware frankly knows a hell of a lot more than I ever will about PSUs. He's your guy when it comes to power draw.

James Mason: Will AMD eventually be able to fix the RAM clock speed issues through software updates alone?

DON WOLIGROSKI: As long as there isn't a physical motherboard hardware limitation, we are absolutely able to address RAM performance improvements through the motherboard BIOS.

Some perspective here - Socket AM4 is brand new, and our first DDR4 socket. Our competition took a year to get the RAM speed and stability they enjoy, but in the month since we launched Ryzen 7 we've gone from testing our original data at 2400 MHz to giving Ryzen 5 reviewers stable 3200 MHz B350 platforms to test with thanks to BIOS updates. Consumers can expect those updated BIOSes to arrive for X370 motherboards in the Ryzen 5 launch time frame around April 11^th for X370 boards.

That's not to say we've achieved perfection in a month. We still have a lot more work to do on the AM4 platform, but the strides we've already taken are incredible. We're also tracking toward another BIOS update in May to help with overclocked memory stability and performance even more, and we have a standing team of people working to develop this indefinitely.

The best part of this is, memory speed is a big piece of the platform, and rears its head in platform-limited applications like games running at the relatively-low 1080p resolution. So we're really happy about the improvements we've made, and this is definitely a priority for us going forward.

imrazor: How will you price the lowest end 4 core, 8 thread Ryzen 3 processor?

AMD Ryzen 5 1400View Deal

DON WOLIGROSKI: We haven't disclosed any Ryzen 3 pricing yet, but you can probably where prices will be relative to Ryzen 5. I'm also sure we haven't announced a 4c/8t version, Ryzen 3 specs will be revealed later.

Sorry, wish I could say more. But I invite you to enjoy the 4c/8t Ryzen 5 1400 when it's released on the 11^th at a suggested price of $169 USD!

atljsf: Now that AM4 motherboards support APUs, what kind of APUs can we expect? Will they have 4 cores and 4 threads? Perhaps 4 cores and 8 threads? Do you have any information of TDP limit? Will they hit 65 Watts TDP?

DON WOLIGROSKI: I can't comment on unannounced products and specifications, but the Ryzen-based APUs will be awesome. That is all I can say.

[Update: Don contacted Tom's Hardware to make he following addendum to this answer: "In the second half of 2017, we will be introducing APUs for Socket AM4 based on our newest Bristol Ridge design, which is currently our newest notebook part. These continue to offer excellent Radeon graphics performance and are a great entry point for eSports gamers. We haven’t yet announced any release dates for a Zen-based APU.]

redgarl: With Nvidia pursuing self-driving car opportunities and Intel looking at Optane, is there a new focus for AMD in the upcoming future?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Optane: The elephant in the room is that Intel has made a very expensive cache drive available. Remember the first SSDs? Been there, done that. It says something that they don't recommend Optane for users who already have an SSD as their primary drive.

As for AMD, our finger is definitely on the pulse of storage tech. Of course I can't comment on unannounced products, so if we did have something in the works I couldn't talk about it.

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Ryzen 2, Wraith Coolers, and Infinity Fabric

redgarl: Goldman Sachs recently depreciated the value of AMD in a report. Do you think the public and the industry is still missing what AMD is trying to accomplish with their new lineup of products?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Goldman Sachs depreciation: This is my personal and not AMD-related opinion: AMD is really well positioned for the long haul, so frankly I'm not worried one iota about it. We've only just begun with Ryzen, Naples isn't released yet, and the public has no idea of our detailed plans. Take from that what you will.

Aspiring techie: What are the low hanging fruits that AMD can easily improve from Ryzen to Ryzen 2 and do you think the gains will be significant? Can we expect improvements in clock rates, SMT, CCX scheduling, overclocking, or other microarchitecture features?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Ryzen represents a double introduction here: an all-new architecture, and an all-new 14nm FinFET process. There are many levers to pull in pretty much every aspect of the CPU. The ones you mentioned are all part of that. And that's a really awesome place to be, when Ryzen is only 6% slower than Intel's newest Kaby Lake architecture clock-for-clock in Cinebench single-thread right out of the gate.

scout_03: Which cooler will come with the 1500x and the 1600x OEM CPU sale in box kit?

DON WOLIGROSKI: The Ryzen 5 1500X comes with the Wraith Spire cooler. This is the same cooler on the Ryzen 7 1700, but without the illuminated LED ring on the Ryzen 5. The Ryzen 5 1600X is sold without a fan, like the Core i5-7600K, which is its main competition in the price segment.

jaymc: Can we expect further performance improvements from Infinity Fabric [AMD’s latest interconnect technology and the successor to HyperTransport]? How future proof is it? Will Infinity Fabric keep up with DDR4 4000MHz? What about speeds in excess of 4500MHz DDR4 memory?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Well, I haven't heard of any engineering concerns about the Infinity Fabric interconnect. On the contrary, if you speed up Infinity Fabric you should drop some latency, so it's all good.

As I've answered already, we're very focused on improving memory speeds and latency, but I haven't heard any concerns about how far we can go before we're capped yet.

Presentato: As someone interested in doing virtualization and PCI pass-through of a GPU early reports of IOMMU groupings don't look promising for the consumer motherboards. Is that something AMD can address or are any improvements reliant on motherboard manufacturers?

DON WOLIGROSKI: This is something I've personally started to look at recently as a pet project. I'm playing with VM-Ware on my Ryzen system at home because, really, Ryzen's highly-threaded CPUs bring a lot of virtualization potential to the table in price segments where it hasn't been before. The sub-$300 segment has been limited to 4-thread processors on the Intel side, while Ryzen 5 ratchets that up to 12 threads. Boom.

Having said that, we're in launch mode right now, and virtualization isn't a top priority at the moment. We're laser focused on making the platform as fast as we can in the near future. I anticipate we'll look harder at virtualization as time goes on.

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AMD Ryzen 7 1700XView Deal

Versus Kaby Lake, FreeSync TVs, and Frame Latency

PC-Cobbler: Many corporations have discovered to their great dismay that China does not respect IP ownership. Last April, AMD signed a technology transfer agreement with THATIC, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of China’s national research institutions. Did AMD cut its own throat with this deal?

DON WOLIGROSKI: This really isn't in my purview. I can say that AMD has good relationships with its partners that we build on trust. I can also say my colleagues are sharp and know what they're doing.

hendrickhere: Big AMD fan - always have been. Why should a standard PC user who is primarily interested in gaming and graphic software performance chose Ryzen and it's AM4 platform over a competing platform of a similar caliber?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Simple questions can be the most nuanced to answer, so bear with me. You've got two use cases here: Graphics Software and Gaming.

1. Graphics Software

This isn't even a contest. We absolutely crush Intel at every price point if you're doing any graphics rendering. We have three times the threads in the Core i5 segment, and double the threads of the Core i7 Kaby Lake segment in the consumer desktop space. We have very high single threaded performance, combined with a massive multi-threading advantage, and this makes Ryzen a very deadly foe when it comes to productivity/rendering/encoding/encryption application performance.

2. Gaming

I don't know how old you are, but I'll date myself. Back in the old days of PC gaming, it didn't really matter what kind of CPU you had because everything out there was graphics card bottlenecked. You'd buy the cheapest CPU out there and spend the rest of your money on the graphics card. A Duron with a Radeon 8500 performed the same as an Athlon with a Radeon 8500. Gamers didn't need to waste extra money on the CPU.

As time went on, developers started to make advanced AI, more demanding assets. Things started to shift back to the CPU and platform. Now in 2017, you want a decent 4-core CPU minimum for serious gaming. Even game consoles run 8-core processors. IPC has become a lot more important to gaming, as has platform speed if you want the highest frame rates at 1080p.

With the introduction of Ryzen, AMD is back in the high-end gaming segment. The graphics card is still the bottleneck in a practical sense, but primarily only at HD+ resolutions (1440p, 4K, and VR) So, if you're playing games at 1440p and above (and you really should be with a decent processor, because HD+ is so pretty), Ryzen is fast enough to move that gaming bottleneck back to the graphics card where it belongs. It's the good old days again, baby!

If you're playing at 1080p (and let's be fair, that's still the most prevalent resolution out there), the bottleneck gets shifted back to the platform and CPU. That's where we see Intel's Kaby Lake pull ahead of Ryzen in some cases. This surprised a lot of people, because Ryzen is such a dominating force in applications, why do we drop behind in some outliers?

Let's talk about that. A few points to frame this 1080p gaming conversation:

Ryzen is never slow at gaming in 1080p, it's just not as fast as Kaby Lake in certain game benchmarks. For example, if the Core i7-7700K gets 200 FPS, and Ryzen gets 150 FPS, that's a technical loss of 25%. In real world terms there's no practical advantage to 200 FPS over 150 FPS. Hell, most 1080p monitors are 60 Hz, which means you can't really get a meaningful benefit from higher frame rates than 60 FPS.

At 1080p, I'm not aware of any game that is so limited by Ryzen that 60 FPS is not achievable. In many games, Ryzen's 1080p performance is well above 80 FPS and 120 FPS. Even for people with ultra-high-end 144Hz monitors, Ryzen can get the job done if you're willing to adjust detail settings, which you’ll often have to do on Kaby Lake to get those frame rates.

Ryzen is getting a lot faster at 1080p gaming. Ryzen is a brand-new CPU, and in the month since we launched we engaged developers to address DOTA2, Ashes of the Singularity, and Warhammer: Total War to deliver faster Ryzen performance. That's in a month. At the same time, platform limited titles are gaining a benefit from our RAM-speed ramp. And we're delivering other updates like a better Windows power plan and a Ryzen Master Overclocking Utility that doesn't require HPET clock to be enabled, which also helps performance. You're going to see an uplift in Ryzen 1080p game performance in the April 11^th launch day articles, and we're just getting started.

Developers tend to make use of as many resources as you provide - over time. You will see games take advantage of more cores and threads organically, especially now that we have new graphics APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan to take advantage of them.

So, to Summarize:

1. Graphics software: Clean Kill for Ryzen. Your productivity/render/encoding/encryption wait times will be significantly longer on similarly-priced Intel competition.

2. Gaming: Virtually identical 1440p, 4K, VR game performance as the competition, and extremely smooth high-performance 1080p gaming (if not the fastest), combined with better prospects for the future thanks to advanced graphics APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan. Advantage: Ryzen!

tredeuce: How long do you and others at AMD get to celebrate the success before you have to move on to the next task or project? I know innovation and competition never ends, but surely I hope y'all can enjoy how well AMD is doing right now.

DON WOLIGROSKI: Wait, we get to sit back celebrate our success? Being in the tech industry means you're never coasting. I don't see a significant reduction in the foreseeable future. But better busy than bored!

redgarl: Are there any plans to add FreeSync technology to TVs? Can we expect a console like Scorpio to have positive effect for AMD GPU performance on the PC?

DON WOLIGROSKI: We will probably see television manufacturers adding FreeSync technology to their products. It seems like an inevitable no-brainer to me, but you never know. I think it's a much clearer path to monitor domination for FreeSync.

I’m not sure what you mean by your second question. Are you asking if our experience working with console manufacturers gives us design and engineering insights that we use for future PC products? If that’s your question, then yes, I think our engineers take all the lessons they learn from console gaming and apply those lessons to the PC where it makes sense. We're a very gaming focused company here at AMD, so it's a natural progression.

jaymc: There have been many online reports of a "Silky Smooth" gaming experience. Is this a real phenomenon or a placebo effect? If it is real then what do you think causes this affect? Is it mouse latency, more cores and threads, or a combination of the two? Also, can you verify if it is possible for gamers to reduce their mouse latency by bypassing the chipset, and connecting the mouse directly to the CPU via USB 3.1?

DON WOLIGROSKI: I personally believe that having all of those extra core/thread Ryzen resources at the PC's disposal means that the windows scheduler can throw requests at resources without affecting the game, where it otherwise might have had the slightest impact on the experience. I've personally noticed that Ryzen gaming has been very smooth for me, but is there placebo there? Hard to say. I do plan to address this with testing in the future, to see if we can quantify this objectively. We do know that Ryzen's 99^th percentile frame times are very good.

As for mouse latency, I don't have any numbers on this. I'd love to see someone dig in to this. If there's placebo anywhere, though, I suspect this is where it is. Even the 500Hz mouse polling rate on USB 2.0 seems like it should be sufficient to me, but admittedly I'm not a mouse performance purist and haven't looked deeply at this, or run any compares myself.

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AMD Ryzen 7 1700View Deal

Cooler Brackets, Gaming, and Console Lessons

Awzey: I’m love the new Ryzen architecture, but I still don't understand why AMD introduced a new CPU cooler mounting system for the AM4 socket. Why didn’t AMD continue using the AM3+ bracket design, proven to work just fine on the Asus Crosshair VI Hero Motherboard?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Dude! We gave you the best of both worlds.

We include the AM3+ cooler-compatible retention frame on AM4 motherboards (to the best of my knowledge, all of them come with those retention frames), not just the ASUS Crosshair. Just check the Newegg board pics for socket AM4. They're all over the place. If you want to use the new Wraith Stealth and Wraith Spire coolers just take that retention frame off.

And frankly, spring screws on the AM4 Wraith Coolers are awesome.

paulgrr63: Which Ryzen processor would you recommend for gaming? I use my PC for schoolwork and gaming, but nothing too demanding. The games I play include For Honor, Battlefield 1, World of Warcraft, and Gears of War. Thank you for your time!

AMD Ryzen 5 1600XView Deal

DON WOLIGROSKI: In general, the Ryzen 5 1600X is the best Ryzen processor for gaming. It gives nothing up to the Ryzen 7s, since it has the same clocks as the top-of-the-line Ryzen 7 1800X, and it can really beat the Core i5-7600K in certain titles. Having said that, I'd wait for April 11^th launch day and look at the reviews before buying. The lower-priced Ryzen 5 1500X might do the job for you. Gaming performance depends on your graphics card, too.

Ditt44: During the mid-2000s most PC game development devolved into a 'console-first' policy, resulting in dumbed-down interfaces, specs, etc. It seems like we’re finally witnessing a reversal to that. With AMD's diversification and integration into console markets, is your company’s development process for CPU and GPU technology based on one market or the other, or is there a more parallel sharing of engineering assets, product features, and architectural designs?

DON WOLIGROSKI: I think products follow what people want.

