The Redditor who had thousands of PC-DIY enthusiasts on tenterhooks with posts charting their extraordinarily long BIOS update odyssey (100 hours+) had some sad news to share today. GoatWithAGun posted a defeated “Welp, we’re done here,” and shared a picture of their famous-for-15-minutes PC, which was described as “completely unresponsive” after the monitor seemingly lost signal from the machine.

Welp, we’re done here from r/pcmasterrace

In the above post, which serves as both an obituary and epitaph for the deceased PC, GoatWithAGun sensitively told those gathered around this virtual deathbed “As of 2:14 PM Philippine Standard Time, my monitor lost signal from the PC and I returned to it completely unresponsive to any troubleshooting.” The Redditor graciously thanked those who had followed their fight to resuscitate the PC, and those who had donated.

Our previous coverage saw the efforts to update the BIOS of this PC’s BioStar A320MH motherboard extend past the 24-hour mark (flashing 66% complete). Actually, follow-up posts saw the Redditor start new threads at 48-hours+, and 100-hours+ before quiet darkness descended today.

It may be unfortunate what has happened to this PC, which the Redditor said they decided to BIOS-flash due to the lure of BioStar stability fixes. However, it shouldn’t be the end of the system, with replacement motherboards readily available. Other components of this system like the AMD Ryzen 3 1200 CPU, 4GB of DDR4-2400 Kingston HyperX memory, an Asus GTX 1660 GPU, a 128GB Transcend SATA SSD, and a 480GB Crucial SATA SSD are all likely unconcerned with the motherboard’s sticky end.

Before signing off, GoatWithAGun seemed to hint that they may soon have a new way to reanimate the dead BioStar A320MH motherboard. The Redditor said that a BIOS programmer is on the way (with a spare BIOS chip, we would hope). Thus, there may be a chance that this bricked single-BIOS device could rise again – if the BIOS contents are the only hurdle to it being able to boot.

GoatWithAGun will probably announce the result of the BIOS programmer tinkering off of Reddit, due to a segment of the platform the Redditors says have “grown tired of me.” It’s a shame those folks couldn’t just go and read and comment on something else.

Biostar’s Valkyrie line of motherboards has been on the market for a few generations and is available in AMD and Intel flavors. Each generation has brought improvements in appearance and functionality. Fast-forward to today, and we get a chance to look at the AMD-based X870E Valkyrie, the latest and greatest in the series. The updated Valkyrie receives a minor facelift, faster memory support, an improved audio solution, and more robust power delivery.

At the time of this writing, Biostar’s X870/X870E product stack consists of the Valkyrie and nothing else. There are no budget offerings, MicroATX, or Mini-ITX form factors, just the X870E Valkyrie in all its mid-range ATX glory. The company has three boards at varying price points (though all ATX) for Intel, but, for now at least, there is only one for the AMD X870E.

Hardware-wise, the X870E Valkyrie gets you almost everything you expect and want from the platform: native support of the Zen 5 processors (including the recently announced X3D chips with a BIOS update), 40 Gbps Type-C support (Thunderbolt 4 in this case), robust power delivery with 110A MOSFETs, four M.2 sockets and six SATA ports, a quality audio solution, and 2.5 GbE. Even though you see Wi-Fi antenna connections on the rear IO, this board does not include Wi-Fi, which is misleading.

The Valkyrie performed well overall, allowing our Ryzen 9 9900X to let loose and mix in with the other tested boards. We expect nothing less. It did better in gaming than productivity, but as we know, it would be difficult to discern between them in most tests as many of the results are very close.

Below, we’ll examine the board's details and determine whether it deserves a spot on our Best Motherboards list (spoiler: it will not). But before we share test results and discuss details, we’ll list the specifications from Biostar’s website. 

Specifications of the Biostar X870E Valkyrie

Inside the Box of the Biostar X870E Valkyrie

The X870E Valkyrie’s accessory stack is surprisingly light, offering stickers, an easy-connect header for the front panel, and four SATA cables. That said, you should be fine as the M.2 sockets all have a quick connect (read: not screws!).  

Design of the Valkyrie

The updated Valkyrie presents users with a mid-range vibe and, at least to this reviewer, it’s improved over the X760E version. The matte black PCB is still high-quality, with eight layers, and uses two ounces of copper. Above the rear IO, on the beefy VRM heatsink, is the Valkyrie branding backlit with RGB LEDs. The Valkyrie symbol graces the chipset area, with plate heatsinks covering all the M.2 sockets. A pink stripe shoots through those same plates as well. Overall, I like the look, and it will blend in with most build themes. But I would have liked to see a large heatsink for the PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 socket - an impossible feat with this design due to its location below the primary PCIe slot. 

Starting in the top left, we get a better look at the oversized, heatpipe-connected VRM heatsinks and the RGB feature. The VRM heatsinks are heavy, and the miter cuts increase surface area for what looks to be an effective solution. Above are the two 8-pin EPS connectors to power the processor.

Moving our focus right and past the socket area, we find the four reinforced DRAM slots with locking mechanisms on both sides. Biostar lists capacity up to 192GB and speeds to DDR5-8000 (an improvement of 2000 MT/s over X670E Valkyrie). We had no issues running our DDR5-6000 kit for baseline testing, but our sample quit working (never to work again) after we installed our Klevv DDR5-8000 kit and enabled XMP. Much more on that later.

Just above the DRAM slots are the first two (of six) 4-pin fan headers. Each header supports PWM and DC-controlled devices. The manual doesn’t list the output, and we’re also waiting for Biostar's reply with the details on that front. Until then, assume each has 1A/12W available, and do not overload the headers. The BIOS and Aurora software can control these headers through presets or manually.

Tucked in the upper-right corner are three of five RGB headers. Here, there are two 3-pin ARGB headers and one 4-pin RGB header, with the other two ARGB headers located along the bottom edge. Looking down the right side, we spy power and reset buttons labeled with LED backlit “P” and “R” letters and another system fan header just below. Following that is the 24-pin ATX to power the board, a front panel USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C header, and a 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) connector.

The X870E Valkyrie's power delivery has plenty of oomph to power flagship-class Zen 4 and Zen 5 processors. Biostar lists the VRMs as 22 phases, with 18 dedicated to Vcore. Power travels from the EPS connector(s) onto a Renesas RAA229628 20-phase PWM controller. From there, it hits the 18 Renesas R22209004HBO 110A MOSFETs in a teamed configuration. The 1,980A available is more than enough for any overclocking you may do with any compatible processor. Per usual, you’ll be limited by your cooling before the power delivery.  

The audio section is on the bottom half of the board (left) and is mostly hidden from the user. Under the shroud is the high-end, last-gen Realtek ALC1220-VB2 codec, and four dedicated audio capacitors poke out through the shroud. We’d like to see the latest generation Realtek audio based on the Realtek 408X series. Still, the last-gen flagship is a fine audio solution that an overwhelming majority would find acceptable.

In the middle, between all of the heatsinks, are three reinforced full-length PCIe slots. The top two slots connect through the CPU with the primary graphics (top) slot running at PCIe 5.0 x16 or x8/x8, with the middle running at a maximum of PCIe 5.0 x8 when using a desktop-class processor. The bottom full-length slot connects through the chipset and runs at PCIe 4.0 x4. With this configuration, there is plenty of room physically and also bandwidth-wise for expansion cards.

A total of four M.2 sockets sit among the PCIe slots. The topmost M.2, just below the primary PCIe slot, supports up to 80mm PCIe 5.0 x4 modules. The bottom three slots connect via the chipset and run up to PCIe 4.0 x4. The M2M_SB_2/3 connector supports up to 80mm devices, while M2M_SB_1 is 110mm. When using M2M_SB_3, the bottom PCIe slot (PCIEX16_3) will be disabled. Moving right, past the chipset, are six SATA ports for additional storage. If you’d like to RAID these, the Valkyrie supports RAID0/15 modes, but only on the SATA ports. I would like to see an additional PCIe 5.0 M.2 socket, but otherwise, there are plenty of storage options, especially if you have a lot of SATA-based drives.

Across the bottom of the board are several exposed headers. You’ll find the usual, including additional USB ports, RGB headers, and more. Below is a complete list from left to right.

• Front panel audio
• (2) 3-pin ARGB header
• (2) System fan headers
• COM Port
• Thunderbolt AIC header
• (2) USB 2.0 headers
• System fan header
• Debug LED
• Front panel
• Clear CMOS button

The rear IO has a lot going on, with a wide range of connectivity. Starting with USB, there are 10 total ports out back: eight USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-A ports and two Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps) Type-C ports. On the left are the HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs (don’t forget the TB4 ports also offer video). Next to that is the Smart BIOS Update option (which can be used without a CPU), while on the right is the 2.5 GbE LAN port and audio stack (5x 3.5mm analog, plus SPDIF optical output). We do see antenna headers for Wi-Fi. However, this board does not include Wi-Fi! You will have to buy the CNVI-based Key-E card separately.