There was a time when gamers were a bit intimidated by PCs and the knowledge that was required to run them properly. I think the new generation of gamers aren't intimidated and really see the benefits of the open PC platform. Combine that with the tremendous success of eSports, and the PC is leading the millennium's current gaming renaissance.

As far as base-lines, it's a loop. CPUs and GPUs get better, developers start to take advantage of that power, and then we plateau for a while.

This is why Ryzen is so fricking awesome for gamers. We basically disrupted the PC's landscape by making highly-threaded, high performance CPUs accessible at previously unheard of price points. Now that AMD has brought multi-core processors to mainstream, developers can make use for that hardware as it reshapes the market. It won't be instantaneous, but it's inevitable.

Personally, from a crystal ball standpoint, I think the PC will completely displace consoles someday. Really, consoles are just PCs with simplified user interfaces and better compatibility. We've been moving in that direction since day one, it just takes time.

redgarl: Do you think having console game developers and manufactures reliance on AMD architecture gives your company a serious advantage in performance for the same game on PC running on Nvidia or Intel components?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Being the de-facto console developer does have some advantages, giving developers a lot of incentive to optimize for your architecture. From a CPU development perspective, we are focused on both Radeon and GeForce compatibility first and foremost. We want our customers to be confident that both will work flawlessly on their rigs.

Aspiring techie: What do you think is holding Ryzen's clock speeds back? Compared to Kaby Lake, Ryzen's clock speeds are somewhat sluggish. Do you think that it's something in the architecture or Global Foundry's 14nm process?

DON WOLIGROSKI: If you think about it, Ryzen is an absolute worst-case scenario for clock rates: a brand-new architecture, and a brand-new process. And still we hit 4 GHz without too much trouble.

I believe we have tremendous clock speed headroom to take advantage of as we move forward because of this. Lots of improvements to be made.

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AMD Ryzen 5 1600XView Deal

Project Scorpio, Versus Core i5, and ECC

Robert Pankiw: Microsoft engineers are said to have made significant improvements to both the architecture and design of the Scorpio Engine, the SoC (system on chip) jointly developed with AMD. The engineering team reduced the Jaguar powered SoC to a 16nm process node. I realize that doing a process shrink isn't nearly as easy as shrinking a picture in MSPaint. What goes into shrinking existing core design?

The team also reportedly made huge strides in parsing DirectX 12 commands, even claiming that their new designs reduced some API calls down from thousands of instructions to 11. Can AMD still benefit from that knowledge and implementation specifics?

DON WOLIGROSKI: I should qualify this by starting with saying I can't comment directly on Project Scorpio, I am not involved in that project and have no idea if what you've heard about a die shrink is true, but I can make a comment on die shrinks in general

Die shrinks are far more involved than people think, because architecture is tied to dies in ways that we don't know. Not that I know, but this is what our architects tell me when I ask. I can say it's a non-trivial, massive undertaking. But I'm no processor engineer, to be sure. So, I don't have the knowledge to answer you with any authority, sorry.

It might sound like I'm tooting our own horn, but I do believe that AMD invented the basis for all modern APIs. DirectX 12 owes a good portion of its existence to AMD's Mantle API, which laid out a template for Microsoft to follow. They do a lot of things similarly. And of course, Mantle lives on as the basis of the Vulkan API. So absolutely, we're very, very focused on future-looking graphics APIs and taking advantage of them as best we can.

g-unit1111: I'm interested in upgrading my 4th Generation Intel Haswell rig to a Ryzen based system. What performance can we expect from the Ryzen 5 Processors? How does the Ryzen 5 1600X compare to say an i5-7600K? Would my money be better spent on upgrading to a Ryzen 7 1700X?

Also, what's the issue with AM4 mounting brackets? I see that companies like Noctua are giving away AM4 mounting brackets but would older coolers be able to work on the new platform?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Ryzen 5 will murder the Core i5 when it comes to prosumer applications: rendering, encoding, encryption. Anything that takes advantage of more threads, the Ryzen dominates.

If you're a prosumer who wants even more productivity, Ryzen 7 will deliver even shorter processing times than Ryzen 5. If this is you, get the

best you can afford. But know that the Ryzen 5 is worlds better than the Core i5. The Ryzen 5 1600X is essentially as fast as the Core i7-6850K when it comes to prosumer applications.

Now, if all you do is surf the web and game, one application at a time, maybe don't upgrade yet. If you game and stream at the same time, and like to run apps while gaming, then Ryzen is a sweet upgrade for gamers.

norune: Has AMD fine-tuned Ryzen chips so there is less overclocking headroom for the 1800X models in comparison to the 1700 models? Any date for the next revision of Ryzen? Like Late 2017 or early 2018?

DON WOLIGROSKI: AMD qualifies chips. We choose the best samples to be the 1800X, because it has to run at the highest clocks. Does that mean a 1700 or 1700X can't run at those same clocks? Not at all, they might run very well at higher clocks! But they might need a bit more voltage and a bit more cooling to do so.

I have no dates for the next Ryzen revision, sorry. All I can tell you is that Ryzen 3 is coming in the 2nd half of 2017.

sp1207: What is the story with ECC? I've read reports of it working with various motherboards, working only in Linux, working in Windows but not advertised as such. Is there any AMD push to coordinate with Microsoft and motherboard manufacturers to enable ECC as an option even if not officially supported?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Ryzen processors support ECC memory, but it's up to motherboard manufacturers to qualify their platforms. Since this isn't a typical consumer feature, you'll need to do some research and see what works I'm afraid, unless a motherboard specifically announces support for ECC RAM.

Robert Pankiw: Does AMD, Intel, and NVidia work together pre-launch to prevent as few hardware related bugs as possible, especially if these bugs only show up in certain configurations?

DON WOLIGROSKI: AMD does its best to ensure the best possible user experience when we partner with any other vendor.

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AMD Ryzen 5 1600View Deal

X399 Motherboard, Ryzen 5 Launch BIOS, and DDR5

BulkZerker: Can you comment on a rumor I read about a high-end prosumer focused motherboard (the X399)? Is this just idle gossip?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Well you can't believe everything you hear on the internet. But at the same time, if there was an unannounced product, I couldn't talk about it anyway.

Vesperan: If I buy a AM4 motherboard before Ryzen 5 launches, will it post and boot with the current shipped BIOS once I install a Ryzen 5 CPU?

DON WOLIGROSKI: I just asked our motherboard chipset product manager, Steve Basset, to be sure: Any Ryzen 7, 5, or 3 will be fine on the first-revision BIOSes. You're golden!

aeriolwinters: Will the AM4 platform have future revisions to enable DDR5 compatibility?

DON WOLIGROSKI: As far as I can remember, every major memory technology has required a new type of socket. So DDR5 probably won't fit in a DDR4 memory slot when it arrives. Processors are often backwards-compatible with older board revisions; I think that's what you're referring to. AMD has a history of supporting that more than the competition, but it's too early to make any specific promises or even speculation, sorry.

jdwii: In certain titles, such as Watch Dogs 2 the 6900K beats a 7700K but in that same title the 1800X is in parity with the Intel Core i5 in terms of performance. It’s an unexpected result. Can you please explain why as the 1800X beats a 6900X in most multi-threaded tasks, but has Core i5 level gaming performance?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Frankly, Ryzen is a brand-new architecture. Game developers have tightly focused on Intel for years, there will be a ramp-up as game developers learn what they're doing that might not play well with Ryzen, and how to take advantage of its strengths.

We have already improved Ryzen performance for games like DOTA2, Ashes of the Singularity, and Warhammer: Total War with relatively little developer effort. We're working to do what we can and make sure developers have access to Ryzen hardware and our expertise to get rid of these strange game performance anomalies.

Having said that, Ryzen processors provide an excellent gaming experience today, even if it's not the fastest at everything it's still very smooth. And things are only getting better! So, we have good reason to be optimistic.

BuildCrisp2213: Will the 6 Core Ryzen 5 processors be as fully utilized as the Ryzen 7 series for future applications, or do you think Ryzen 7 is a better investment in terms of future performance and longevity? Which processor do you think will most optimized for current applications, and which one will be best for future applications?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Many applications (Rendering/encryption/encoding) will take as many cores and threads as you can throw at them, right now. Those are the easy targets for multi-core optimization.

Aside from that, we expect game developers to make use of DirectX 12 and Vulkan to take better use of CPU resources going forward. This benefit all multi-core processors, but the more cores and threads, the more the benefit. In these situations, Ryzen 7 CPUs should perform better than Ryzen 5.

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AMD Ryzen 5 1500XView Deal

Enterprise, Best GPUs, CCX Latency, and Scheduling

mikeangs2004: Are the Ryzen CPUs stable enough for use in an enterprise environment? Are APUs a lower R&D priority compared to high core count CPUs?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Personally, I would have no reservations over recommending Ryzen for enterprise clients. It’s a crazy good part. Ryzen-based APUs are well on their way. I think it's great that we could stagger releases to make sure we could give each part the proper focus it deserves.

FireDFL: Which Ryzen CPU would you recommend for a gaming/overclocking/rendering build? I'll be doing light-intermediate rendering before I become an advanced renderer. Also, which GPU do you recommend to pair with any Ryzen CPU if I want to game in 1080p and 1440p at 60FPS?

DON WOLIGROSKI: If you plan to render at all, get the best Ryzen you can afford. It's that simple. The good news is that at every price point you're getting rendering performance that blows away the pre-Ryzen status quo, which was 4 threads below $275 (we deliver 12), and 8 threads under $400 (we deliver 16).

Honestly, you can get great 1440p game performance with a Radeon RX 480 or a GeForce GTX 1060 under $200. Only spend more if you want to crank up detail levels and anti-aliasing.

cryoburner: You mentioned that there are already performance optimizations for certain games such as Ashes of the Singularity. What exactly do some of these software optimizations for Ryzen entail? I've heard that communication between cores on the same CCX might be significantly faster than it is between cores on disparate CCX units. Are these optimizations due to updated code keeping threads that communicate often on the same CCX? Would this avoid the increased latency between different CCX cores?

DON WOLIGROSKI: It’s all over the map, there's no silver bullet, even though that's what people want to hear. The CCX latency is there, but it's not that bad and it's not responsible for the outliers.

I'll give you an example of the kids of things that are holding Ryzen back: a developer found that their game code automatically assumed that AMD CPUs had all-physical cores, because we didn't have SMT before now. Once the game was guided to behave as it does on Intel HyperThreaded CPUs, we saw a notable boost in performance.

It sounds simple, but this is what happens when a new architecture is introduced. It sounds trivial, once you know what's happening it can be easy to attack, but finding it takes work.

wildcard1978: When can we expect a fix for the BIOS, RAM speed bugs, and scheduling issues?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Ryzen RAM speed and compatibility is improving all the time. We have a huge BIOS update enabling 3200 MHz DDR4 that should hit most boards April 11^th, and there is another update scheduled for May.

As for scheduling issues, there aren't any “issues” per se. Windows is doing what it's supposed to do. The balanced power plan wasn't working optimally and we fixed that with an updated plan you can download from the AMD website.

That's not to say we can't work with Microsoft to make the schedulers work better in the future, but there's no problem right now. It's working as designed.

Bursar: What is the IPC improvement you are looking for between Ryzen and Ryzen 2?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Personally, I'm looking for as much performance uplift as possible! We haven't disclosed anything yet, but I'm quite optimistic.

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AMD Ryzen 5 1400View Deal

Mobile, Naming Scheme, and Naples

awetle: Theoretically, how fast can the Infinity Fabric clock? Will we see an iteration of this interconnect technology on Ryzen compatible with the higher speeds of DDR5?

DON WOLIGROSKI: I'm not aware of an Infinity Fabric ceiling. That's not to say there isn't one, but it's never come up as a limitation in the meetings I've been a part of.

I can't comment on memory technologies that don't even have a defined specification yet. I can say that AMD has committed to keeping the AM4 platform around for years to come, and we're very committed to the Ryzen brand, so we'll have to see if that collides with the consumer release of DDR5.

skgs2017: Are there plans to release an 8-Core Ryzen CPU for Laptops this year?

DON WOLIGROSKI: We haven't publicly released the specifications of our Ryzen-based laptop APUs, so I can't comment.

LordStreetguru: Why weren’t the Ryzen series of processors named Ryzen 4, Ryzen 6, Ryzen 8, Ryzen 12, and Ryzen 16?

DON WOLIGROSKI: We did a ton of research and found that the vast majority of people just want a good/better/best brand segmentation scheme. They value the simplicity and clarity of it. Good = Ryzen 3, better = Ryzen 5, best = Ryzen 7. Boom! Done.

randomizer: Do you ever miss writing reviews?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Sometimes, but not nearly as much as I miss playing with all the new hardware that used to come across my desk.

The opportunity I miss most is reporting on the VR industry when the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive were released. I was there before it started; I made a polarized 3D projector before you could buy them, and I tested the crap that was out before the first Oculus Rift Development kit. I met Palmer Luckey in a tiny hotel room at CES where he showed me the very first DK1. I'll always feel it's a story I never got to delve in to as much as I expected I would.

chriscambridge: We do data processing using single and dual Xeons. We actually know very little about AMD and the new Ryzen CPUs, as we are more Intel/Nvidia users. Would Ryzen processors and their related motherboards have anything to offer us? We require high core counts with hyper-threading, at the quickest frequency possible, with AVX/AVX2, auto-overclocking, and DDR4 RAM?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Ryzen has single-threaded IPC comparable to Intel's Broadwell-E. Clock for clock, we're about 6% behind Kaby Lake, Intel's best.

At the same time, we offer colossal multithreading advantages over the competition. Our 6-core/12 thread Ryzen 5's start at just over $200 USD. Our 8-core/16 thread Ryzen 7s start at just over $300 USD. The $499 Ryzen 7 1800X offers multithreading performance about 9% better than the Core i7-6900K, which costs over $1000.

Ryzen CPUs can use ECC memory, but Intel consumer CPUs cannot (although Ryzen boards are not qualified for this). Ryzen also uses DDR4 RAM. It's a new platform so we're ramping up memory, but we're stably at 3200 MHz and making fast progress with BIOS updates.

If you use Xeons, though, do some research on AMD's upcoming Naples server parts. Quad-channel RAM, unholy amounts of I/O bandwidth, 32-core/64-thread CPUs. Absolutely killer server value coming your way.