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Firmware

Biostar’s firmware on the X870E board has been updated, mainly in EZ Mode. It’s laid out logically in sections, and the black-on-grey/white with gold accents makes it easy to read. While it has many of the basics, the overclocking options are still limited with regard to memory. If you’re into tweaking every little thing to extract every ounce of performance from your RAM, this isn’t the board that will do it. If you’re more of a set-EXPO/XMP-and-forget-it memory person, this isn’t a concern (assuming your memory is on the QVL list). Overall, we like the BIOS, and the EZ Mode is improved, but it’s still behind compared to the competition. 

Software

Biostar has its Aurora suite of software, which combines various functionality in one application. In the OC/OV section, you’ll find audio functionality (volume control—Smart Ear), RGB (Vivid LED DJ), fan control (AI Fan), a hardware monitor, and overclocking functions. Everything worked as described. We like the Aorura application and hope for additional features/functionality in new revisions. 

Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (24H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of late September 2024 (this includes the Branch Prediction Optimizations for AMD). Hardware-wise, we’ve updated the RAM kits (matching our Intel test system), cooling, storage, and video card. Unless otherwise noted, we use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public. Thanks to Asus for providing the RTX 4080 TUF graphics card and Crucial for the 2TB T705 SSDs. The hardware we used is as follows: 

Test System Components

Benchmark Settings

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Benchmark Results and Final Analysis

 Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo) with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. The Windows power scheme is set to Balanced (default) for this baseline testing, so the PC idles appropriately.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetics provide a great way to determine how a board runs, as identical settings should produce similar performance results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are places where motherboard makers can still optimize for stability or performance, though, and those settings can impact some testing. 

The X870E Valkyrie did well across our synthetic benchmarks, frequently around the average of our existing data sets. Any differences between the first few boards we’ve tested aren’t noticeable and are within the margin of error.

Timed Applications

In our timed benchmarks, the Valkyrie was leading or near the top of the group. Like the synthetics above, any differences were negligible. It’s clear this board gets the most out of the Ryzen 9 9900X. 

3D Games and 3DMark

Starting with the launch of Zen 5, we’ve updated our game tests. We’re keeping the F1 racing game but have upgraded to F1 24. We also dropped Far Cry 6 in favor of an even more popular and good-looking game in Cyberpunk 2077. We run both games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). Cyberpunk 2077 uses DLSS, while we left F1 24 to native resolution scaling. The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used (and CPU/system bound) resolution with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error differences. We’ve also added a minimum FPS value, which can affect your gameplay and immersion experience.

If you’ve read any earlier X870/X870E reviews or cheated and looked at the charts, you know our Ryzen 9 9900X is a capable gaming chip, too. The 3DMark scores were strikingly similar, but the games show some early differences, mainly in the minimum frame rate. The Valkyrie ended up the fastest in our gaming tests, but again, the results are all very close, and you’d be hard-pressed to see the differences on-screen.

Overclocking

Over the past few CPU generations, overclocking headroom has been shrinking on both sides of the fence while the out-of-box potential has increased. For overclockers, this means there’s less fun to have. For the average consumer, you’re getting the most out of the processor without manual tweaking. Today’s motherboards are more robust than ever, and they easily support power-hungry flagship-class processors, so we know the hardware can handle them.

There are multiple ways to extract even more performance from these processors: enabling a canned PBO setting, manually tweaking the PBO settings, or just going for an all-core overclock. Results will vary and depend on the cooling as well. In other words, your mileage may vary. Considering all of the above, we’re not overclocking the CPU. However, we will try out our different memory kits to ensure they meet the specifications. 

As you may know, we like to drop in the fastest kit under the board’s rated speed and stress test. Well, that didn’t work out with this board – to put it mildly. We dropped our Klevv DDR5-8000 kit on the board and enabled XMP. It trained and booted into Windows. But a couple of minutes later, while sitting idle, the system shut down, puffed out some magic smoke, and never turned on again. After some investigation, it turns out the source of the smoke was one of the MOSFETs. On the surface, this may seem problematic, but we believe this is a one-off situation, as other reviews were able to run DDR5-8000+ off the same board. It’s also possible that it was a user error, as we remove and reinstall the heatsinks to capture the VRM pictures but didn’t see any obvious physical damage. 

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory enabled for power testing, using the peak power consumption value from the processor. The wattage reading is from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter to capture the entire PC (minus the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same. Please note we moved to use only the stock power use/VRM temperature charts, as this section aims to ensure the power delivery can handle flagship-class processors. 

The Ryzen 9 9990X's power consumption is tame compared to the 7950X we used for X670/X670E. Where, in the past, high-end boards would peak at nearly 300W, the systems now top out at 250-270W during the CPU stress tests (gaming with the Nvidia RTX 4080 is another story). The X870E Valkyrie peaked at 267W (the highest we’ve seen so far on this platform) and idled at 86W, one of the lower idle values. Sadly, we don’t have the VRM charts available, as that data gets captured using the high-speed sticks that failed, resulting in this board’s death.

We have no idea what the VRM temperatures are due to the failure, but the large heatsinks and VRM bits below should be able to handle anything you throw at them. 

Bottom Line

Biostar’s X870E Valkyrie improves on the X760E version with an updated appearance and BIOS, more robust power delivery, a quality audio solution, and a slew of connectivity. Biostar has not released U.S. pricing information at this time (we asked, but they don’t have it yet), but we’d expect to see it somewhere above the $400 mark. It has almost everything you’d want but is missing integrated Wi-Fi 7, when other much less expensive boards include it. I would also like two PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 sockets and more EZ DIY features to keep up with the ‘big four’ board competitors.

There are a lot of high-quality motherboards in the $400-$500 price bracket. At the top end, you have the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master ($499.99 - less with rebates), the MSI X870E Carbon WIFI ($499.99), and one of the best value boards of this generation, ASRock’s X870E Taichi ($449.99). Priced under $400, you also have some refined and well-equipped options like the X870E Taichi Lite ($399.99), Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro/Pro Ice ($359.99), Asus ROG Strix X870-A Gaming ($369.99), and MSI’s Z890 Edge Ti WIFI7 Gaming ($369.99 - less with rebates). No matter where you look, all of these include Wi-Fi 7, more ‘EZ DIY’ features, and ‘Ai Overclocking,’ and most have numerous PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 sockets, whereas the Valkyrie does not.

From most angles, Biostar’s X870E Valkyrie is an improvement over the X670E version. Although we had some trouble testing, with the board going up in smoke using high-speed memory, we believe this was a one-off situation and not a systemic problem. Again, we’ve seen other reviews on this board, and it overclocked high-speed memory without issue. That out of the way, we can't recommend this board if it costs more than $400, as so many alternatives with similar or even better hardware and features are available between $360-$400.

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Finally on our test bench is a motherboard that doesn’t from one of the four major board partners. Specifically, we’re looking at the Biostar Z790 Valkyrie. This flagship-class SKU offers users the full complement of features from the Z790 platform, including PCIe 5.0 slots, M.2 sockets, and support for Intel’s 12th and 13th Gen processors. Currently found online for over $600, it comes with last-gen flagship-class audio, plenty of storage options and USB ports, and robust power delivery to support the high-end Intel processors. However, it is missing integrated Wi-Fi. Its looks are also basic for the price, but you won’t need to hide it in your chassis.

Biostar’s product stack has just two motherboards for Z790, the Valkyrie we’re reviewing here and the much lower-priced Z790A-Silver. You won’t find any Micro ATX or Mini-ITX boards or other SKUs here. Biostar’s options are simple and straightforward, but not also limited compared to the competition.

Regarding performance, the Z790 was below average with our Intel i9-13900K. Like most other Z790 boards, the Valkyrie lets the processor run free within Intel specifications, but gets hindered by thermal throttling. We saw above-average results in Handbrake, but surprisingly lower results in the Procyon Office tests. For those concerned about gaming, performance was average all around there. If you need more performance, there are options within the BIOS to run with raised limits. Just be sure you have the cooling to support it (and perhaps run a negative offset for Vcore).

This board doesn’t earn a spot on our best motherboards list, but it does present users with another option in the crowded Z790 market. Before we get into our testing and board specifics, though, we’ll start by listing the specifications from Biostar’s website.

Specifications: Biostar Z790 Valkyrie

Inside the Box of the Biostar Z790 Valkyrie

Inside the box, along with the motherboard, is a simple accessory stack designed to get you started without an additional trip to the store. Below is a complete list of the included accessories:

• (4) SATA cables
• Driver disk
• User Manual
• Smart connector

Design of the Z790 Valkyrie

The Z790 Valkyrie sits on a matte-black 8-layer PCB, sporting black heatsinks and shrouds with gold accents, plus a brushed aluminum finish covering the unsightly parts of the board. The left VRM bank and chipset heatsinks include the Valkyrie branding, backlit with RGB LEDs. The board doesn’t look bad, but its similarly priced competition does look better and more premium.

Focusing on the top half of the board, we get a better look at the large heatpipe-connected VRM heatsinks and the Valkyrie branding on the IO cover. Like the AMD-based X670E Valkyrie, the VRM heatsinks are loaded with wide-mitered cutouts to increase surface area and performance, and they do a more-than-adequate job keeping the MOSFETs running well within specification. Above the VRM heatsinks are two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) to power the Intel processor.