XaveT: Are there any plans to release a low-power Ryzen processor, such as one with a TDP of 25W less, designed in the same vein as the Athlon 5300-series? I love those little workhorses, and am hoping to see an AM4 version with PCIe 3.0 and DDR4 support. Any chance of us seeing this?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Nothing we've announced specifically. Although we're making mobile Ryzen processors in the future, so that's some indication.

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Best Gaming Processor, Clock Speeds, and Development

AMD Radeon RX 480 8GBView Deal

johnson151168: Which processor do you recommend strictly for gaming, priced less than $250? I don't really play anything besides League of Legends and World of Warcraft, but I would like to try out quite a few upcoming games, and I know my FX CPU is not be up to the challenge. I am currently using a Radeon RX 480 8GB graphics card.

DON WOLIGROSKI: Strictly gaming, well, assuming your “strictly gaming” goal doesn't include gaming and streaming to twitch (which can really take advantage of the 12-threaded Ryzen 5 1600X and Ryzen 7 processors), I'd steer you to the Ryzen 5 1500X. High clocks and the most XFR clock rate headroom in the Ryzen stack so far (up to 200 MHz over the Precision Boost spec with capable cooling), four cores and 8 threads so it has enough resources to take advantage of the games that value more cores. $189. Sweet little part, basically a Core i7 equivalent in a lot of ways, but for about half the price.

SinxarKnights: Did you have a party once the first Ryzen chips rolled off the line to celebrate?

DON WOLIGROSKI: I work from home in Canada, I wasn't at the AMD campus when they had the Ryzen launch party.

jaymc: Do you expect to hit higher and higher clock speed as AMD further refines and tweaks the Ryzen platform? Will Ryzen ever hit clock speeds equal to an overclocked Kaby Lake?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Until we have new silicon spins, anything I say is speculation. But we're all quite optimistic about how fast we got this first architecture/process to go in its first go round, and bolstered that we have a lot of opportunity to crank up the clocks.

Martell1977: Could tell us a little about Ryzen's development, as in, how long ago was it that it was started? Was it before the Bulldozer release? Shortly after?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Off the top of my head, I believe it was 4 or 5 years ago now, around 2012. Before my time at AMD, I started my tenure here at the beginning of 2015. The promise of the Zen architecture is one of the reasons I came to AMD in the first place.

Martell1977: The benchmarks I have seen for Ryzen 7 have made it difficult to know exactly which CPU to recommend. There are 4 SKU's out to challenge Intel’s. Is there a chart or list you have that show exactly what your intended CPU vs CPU matchups are?

DON WOLIGROSKI: You can compare on price or on ability. The Ryzen 7 1700X ($499) actually also beats the Core i7-6900K in a lot of multi-threaded benches, but on a price standpoint it's closer to the Core i7-6800K, which it dominates.

We usually pit the Ryzen 7 1700 ($330) and the i7-7700K because their price is so close. From a productivity rendering/encoding/encrypting standpoint the 1700 kicks the crap out of Kaby. The 7700K does have higher clocks and IPC, so there's a 1080p gaming advantage, but once you raise resolution to 1440p the gaming advantage is very muted. At 4K and in VR, it barely shows up in benchmarks. So, if you're spending over $300 on a CPU, I think the Ryzen 7 1700 is an easy choice because folks in this segment would be buying 1440p or higher resolution monitors. You're not giving up any real-world game performance at 1440p and above, but you're getting colossal application advantages.

The new Ryzen 5 1600X ($249) is 6 cores/12 threads and priced similarly to the Core i5-7600K. Literally 3x the threads on Ryzen, this is the easiest battle for us. Productivity is on a different level entirely, while some modern games really appreciate more than 4 threads and the 7600K can suffer significantly compared to the 7700K. So, games trade blows at 1080p. No real argument to choose Kaby Lake here.

The Ryzen 5 1500X ($189) is priced opposite the Core i5-7500. With twice the threads of the core i5, the Ryzen 5 1500X is a good gaming part for people who like the idea of Core i7 class productivity for half the price, should they ever want to exercise that power. And games are becoming more threaded all the time thanks to DirectX 12 and Vulkan.

Dragonsmint878: Any update on the availability to purchase Wraith coolers? Will the Wraith Max, might it be available to purchase at R5 Launch? Will stock RGB coolers be able to be bought separately?

DON WOLIGROSKI: We're very aware of the demand from AMD customers for standalone wraith coolers. We haven't announced anything publicly. I personally think it would be very cool if they were offered as a standalone item.

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AMD Ryzen 7 1700XView Deal

Update Schedule, 1600X Microarchitecture, and Optane

lightofhonor: How has developing/updating the BIOS process been different then supporting previous AMD sockets or Intel sockets? I've noticed a lot of updates since release on my Killer board. When will the BIOS stop being updated several times a month? When do you think the BIOS will be "done"?

DON WOLIGROSKI: On any new platform, there's going to be more development than usual. It happens with every major socket update, on both AMD and Intel for those who have been around long enough to remember a number of turnovers.

But we're making really good progress, and very quickly. My gut feeling is that the upcoming April update gets us to a place where people are generally satisfied, and then we'll hone that edge in the months to come.

Aris25: Is the 1600X manufactured as a 3x3 or is it a 1800X with one core on each side turned off or is it an 1800X with one core that failed on each side that was then turned off or something else altogether?

DON WOLIGROSKI: The 1600X is essentially an 1800X with one core disabled per CCX (a 3+3 configuration). All 16MB of L3 cache is still enabled, BTW.

Evilwumpus: Can we expect a significant performance difference of Vega or the Polaris refresh when used in conjunction with Ryzen 7 vs an Intel Core i7-7700k?

DON WOLIGROSKI: From a CPU perspective, we try to be graphics-agnostic so everyone can enjoy Ryzen regardless of their choice of GPU.

Nope 1151: Will you ever go back to the green AMD logo?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Your answer lies within (your username).

aeriolwinters: Would the Athlon brand still be active? With the R7 for Enthusiasts, the R5's for mainstream high computing and the R3 for mainstream computing, how do you see the Athlon fit in with all the APU's still not in tow?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Athlon will be used for CPUs that sit below the Ryzen 3 brand, just as it sits below the current FX brand. It will live next to A-series APUs in the same segment. Bristol-Ridge-based APUs and Athlons will be available for Socket AM4 motherboards at an undisclosed date. Stay tuned!

valeman2012: Any plans for Intel Optane support?

DON WOLIGROSKI: The short answer is no. The long answer is:

1. Optane is Intel-proprietary technology, and the Optane M.2 slot is exclusive to some Intel motherboards

2. Intel partnered with Micron to create 3D Xpoint memory technology that Optane is based on. I don't know if Micron's 3D Xpoint-based memory will ever be available as an agnostic solution. I would assume that Intel has an exclusivity clause, but I don't know how long it'd last.

3. In its current form for consumer desktop, Optane is basically an SSD cache drive with a maximum (pitiful) 32GB of storage. They don't even recommend pairing it with an SSD because you wouldn't notice a performance difference. They suggest you pair it with a mechanical hard drive. Lots of hype and little substance.

On the consumer desktop, you're better served with an SSD that actually has decent amount of storage space.

anironbutterfly: I've been reading on the new Ryzen CPUs, in hopes that they're a good successor to the FX-series (I'm currently using an FX-8350 on an original Sabretooth FX990 motherboard with 32 GB DDR RAM). I'm not a gamer, but a hobbyist graphic artist who uses Poser and DAZ|Studio. It's starting to show its age, and I'm looking at options to upgrade. the Ryzen series are the first new straight CPUs I've seen come out of AMD in several years.

I'm curious how this new series of chips might perform for 3d graphics rendering with the Nvidia Iray render engine (and the alternative 3Delight rendering) in comparison to the i5 and i7 Intel CPUs and compatibility with the Nvidia GeForce video cards. (I'm currently using an EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB that will be progressing into my new build).

DON WOLIGROSKI: I'm not familiar how the Nvidia iRay engine works - I'll assume because it's Nvidia, it's CUDA based. It may not be CPU dependent.

For any CPU-dependent renderer, though, Ryzen will give you colossal - and I mean COLOSSAL - performance increases over FX. And in general, it's just a lot faster and enables multi-tasking in a much more responsive way. Even the sub-$200 Ryzen 5's will give you a tremendous upgrade over the FX. But I encourage you to read the launch day reviews on April 11^th.

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AMD Ryzen 7 1700View Deal

M.2 Performance, FreeSync Vs G-Sync, and CCX Performance

Onoref: With the new M.2 SSD's coming out, will the restriction on Ryzen PCIe lanes be an issue and what is your take on it?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Our M.2 performance is very good, especially NVMe, as a lot of Ryzen's I/O goes direct to the CPU - not through a chipset. I encourage you to check out the storage benchmarks in Ryzen 5 reviews.

tanke001: I'm saving to update my computer from a Phenom II X6 1055 to a full Ryzen platform. I use it mainly for video games. My question is: if it has been confirmed that L3 shared cache memory is creating bottlenecks with its actual config, can it be a good idea to split it into 4MB per CCX by software?

DON WOLIGROSKI: There's a lot of cache FUD out there about Ryzen, and a lot of people are making assumptions based on limited info. Just keep an eye on actual reviews. As we ramp up the platform and get rid of bottlenecks like memory speed, we get faster. And I can confidently say Ryzen is a lot faster than the Phenom II out of the box when it comes to gaming.

orifiel: Is AMD working with RAM vendors for more RAM options to be available for Ryzen? All I want is an AMD Ryzen 1700X with 32GB of RAM at 3000MHz or 3200MHz. Can I hope for a fix with a Rev2 BIOS and firmware updates?

DON WOLIGROSKI: RAM compatibility is one of our top priorities right now, and we're working hard to get regular BIOS updates until the situation is ideal. Expect a new BIOS around April 11^th, and in May to make memory work faster on Ryzen.

PandaNation: Why are FreeSync monitors so much cheaper than their G-Sync counterparts? I know you won't be able to say much, but how does Vega compare to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and the Nvidia Titan Xp? Big fan of AMD, thinking of doing a Mini-ITX Ryzen 5 build. Keep up the good work!

DON WOLIGROSKI: FreeSync is cheaper because it's an open standard. In many cases a panel manufacturer can make a FreeSync panel by changing their monitor's firmware and having it meet the spec. For G-Sync, Nvidia charges a licensing fee. Because of this differentiation alone, I think the inevitable future is FreeSync.

(re Vega): It looks really nice.

I am also waiting for my MiniITX Ryzen board!

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AMD Ryzen 5 1600XView Deal

Tweaks & Support, Power Plan, and Game Benchmarks

Eric_010: Is AMD working with Battlefield 1 developer DICE to improve performance on Ryzen CPUs?

DON WOLIGROSKI: We're engaging with every major developer we can to make sure the Ryzen gaming experience only gets better. For now I'd play with the Battlefield 1 DirectX setting and detail to optimize the game, offhand I don't recall hearing about these issues on BF1 and Ryzen so this might be a problem specific to your system. That said, there's a lot of data being tracked and I apologize if it's a known issue that I can't recall at the moment.

fourseven: I live in Indonesia. Do you know when AMD plans to launch the Ryzen 5 in South East Asia, specifically in Indonesia?

DON WOLIGROSKI: Official on-shelf launch day is April 11^th worldwide. I'm not sure if your specific country has any challenges that would prevent that, but that's the day we expect Ryzen 5 to be available on shelf.

cstephenson: When do you expect the Ryzen chips to be competitive with Intel in terms of gaming? The potential is certainly there!

DON WOLIGROSKI: I'd argue that Ryzen is already competitive. There's been a lot of reviewers talking about outliers where we don't do as well, and bringing a lot of focus to them. And those outliers are where we've focused our first-round of developer engagements. Games like Ashes of the Singularity, Total War: Warhammer, and DOTA2 already have improvements.

With the new faster memory support, we average game performance delta between Ryzen and Kaby Lake is a lot closer than you'd think over a wide swath of games at 1080p. And Ryzen can hit over 60 FPS in pretty much every game I've seen at 1080p, and usually over 80 FPS and 120 FPS. It's never slow, it's just not the fastest. At 1440p, 4K, and in VR, the delta becomes insignificant between Ryzen and Kaby.

Based on that, I think it's fair to say we're already quite competitive, we're just not just not the fastest at 1080p gaming. Saying Ryzen isn't a competitive gaming CPU because Kaby is a bit faster is like saying the Ferrari 488 isn't a competitive sports car because the Bugatti Veyron is faster. It's a gross oversimplification.

Ditt44: Having just read that AMD has a new power plan available, is this something that we will see integrated with Ryzen after "Date X" or will users have to manually download and update?

DON WOLIGROSKI: For now it’s a manual download. Our long-term goal is to get it automatically updated in Windows, but I don't have a target date on that yet, sorry.

Tech_TTT: Are we expecting an AMD APU with onboard HBM2 Memory as shared memory for both System and GPU and no DIMMs slots any time sooner? What are your plans for very low voltage CPU? The Ryzen managed a good 65W TDP for 8 cores. Can we expect a 15W 4 core Ryzen APU to compete with a low voltage Intel CPU?

DON WOLIGROSKI: We're definitely considering different HBM implementations, but we haven't announced anything I can talk to. In a lot of ways the Zen architecture gets more impressive as you provide less power. I can't comment on unannounced laptop parts, but there are great things coming!

Tech_TTT: Why did you choose to go dual channel memory and not quad or eight channels for the Ryzen? Why doesn’t AMD manufacture their own motherboards?

DON WOLIGROSKI: We decided to focus on what’s best for the market. Our goal is to have a platform that competes with low-end Intel boards all the way up to high-end Intel Extreme. After analyzing the benefits, the real-world advantage of quad-channel RAM doesn't outweigh the extra costs or trade-offs. The vast majority of users will never see the difference. Heck, the dual-channel 1800X can still beat the tar out of the quad-channel 6900K in many benchmarks. I think it was a good compromise for the vast majority of users. From an enthusiast perspective, it's always nice to have more, though, so I get it.

AMD does not manufacture their own motherboards because, frankly, our partners do a better job and offer more differentiation and flavor than AMD would want to. We're happy to concentrate on the processors and leave the boards to the specialists.

Thanks again to everyone who participated! If you haven't yet, now is your final chance to enter our giveaway for the ASRock X370 Taichi AM4 Motherboard. New to the Tom's Hardware Community? Head to the forums and sign up to become a member of the largest enthusiast community on the planet.

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AMD Ryzen 5 1600View Deal

AMD Ryzen 7 1700 CPU Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction

AMD is trying to claw back lost market share with its eight-core Ryzen processors, and in the process, the company is generating a tremendous amount of excitement. Most of the enthusiasm stems from competitive pricing and solid performance in content creation and productivity workloads, even if Ryzen isn't shaping up to be universally superior, as many hoped prior to launch. The chips still suffer an IPC deficit compared to Intel’s Kaby Lake processors, and the unique Zen microarchitecture falls behind in some games at lower resolutions. While the Ryzen 7 CPUs we've tested provide a smooth experience in most titles, they don't oust Intel from its comfortable position atop the benchmark charts. This makes it difficult to universally recommend those high-end parts.

But it appears the bottom of AMD's Ryzen 7 stack offers the best value. The company claims that its Ryzen 7 1700 is the most efficient eight-core CPU available. And priced at $330, it's undoubtedly the cheapest one with modern amenities. The 1700 wields the same design as its more expensive counterparts, including the same Zen-based architecture, two CCXes enabling 16 logical cores, and 16MB of L3 cache. It also sports an unlocked ratio multiplier, AMD's SenseMI suite, and Socket AM4 compatibility.

As a result, the Ryzen 7 1700 might hit a value sweet spot that the $500 Ryzen 7 1800X and $400 1700X couldn’t.

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

Ryzen 7 1700X

Ryzen 7 1700

The 1700’s 65W TDP stands out as its most notable differentiator compared to the higher-end 95W Ryzen 7s. A more conservative power rating means lower voltages (and heat), so its 3 GHz base and 3.7 GHz boost frequencies understandably trail the 1700X and 1800X as well.

Both X SKUs do benefit from AMD's XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) technology, which provides an additional 100 MHz over the boost ceiling if your thermal solution is beefy enough. In contrast, the 1700 comes equipped with a reduced XFR feature set that doesn’t boost beyond 3.7 GHz, though it does facilitate an all-core 3.1 GHz boost in threaded workloads. You also save a few bucks with the bundled 95W Wraith Spire cooler, and although we wouldn’t recommend using the stock heat sink for overclocking, it’s a nice addition.

The 1700 wades into a brutally competitive segment; its $330 price tag is only slightly lower than the $350 Core i7-7700K rocking a 4.2 GHz base and 4.5 GHz Turbo Boost clock rate. The Ryzen 7 1700 beckons with twice as many cores and double the L3 cache, though that doesn't translate to more performance in every application. After all, even Intel's Core i5-7600K competes with the top Ryzen 7s in certain workloads.

The Ryzens we've tested thus far suffer curious performance losses in some games. But AMD contends that many developers will patch their software to improve frame rates. Encouragingly, Stardock/Oxide recently patched Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation to optimize for Ryzen. Valve also released a patch for Dota 2. Both updates improve performance, and more important, they hint at what we might see from other devs in the future.

In the meantime, Ryzen 7 1700 offers a great starting price for eight cores and an unlocked multiplier. We think it can match its bigger brothers with a bit of tuning. Let's test that theory out.

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Overclocking & Test Setup

Overclocking

We dialed in a 3.9 GHz overclock for all three Ryzen processors, and the tuning experience was similar across the trio. A 1.3875V core voltage and 1.2V CPU SoC voltage paved the way for extended stability in Prime95. During our tests in the U.S. lab, we saw the 1700 peak at 65°C (according to AIDA), while the 1700X and 1800X reached 70°C.

Waste heat appears to accumulate quickly at higher clock rates (we hit 82°C with the 1800X at 4 GHz using Corsair's H100i v2). The Wraith Spire cooler can dissipate up to 95W, but it’s best to purchase a beefy cooler if you plan on pushing the limits of Ryzen's frequency headroom. Regardless of the heat sink we used, or the unsafe voltages we dialed in, though, we couldn't run at the same 4 GHz with our 1700. Our sample just wouldn't make it past our stress tests. Your mileage may vary, of course.

AMD recommends a "safe" limit of 1.35V for long-term overclocks, but doesn't provide warranty coverage for voltage settings beyond default. The company also claims Ryzen can take up to 1.45V, though it doesn't recommend this for long-term use.

Ryzen Memory Support	MT/s
Dual-Channel/Dual-Rank/Four-DIMM	1866
Dual-Channel/Single-Rank/Four-DIMM	2133
Dual-Channel/Dual-Rank/Two-DIMM	2400
Dual-Channel/Single-Rank/Two-DIMM	2677

We bumped Corsair's LPX memory modules up to DDR4-2933 for our overclocked tests. There are reports that higher data rates yield notable gains from Ryzen processors. Unfortunately though, even after the most recent wave of BIOS updates, support for 3000 MT/s+ is dicey. The motherboard ecosystem continues to mature, and we plan to follow up when AMD opens up additional timings and improves memory overclocking with an update later in April.

Test Setup

For this piece, we split testing between our German and American labs. The team in the U.S. ran the gaming benchmarks, while the Germans measured performance in HPC and workstation apps, and then collected thermal/power data. They used MSI's X370 XPower Gaming Titanium motherboard and we went with Asus' Crosshair VI Hero and an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FE. We stuck with AMD’s recommended presets for our stock configurations to minimize issues attributable to the dissimilar boards.

If you want to know more about how the Tom's Hardware DE system looks and is controlled, check out How We Test Graphics Cards.

Test Systems and Measurement Setups
Systems	Germany AMD 1Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1700MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium2x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 @2666 MT/sIntel LGA 2011-v3 Intel Core i7-6900K MSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium 4 x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400Intel LGA 1151 Intel Core i7-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming 7 2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @2400 MT/sAMD Socket AM3+ FX-9590 Asus Crosshair V Formula 2 x 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-2133 @1866 MT/sGermany All1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System SSD)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850WWindows 10 Pro (All Updates)US AMD 1Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, 1700Asus ROG Crosshair VI Hero2x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 @2666 MT/sUSA Intel 1Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming M72x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 @2400 MT/sUSA Intel 2Core i7-6900KASRock X99 Extreme44x Crucial DDR4-2400US All1TB Samsung PM863SilverStone ST1500, 1500WWindows 10 Pro (All Updates) Version 1607
Cooling	Germany- Alphacool Eispumpe VPP755 Pump - Alphacool NexXxoS UT60 Full Copper 240mm- Alphacool Eisblock XPX CPU-Alphacool Cape Corp Coolplex Pro 10 LT- 5x be quiet! Silent Wings 3 PWM- Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut US-Corsair H100iv2-Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4-Arctic MX-4
Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Expansion Kit and Mods
Power Consumption Measurements	- Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) - Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable - Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply- 2 x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function - 4 x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) - 4 x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) - 1 x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurements	- 1 x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera- PI Connect Analysis Software with Profiles
Noise Measurements	- NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File)- Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)- Creative X7, Smaart v.7- Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H)- Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm- Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) - Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

3DMark, Ashes of the Singularity, Battlefield 1 & 4

3DMark

Synthetic benchmarks usually don't provide an accurate measure of real-world gaming performance, but 3DMark's DX11 physics and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the raw horsepower available to the game engine.

The DX11 and DX12 CPU tests reveal a similar trend. Ryzen 7 1700 trails the other eight-core processors, but passes the Core i7-6900K once we overclock it. Of course, the same treatment applied to Intel's chip would have a similar effect, so we'll stop short of calling this an AMD victory.

The quad-core Core i7-7700K and i5-7600K are far less potent in the threaded Time Spy and Fire Strike tests. However, they leverage their superior IPC throughput and clock rate to turn in a solid showing during the single-thread DX11 API overhead metrics. Intel's four-core CPUs are also competitive against the Ryzen processors in multi-threaded DX11 draw call performance, which helps explain their commanding lead in most gaming benchmarks.

DX12 leverages additional cores more efficiently, which turns the tables in favor of the eight-core chips. AMD's 1700 makes a solid showing, though it naturally trails the quicker 1700X and 1800X at stock settings. The overclocked 1700 pulls closer to its companions, but all overclocked Ryzen 7 processors suffer curiously reduced DX11 multi-threaded performance compared to stock settings. Through it all, the stock Core i7-6900K stubbornly refuses to budge from its commanding lead in DX11 threaded and DX12 tests.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Lackluster results in Ashes of the Singularity was a notable thorn in Ryzen's side, which surprised us given the purportedly close collaboration between AMD and Stardock/Oxide. Before the Ryzen launch, AMD stated that Ashes of the Singularity's Nitrous game engine wasn't optimized to fully leverage Ryzen's unique cache topology and SMT implementation, but that a patch was inbound. We gained access to the pre-release update and recorded significantly better performance from Ryzen 7. We saw the Core i7-6900K speed up too, though.

The stock Ryzen 7 1700 and 1700X can't beat a stock Core i7-7700K, but a little overclocking puts them in the lead. Unsurprisingly, though, the Core i7-6900K asserts its dominance with a large lead over the other processors.

Battlefield 1

We dialed Battlefield 1 up to the Ultra preset and repetitively took an armor-laden stroll across the O La Vittoria landscape.

We run into a graphics bottleneck during the test, so we don't observe much variation between contenders. They all enable smooth game play through our test sequence. This is why AMD says Ryzen is great for high-res gaming!

Battlefield 4

Battlefield 4 also leans on the GPU more than the CPU, so again, we notice little variation at the upper end of the 1920x1080 benchmark results.

The Ryzen 7 1700 and 1700X trail the other contenders, but pull up to the faster processors after overclocking. In many ways, these results mirror the common trend we see at higher resolutions. All of the processors offer acceptable performance when you encounter a graphics bottleneck.

Civilization VI AI & Graphics Test, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, GTA V

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization VI's AI benchmark measures the amount of computational horsepower available to the system during a turn-based strategy gaming session. The AI benchmark is very consistent, so it was strange when we noticed the Ryzen 7 1700 outpacing the rest of the field. Alas, the remarkable performance came from a Civilization VI Spring 2017 update, which dramatically improved AI performance, forcing us to toss our old numbers.

We retested all of the processors and noted higher performance across the board, so it appears this wasn't an AMD-targeted patch. The finishing order remains the same, reflecting a ~3-second improvement for all CPUs. The stock Ryzen 7s can't keep up with Core i7-6900K, though they do jump in front after overclocking.

The Core i7-7700K and i5-7600K continue to dominate this test. We did log CPU utilization during our run and saw the benchmark scale across all 16 logical cores (it spawns 45 threads). But scaling and scaling well are two different matters, so the four-core processors continue enjoying a lead.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The update had little impact on our graphics test, though we did notice a slight decline in average frame rates for most processors, along with more consistent minimum frame rate measurements.

The results line up familiarly, though the Core i5-7600K isn't as competitive as it is in other titles. Meanwhile, Intel's Core i7-6900K leads, while the company's Core i7-7700K falls into its wake. The stock Ryzen 1700 isn't competitive and trails its siblings by a large margin. An overclock helps put the chip within range of the two faster SKUs.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided remains the only game that Ryzen processors dominate in convincing fashion. That trend continues as we look at Ryzen 7 1700's performance. The CPU secures its spot in the leading group at stock settings. And due to an apparent graphics bottleneck, it experiences minimal uplift from our overclocking efforts.

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark. The scripted path yields a solid and consistent benchmark, while constantly changing terrain applies a significant graphics workload.

The stock Ryzen 7 1700 shows up at the bottom of our performance chart. But once again, it climbs into a more competitive position after we overclock. Unfortunately for AMD, all of the Ryzen processors trail their Intel competition by a significant margin. Even the affordable Core i5-7600K at stock clock rates outperforms. And overclocking would certainly propel it into a much higher position.

Hitman (2016), Metro: Last Light Redux, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Hitman (2016)

Hitman prefers high clock rates and additional logical cores, so the Core i7s lead while the Core i5-7600K tumbles to the bottom.

We recorded moderate improvements from the overclocked Ryzen 7s, but they still aren't competitive with Intel's Core i7s. A clear delineation between the processor families, apparent in our average frame rate over time chart, suggests that the game could benefit from Ryzen-specific optimizations.

Metro: Last Light Redux

We encounter a graphics bottleneck during our Metro: Last Light Redux tests. The stock 1700 only loses by 1.5 FPS compared to the Ryzen 7 1800X, but trails the Core i7-7700K's average frame rate by 4.1.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor also reflects a GPU-imposed ceiling at the top end of the scale. A stock Ryzen 1700 doesn't have the clock rate to keep up, so it trails the leader by an average of 8.9 FPS. Overclocking helps put the 1700 into a more competitive position, though.

Project CARS, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Division

Project CARS

Project CARS is a CPU-intensive title that promotes parallelism by breaking tasks into smaller chunks and spreading them among the cores. Intel's quad-core models take a commanding lead during our benchmark run, though, indicating a particular sensitivity to clock rate.

The Ryzen processors aren't as fast as Intel's Core i7-6900K, even after overclocking. We measure a 27.4 average FPS gulf between the Ryzen 7 1700 and Core i7-7700K. Although this gap narrows to 17.5 FPS after overclocking the 1700, we expect the -7700K would also benefit greatly from a bit of tuning.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is another sore spot for AMD's architecture, as evidenced by a 55.9 FPS gap between the Core i7-6900K and stock Ryzen 7 1700. The -6900K's solid performance points to respectable scaling based on host processing resources. But even after our overclocking efforts, the eight-core Ryzen 7s still trail Intel's chips by more than 30 FPS. The 1700, for its part, averages 24.2 FPS higher after overclocking to 3.9 GHz.

The Division

We spot little variation between the overclocked Ryzen processors as they slip by Intel's Core i7-6900K.

Workstation & HPC Benchmarks

2D Benchmarks: DirectX And GDI/GDI+

Even though it sports considerably lower base and boost frequencies (and doesn't benefit from XFR), the Ryzen 7 1700 stays within striking distance of its faster 1700X and 1800X counterparts.

2D Benchmarks: Adobe Creative Cloud

As with most productivity-focused workloads, AMD's Ryzen 7 processors battle fiercely for a position near the top of these charts. They're especially attractive in light of their low price points. Intel's less expensive Core i7-7700K leads though, so it takes a Ryzen 7 1700 to make a value case.

3D Benchmarks: DirectX And OpenGL

We see more of a delta between the 65W 1700 and 95W X SKUs during the DirectX and OpenGL tests. Many of these metrics respond best to single-threaded performance at high clock rates, so Kaby Lake enjoys a natural advantage.