Moving past the socket, we hit the four reinforced DDR5 DRAM slots, with locking mechanisms on both sides. Biostar lists support up to DDR5-7200, which is low compared to similarly priced options. We didn’t have any trouble with our DDR5-5600 or DD5-6000 kits, but the fastest we had (DDR5-7200) didn’t want to play nice here. However, the sticks are not on the QVL list, and are at the very top of listed support, so I can’t say we expected that to work anyway.

Next to the DRAM slots are the first two (of six) 4-pin fan headers. You can adjust the PWM and DC-controlled devices in the BIOS or through the Aurora software. Biostar documentation doesn’t appear to list the output of these headers on the specs page or in the manual. You can safely assume the headers all have 1A/12W available to them without fear (more would be concerning). Overloading these headers can cause permanent damage to your motherboard.

Past the DRAM slots along the right edge, we find a slew of headers, including all three RGB headers (2x 3-pin ARGB and 1x 4-pin RGB) nicely tucked in this location which helps with cable management. Down the right edge are the power and reset buttons, another 4-pin fan header, and the 24-pin ATX connector to power the board. Below is a 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) connector and a front panel USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C connector.

The VRMs on the Z790 Valkyrie are some of the more capable we’ll see on the Z790 platform. For Vcore, there are a total of 20 phases. Power comes from the 8-pin EPS connector(s) onto the Renesas RAA229131 controller. Power then moves to 20x 105A Renesas RAA22010540 SPS MOSFETs. The mind-blowing 2,100A available for Vcore is one of the highest we’ve seen and more than enough to handle the flagship Intel i9-13900K at stock and while overclocked, even when using sub-ambient cooling methods.

On the bottom of the board, starting with the left side, we find a mostly hidden audio area. The only thing visible is four yellow capacitors dedicated to audio use. Hiding under the shroud is the last-generation flagship Realtek ALC1220 codec. While most users are satisfied with this codec, I want to see the latest and greatest on a flagship-class motherboard.

In the middle of the board are three reinforced full-length PCIe slots, poking out between five M.2 sockets, all of which hidden under heatsinks. Starting with the PCIe slots, the top two slots connect through the CPU and run at PCIe 5.0 speeds. The top slot supports up to x16 while the second slot supports a maximum of PCIe 5.0 8x speeds. With both in use, the top slot breaks down to x8 speeds to share the bandwidth with the second slot. The bottom full-length socket connects through the chipset and supports PCIe 4.0 x4 bandwidth. There are plenty of slots and sockets to go around, but there is some lane sharing (more on this below) you need to consider.

Mixed in among slots are five total M.2 sockets. There’s one PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps) socket and four PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) sockets, with one of those able to run SATA- and NVMe-based modules. There’s also a Key-E socket available for CNVi-based Wi-Fi cards. Byt don’t let the antenna connections on the back fool you, there’s no Wi-Fi included in the box. 

Again, some lane sharing is inevitable with these sockets, slots, and SATA ports. If you’re using a PCIe-based module on M2M_CPU1 (top socket), the second PCIe slot is disabled, and the primary slot (top) drops to x8, so there’s enough bandwidth to go around. Additionally, if you’re running a SATA-based SSD in M2M_SB3, you’ll lose one SATA port (SATA8). In short, you can run all five M.2 sockets and all eight SATA ports concurrently if you aren’t running a SATA-based M.2 module.

Next, we spy a CLR CMOS button along the right edge to reset the active BIOS. Next to it are eight SATA ports, the BIOS selector switch, and another 4-pin fan header. Across the bottom of the are several exposed headers. You’ll find the typical fare here with USB, audio, and fan headers. Below is a complete list from left to right:

• Front panel audio
• (2) 4-pin System Fan headers
• Thunderbolt AIC header
• COM port
• (2) USB 2.0 headers
• Front Panel
• Debug LED
• 4-pin fan header
• TPM header

The rear IO on the Z790 Valkyrie comes pre-installed and attached to the motherboard. It sports a black background with white labeling on the ports, which makes things easy to read. There are eight USB ports total: two Type-C (10 and 20 Gbps ports) and six USB 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gbps) Type-A ports. On the left are two video outputs (DisplayPort and HDMI), as well as a Smart BIOS update button. Above the USB ports is the Wi-Fi antenna connections, but note the board does not come with Wi-Fi! You must purchase and install your own in the available Key-E slot. On the right is the five-plug analog plus SPDIF audio stack, and laslyt, the 2.5 GbE port.

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Firmware

Biostar’s firmware on the Z790 boards, like the others, doesn’t receive a significant facelift outside of some options exclusive to Intelt’s latest CPU platform. There’s an EZ Mode and your more standard advanced mode with the different sections spanning the top. While it has many of the basics, the overclocking options are limited with regard to memory. If you’re into tweaking every little thing to extract every ounce of performance from your sticks, this isn’t the board that will do it. If you’re more of a set-EXPO/XMP-and-forget-it memory person, this isn’t a concern (assuming your memory is on the QVL list). Overall, we like the BIOS, but in terms of appearance and features, it just isn’t up to the level of its competition.

Software

For software, Biostar has the Aurora suite that combines various functionality in one application. You’ll find audio functionality (volume control - Smart Ear), RGB (Vivid LED DJ), fan control (AI Fan), a hardware monitor, and overclocking functions in the OC/OV section. Everything worked as described. But, overclocking is limited to BCLK adjustment and voltage (no CPU multiplier adjustments). Overall, we like the Aorura application and hope for additional features/functionality to be added in new revisions.

Test System / Comparison Products 

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver. Additionally, we updated to F1 22 in our games suite and kept Far Cry 6. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows: 

EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the 1.2KW monster we used previously) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for testing. 

Benchmark Settings 

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Benchmark Results

Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo), with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. For this baseline testing, the Windows power scheme is set to Balanced (default) so the PC idles appropriately.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetics provide a great way to determine how a board runs, as identical settings should produce similar performance results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are places where motherboard makers can still optimize for either stability or performance, though, and those settings can impact some testing.

In our synthetic tests, our Z790 Valkyrie was average to below average, depending on the test. In all, it sits between the intel spec and other high-end boards where (at least) the PL1 limit is increased to maintain clocks. Like most boards, ours is plagued with thermal throttling in some tests, affecting the scores. The difference isn’t too significant, but it’s not one of the higher-performing boards we’ve tested.

 Timed Applications 

When looking at our timed applications, the LAME and Corona results were both slower than average. Meanwhile, both Handbrake tests were some of the fastest we’ve seen.

 3D Games and 3DMark 

Starting with the launch of Zen 4, we’ve updated one of our games, F1 21, to the latest version, F1 22. We're keeping Far Cry 6. We run the games at 1920 x 1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). As the resolution goes up, the CPU tends to have less impact. The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used (and CPU/system bound) resolution with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most differences falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS value, as this affects your gameplay and immersion experience.

Starting with the UL’s 3DMark tests, our board mixed right in with the rest. In games, it was average in F1 2022, and just slightly below average in Far Cry: 6. That said, you wouldn’t notice a difference between this and the fastest results unless you had a frame counter on the screen anyway. It’s a perfectly competent gamer.

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory enabled for power testing, using the peak power consumption value. The wattage reading is from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter to capture the entire PC (minus the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same.

Power consumption on the Z790 Valkyrie was just below average, using a bit more power than most of our boards. It averaged 72 Watts at idle and peaked at 402W during the stress-test load before it thermally throttled and used less power (from around 253 to 230W on the CPU itself).

VRM temperatures on the Valkyrie was also well within specification. At stock, temperatures, according to our sensors (the board doesn’t have an internal VRM sensor), were well within the operating parameters of the premium 105A SPS MOSFETs at stock settings and while overclocked. At idle, they sat close to 40 degrees Celsius, while it peaked around 54 degrees Celsius under load. There’s nothing to be concerned with regarding the power delivery or its cooling, as your CPU temperatures limit you before the VRMs get in the way.

Overclocking

When overclocking, we aim to increase the power and add stress to the VRMs. We do so by increasing the clock speed and voltage until we’re at the thermal threshold for the processor during stress testing. However, where these CPUs are allowed to run with ‘boost’ speeds, those speeds are closer to the limit than ever before.

With our Core i9-13900K, the approach was a bit different. We had to lower the voltage from what was recorded during stress tests to overclock our chip. We increased the clock speeds of the “P” and “E” cores by 100 and 200 MHz, respectively, over the turbo boost and limited by our cooling. We ended up with 5.6 GHz P-core and 4.5 GHz E-core clocks using about 1.34V (from DMM). Temperatures peak at or just under the throttling point with this configuration. And as we’ve noted elsewhere, this is the intended performance for Intel’s flagship CPU.

Overclocking our processor proved as easy as most other Z790 boards. We set the Vcore to Override input 1.35V with LLC on Auto, and off we went. There wasn’t any appreciable vdroop, and testing went well. The VRMs stayed well within spec, and we were stable throughout our 30-minute test.