CPU Performance: Workstation

Parallelized workloads are in Ryzen's wheelhouse, so all three models turn in strong results in our SolidWorks 2015 and 3ds Max 2015 composite/computing benchmarks. In many cases, they're faster than Intel's pricier Core i7-6900K in its stock configuration.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

The 95W Ryzen processors compete aggressively against the Core i7-6900K in our CPU rendering test suite, while the 65W 1700 trails its faster counterparts and battles the stock Core i7-7700K during many of the Blender tests. AMD's 1700 does beat the Core i7-6900K in 3ds Max, but falls behind during the LuxRender benchmark.

CPU Performance: Encoding & Compression/Decompression

The 1700 is particularly competitive in HandBrake. It beats the -6900K during high-quality encoding tasks, and puts up a fight in our test using default settings. At $330, it's impossible to dismiss the 1700's value proposition compared to Intel's $1100 price point. Likely due to its lower frequency, the 1700 loses steam when we decompress an archive using 7-Zip (it even trails the old FX), but it fares better in the more parallelized compression workloads.

HPC Benchmarks (High Performance Computing)

The results of these HPC-oriented benchmarks vary depending on how they utilize each architecture. As a general trend, though, when a test is able to exploit Ryzen 7's eight cores, AMD beats the Core i7-7700K. It's usually able to give Core i7-6900K a run for its money, too. In the cases where Intel's -6900K is significantly faster, we might suspect specific optimizations for efficiency on Intel CPUs. We know, for example, that there are accelerated packages for LAMMPS, one of which includes Intel CPUs and Xeon Phi. SPEC doesn't say if any of these are part of its wpc 2.0 suite, though. AMD's market penetration with the Naples server chips will likely determine how much reaction we see in the HPC software ecosystem.

Power Consumption & Temperatures

Direct Comparisons of Power Consumption

The 65W 1700 consumes slightly more power at idle than the 95W Ryzens.

Meanwhile, our mildly overclocked Core i7-6900K consumes more power at idle than its stock configuration because we reduced its single-core Turbo Boost frequency to achieve a 3.9 GHz clock rate.

The 1700's power consumption is impressive during the AutoCAD 2015 workload; it only consumes 29.3W. A stock Core i7-7700K uses considerably more power. But looking at these figures on their own can be misleading. Remember that Intel's top Kaby Lake-based CPU demonstrated a commanding lead in the previous page's AutoCAD workloads, so it ends up offering superior performance per watt.

AMD's Ryzen 7 1700 proves its frugal nature by drawing only 44.3W during our gaming benchmark. The -6900K consumes less power than Intel's Core i7-7700K, likely because the workload doesn't fully utilize all eight cores.

The 32nm FX-9590 is in a class of its own, which isn't a good thing. Still, it highlights one of the 14nm process' main advantages.

Prime95's Small FFT stress test pushes power consumption to the max, revealing one of the 65W 1700's best attributes: it consumes 23.3W less than the 1700X. The 1700's modest power use, coupled with a small performance delta between it and the 1700X in our application benchmarks, paints a convincing picture of efficiency.

Temperatures

We optimized our CPU cooler for Socket AM4 by using two nuts between the spring and bracket to increase the force on the package to 0.4Nm. That is why these results differ from those in our launch article, where we only used washers.

Both AMD and Intel employ different temperature measurement methodology. While these readings aren't entirely comparable, they do serve as a close approximation.

In its stock form, Ryzen 7 1700 runs cooler than the rest of the field due to its lower TDP. Of course, all bets are off once you start overclocking and dialing in higher voltages. In any case, AMD uses solder between its die and heat spreader, which generally provides better thermal transfer than thermal paste. Intel famously uses thermal paste and contends that it boosts processor longevity.

Even though our results aren't apples-to-apples, it's clear that the 1700's 65W TDP does convey an expected power and thermal advantage over the other Ryzen 7s.

Conclusion

Ryzen 7 1700 pulls AMD's entry-level eight-core price point below the quad-core Core i7-7700K. That's powerful. The 1700's compelling performance in desktop productivity and content creation workloads, even at stock settings, is impressive. Moreover, the chip's power consumption and thermal characteristics align with our expectations of a CPU with a 30W-lower TDP. Combine those two strengths and you have a recipe for hard-to-beat efficiency.

The 1700 also challenges or beats Intel's Core i7-6900K in several of our application tests. Moreover, it sells for roughly one-third of the -6900K's $1100 price tag, and the bundled cooler is a nice bonus. Overall, Ryzen 7 1700's price to performance ratio is very attractive for most productivity use-cases.

AMD's higher-end Ryzen 7 1700X and 1800X are fast enough for smooth gaming. But in light of their $400 and $500 prices, there's no real reason to recommend them over Intel's Core i5-7600K or Core i7-7700K. Ryzen 7 1700 demonstrates the same behaviors as both X-series SKUs, albeit with lower frame rates if you refrain from overclocking. Tuning the 1700 somewhat aggressively breaks the 65W chip free of its shackles and allows it to trade blows with the faster Ryzen 7s. It's a bummer that our sample didn't overclock quite as well; it just wouldn't crack 4 GHz like the X-series parts. Still, a respectable clock rate ceiling enables similar performance as the 95W models, so if you expect to overclock, spending more money on a 1700X or 1800X may not make sense.

The recent Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation and Dota 2 patches bring hope that game developers can, and will, address Ryzen's most quantifiable weakness. Ideally, all developers would follow suit, but in reality, most older games won't be changed. It's the future of gaming we must look to. And in that, the more accessible Ryzen 5 and 3 families may prove to be even better options for gaming, perhaps encouraging devs to spend more time improving the FHD experience on Ryzen-based platforms.

For now, Ryzen 7 1700 provides good-enough gaming performance at an acceptably low price point, which makes it a viable option for anyone shopping for an eight-core workstation-class chip ready for some entertainment, too.

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ASRock X370 Gaming K4 ATX Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introducing The X370 Gaming K4

With Ryzen forging its path, we're starting to get a few more AM4 motherboards, which means that we can evolve from AMD 970 chipset comparisons to a more level competition. We caught some flak from readers regarding reference data, choice of GPU, and limited depth in our review of the ASRock X370 Taichi.

Next up: the ASRock X370 Gaming K4. It's back to the Fatal1ty series and placing the focus back onto gaming.

Technical Specifications

ASRock's Fatal1ty series has refined the standard for using red and black in its motherboard schemes and marketing. The early executions were quite sloppy, and aesthetically this X370 Gaming K4 is a step in the right direction. The large box shares the same footprint as the X370 Taichi, and the graphic arrangement seems much more balanced with the extra real estate.

The box forgoes the Fatal1ty photo and provides highly differential product information, such as the M.2 (Key E) for WiFi modules, dual storage M.2s, and the board’s abundant hardware connections. Despite the glossy finish and superb branding, box contents are a little sparse, with only four SATA cables, a backplate, four individually packaged tiny screws, SLI bridge, software CD, postcard, and documentation.

The X370 Gaming K4 backplate is slightly different than that of the Taichi, providing two PS/2 ports, six USB 3.0, one USB 3.1 Type-A, one USB 3.1 Type-C, five analog audio jacks, SPDIF, gigabit Ethernet, and HDMI 1.4. Of course, that HDMI port won’t work until AM4 APUs hit the market later this year. There is also space for two WiFi antennae to be routed and mounted to the backplate, although this product does not provide any of that hardware. The X370 Gaming K4 serves Creative's Sound Blaster Cinema 3, which is only a slight deviation from the Taichi audio solution. The bottom edge of the board hosts the TPM, two 4-pin fan headers, two for RGB, the standard USB 2.0 header, and front panel headers.

#PLACEHOLDER_##

As for storage options, two type M key M.2 ports deploy Gen2 x2 PCIe and Gen3 x4 PCIe through the M2_2 and M2_1 sockets, respectively. Six right-angle SATA 6 Gb/s ports sit on the right edge of the board next to the RGB'd Promontory heat spreader. This should be plenty of fast disk I/O for gaming applications, but could be a limiting factor for workstations. We would have preferred an x4 connection for the M2_2 slot at the cost of losing some USB ports or some of the x1 slots.

The remainder of the board layout is straightforward, giving immediate and easy access to the USB 3.1 headers, 24-pin ATX, and single-ended memory DIMM slots towards the front of the chassis. Two 4-pin fan headers next to the voltage regulator heat spreaders give access to optional CPU fans and water pumps, however water pumps are limited to a maximum of 1.5A. Speaking of voltage regulator heat sinks, these appear to be similar in size of those of the ASRock X370 Taichi, but lack the angles and style in favor of simplicity.

With the extra storage, M.2, and WiFi M.2, there are only two PCIe x16 and four PCIe x1 slots available. The lack of additional x16 or x8 slots limits the higher end card options. But then again if you need more I/O, you wouldn't be considering a board with features aimed at gaming enthusiasts.

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Firmware And Testing Configuration

Firmware

ASRock’s X370 UEFI options are consistent from product to product, and the main difference between the Taichi and the X370 Gaming K4 is the synchronization of the box art with the UEFI. However, this time around we'll provide a little more depth to the options. For starters, CPU frequencies are listed in the table or are accessible via the “+/-” keys in 50MHz increments.

If overclocking memory is your thing, DDR4-2933 and DDR4-3200 are the only other stock options for easy tweaking. Of course, BCLK overclocking might open doors to other frequencies, but that comes with the risk of harmful system side effects. Voltage biasing for the core is accessible by holding down the plus key or keying in the desirable voltage. Note that voltages are adjustable in increments of 6.25mV. For the DIMMs, voltage set points are adjustable by 5mV increments.

We'll stand by our “too many options” statement from the previous ASRock review. Sure, professional overclockers might find using the "disabling platform first error handling" or "freezing DF module queues on error" helpful, but do they really need "location of private memory regions," "disabling individual I2C interfaces," and "clear MCA at warm RST?" Give me a break. When the description lists specific address definitions or “no help string,” it doesn't need to be available to the normal user.

More recent versions of the UEFI let you disable SMT. In our overclocking quest, we used this to help debug stability issues, but we encountered a scenario in which the option would not reset itself without intentionally causing the UEFI to reset. This would only occur when booting with an incompatible memory configuration, which was frustrating.

Another addition in newer firmware versions is the ability to flash through the OS, which we found helpful while making a mess of things when overclocking.

Test Configuration

We haven't changed much. We did get our hands on some better memory—HyperX Predator DDR4-3200MHz—but we won't spoil the fun of our overclocking section. The Nocuta NH-D15 SE-AM4 returns as well. Special thanks to Noctua for supplying this and two more coolers to be investigated soon.

The biggest addition to the test suite are three 1080p monitors in portrait mode. Turning on Nvidia’s Surround mode while implementing bezel correction gets us a system resolution of 3460x1920. Not exactly 4K but darn close, and at least satisfies some of the concerns expressed about representing higher end gaming. Even if y’all don’t like it, it’s still pretty damn sweet.

ASRock X370 Gaming K4

ASRock X370 Taichi

Test System Configuration

Sound	Integrated HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Networking
Graphics	NVIDIA
Chipset	AMD X370

Benchmark Settings
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613 Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21 CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write 128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMO OpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8 Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests and Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0 Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests and Settings
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests and Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 3460x1920 Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 3460x1920, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	1920x1080, 2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF 3460x1920, 2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 3460x1920, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 3460x1920, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 267252 1920x1080, Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080, Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF 3460x1920, Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 3460x1920, Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

We did collect some SLI data using a second GTX 970 GPU we have on hand, but unfortunately three of the four games we tested do not use SLI while in this multi-monitor configuration. If there are more games you want us to run, let us know in the comment section. How about some RAID tests or network performance?

Test Results And Final Analysis

Synthetics & Apps

DiskSPD makes its way back into the lineup since our Toshiba RD400 is installed snugly back into its M.2 port. The ASRock X370 Gaming K4 enjoys a 25 MB/s increase over the X370 Taichi in both random 4k read and write tests. Cinebench results are also in the Gaming K4’s favor with single threaded performance.

However, the Taichi sample we reviewed previously comes ahead in the remaining synthetic benchmarks, although the wins are usually within three percentage points. Looking into the Adobe delta within the PCMark chart, the entire suite is running within two percentage points of the Taichi until Adobe Illustrator comes along. Although a second and a half isn’t a long time, that result tarnishes what would have been a pretty neck-and-neck comparison.

The remaining application tests are rather dull, with both boards taking shots at the other with minor differences. In the larger scheme of things, the performance data is definitive: both products are within two percentage points of each other with the slight lead going to the ASRock X370 Gaming K4.

3DMark & Games

Although 3DMark and Metro Last Light Redux enjoy the extra horse power of a second GPU, the remaining three titles either didn’t support it or required some tinkering and tuning to get running properly. We're disappointed that we cannot provide SLI data in this review.

With The Talos Principle, playable framerates are achievable using our dated GTX 970, all the way to 4k resolution and Ultra settings. By bumping up the resolution alone, average framerates only fall by around 15 FPS across the test samples. Comparing the two boards, a 3% win goes to the Taichi at 1080p, but at 4K it's a virtual tie.

F1 2015 also shows promise for those who want 4K in a surround monitor configuration, even with older GPU hardware. Minimum frames hover right above 30 FPS for both samples, and the ASRock X370 Taichi takes the prize at higher resolutions. The Gaming K4 does squeak out almost 2 FPS more at 1080p for an impressive 0.20% lead.

We've got mixed feelings about Metro Last Light Redux. With a 144Hz gaming monitor, 1080p would be suitable on either platform, with only minor instances of either minimum or maximum framerates occurring. Our pseudo 4K setup also delivers a pleasurable experience at High settings with the occasional slow downs within the benchmark. However, throwing in Very High settings shows many sections of the routine in the sub 30 FPS regions.

Our resident CPU bound game, Ashes of the Singularity, strikes with a vengeance on this Ryzen 1700X. At 1080p, as the batch complexity increases, the gap between the Taichi and the Gaming K4 increases, in favor of the Taichi. 4K and High settings could be playable since RTS games don’t necessarily require high frame rates, but that Crazy setting . . . ouch. The ASRock Gaming K4 takes the lead by a few frames here, but 25 FPS is as painful as nails on a chalk board. (Editor's Note: These tests were run prior to recent game updates.)

Overall, both boards perform similarly at both resolutions, but the ASRock Gaming K4 trails by 1.4%.