Regarding memory, our 5600 and 6000 kits worked out of the box without issue. Compared to the X670E we looked at a few months ago, this is great news but also expected since this review is several months past the release date, so the platform and BIOS has had time to mature. Overall, we didn’t run into any concerns when overclocking. Still, again, if you aim to run the fastest memory and/or tweak secondary and tertiary memory timings, there are better-equipped options.

Bottom Line

The Biostar Z790 Valkyrie is a well-equipped board in the premium mid-range segment. While it doesn’t include 40 Gbps ports, it’s got everything else the platform offers, including PCIe 5.0 slots and a PCIe 5.0 M.2 socket. Outside of that, it comes with one of the more robust VRMs we’ve seen, even when compared to halo-type boards. You’re limited by cooling far before the power delivery hinders overclocking. Performance was underwhelming across most tests, running slightly slower than average in most, but the board proved to be a capable gaming machine.

Biostar’s MSRP for our board is somewhere around $450. However, you’ll find it online in the US for well over $600, which pushes it into even tougher territory. Around the $500 price point, each partner has an option. There’s the MSI’s MPG Z790 Carbon Wi-Fi ($449.99), Asus’ ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming Wi-Fi ($489.99), Gigabyte has its Z790 Aorus Master ($489.99), and the ASRock Z790 Taichi is $499.99. All of these boards offer robust power delivery, fast memory support, up to five M.2 sockets, and a premium appearance. If you need 40 Gbps ports, the Taichi is the only one of the group with that native functionality. All of the compeitng BIOSes are more refined than Biostar’s as well.

Assuming you can find the Z790 Valkyrie around the $450 MSRP, it’s a valid option in this space. But if it costs more than $500, it’s not worth it. We’ve seen some improvements over time with Biostar, but in order to compete with the major motherboard players and justify a high price, some things need to change. A more modern BIOS layout and better physical appearance (read: one that looks as good versus its direct competitors) are key, as we’re good with the specifications. As it stands, there are better-equipped and arguably more attractive options available at lower prices than what this board is selling for in the US.

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Biostar’s latest entry in the motherboard space carries a name we’re all familiar with in the X670E Valkryie. The Valkyrie is the flagship offering from Biostar and, unlike the other board partners, the company currently only offers this one board on the X670E chipset. On paper, the Valkyrie comes with almost everything you’re likely to be looking for on the X670E platform. You get multiple PCIe 5.0 slots, multiple M.2 sockets, robust power delivery to support any AM5 processor, and a quality audio codec. Talking strictly specifications and features, it ranks up there with all of the other similarly priced boards.

On the performance front, the X670E Valkyrie also did well, keeping up with the other tested boards across most of our tests. I was a bit surprised with its overall performance, as we were forced to run DDR5-4800 for testing instead of DDR5-5600, which we normally use. Sadly, our GSkill memory kit didn’t work at XMP/EXPO settings to complete the full testing suite, nor during stress testing. The company did provide us with an updated BIOS that worked with our kit after we finished testing, but that doesn’t mean all issues have been ironed out with the many DDR5 kits currently on the market. With memory compatibility still a concern (earlier reviews had similar struggles), the Valkyrie won’t make it on our best motherboards list, but it’s still competent at JEDEC memory speeds.

Memory limitations with the current BIOS aside, The Valkyrie is generally well-equipped. From the two PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 sockets to the 105A SPS MOSFETs, it has come to play with the big boys. You won’t find any USB4 (40 Gbps) ports, and Wi-Fi isn’t included. If you require these features, you can add expansion cards, but that will of course add to the $499.99 current real-world price of the board (though the MSRP is “roughly $400 US”). Even though it had a significant memory speed deficit in testing, performance compared to the other boards was neck and neck for the most part, and this board was even our fastest result in some tests.

If you’re curious about the platform differences between B650E/B650 and X670E/X670, please refer to the X670 Motherboard Overview article. Before we get into all the details, here is a complete list of the X670E Valkyrie’s specifications direct from Biostar.

Specifications: Biostar X670E Valkyrie

Inside the Box of the Biostar X670E Valkyrie

The accessory stack with the Valkyrie includes only the basics and nothing extra. Below is a complete list of the included accessories:

• (4) SATA cables
• Driver disk
• User Manual
• Smart connector

Design of the Biostar X670E Valkyrie

The X670E Valkyrie sports a matte black 8-layer PCB design, with black heatsinks and shrouds covering the majority of the board. Across the shroud above the IO bits is an RGB LED feature showing off the Valkyrie branding and some gold accent lines. Additional RGBs are hiding under the chipset heatsink. Together, they give off a nice RGB glow that will brighten up the inside of your chassis. Although the Valkyrie looks good, other boards at a similar price point do give off more of a premium vibe with higher-end finishes.

Focusing on the top half of the board, we get a better look at the large heatpipe-connected VRM heatsinks and the Valkyrie branding on the IO cover. The VRM heatsinks are loaded with wide mitered cutouts to increase surface area and performance. Spoiler alert: These do a fine job keeping the power bits below running well within specification. Above the VRM heatsinks are two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) to power the processor.

Continuing right past the socket area, we run into four reinforced DDR5 DRAM slots with locking mechanisms on both sides. Biostar lists support up to DDR5-6000, which is on the low side comparatively, as many other boards support up to DDR5-6400 or more. That said, we had a lot of trouble with our thest configuration, in that we could only run the JEDEC specs stable across both memory kits. This didn’t affect performance in most tests, and we do expect BIOS updates to mitigate the issue. For now, if buy a set of sticks on their memory QVL list and you should be fine, but it’s also a short list.

Moving past the DRAM slots, we run into our first three (of six) 4-pin fan headers. All headers support PWM- and DC-controlled fans, with adjustments coming through the BIOS or the Aurora software. I don’t see the power output listed on the website or in the manual, so it’s best to assume the minimum of 1A/12W, which would also be on the low side compared to other boards with confirmed 2A/3A 24W/36W output on at least some of the headers.

Moving down the right edge, we run into three RGB headers. The top connector is 4-pin RGB, while the bottom two are 3-pin ARGB. Control over these headers can also be found in the BIOS or the Aurora software. Next, we run into power and reset buttons that light up the “P” for power and “R” for reset. Below is the 24-pin ATX connector to power the motherboard, a front panel USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) connector, and a system fan header. Unlike many other boards in this generation, the Valkyrie does not list support for high-power/speed PD charging via the front header. To the left of the DRAM sockets and above the top PCIe slot is a BIOS switch.

The VRMs on the X670E Valkyrie are some of the more robust and capable we’ll see on X670. For Vcore, there are a total of 18 phases. Power comes from the 8-pin EPS connector(s) and onto the Renesas RAA229628 controller. Power then moves to the 18 105A Renesas RAA22010540 SPS MOSFETs. The 1,890A available for Vcore is more than enough to handle the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 7950X at stock and while overclocked.

Moving on to the bottom of the board, on the left side, hidden below a metal shroud/heatsink is the Realtek ALC1220 codec, along with a few dedicated gold audio caps visible. Many boards near this price offer the latest generation Realtek codecs (ALC4080/4082), so I would like to have seen this on the Valkyrie too. That said, most users will find the last-gen flagship codec more than sufficient for their audio needs.

In the middle of the board are three reinforced full-length PCIe slots, along with four M.2 sockets mixed in and around the same area. The top two slots source their lanes from the CPU and run at PCIe x16/x0 or x8/x8. The bottom slot procures lanes from the chipset and runs at PCIe 4.0 x4.

For M.2-type storage, the top two CPU-connected sockets hide between the first two PCIe slots. Both sockets support PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps) speeds, with the top socket (M2M_CPU_1) supporting up to 80mm modules and the second (M2M_CPU_2) supporting up to 110mm drives. The last two M2 sockets (M2M_SB_1/_2) connect through the chipset, and both run at PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) and handle up to 80mm devices. RAID support isn’t mentioned for NVMe storage but is for the SATA ports (RAID0/1/10).

Continuing our journey to the right edge of the board, we run into six SATA ports for more traditional/slower storage needs. Here you’ll also find an LN2 switch, a clear CMOS jumper, and a clear CMOS button. Across the bottom of the board are several additional exposed headers. Here you’ll find the typical selection of more USB ports, RGB headers, and 4-pin fan headers. Below is a complete list from left to right:

• Front panel audio
• (2) 4-pin System Fan headers
• COME port
• Thunderbolt header
• (2) USB 2.0 headers
• USB 3.2 Gen 1 header
• Debug LED
• Front Panel
• Speaker header

The rear IO on the X670E Valkyrie comes pre-installed and attached to the motherboard. It sports a black background with white labeling on the ports, which makes things easy to read. There are 10 USB ports total; nine 10 Gbps Type-A ports and one 20 Gbps Type-C port. Sadly, there are no 40 Gbps ports. On the left are two video outputs (DisplayPort and HDMI), along with a Smart BIOS update button. Above the USB ports is the Wi-Fi antenna connections, but note the board does not come with Wi-Fi! You’ll need to purchase and install your own in the Key-E slot. On the right is the 5-plug analog plus SPDIF audio stack and last, the 2.5 GbE port.

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Firmware

Biostar’s firmware on the X670E boards, like the others, doesn’t receive a significant facelift outside of some options exclusive to the new platform/CPU. There’s an EZ Mode and your more standard advanced mode with the different sections spanning the top. While it has many of the basics, the overclocking options are limited, especially with regard to memory. If you’re into tweaking every little thing to extract every ounce of performance, this isn’t the board that will do it. If you’re more of a set EXPO/XMP and forget it on the memory, this isn’t a concern (assuming your memory is on the QVL list). Overall, we like the BIOS, but it isn’t as polished as some of the other board partners and is limited with some overclocking functions.

Software

For software, Biostar has the Aurora suite that combines various functionality in one application. You’ll find audio functionality (volume control - Smart Ear), RGB (Vivid LED DJ), fan control (AI Fan) a hardware monitor, and overclocking functions in the OC/OV section. Everything worked as described. But, overclocking is limited to BCLK adjustment and voltage (no CPU multiplier adjustments). Overall, we like the Aorura application and hope for additional features/functionality to be added in new revisions.

Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver. Additionally, we updated to F1 22 in our games suite and kept Far Cry 6. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:

Test System Components

EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the 1.2KW monster we used previously) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for testing.

Benchmark Settings

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Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo), with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. For this baseline testing, the Windows power scheme is set to Balanced (default) so the PC idles appropriately.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetics provide a great way to determine how a board runs, as identical settings should produce similar performance results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are places where motherboard makers can still optimize for either stability or performance, though, and those settings can impact some testing.

Results for the X670E Valkyrie in our synthetic tests floated around the average, with some results above and others below. Surprisingly, the lower DD5-4800 speeds didn’t appear to hinder performance in most of these benchmarks.

Timed Applications

When looking at our timed applications, the LAME and Corona results were good, with above-average and average results, respectively. Handbrake results were slightly slower than the average, matching the Crosshair X670E Hero. There’s nothing abnormal about the timed benchmarks.

3D Games and 3DMark

Starting with the launch of Zen 4, we’ve updated one of our games, F1 21, to the latest version, F1 22. We're keeping Far Cry 6. We run the games at 1920 x 1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). As the resolution goes up, the CPU tends to have less impact. The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used (and CPU/system bound) resolution with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most differences falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS value, as this affects your gameplay and immersion experience.

In F1 2022, the X670E Valkyrie averaged 107 frames per second with 95 frame-per-second minimums. This result places it squarely in the middle so far. Far Cry 6 was the best average result to date, with the Valkyrie recording 141 frames per second result, or over 10% higher than the next board.

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

Power consumption on the X670E Valkyrie was middle of the pack. It averaged 88 Watts at idle and peaked at 289W during a stress-test load. Nothing to be concerned with here.

We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory enabled for power testing, using the peak power consumption value. The wattage reading is from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter to capture the entire PC (minus the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same.

VRM temperatures on the Valkyrie were also well within specification. At stock, VRM temperatures, according to our sensors (the board doesn’t have an internal VRM sensor, according to Hwinfo) were well within the operating parameters of the SPS MOSFETs at stock and while overclocked. There’s nothing to be concerned with regarding the power delivery or its cooling, as you’ll be limited by your CPU temperatures before the VRMs get in the way.

Overclocking

Over the last few CPU generations, overclocking headroom has been shrinking (at least on the AMD side) while the out-of-box potential has increased. For overclockers, this means there’s less fun to have. For the average consumer, it means you’re getting the most out of the processor without manual tweaking. Our goal in this section is to increase the load on the VRMs and see if they can handle the additional stress. Overclocking AMD CPUs can be done in several ways (all-core or adjust PBO values). But for simplicity’s sake, we just went with an all-core overclock of 5.4 GHz with 1.30V to increase the power output.

Since our approach is to add power through all cores, we simply raised the CPU multiplier to 54x through the BIOS, manually set the voltage to 1.30V, and adjusted LLC to minimize vdroop. There are only three LLC settings in the BIOS, so we set it to Level 1 (highest) and our 1.30V set in the BIOS turned into 1.29V in Windows, effectively eliminating vdroop. The overclock ran our stress test the first time without further tweaking. So although there aren’t many options compared to other BIOS’ what’s there did the job.

We really struggled with our memory kits on this board while testing. Although we could reach Windows and run some benchmarks at the EXPO/XMP rated speeds (5600/6000) the stress test wouldn’t pass, nor would some of the benchmarks in our test suite.

Note: After this was written, Biostar provided us with an updated BIOS that supports our GSKill DDR5-5600 kit. But that doesn’t mean the issue has been resolved with the many other kits on the market.

Bottom Line

Biostar’s X670E Valkyrie is a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, it’s got the hardware and specifications to hang with the competition on AMD’s latest and greatest platform. Sure, it’s missing 40 Gbps USB ports and integrated Wi-Fi, but if you need those features, you can add them. Performance differences were nominal across most tests and the board kept up with the others. While the Valkyrie may not have the high-end look as other boards in its class, it blends in well with most themes and sports a nice RGB glow to illuminate the inside of your chassis.

Where it falls short, currently, is memory compatibility. Neither of our kits did not work using the XMP/EXPO profiles, and we were forced to run JEDEC specs (4800 MHz) on these kits for stability. Biostar’s memory support list is short compared to the others, and none of the popular GSkill kits were on the list when we wrote this article. If you plan to use this board past the 5200 MHz maximum on the platform, you need to stick with a kit on the company’s currently short memory support list. Hopefully, Biostar gets past these teething issues sooner than later, as no other boards we’ve tested so far have tripped up on our memory kits. While overclocking was successful, if you’re trying to push things to the limit, you’ll find fewer overclocking options here compared to other boards.

Biostar sais the MSRP is “roughly $400,” though we can only find the Valkyrie for sale online for $499.99. That price point has some quality competition, including the Asus ROG Strix X670-E Gaming WIFI ($499.99), Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master ($499.99), ASRock X670E Taichi ($469.99), and the MSI MPG X670E Carbon WIFI ($479.99). Within this peer group, you’ll find similar hardware (robust power delivery, dual PCIe 5.0 M.2 sockets), though most boards use the latest-gen audio codec and all include Wi-Fi where the Valkyrie doesn’t. If integrated 40 bps ports are important, only the Taichi has them natively. Looks are subjective, and while Valkyrie won’t detract from your build, the others give off a more premium vibe. If you can find the board at its MSRP, it becomes a better value.

Currently available for $499.99, the X670E Valkyrie just isn’t on the same level as other boards at this price point. From included Wi-Fi, better BIOSes with more functionality and better memory compatibility out of the box, there are few reasons to choose this board over others in its current state and price. Once the memory support is sorted out and the price gets closer to its MSRP, it will be more appealing, so long as you don’t need integrated Wi-Fi and 40 Gbps ports. However, at $499 and even $400, there are more mature options available.

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4/17/2023 Update:
Since the initial launch of AMD's first Ryzen 7000  motherboards, there have been plenty of complaints from PC builders (and us) that AMD's latest motherboards cost too much. But recently, a few B650M motherboards launched in the $125 range, and even more-affordable A620 boards are also on the way (though they lack PCIe 5.0 and official overclocking support). Be sure to check out our best motherboards page, as we are in the process of testing and reviewing some of AMD's more affordable motherboard options.

Lining up with AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPU announcements, many motherboard partners are showing off their new X670E/X670-based motherboards, featuring the new AM5 socket, to go along with the new Zen 4 chips. The new motherboards come with a slew of updates and improvements to support the new CPU platform. This includes moving from DDR4 to DDR5 (no DDR4 options, unlike Intel), a shift from PCIe 4.0 to PCIe 5.0, and upgraded power delivery to support the socket capable of using up to 230W.

I look forward to all the new hardware bits and functionality, but I get most excited about the new designs board partners come up with. Over the coming months, we’ll review many of these boards, with the best models earning spots on our best motherboards page.

Until we get started with reviews, we’ve created a list of Ryzen 7000 motherboards, with as much information directly from partners as possible. Many details, including the all-important price, will arrive later. So there’s some speculation on our end below. We’ll provide everything we have regarding official facts and update the information here as we get it.

AMD’s X670 Chipset: AM5 goes LGA, PCIe 5.0 and DDR5

Just as with our Z690 overview article earlier this year, when we started this one, AMD had not released the full details of the X670 chipsets. But what we do know is AMD has moved away from the PGA (Pin Grid Array) socket to an LGA (Land Grid Array) socket, like Intel processors. The new socket contains 1,718 pins, 18 more than Intel’s LGA 1700 socket for its Z6x0 motherboards and Alder Lake processors. The good news is that AM4-compatible cooling will fit the AM5 motherboards. Many mounting kits work natively, though some will need new ones for best results. Reach out to the company that made your cooler to confirm compatibility.