Power, Thermals & Overclocking

After idling for about 10 minutes, both systems show a respectable 69W of power draw, and temperatures are running cool at 28°C (CPU) and 48°C (CPU Diode1). Given the discovery of the temperature delta between tCTL and Tj, we’ll continue to report unadjusted CPU Diode1 values for this 1700X sample.

Bumping up to full CPU load with Prime95, the temperature delta between tCTL and Tj increases to 24°C, while staying a toasty 48°C above ambient temperatures. Regulator temperatures are staying reasonably close as well, and both samples hover within 5W of each other.

GPU stress is consistent after letting the system settle for a bit, but when running both Prime95 and FurMark in parallel, it was difficult to get a consistent reading. Values reported are the maximum observed while the applications ran, though any fluctuation in the result is primarily driven by the GPU utilization at any given time. It's interesting to note that power measurements for full system load are more stable at the 3460x1920 Surround resolution since the GPU was given more priority to keep the fuzzy donut spinning.

Right out of the gate, increasing the CPU multiplier to 38 successfully engages all CPU cores at the advertised Turbo threshold. Rather than swing for the fences, increasing the multiplier to 39 got us to a stable OS, but any mention of Prime95 to our microphone shuts the system down. Adjusting the loadline to level 3, Prime95 loads and runs for about six minutes, which is an improvement over the results we saw with the X370 Taichi.

Using Fixed Voltage mode within the UEFI, we increase the core voltage to 1.375V and it successfully runs for 30 minutes within Prime95. With regulators still running rather cool at 22°C over ambient, we are compelled to jump to 4GHz! With some luck, the stress test loads and promptly fails. Bumping up to our voltage ceiling of 1.3875V, it runs for about 10 minutes again, and then the black screen shows its face.

Stability is within our grasp so decreasing the multiplier to 3950MHz gains a few more minutes of stability and warm exhaust for our toes. One more click down on the clock multiplier and we can successfully run Prime95 for 1.5 hours. However, this baby is cooking now at 64°C Tj and a whopping 96°C tCTL.

At the end of the night, our system had run for 12+ hours of 3850MHz at 1.3875V while using the Level 3 loadline setting. We netted 50MHz over the Taichi system, but at the cost of some pretty high temps. The Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4 did a sufficient job, but any more voltage and we'll require water cooling.

We did receive some DDR4-3200MHz memory in time for this review, but man, I hate memory overclocking! Upon installing this memory we couldn't get the board to boot at DDR4-2666. Pulling up the Memory QVL sheet shows that this specific set is not on the approved list. After a lengthy discussion with ASRock, it turns out that this four-layer board has some difficulty with DRAMs produced by SK hynix. After tinkering with tCL, re-flashing UEFIs, and trying reduced configurations, we threw in the towel. We’ll have to debug this in our next review.

Ironically, the DIMMs we used from the previous article booted up at DDR4-2666MHz just fine. We have another set of DIMMs en route to properly overclock both ASRock boards, so keep your eyes peeled; we'll revisit the ASRock X370 Gaming K4 and X370 Taichi.

Performance, Value & Summary

Comparing two higher end boards from the same vendor can be pretty boring. Given the target markets for both products, the result twists are sure to spark some discussion. Both motherboards are so close in performance that measurement noise is probably the top reason for variance.

We were hoping to see an efficiency difference in these two boards, but even with the different regulator designs, both products are within 1% of each other.

Factoring in non-sale pricing at the time of this writing, it’s hard to beat the $50 advantage of the ASRock Gaming K4.

But, there’s a catch. Remember how we mentioned giving users options in the X370 Taichi review? The E key WiFi port is what truly separates these products. If we were to deploy this Gaming K4 board in a wireless scenario, we’d have to spend upwards of $40 to get a WiFi card and however much it costs to route and add antennae. The second M.2 SSD connector's PCIe 2.0 x2 interface is another consideration: The Taichi provides two x4 M.2 interfaces out of the box.

But the X370 Gaming K4 is all about gaming, and that’s what it’s best suited for. Save that extra $50 for a capture card, or a mechanical keyboard, or send it to your fellow AMD fanboy for a new GPU for his AMD Ryzen reviews! I kid, I kid.

Pending our DDR4 overclocking refresh, we'll tentatively assign the Gaming K4 Tom's Hardware's Approved award.

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MORE: All Motherboard Content

AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Review

palcorn@outlook.com (Paul Alcorn) — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction

AMD is trying to shake up the market with shockingly low prices for its 8C/16T Ryzen 7 line-up. And while these CPUs don't dominate every workload, there is hope the company's newest architecture is compelling across enough segments to put much-needed pressure on Intel.

One component of AMD's strategy involves attractive pricing. The flagship Ryzen 7 1800X grabbed attention for its ability to battle Intel's Broadwell-E-based Core i7-6900K for $550 less (and with the same number of execution cores). We agree that the 1800X is compelling in threaded productivity and content creation apps. But we think you'll derive more value out from the cheaper Ryzen 7 1700X ($400) and 1700 ($330). The former goes up against Intel's $450 Core i7-6800K, while the latter undercuts Core i7-7700K. In both cases, the AMD chips wield more processing resources than the Intel competition.

Of course, that doesn't mean AMD runs the table in benchmarks. In our AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU Review, we saw the new chip offer a solid price-to-performance ratio for productivity and workstation-class workloads. Unfortunately, we couldn’t say the same about gaming. We followed up with testing in a wider range of popular games, and while Ryzen delivered playable performance in most titles, cheaper Core i7-7700K and Core i5-7600K chips were typically better.

Zen, In-Depth

From a high level, various enhancements over Zen’s predecessors, such as Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT), a new micro-op cache, better branch prediction, a wider instruction scheduler window, and faster caches contribute to the architecture's increased IPC throughput. Check out Everything Zen: AMD Presents New Microarchitecture At HotChips for more.

AMD claims that the gaming performance issues stem from how applications interact with the intricacies of its new architecture. The company expects a wave of updates from various developers that will eventually remedy this (though so far only two devs have publicly committed to optimizing their engines for the new processors). Until something concrete happens, though, we don't see much value in gaming-specific Ryzen 7 1800X builds.

Might the Ryzen 7 1700X cast a more favorable light on gaming? After all, it costs $100 less, carries over the eight-core configuration with 16MB of L3 cache, and continues to offer an unlocked ratio multiplier.

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

Ryzen 7 1700X

Ryzen 7 1700

The unlocked multiplier is especially interesting, given the similarities up and down the Ryzen 7 family. Given a similar 95W TDP between the $500 1800X and $400 1700X, then, the only technical differences between them are their base, two-core Precision Boost, and XFR clock rates. Out of the box, 1800X enjoys a 200 MHz advantage down low and up top. But we've heard claims that 1700X hits a similar ceiling as 1800X when it comes to overclocking.

Right out of the gate, Ryzen 7 1700X looks like a smarter buy than 1800X. But is it smart enough to maintain AMD's strong position in well-threaded desktop apps and make up some value ground in gaming, where the architecture isn't as strong?

MORE: Best CPUs

MORE: Intel & AMD Processor Hierarchy With CPU Comparisons

MORE: Everything Zen: AMD Presents New Microarchitecture At HotChips

MORE: Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7700K, i7-7700, i5-7600K, i5-7600 Review

MORE: Broadwell-E: Intel Core i7-6950X, 6900K, 6850K & 6800K Review

Overclocking And Test Setup

Overclocking

You can download AMD's Ryzen Master utility from the company's website. The tool makes overclocking from within Windows nice and convenient. However, we still prefer making firmware-based adjustments.

Our 1800X hit 4 GHz at 1.425V across all of its cores in our launch article, but we stepped that back to a more conservative 3.9 GHz overclock in this piece to represent a safer long-term frequency. We achieved Prime95 stability on both the 1800X and 1700X by dialing core voltage up to 1.3875V and bumping CPU SoC voltage to 1.2V. We left Load Line Calibration set to Auto, but boosted the Crucial LPX memory modules to DDR4-2933 for our overclocked setups. That's only a slight increase over the DDR4-2699 we used for the stock gaming configurations.

While we've seen many enthusiasts hit 4.0-4.1 GHz with much higher voltages, AMD says 1.35V is the "safe" ceiling for long-term overclocking. We didn't run into any thermal issues at 3.9 GHz, and recorded 70°C (per AIDA) after a two-hour Prime95 run with the capable Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 heat sink in place. Waste heat appears to accumulate quickly at higher clock rates (we hit 82°C at 4 GHz using Corsair's H100i v2). Invest in a beefy cooler if you plan on pushing the limits of Ryzen's frequency headroom.

Test Setup

We've experienced general platform instability with numerous AM4-based motherboards and early firmware revisions. This is typically pinned on unoptimized AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture microcode. AGESA is a bootstrap protocol that initializes processor cores, memory, and the HyperTransport (now Infinity Fabric) controller. We're using Asus' Crosshair VI Hero for this round of testing, along with the latest 1001 firmware. This version demonstrated improved stability at stock and overclocked settings. We'll continue to monitor the firmware updates from other vendors and note when they've achieved a similar degree of stability. AMD is expected to release an AGESA revision in late March that should enhance memory support, including opening up more sub-timings.

Early firmware updates yielded large performance increases over AMD's original press kit. As time goes on, though, the gains get smaller and smaller. Asus mentioned that we shouldn't expect big changes from future builds.

In general, we've recorded more performance variation from Ryzen processors than we're accustomed to in a few games. Ashes of the Singularity is one example. Incidentally, that's also a title expected to improve once the developer follows up on promises to optimize for AMD's architecture. We suspect that some of this inconsistency stems from the impact of cross-CCX thread migration and other peculiarities of Zen. In response, we've disabled several transitory background services that fire up with little to no provocation and may promote thread migration, such as Windows Search and Defender. Frequent reboots during testing also helped weed out obvious outliers, yielding more consistent results. We're again testing under Windows' High performance power plan with HPET disabled. As we demonstrated in our Ryzen 7 1800X review, some games benefit from disabling SMT, though that also leads to lower performance in other titles. Plus, we don't think you should be expected to toggle this feature on and off. As such, we're leaving SMT enabled for today's story.

As expected, we also encounter graphics bottlenecks in several titles at 2560x1440. AMD argues that its Ryzen processors fare best at higher resolutions, for obvious reasons: as you start shifting the burden to your GPU, host processing weaknesses are easier to mask. Further, outside of one exception in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, we only recorded minor hierarchy changes between FHD and QHD in our Ryzen Versus Core i7 in 11 Popular Games article. In other words, the same performance trends at 1920x1080 carry over to 2560x1440.

If you want to know more about how the Tom's Hardware DE system looks and is controlled, check out How We Test Graphics Cards.

Test Systems and Measurement Setups
Systems	Germany AMD 1Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700XMSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium2x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 @2666 MT/sIntel LGA 2011-v3 Intel Core i7-6900K MSI X99S XPower Gaming Titanium 4 x 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4 2400Intel LGA 1151 Intel Core i7-7700K MSI Z270 Gaming 7 2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 @2400 MT/sAMD Socket AM3+ FX-9590 Asus Crosshair V Formula 2 x 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 2133 @1866 MT/sGermany All1x 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 (M.2, System SSD)2x 960GB Toshiba OCZ TR150 (Storage, Images)be quiet Dark Power Pro 11, 850WWindows 10 Pro (All Updates)US AMD 1Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700XAsus ROG Crosshair VI Hero2x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 @2666 MT/sUS AMD 2AMD FX-8350MSI 970 Gaming2x Kingston HyperX DDR3-2133USA Intel 1Intel Core i7-7700KMSI Z270 Gaming M72x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 @2400 MT/sUSA Intel 2Core i7-6900KASRock X99 Extreme44x Crucial DDR4-2400US All1TB Samsung PM863SilverStone ST1500, 1500WWindows 10 Pro (All Updates) Version 1607
Cooling	Germany- Alphacool Eispumpe VPP755 Pump - Alphacool NexXxoS UT60 Full Copper 240mm- Alphacool Eisblock XPX CPU-Alphacool Cape Corp Coolplex Pro 10 LT- 5x be quiet! Silent Wings 3 PWM- Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut US-Corsair H100iv2-Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4-Arctic MX-4
Case	Lian Li PC-T70 with Expansion Kit and Mods
Power Consumption Measurements	- Contact-free DC Measurement at PCIe Slot (Using a Riser Card) - Contact-free DC Measurement at External Auxiliary Power Supply Cable - Direct Voltage Measurement at Power Supply- 2 x Rohde & Schwarz HMO 3054, 500MHz Digital Multi-Channel Oscilloscope with Storage Function - 4 x Rohde & Schwarz HZO50 Current Probe (1mA - 30A, 100kHz, DC) - 4 x Rohde & Schwarz HZ355 (10:1 Probes, 500MHz) - 1 x Rohde & Schwarz HMC 8012 Digital Multimeter with Storage Function
Thermal Measurements	- 1 x Optris PI640 80Hz Infrared Camera- PI Connect Analysis Software with Profiles
Noise Measurements	- NTI Audio M2211 (with Calibration File)- Steinberg UR12 (with Phantom Power for Microphones)- Creative X7, Smaart v.7- Custom-Made Proprietary Measurement Chamber, 3.5 x 1.8 x 2.2m (L x D x H)- Perpendicular to Center of Noise Source(s), Measurement Distance of 50cm- Noise Level in dB(A) (Slow), Real-time Frequency Analyzer (RTA) - Graphical Frequency Spectrum of Noise

3DMark, Ashes of the Singularity, Battlefield 1 & 4

3DMark

We don't consider synthetic benchmarks to be a good measure of real-world gaming performance, but 3DMark's DX11 physics and DX12 CPU tests provide useful metrics that quantify the amount of processing power available to the game engine.

The stock Ryzen 7 1800X comes close to unseating Intel's Core i7-6900K during the DX12 CPU test. AMD's 1700X trails its faster counterpart by 383 points. However, overclocking both chips to 3.9 GHz shrinks the gap to 72 points...in favor of the 1700X.

Futuremark's DX11 Fire Strike benchmark runs 32 parallel soft and rigid body physics simulations that tax the processor specifically. We notice a similar trend during the DX11 physics test; both Ryzen processors lag the i7-6900K at stock settings, but overtake Intel when overclocked. Rest assured that we're planning a follow-up that has each of these unlocked CPUs tuned up to show how they ultimately fall in relation to each other.