Along with the flagship-class X670E chipset, AMD is also releasing X670 (no “E”), B650E and B650 chipsets. X670E supports all the new bells and whistles, including PCIe 5.0 slots and storage, along with AMD EXPO memory technology (essentially an AMD-specific version of Intel’s XMP). X670, on the other hand, supports EXPO, but only PCIe 5.0 on the NVMe storage (not the PCIe slot). The other chipsets, B650E and B650, offer users a less-expensive path into the new AM5 platform. The “E” variant has comprehensive support for PCIe Gen 5 (slot and NVMe storage), while the ‘base’ X650 chipset only supports PCIe 5.0 on storage/NVMe. Both chipsets support overclocking the processor and memory.

The B650E motherboards target the mid-range to higher ‘budget’ options, so there will likely be some pricing overlap between the higher tier B650E and X670, as they share some of the same internals, including PCIe redrivers and the necessary space to support them. While most motherboard partners haven’t disclosed pricing, AMD did mention that AM5 motherboards will be available for as low as $125. However, we imagine this is likely the MSRP of the least expensive B650 motherboard(s). That said, we expect a price increase compared to X570 and perhaps even Z690, regardless of the chipset tier. It’s nice to see graphics cards coming down in price, but getting into a new DDR5 platform will cost you.

Along with the jump to DDR5, AMD is also releasing AMD EXPO (EXtended Profiles for Overclocking) memory technology, a one-click overclocking profile for Ryzen 7000 series memory. Similar to integrated XMP profiles for Intel, you’ll have EXPO profiles to select in the BIOS to run your kit at the rated speeds. AMD partnered with several memory manufacturers, including ADATA, Corsair, Geil, G.Skill and Kingston to help bring DDR5 memory kits to the market with the new features. According to AMD, upon launch on September 27th, you should see at least 15 kits of DDR5 with AMD EXPO functionality at speeds up to DDR5-6400. We’ve already covered kits from G.Skill and TeamGroup.

One of the more unique features of the X670E boards is their dual PCHs. The chipset (actually a chipset, defined as multiple chips) uses two Promontory 21 (PROM21) chips. Instead of exclusive access to the CPU for each, the two chips connect to each other through four PCIe 4.0 lanes, which then connect to the CPU directly, sporting the same PCIe 4.0 x4 bandwidth as X570 for DMI. Combined, the chipset provides three PCIe 4.0 x4 interfaces (12 lanes total) and eight PCIe 3.0, the latter reserved for slower connectivity like networking. Board partners have the flexibility to configure the PCIe 3.0 to SATA ports, which yields a mix and match of six SATA plus two PCIe (x4 + x4).

A benefit of using a multi-chip configuration (both 7W TDP, note), is that they can be spread out and cooled passively, forgoing the fans that many despised (few with good reason, as they weren’t noisy) on the first batch of X570 motherboards. Thankfully, we haven’t seen any chipset fans on Micro ATX or larger boards, but we do expect to see them used with high-end Mini-ITX motherboards since real estate is so limited on those tiny boards. Check out our article from a few months back for more detailed information. AMD hasn’t released an official chipset diagram at this time, but we have one for the Aorus Master, which gives you an example of how things can be split up.

On the USB front, the chipset offers quite a bit of native USB connectivity. X670/X670E supports up to eight USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) ports and another four ports that can be configured as two USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) ports. If that isn’t enough, the chipset also supports up to 12 more USB 2.0 ports.

Some high-end boards support USB Power Delivery (PD) and output up to 60W at 20V/3A. Not only can you fast charge your smartphone with these ports, but larger devices like tablets and some laptops, too. To support that much power, you’ll need to plug a spare 6-pin PCIe connector to plug into the board. Otherwise, you’ll be limited to the 20V/1.5A and 30W. For the midrange B650 chipset, just one of the PROM21 chips is used. On some boards, you’ll find USB 4 support via an ASMedia ASM4242 controller, which outputs two USB 4 ports from four PCIe 4.0 lanes via the CPU, while also supporting DisplayPort v1.4 (thus video) through the interface.

Moving to networking, there isn’t too much of a change here, especially when compared to the updated B550 boards (or Intel Z690), which added 2.5 GbE port(s), with high-end boards using up to 10 GbE. The new chipset also includes integrated Wi-Fi 6E, akin to Intel’s CNVi implementation, which is included on most boards.

Here’s a look at how X670 compares with AMD’s previous mainstream flagship chipsets. You’ll notice some question marks remain; remember that we don’t have an official chipset diagram from AMD. We’ll update any information below once we have official information from AMD.

AMD X670E/X670, B650E/B650 and X570 Chipset Specifications

AM5 CPUs

We’ve already covered the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 details, so we won’t get into all of the CPU nitty gritty here and keep it high level. AMD will release four new Zen 4 Ryzen series (Code name “Raphael”) processors at launch. Up top is the 16-core $699 Ryzen 9 7950X flagship, followed by the 12-core $549 Ryzen 9 7900X, a $399 8-core Ryzen 7 7700X, and finally, the budget chip of the group, the $299 6-core Ryzen 5 7600X. Pricing is solid overall, with the Ryzen 7 7700X the only processor increasing in price, by $100, over the last-generation Ryzen 7 5700X it replaces. The 7950X is $100 less than the 5950X’s launch price, while the 7900X and 7600X cost the same as the 5700X and 5600X launch prices. While that’s a positive across most SKUs, the real cost increases will almost certainly come from the motherboard and the shift to DDR5. It does though, seem likely that DDR5 prices will continue to fall, especially on lower-end kits.

The new CPUs are built on TSMC’s 5nm process node for the Core Compute Die (CCD) and a 6nm process for the I/O die (IOD). Although the core/thread counts remain the same, Zen 4 also doubles the L2 cache (L3 remains the same). Along with the clock speed increase, this helps with overall performance. With the new architecture though, TDP and power goes up. The Ryzen 9 chips have a TDP of 170W, with peaks (PBP/MTP) allowed up to 230W, a healthy increase from Zen 3. The Ryzen 7 7700X and 7600X both sport 105W TDPs, but their PBP/MTP power limit is currently unknown. In short, you’ll probably need a good cooling solution to get the most out of these chips (same as Intel), and you may need to spring for a new power supply.

The good news is that with the power increase comes a significant performance uplift. According to AMD, the processors achieve up to 13% improvement in IPC (Instructions Per Clock). Along with the notable IPC increase, AMD also raised the ceiling on clock speeds, boosting up to a blazing 5.7 GHz on two cores. Some simple napkin math results reveal around a 29% improvement in single-threaded performance over Zen 3. AMD also notes up to 45% more performance in multi-threaded applications. AMD also claims it’s 11% faster in games, 44% faster for compute functionality, and 47% greater efficiency than the Intel Core i9-12900K. Of course, these chips will obviously be competing with 13th Gen Raptor Lake chips, like the Core i9-13900K. The new AMD processors also support AVX-512 and, for the first time in a long time, include integrated graphics based on the RDNA 2 architecture. Note though, that the integrated graphics here are basic, meant primarily to handle displaying the desktop, not running games.

Unlike Intel, AMD chose to go all in with DDR5 and so does not support DDR4 on its new platform. Since DDR5 is available in greater volume and prices are coming down (though still a lot higher than DDR4), this was arguably a good choice on AMD’s part. The highest in-spec frequency for the existing AM5 SKUs is DDR5-5200. But AMD did share that DDR5-6000 will be the sweet spot for Zen 4.

X670 (and rumored B650) Motherboards: The Full List (So Far)

With the chipset details out of the way, we’ve provided a list of all X670 and X650 motherboards kown so far below, doing our best to ignore unsubstantiated rumors and leaks. As usual, not all partners responded or had updated web pages in time for publication, so there's a strong chance that some things will change. We’ll break things out on the following pages and offer some thoughts on the respective launch lineups after. Unfortunately, pricing is an essential piece of information that no vendors have provided yet. But we’ve filled in the tables with what data we have. Any models listed in bold are confirmed through the board partner, while any that are not bold and italicized (most B650), are unconfirmed but heavily speculated around the web.

X670/B650 Motherboard Product Stack by Partner

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ASRock

• Improved aesthetics and power delivery
• Wi-Fi 6E on most boards
• PCIe 5.0 storage/slots (X670E)

At the time we wrote this article, ASRock sent information regarding its X670 boards, but the B650 SKUs were not included, as they will launch in mid-October. From the details we have, you’ll see some familiar SKUs like the Taichi, Steel Legend, Pro and PG lines, as well as some new variants such as the 20th Anniversary Taichi Carrara and the entry-level PG Lightning. We’ve also spotted the B650 LiveMixer board on the web as well, but nothing is certain. Although we don’t officially see Micro ATX or ITX X670 boards, we imagine the lineup will fill up quickly after launch. Worth noting: ASRock says it will not have any X670 (non-”e”) SKUs, only X670E. The thinking is that X670 is the high-end while B650 fills that mid-range space.

All boards we have images of show an updated appearance, looking much different than the X570 and even Z690 versions. The new Taichi Carrara has a high-end marble appearance that’s truly unique to motherboards, while the ‘base’ Taichi, one of the better-looking boards around, also gets an improved aesthetic.