The Ryzen processors offer better single-threaded DX11 performance when we overclock them, yet curiously turn in worse results in the threaded DX11 test compared to the stock settings. We repeated this test multiple times just to be sure. In spite of the odd outcome, both AMD CPUs beat the Core i7-6900K in 3DMark's DX11 single-threaded test, regardless of clock rate.

Ryzen 7 demonstrates a tremendous DX11 single-thread deficit compared to the Core i7-7700K and i5-7600K, which helps explain Intel's commanding lead in titles that are primarily sensitive to single-threaded performance. The 3DMark DX12 API overhead test reveals a large gap between the stock Ryzens and Core i7-6900K. Even overclocking can't make up the difference.

Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity is notoriously CPU-bound, but it responds well to higher core counts and clock rate, which makes it particularly well suited for examining the impact of increased processing performance on CPU-intensive titles. Unfortunately, the game engine doesn't play well with AMD's new architecture, which is a punishing reality considering its hefty 16-thread SMT implementation. Oxide Games has voiced its intention to optimize for Ryzen, but the timing specifics remain unclear.

Ryzen 7 CPUs lag behind the Intel competition (even its Core i5) by a considerable margin.

At stock clock rates, the 1800X outpaces AMD's 1700X by 2.1 FPS on average. However, the overclocked Ryzen 7 1700X roughly matches the higher-end model. Given the frequency boost and correspondingly small speed-up, something other than clock rate is holding Ryzen back.

Fortunately, all of the processors except AMD's FX-8350 provide smooth-enough frame rates at 1920x1080.

Battlefield 1

We dialed Battlefield 1 up to Ultra preset and trudged across the landscape in O La Vittoria. The game flirts with a graphics bottleneck, even at 1920x1080, so there isn't as much performance variation between host processors.

While both overclocked Ryzen 7 CPUs trump the stock configurations, average frame rates in Battlefield 1 are so close that there's little reason to compare performance. Only the FX-8350 stands out as a notably slower CPU unworthy of your high-end graphics hardware.

Battlefield 4

Battlefield 4 behaves similarly, also emphasizing graphics performance (even at 1920x1080). As a result, the Ryzen 7 CPUs are right there in the mix with Intel's fastest desktop processors.

The stock Ryzen 7 1700X trails the field slightly, but bumping it to 3.9 GHz adds a few FPS, edging out the stock 1800X. Meanwhile, the FX-8350 is our only real loser.

Civilization VI AI & Graphics Test, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, GTA V

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization VI's AI benchmark measures the amount of computational horsepower available to the system during a turn-based strategy gaming session.

The overclocked Ryzen processors nudge past Intel's Core i7-6900K, but can't catch Kaby Lake. While it's likely threaded, this metric clearly isn't able to utilize more than four cores.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

The Core i7-6900K rockets to the top of this chart, but Intel's Core i7-7700K achieves a better minimum frame rate. Remember that all of the Intel CPUs in our story also sport unlocked multipliers, and would benefit handsomely from overclocking as well.

The two overclocked Ryzen 7s enjoy quantifiable gains from the jump to 3.9 GHz. Our 1800X registers a 3.6% gain over its stock settings, and the 1700X scores a 6.5% performance increase. A stock Core i5-7600K can't carry over its top position from the AI Test, and instead lands under the stock Ryzen 7 1700X.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided provides rare respite for the Ryzen processors; they beat their Intel competition in convincing fashion during the game's benchmark. We asked Eidos for technical detail about the game engine's behavior and await more information.

The difference between Intel and AMD processors is obvious from their FPS result.

Although Ryzen appears graphics-bound, the two CPUs at 3.9 GHz do average higher frame rates than the stock configurations.

Grand Theft Auto V

We pushed the graphics settings as high as they'd go to characterize real-world gaming under Grand Theft Auto V with a high-end GPU. We measure performance during the F-16 flight sequence in the built-in benchmark. The constantly changing terrain of the expansive scene yields a solid and consistent benchmark.

The Core i7-7700K leads with a 91.1 FPS result, and the rest of the field scales down from there. Intel's i5-7600K also turns in a stellar performance, particularly in light of its budget-friendly price point. Although Ryzen 7 provides smooth-enough performance, it lags the competition by a quantifiable margin. Overclocking does clearly help, and the two CPUs at 3.9 GHz fare similarly.

Hitman (2016), Metro: Last Light Redux, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Hitman (2016)

The Intel processors maintain a lead during this test. Although we observe a moderate gain from overclocking Ryzen, AMD's deficit suggests something else is bottlenecking these CPUs other than clock rate.

Also interesting is that Core i5 trails the i7s and Ryzen. Could its lack of Hyper-Threading really incur such a performance hit compared to Core i7-7700K?

Further, we notice several frame time outliers with the stock 1800X that shows up in both our frame time and unevenness charts. Overclocking smooths out some of the inconsistency.

Metro: Last Light Redux

Even at 1920x1080, Metro Last Light is largely graphics-bound. Nevertheless, all four Ryzen data points trail behind the three Intel CPUs, and not even overclocking changes this.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Middle-earth also appears to be limited by graphics horsepower. Still, the Core i7-770K leads slightly, followed by the Core i5-7600K. The Ryzen 7 processors trail at their stock settings, though overclocking them is enough to beat a stock Core i7-6900K.

Project CARS, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Division

Project CARS

The Core i7-7700K takes a beastly lead during our Project CARS test run. AMD's Ryzen 7 CPUs obvious struggle at their stock settings, though overclocking helps quite a bit.

The 1800X does fare somewhat better than the 1700X right out of the box, and as a result of its higher base and XFR frequencies, it doesn't benefit as much from an overclock to 3.9 GHz.

AMD's old FX-8350 lags woefully behind the rest of the field, suffering from latency spikes throughout our run. This was perceivable as intermittent bouts of choppy performance.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Quite the opposite of Deus Ex, Rise of the Tomb Raider is a marked weakness for AMD's Ryzen CPUs. They lag behind the Intel competition by 35 to 45 FPS in their stock configurations.

The Ryzens jump up to the ~120 FPS range in response to our moderate overclock, improving their standing somewhat.

The Division

Tom Clancy's The Division appears more graphics-bound, allowing the Ryzen chips to compete alongside Intel's Broadwell-E and Kaby Lake architectures. Overclocking even helps propel the Ryzen 7s in front of the stock Core i7-6900K. If you're primarily buying new hardware to game, though, that Core i5 still looks like a pretty solid performer.

Workstation And HPC Benchmarks

Our German team re-tested all of this hardware for today's story using the latest firmware. This especially affects the Ryzen 7 1800X and its 3.8 GHz overclocked results. Therefore, some of the updated test data no longer agrees with the launch results. Consider this a good thing. Maturity is helping Ryzen perform better.

2D Benchmarks: DirectX And GDI/GDI+

We extended our AutoCAD 2D and graphics throughput benchmark for the GDI/GDI+ functions to the new CPUs and summarized the results in a common section. Absolutely nothing changed from the key conclusions in our launch article.

2D Benchmarks: Adobe Creative Cloud

The Ryzen 7 1700X is well-suited for a number of threaded workloads, even if it trails the 1800X due to lower stock clock rates. Still, the differences we measure are often not noticeable during normal use.

3D Benchmarks: DirectX And OpenGL

The performance of these CPUs in our professional graphics workloads doesn't really change from what we saw in our 1800X launch coverage. However, we see that Ryzen 7 1700X is at a disadvantage without overclocking, since the architecture's IPC throughput is lower than Intel's. This particularly hurts in single-threaded tasks.

CPU Performance: Workstation

As we shift to more parallelized CPU-bound workloads, the Ryzen CPUs hit their stride and start beating some of the Intel processors that previously appeared much faster.

CPU Performance: Photorealistic Rendering

Workloads tuned for multi-core/multi-processor configurations love Ryzen. The stock 1800X and 1700X consistently appear in the top half of our test field, while the overclocked 1800X takes first or second place across the board. If you do a lot of rendering in Blender, 3ds Max, or LuxRender, Ryzen represents a good way to save money without compromising performance.

Considering the similar overclocking headroom available on 1700X and 1800X CPUs, a tuned 1700X should serve up even better value.

CPU Performance: Encoding And Compression/Decompression

AMD straight-up rocks our HandBrake encoding tests.

It's not as dominant in 7-Zip, but does trade blows with the Intel competition. Take a look at the 7-Zip decompression chart, specifically. Since Core i7-7700K lands at the top, we can assume this workload can't fully utilize the 8C/16T CPUs. This explains why a stock Core i7-6900K lands among the Ryzen configurations.

So long as the behavior of your workload is somewhat predictable, it's possible to guess how Ryzen will fare against Intel's nimble Kaby Lake models and beefy Broadwell-Es.

HPC Benchmarks (High Performance Computing)

Power Consumption And Temperatures

Direct Comparisons of Power Consumption

Similar to our performance numbers, we re-ran the 1800X review's power data to reflect the continual improvements being made to motherboard firmware.

Let's start by looking at idle power consumption. Intel's overclocked Core i7-6900K turns in a better result than the stock configuration because we also reduced the one-core Turbo Boost frequency.

The 95W AMD CPUs clearly use less power in our combined CAD benchmark. When we weigh average performance against power consumption, however, the eight-core CPUs from AMD and Intel are fairly similar.

The same story applies to our measurements in games, where Ryzen 7 blows away the Core i7s. It's been a long time since AMD was at least equal in terms of efficiency.

The 3.8 GHz Ryzen 7 sucks down more than 140W , but the Core i7-6900K is even worse at 166W. The Core i7-7700K down-clocked to the same frequency uses a conservative 86W or so.

Based on AMD's technology briefings, we know it has more granular control over clock rate. And it's notable that the 95W Ryzen 7 1700X we're reviewing today uses less power under our stress test than Intel's 91W Core i7-7700K. It takes a significant underclock to put the Kaby Lake flagship in first place.

Temperatures

We optimized our CPU cooler for Socket AM4 by using two nuts between the spring and bracket to increase force on the package to 0.4Nm. That is why these results differ from those in our launch article, where we only used washers.

The temperatures we recorded for the FX-9590 are a bit uncertain, since AMD’s older Bulldozer CPUs don't measure with 100% confidence. Moreover, the Ryzen 7 and Core i7 CPU readings aren't exactly comparable; both companies employ different sensor approaches.

Intel's Core i7-7700K is the only processor in our test field handicapped by cheap thermal paste between its die and heat spreader. Thankfully, AMD solders Ryzen's heat spreader, which results in good thermal transfer. This naturally shows up in the relationship between power converted to heat.

Enthusiasts should be happy with Ryzen's power consumption and its resulting waste heat.

Conclusion

When AMD announced that all of its Ryzen 7 CPUs would get unlocked multipliers and eight cores, we immediately imagined opportunities for enthusiasts to snag the lower-end models for less and overclock to great effect. Our testing shows that, if you're willing to spend some time tuning, the Ryzen 7 1700X offers better overall value than the 1800X at a similar 95W TDP.

This shouldn't be surprising. After all, Ryzen 7 1700X bears many of the flagship's attributes, differing mainly in base and peak clock rates. As a result, you get satisfactory performance in heavily threaded workloads at a lower price. Though most professionals eschew overclocking in favor of stability, even at its stock settings the 1700X serves up a solid price-to-performance ratio.

The story gets better once you push Ryzen 7 1700X up to and beyond the 1800X's default configuration. And overclocking is simple, too. We bumped the core voltage up to 1.3875V and increased the SoC voltage to obtain a rock-solid 3.9 GHz across all of the chip's cores. With the right cooler, a moderate overclock doesn’t come close to pushing Ryzen's thermal boundaries, and there is likely some additional headroom if you're willing to tolerate higher voltages. Memory tuning is still somewhat limited, but we're told that future firmware updates should make more settings available.

Of course, the 1800X's challenges in games carry over to the 1700X, too. Even overclocked, Ryzen lags behind cheaper Intel CPUs in much of our gaming suite. Your best chance of seeing parity comes from graphics-bound resolutions and detail settings. AMD claims that patches may address some of our concerns, but we aren't holding our breath. It's far more probable that future titles include optimizations for AMD's new architecture.

It would be easier for us to recommend Ryzen 7 to gamers if it was less expensive. But with Core i7-7700K and Core i5-7600K performing so well, and both CPUs less expensive than the 1700X we're reviewing today, Kaby Lake maintains its leadership. But there remains near-term hope for the Ryzen family: AMD's Ryzen 5 series will surface early in April at price points better suited to take on mainstream Core CPUs.

We've established that Ryzen 7 1700X tells a better value story than the 1800X, and it gets even better if you're willing to live with the B350 chipset's reduced feature set. Enthusiasts willing to overclock should be able to match or exceed the 1800X's stock performance with little effort. Now, what we really want to know is whether Ryzen 7 1700 is the best model of all, or if dipping down to the 65W model means giving up some overclocking headroom. Stay tuned!

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ASRock X370 Taichi AMD Ryzen Socket AM4 ATX Motherboard Review

Jacob Terkelsen — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Introducing ASRock's X370 Taichi

The hype train is in full swing for Zen, and I am so excited that I can’t help but hit F5 on the UPS tracking website. Better yet, I am Ralphie waiting for his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring excited. I’ve been covering tired old AMD hardware from what feels like a decade ago. I can even forgive AMD’s marketing team for misspelling "risen." I’ve drunk the Ovaltine, crawled through the marketing material, and relived memories of a childhood spent on /r/pcmasterrace and building my first Athlon XP 1800+ back in the early 2000s.

And here we are. AMD's Zen has finally made its way to my test bench, and I get to look at the unsung hero of AMD's newest solution, the AM4 socket. It might not be glamorous, but it is this family of chipsets that enable Ryzen, Bristol Ridge, and Zen+ to go forth and raise battle against Intel. By converging CPU product lines behind a single socket, designers at AMD have found a way to reduce the number of supported chipsets while increasing the versatility of their socket's ecosystem.