Outside of looks, the X670E boards all include PCIe 5.0 slot(s), a PCIe 5.0 M.2 socket, and more robust power delivery. Some even include USB 4 Type-C, a first on consumer motherboards.

Three of the boards (Steel Legend, Pro RS and PG Lightning) also support their new Blazing M.2 fan heatsink, replacing the basic heatsink already in place with a larger and actively cooled version. With the new PCIe 5.0 drives likely running as hot or hotter than many PCIe 4.0 drives, this could be a worthwhile accessory to prevent throttling of future ultra-fast storage devices. On the networking front, ASRock also keeps Killer-based networking on the Taichis, with Realtek and Intel on others.

Pricing information was not shared, but like all other boards, we expect a price increase over X570 and even Z690. Will we see an X670E Aqua? How about an OC Formula (or an Aqua OC)? What about venerable budget models like the Extreme? We can only wait and hope–and save up.

Asus

• Updated aesthetics 
• Teamed Power Architecture (on most boards), up to 110A
• AI Overclocking Based on CPU quality and Cooler Efficiency
• 2.5GbE and 10GbE NIC Available along with Wi-Fi 6E

At launch, Asus (officially) brings to market seven motherboards that cover all of its product lines. You’ll see ROG SKUs (Crosshair Extreme/Gene/Hero and Strix Gaming), TUF (Gaming X670E-Plus WIFI), Prime (X670E-Pro WIFI, and ProArt (X670E Creator) models. What’s missing in the initial launch is official word of smaller Micro ATX and Mini-ITX size boards, along with several ROG Strix Gaming models. As time goes on, we’ll likely see the complete product stack fill out, and we haven’t even talked about the less-expensive X670 and B650 SKUs.

Like the rest of the board partners, Asus’ new X670E boards sport an updated appearance, PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support, 2.5 GbE and Wi-Fi 6E on most SKUs (10 GbE on the Extreme), as well as updated power delivery to support AMD’s new Zen 4 processors including the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X. On the Crosshair Extreme, for example, Asus uses 20 phases for Vcore with 110A MOSFETs, the highest value we’ve seen so far. I don’t imagine most VRMs getting in the way of stock or overclocked operations on X670E/X670 parts.

Along with the Dynamic OC Switcher we saw on the X570 Extreme, the Crosshair X670E Extreme/Gene/Hero now has Ryzen Core Flex, a set of ‘highly configurable’ algorithms for control over the CPU. You can set a slew of variables, including temperature limit, EDC, PPT and other settings to change based on core temp, current, or voltage through a simple dropdown in the UEFI. This functionality is courtesy of an onboard clock generator that separates from the Infinity Fabric, NBIO, PCIe, and memory.

Generically, all Asus X670/B650 boards support the new AMD Extended Profiles for Overclocking (EXPO), just like the rest. They also support AEMP (the previous-gen workaround to bypass PMIC on the RAM) and the familiar DOCP. Asus lists memory support up to DDR4-6400, but this will vary by board.

In all, Asus has plenty of X670E options available at launch that should work for most users. While we’re missing an X670E ITX board out of the gate, we’ll certainly see that down the line. The less expensive options, including B650 boards, we’ll also see sometime after mid-October. I hope we see an overclocking-focused board like the Apex, plus ITX boards soon, as they are some of my favorites. We’ve listed what Asus provided below.

Biostar

• Up to 22-phase design
• Wi-Fi 6E capabilities on all boards 
• Updated and improved appearance

At this time, we know Biostar is releasing one X670E-based board. So far, we haven’t seen a mention of the less expensive GTA board that compliments the Valkyrie. Like the other partners, Biostar updated its design, power delivery and implemented all of the PCIe 5.0 goodies, including slots and M.2 sockets. The flagship Valkyrie sports a robust 105A 22-phase VRM to support the new chips, a quality audio codec and a slew of rear IO USB ports (nine), including a 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port (no USB 4 here). Outside of that, we again hope to see improvements in the UEFI BIOS implementation. Although functional, Biostar’s offering is not up to par with the others.

EVGA

It still feels odd mentioning EVGA and AMD in the same breath, but here we are again. Late in the game, and a surprise to almost everyone, EVGA launched their first-in-a-long-time AMD-based motherboard in the X570 Dark. After our review, we determined it was a quality entrant in the X570 space, so we’re looking forward to seeing something down the line from EVGA. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how the company functions after its dramatic exit from its partnership with Nvidia.

Gigabyte

• 70-105A VRMs
• Daisy Chain + Shielded Memory Routing
• 2.5 GbE-plus NICs on all models (up to 10 GbE)
• Wi-Fi 6E on all X670E/670 Aorus models
• Four M.2 sockets 
• Updated styling

Gigabyte joins the X670 party with four boards at launch from the gaming-centric Aorus line. The first Ryzen 7000 falcons are the X670E Aorus Xtreme, X670E Aorus Master, X670 Aorus Pro Ax, and the X670 Aorus Elite AX. Later, the company will likely release the more budget-oriented Gaming X and UD series. Though nothing was mentioned officially, we’ve also seen some leaks on the Aero line (designed for Creators) as well. Surely the product stack will fill out over time and include Micro ATX and Mini-ITX boards.

The Aorus X670E/X670 boards also step up their VRM game, with the Aorus Pro AX and Elite AX offering a twin (mirrored configuration with the controller) 16-phase VRM with 90A and 70A SPS MOSFETs, respectively. The high-end Master uses a ‘direct’ configuration with 16 phases (105A SPS MOSFETs), while the flagship Xtreme uses 18 phases and the same 105A SPS MOSFETs as the Master. Although I haven’t tested the platform yet, I’d imagine the CPU thermals will again be the performance limit, as opposed to the motherboard.

Surprisingly, we don’t see the latest Realtek codec (ALC4080/4082) on the high-end boards here. The ALC1220-VB2 is a fine audio solution that most find more than acceptable, but to not see the latest and greatest on a flagship-class board was a bit disappointing. From the specifications Gigabyte provided, these all look like well-equipped and good-looking motherboards. Let’s hope the price is as good as it was with most of the company’s Alder Lake-capable motherboards. I also wish to see the Waterforce board down the road, as that was a real beauty with a great set of specs to back it up. I was also partial to the overclocking-focused Tachyon.

MSI

• 80A to 105A VRMs
• 2.5 GbE LAN and Wi-Fi 6E or 6E for all Models
• Memory support up to DDR5 6666+(OC)
• Front Gen 2x2 Type-C port for all X670 models
• Gen 2x2 Front panel port supports PD to 20V@3A 60W
• New styling

MSI officially starts off X670 with four SKUs. From the flagship on down, on launch we’ll see the MEG X670E Godlike, MEG X670E Ace, MPG X670E Carbon WIFI, and the Pro X670-P WIFI for creators. Unofficially, we’ll see several B650-based boards as well, but that’s down the line a bit. While we don’t have any details now, the various sites have several models, including the Carbon, Edge, Tomahawk/Mortar and Pro series that we’re all familiar with. MSI looks to have a complete lineup, including ITX and Micro ATX motherboards, as expected.

Like other board partners, MSI started by updating its power delivery to support the power-hungry AM5 processors. The listed X670E/X670 boards range from 14 to 24 phases dedicated to Vcore with up to 105A MOSFETs in the Godlike. In addition to the beefed-up power delivery, MSI updated the thermal design of the heatsinks (Wavy fin) with Cross heatpipes, eight or 10-layer PCBs, a screwless M.2 Shield Frozr with EZ M.2 Clip, front USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 support PD 60W, 10G LAN on MEG motherboards, and finally the M-Vision Dashboard (a 4.5-inch IPS touch panel).

MSI didn’t stop with the hardware either, making some aesthetic tweaks. The Godlike and Ace still rock the black or black-and-gold theme, while the Carbon WIFI and Pro lines also receive a couple of appearance updates. One of the things I noticed in MSI’s lineup (and most partners so far) is a reduction in the number of integrated RGBs. Gone are the days of excessively gaudy illumination across almost the entire lineup. That’s been replaced by more tactfully implemented designs. If you’re left wanting more, you can always add lights via headers.

At launch, MSI only has a few boards listed, but will surely release a wide range of motherboards to fill out the product stack before too long. We’ll see several more B650E/B650 in a month or so and additional boards from X670E/X670 like the Unify series we’ve seen on Intel. For those looking for an ITX or Micro ATX board out of the gate, you’ll have to wait a bit (at least until October). On paper, we like what MSI has to offer and can’t wait to get these on the test bench.

NZXT

We reached out to NZXT for information, but they also didn’t respond in time for publication. We expect to see the company in the market again with an X670 SKU. If their naming convention remains the same, we should see an N7 X670E model. We’ve seen some articles listing an NZXT part, but at the moment, it’s still a rumor. In the past, the NZXT boards were based on an ASRock part, and we don’t expect that to change, especially considering the rumors have come from a list of ASRock boards. With Z690, we saw a more budget-oriented N5 SKU, and perhaps we’ll see that with AMD as well.