	Zen X370	Piledriver 990FX	Zen B350	Piledriver 970
Processor PCIe	1 x16 Gen 3 Or 2 x8 Gen 3	✗	1 x16 Gen 3	✗
Processor SATA	2 SATA 3.0 + x2 NVMe 2 SATA + x2 PCIe Gen 2 1 x4 NVMe	✗	2 SATA 3.0 + x2 NVMe 2 SATA + x2 PCIe Gen 2 1 x4 NVMe	✗
Processor USB	4 3.1 Gen 1	✗	4 3.1 Gen 1	✗
Chipset PCIe	8 Gen 2	2 x16 Gen 2& 10 Gen 2	6 Gen 2	1 x16 Gen 2 & 6 Gen 2
Chipset SATA	4 SATA 3.0 + 2 SATAe	6 SATA 3.0	2 SATA 3.0 + 2 SATAe	6 SATA 3.0
Chipset USB	2 3.1 Gen 2 6 3.1 Gen 1 6 2.0	14 2.0 + 2 1.1	2 3.1 Gen 2 2 3.1 Gen 1 6 2.0	14 2.0 + 2 1.1
RAID	0/1/10	0/1/5/10	0/1/10	0/1/5/10

AM4 comes in five different flavors: the enthusiast grade X370; mainstream B350; “essential” A/B300; and the elusive X300 chipset. X370 and B350 are my focus over the next few months, but the 300 models will no doubt get closer inspection once Zen based APUs hit the market. X370 is the younger brother to the 990FX, and B350 sheds a couple pounds to follow suit behind the enthusiast platform, just like the 970 chipsets. Both X370 and B350 support overclocking, while the essential builds are stuck in the slow lane.

Upon further inspection, there are some drastic changes to how AMD is choosing to deploy its CPUs into the consumer chassis. The Zen architecture is taking a page out of the SoC playbook by incorporating a lot of Southbridge functionality directly onto the die. Ryzen enables direct access to PCIe Gen3, USB3.1 Gen2, NVMe, and other modern interfaces directly off die in comparison to the Northbridge and Southbridge combos of old. To round out the platform, X370 enables connection to additional SATA, PCIe Gen 2, USB3.1 Gen 1 and 2, as well as the essentials for any enthusiast build.

Enter the Taichi

With the plethora of connectivity options enabled by X370, ASRock has taken the bull by the horns and given us a board that will become the centerpiece to any PC builder's work of art. Reminiscent of our MSI 990FXA Gaming review back in 2016, the Taichi is a beauty. The matte black PCB, black and white color scheme, and steampunk-esque gear motif are jaw dropping. Everywhere I look on this motherboard I see polish, finesse, and thoughtful design.

The X370 Taichi takes an holistic approach to feature inclusion and puts everything on the table. At first I was confused as to why ASRock included the 802.11ac wireless antennae, but given the amount of style this thing has, this PC will be the center of attention at any LAN party.

Inside this premium board packaging are the usual suspects: four SATA cables, driver CD and user guide, antennae, individually wrapped retention screws for the M.2, high bandwidth SLI bridge, and a postcard to write home to mom that you spent all of your tax return on a computer! The back panel provides standard Ryzen I/O, giving access to USB 3.1 Type A and Type C, and six USB 3.0, in addition to five port audio, SPDIF, WiFi antennae, and a clear CMOS button.

The IO shield covering the audio portions of the board is not overly gaudy and provides contrast against the black board. Where I'm used to seeing white silk screened letters cluttering up the planar, I see text that melds among the components. And where I typically expect some cut corners, ASRock includes top notch connectors, components, and strategic intent on where these features are placed. I find nothing wrong with this board — words I have said about only one other product.

Dual PCI-E Steel Slots are intended for dual GPU deployments while the third x16 slot is of the standard black variety. If you're using multiple M.2s, this black slot is disabled. Speaking of M.2, the Ultra M.2 port enables 32 Gb/s PCIe Gen3 NVMe. Purity Sound 4 makes its way to the planar, and audiophiles will enjoy the emphasis on providing superior audio to the front HD audio ports.

Options for programmable RGB LEDs amp up styling. The Promontory chip has LEDs surrounding its edges, and there are locations in the center of the board that allow for direct connection to user supplied light strips. The ASRock RGB LED utility enables complete customization of these LEDs so that frequent reboots to access the UEFI are not necessary. If only I were so shallow, this review could end and looks alone would set this apart from the competition.

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X370 Taichi's UEFI: Growing Pains

For the Taichi line, ASRock abandons the familiar red-and-black clad UEFI in favor of the modern design of the motherboard. Along with the traditional text based feel, ASRock provides well documented descriptions for many options within the menu, which will come in handy in the overclocking segment.

CPU multipliers, DRAM frequency, voltage adjustments, and timing options cover the bulk of the OC Tweaker tab as usual. For Ryzen, though, plenty of new options adorn the OC Tweaker and Advanced tabs, tying into the new architecture. The Zen Commands menu enables various architecture controls and workarounds, while digging through the AMD CBS menu unfolds a huge tree of options that almost never end. The AMD PBS menu accesses Ryzen specific features like enabling the two x8 PCIe Gen 3 ports and SATA express options.

Having received this sample on day one of launch, it's no surprise that we'd be flashing various versions of firmware onto this board. Loading the appropriate BIOS binary onto our jump drive and selecting F11 then “UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell” took care of the process, where we would have preferred the simplicity of the network enabled options.

In time, we hope to see additional firmware updates that remove some of the superfluous options and enable some of the simpler solutions that a top tier motherboard would typically deploy. Given that ASRock has already released publicly three different BIOS versions leads us to believe that the company is on top of it.

Test Configuration

Pretty much our entire rig has been carried over from our C236 platform reviews, so there's nothing unique to talk about here. We were fortunate enough to reach Noctua in time for this article, resulting in three different heatsinks for use in our AM4 reviews. Today, we are deploying the monstrous NH-D15 SE-AM4 on our test bed for maximum cooling and awesomeness. This cooler is so large that getting thermal readings off the Taichi’s voltage regulators was nearly impossible. Compared to my dusty Sunbeamtech from the 990FX reviews, this cooler is more than adequate for cooling my CPU.

As with all of our AMD motherboard reviews, we did not change any settings through the OS or UEFI to alter our results. Our intent is to test the product as a typical user would deploy it. If you're comparing our data to those of other articles, please keep this in mind. If changing the SMT, HPET, or any other setting is desirable, let us know in the comments section.

The Corsair AX860 continues to supply our system with power. Gigabyte's GTX 970 G1 Gaming is deployed to compare this AMD's 1700X data to other platforms using the same GPU. We opted to plug the 250GB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2 into the U.2 slot to utilize the 32 Gb/s connection rather than the PCIe 2.0 interface.

We are giving our Crucial 8GB UDIMMs a shot in this new platform despite their plain green color. Good thing the Noctua cooler dwarfs all four slots!

If there are any other pieces of hardware that would be interesting to gather data on, feel free to let us know in the comments.

Benchmark Settings

Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
PCMark 8	Version 2.7.613 Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
SiSoftware Sandra	Version 2016.03.22.21 CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD	4k Random Read, 4k Random Write 128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15	Build RC83328DEMO OpenGL Benchmark
CompuBench	Version 1.5.8 Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
3D Tests and Settings
3DMark 13	Version 4.47.597.0 Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset
Application Tests and Settings
HandBrake CLI	Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
LAME MP3	Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Adobe After Effects CC	Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CC	Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CC	Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark driven routine
Adobe Illustrator	Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark driven routine
Blender	Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-Zip	Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Game Tests and Settings
Ashes of Singularity	Version 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1090, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 2015	2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain UltraHigh Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light Redux	Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation
The Talos Principle	Version 267252 Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF Ultra Preset, VeryHigh Quality, VeryHigh Tesselation, 16x AF

Test Results And Final Analysis

ASRock X370 Taichi

Gigabyte 970 Gaming-SLI

We'll be comparing other X370 boards over time, but since this is the first, we want to see how far AMD has come, so we'll be comparing the Taichi to our original AMD platform.

Test Results: Synthetics and Apps

Surprisingly, the AMD 970 system can keep pace with the X370 in the PCMark Work and Storage benchmarks despite having a relatively antiquated processor and storage solution. However, X370 decides to shift gears and starts to annihilate its older brother in the remaining PCMark workloads by upwards of 33%. The ASRock X370 Taichi and 1700X continue to pour salt into the AMD 970’s wounds by more than doubling the AMD 970 scores in Sandra Arithmetic and tripling Multimedia and some Cryptographic metrics. The FX-8350 is no slouch, running 500MHz faster than the 1700X, but the Zen architecture is just that much more efficient.

An interesting observation with Cinebench: single-threaded performance matches the marketed claim of 40% better instructions per cycle, although having twice as many threads available doesn’t compound that IPS gain across all threads and cores.

Compubench right now is configured to use the GPUs for OpenCL performance, and the AMD 7970 manages to hang on in some workloads but obviously shows its age.

Many testers have claimed that Ryzen is a great workstation processor and this Handbrake result only solidifies that claim by cutting the render time by more than half. Blender shows similar trends with the CPU render taking one third less time to complete. Compression only seals the deal in real world applications.

Test Results: 3DMark and Games

To be honest, these 3DMark results are comical. The AMD 7970 is leagues behind the GTX 970 in age, and only as I start ramping up the resolution and detail does the gap shrink. Standard Firestrike appears to be the AMD 7970s tipping point but the GTX 970 shows around 20 FPS while running Firestrike Extreme.

In Ashes of the Singularity, we see a similar trend, and at high settings the ASRock X370 setup gains 20 FPS. With the move to Crazy settings, the lead shrinks to less than 10 FPS with signs of bottlenecking. Again, F1 2015 shows barely playable framerates with the AMD 970 system, but a smooth experience with the X370 system. As I crawl through the tunnels in Metro Last Light, the ASRock X370 Taichi system operates better at Very High than the AMD 970 system at High detail settings. Still, both GPUs provide playable rates, though the GTX 970 is clearly smoother. The Talos Principle has been fixed in the latest version of the test image and again the X370/GTX 970 combo provides better framerates at higher detail settings than my old test bench.

It is no surprise to anyone reading this article that the ASRock X370 Taichi system equipped with 1700X and GTX 970 is going to decimate a five-year-old computer. Synthetics are showing about a 60% delta between both systems, whereas the games are only separated by 35%.

Overclocking, Thermals, and Power

Given the infancy of Zen in consumer hands, there is a lot of conjecture and confusion among internet message boards across the entire spectrum of expertise. Our usual software tools for monitoring voltages and temperatures are no longer functional, and AMD's Ryzen Master software requires settings that we honestly don't have time to diagnose and properly analyze. Upon Paul Alcorn's (our CPU reviewer) recommendation, AIDA 64 beta provides the data presented in this article.

Our trusty Kill-A-Watt doesn't care if it's connected to a refrigerator or a high-end computer; watts are watts. While running idle, the X370 Taichi coupled with the Ryzen 1700X only draw a respectful 69W. Temperatures are slightly confusing, though expected, at 29°C for the CPU and 48°C for the CPU1 diode.

Loading up Prime95 for maximum CPU power pulls 184W from the wall while the delta between CPU and CPU1 diode increases to 30°C. Having reinstalled our cooler a couple of times, we don't know which value to trust, so we trudge forward.

Loading up FurMark in parallel on our 970 system ends up drawing 404W and the CPU temperature delta still sits at 30°C. Looking back at the AMD 970 system data, we were using a much smaller power supply so we were unable to grab full system stress data. Regardless, this 1700X sample saves nearly 90W when running Prime95 when compared to full load with the FX-8350. Given that the 32nm chip has a TDP of 125W compared to the 1700X’s 95W, the ASRock X370 Taichi platform is far more efficient than its predecessor.

As we tread into lightly understood waters, overclocking the 1700X was both easy and difficult at the same time. Various outlets describe some safe recommendations and claim success in the realm of 3.8-4.0GHz utilizing air cooling. Paul Alcorn could achieve 4.0GHz using watercooling for his sample, so we are optimistic while deploying the Nocuta NH-D15 for the AM4 socket. Given the specific voltage and temperature monitoring of the Zen architecture, 1.35 to 1.4V set point appears to be the safe range for these processors. Since we need this sample to survive for the long haul, we're handicapping ourselves to 1.3875V and a target frequency of 4GHz.

The ASRock X370 Taichi is well suited for overclocking, given the 12+4 phase design and ample options provided through the UEFI. Having utilized loadline settings heavily during testing for our C232 article, step one was to increase the clock multiplier and tweak this setting by one adjustment. We hit 3.8GHz right off the bat without even breaking a sweat. Both CPU temperatures were solid and we felt jumping up to 4.0GHz would be straightforward.

Wrong.

Windows will load, but we got no response from the system after the boot animation stopped spinning. The X370 Taichi enables both fixed and offset voltage settings, but we were very cautious of the offset option given the ambiguous definition and units of the adjustments. Upping the voltage to 1.3875 using fixed voltage enabled us to get to the idle Windows screen, but even adjusting the loadline up to level two didn't improve the situation. Dialing back down to 3.9GHz got Prime95 up and running, but within an hour of runtime we were back to the black screen. Rather than damage our processor with more voltage, we will have to settle for 3.8GHz using slightly more aggressive voltages and loadline than stock settings.

As for memory, these boring Crucial DDR4-2400 could bump up to DDR4-2666MHz with a single click press of the “+” key. Timings are available through the AMD CBS menu in the UEFI, and we just dialed the tCL back to stock 2400 settings. We do have newer memory modules en route, so we look forward to putting these green sticks back in the boring workstation build.

Efficiency, Value, and Verdict

With the performance gap of nearly 50% for both platforms and the latest AMD release drawing nearly 30% less power, the efficiency discussion is not even a fair comparison. For those builders hoping to jump from an older AMD system to another, the power savings alone could justify the cost. For gamers though, sometimes efficiency has little sway in the entire equation.

Prices are likely to fluctuate for a while. Comparing several online retailers’ prices for this ASRock X370 Taichi, it can be found on sale for as low as $199.99, and the older 970 chipset boards are starting to drop in price or go out of stock. Despite the lackluster numbers, the performance per dollar calculation goes to the older platform. We still wouldn’t recommend going out and specifically buying the AMD 970 boards because this “value” comes at the cost modern features, electricity, and performance.

The ASRock X370 Taichi is clearly a top tier motherboard, providing stability and performance out of this new ecosystem and AM4 socket. Unfortunately our processor sample did not win the silicon lottery, though manufacturing processes improve daily. There is no doubt that both AMD and third party developers are feverishly tweaking drivers and firmware to ensure that Zen is running as optimally as possible. We look forward to revisiting this motherboard once the dust has settled and we've reviewed others. And we can hardly wait for B350 for single GPU deployments and the quest to win the value title back from the i7-7700k.

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