Compared to Z690, early X670 information was disappointingly sparse. Officially, there are 22 boards, compared to the over 50 (most of which were confirmed) we saw with the launch of Alder Lake. Even though the number of boards isn’t that high, there’s something above for most builders. with more coming down the pike. As usual, none of the board partners mentioned pricing before launch, but we know they will be higher than X570 and probably around Z690 price points (if not higher). We’ll try to fill in the blanks as we get more information.

Only testing will tell if AMD’s claimed 13% IPC increase for these AM5 “Raphael” CPUs will retake the gaming crown from Intel. AMD sure thinks they have a winner, and from the leaked benchmarks, it looks like a nice performance increase with a significant clock speed bump. Seeing 5.7 GHz-plus out of the box is quite a feat. With the great PC equinox coming up, Intel/AMD/NV all releasing CPUs and Video cards within a couple of months of each other. If you combine that with the falling price of existing GPUs and SSDs, the end of 2022 is shaping up to be a great time to build a new PC.

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AMD's reasonably priced B650 and B650E platforms for its Ryzen 7000-series CPUs in AM5 packaging may be closer than expected as the company's partners are already set to showcase them in early October. 

AMD will host its Meet the Experts presentation called 'An Exclusive First Look at B650 and B650E AM5 Motherboards' on October 4 (at 10AM CDT) where its partners will reveal details of their reasonably-priced motherboards for AM5 processors. Among the highlights of the new platforms AMD mentions support for its Ryzen 7000-series processors, dual-channel DDR5, and PCIe 5.0 interconnection. 

Asus, ASRock, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI will reveal their AMD B650 and B650E lineups as well as highlight their key features at the event. 

The biggest question, of course, is when motherboard makers will actually start selling their products based on AMD's B650 and B650E chipsets — AMD and partners pre-announced their flagship AMD 670/670E platforms a little less than two months ahead of actual sales. With B650/B650E, the lag between announcement and sales will hopefully be shorter. 

AMD's high-end enthusiast-grade AMD X670 and AMD X670E platforms for Ryzen 7000-series CPUs that are set to hit the market on September 27 promise very advanced connectivity and impressive overclocking capabilities. Unfortunately, as listings of Asus and MSI motherboards have demonstrated, many of them are going to be prohibitively expensive, which will make them a prerogative of die-hard enthusiasts and gamers with deep pockets. 

To make Zen 4 generation processors more accessible for the masses, AMD and its partners are preparing AMD B650 and B650E platforms that will support key capabilities of AMD's Ryzen 7000-series processors but will have a cut-down feature set as well as considerably lower costs and prices. 

But even with the launch of AMD's B650/B650E platforms, do not expect Zen 4-based machines to get cheap any time soon. The lowest-cost Ryzen 5 7600X is priced at $299, DDR5 memory is sold at a premium over DDR4 modules, and we do not expect B650/B650E motherboards to be bargains. But if you want to have the latest platform, you should probably be prepared to pay for this. 

Biostar’s B660M Silver is a Micro ATX motherboard that hailing from the budget end of the Alder Lake spectrum. Priced around $160 in the US, it offers just about everything you need to get the most out of your system–so long as you don’t want to overclock your CPU. The B660M Silver brings a black and silver aesthetic (no RGBs), two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 sockets, four SATA ports, capable power delivery, and a 2.5 GbE port. Overall, it’s a well-rounded option in this space, but lacks included Wi-Fi.

Performance on the B660M Silver was comparable to other like boards across our testing suite. It struggled a bit in a couple of the heavily multi-threaded tests, but that’s a common theme among most B660 boards. Biostar’s board excelled in the Procyon Office suite, with results near the top across all those tests. If you’re a gamer, there’s nothing to fear, as the performance there was average, too. Power consumption was also average overall, though load power consumption was higher than many others.

Before we get into all the details and see if this board earns a spot on our best motherboards list, below is a list of specifications from the Biostar website.

Specifications: Biostar B660M Silver

Inside the Box of the Biostar B660M Silver

Biostar, like all other board partners, includes some accessories to get you started. The B660M Silver’s accessory stack is sparse, but includes enough to get you started. Below is a complete list of the included accessories.

• (4) SATA cables
• I/O Shield
• Support DVD
• Quick guide

Design of the B660M Silver

The B660M Silver is a general purpose board that, according to Biostar, focuses on reliability. The black PCB gives way to light gray design elements stenciled on the board around the PCIe and socket areas. Cooling the power delivery, chipset, and one M.2 socket are silver heatsinks with a brushed aluminum finish. These aren't the biggest heatsinks we’ve seen, but they do the job. If you’re looking for integrated RGB LEDs, look elsewhere as the Silver doesn’t have any. But don’t fret if you want lights, because the board has a full complement of ARGB and RGB headers to add on your own.

On the top half of the board, we get a better look at the VRM heatsink that reaches out over the rear IO bits. It’s not the largest or heaviest VRM heatsink, but it keeps these MOSFETs running with spec. Across the top of this heatsink is the Silver branding in black, Biostar is stenciled on the chipset heatsink. Just above the VRM heatsink is the single 8-pin EPS connector (required) to power the processor.

Moving past the socket and small top VRM heatsink, we run into the first (of five) 4-pin fan/pump headers.  Biostar doesn’t list the output of these headers, so I would expect 1A/12W output for each, if only for safety reasons. To adjust the fans, use the Aorura software and AI Fan program.

Continuing right, we run into four unreinforced DRAM slots that only lock on the top side. Biostar lists support for up to 128GB of RAM and speeds up to DDR4-5000+(OC). We didn’t run into any issues with our two test kits with speeds up to DDR4-4000. As usual, your mileage may vary in reaching these (and faster) speeds as it depends on the memory kit and the processor’s integrated memory controller (IMC) to get you there.

In the upper right corner, you’ll find all three RGB headers: two 3-pin ARGB headers and one 4-pin RGB header. Control over the attached lighting comes from the Aorura software and Vivid DJ applet. Down the right edge, we run into the 24-pin EPS for board power, a 19-pin USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) header, and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C header.

Power delivery on the B660M Silver consists of 12 phases for Vcore (13 total). Power comes from the 8-pin EPS connector and onto the Renesas RAA229130 controller. Power then moves to 12 70A OnSemi 5062 DrMOS MOSFETs. The 840A available isn’t the most we’ve seen, but it is plenty to handle our Intel Core i9-12900K at default speeds without getting in the way.

On the bottom half of the board, we spy a fully exposed audio section on the left side. To the left of the audio separation line, we run into a Realtek ALC1220 codec and four dedicated audio caps. Compared to most of its peers (except the B660M Mortar), this is a superior audio solution on paper, but tough to differentiate audibly.

In the middle of the board are three M.2 sockets and three PCIe slots. Starting with the slots, the B660M  Silver sports two full-length slots (one reinforced) and a single x1 slot. The top slot (primary) connects through the CPU and runs at PCIe 5.0 x16. The bottom slot connects through the chipset, running at PCIe 3.0 x4. Multi-GPU support isn’t mentioned, though the board has the bandwidth to support it. The middle x1 slot also connects through the chipset and supports up to PCIe 3.0 x1 speeds.

Regarding M.2 sockets, there are two Key-M slots for storage and one Key-E socket for Wi-Fi (CNVi module not included). The top socket connects through the CPU for PCIe 4.0x4 (64 Gbps) bandwidth and handles up to 80mm modules. The bottom socket supports up to 110mm modules and connects through the chipset for PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) bandwidth.

Across the bottom are several headers, including USB ports and RGB, and more. Below is a complete list, from left to right:

• Front panel audio
• (3) 4-pin fan headers
• (2) USB 2.0
• 9-pin Thunderbolt header
• Debug LEDs
• COM port
• Front panel
• 4-pin RGB header

The B660M silver includes a simple rear IO plate you need to install. It has a black background with silver labels and “Silver” branding in the upper-left corner. As far as ports go, from left to right, we run into video outputs – HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI-D. Above that are Wi-Fi antenna connections which, I find misleading since this model doesn’t come with Wi-Fi. There are eight USB ports: two USB 2.0 (480 MBps) and six USB 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gbps) ports, one of which is Type-C. Next up is the 2.5 GbE port and a 3-plug analog input-only audio stack.

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Firmware

Biostar’s B660 BIOS has the same look as the last generation and the Z690 Valkyrie reviewed a few months back. There’s an EZ Mode that's more informational than tweakable, covering high-level status information, including RAM and CPU speed, temperatures and more. Once in the Advanced section, there are headings across the top with options under each. There are a fair amount of switching sections to reach all of the overclocking functionality, and listing some values in milliwatts is confusing. I’d also like to see a description for highlighted items, as most other boards have. But outside of that, the BIOS is easy to navigate and read, with a high-contrast dark grey background and white letters.

Software

Biostar uses a single application called Aurora to cover multiple functions, including Fan control, RGB lighting, monitoring, overclocking and more, but little has changed since the Z690 version. Once opened, there is a menu system in the left column with a larger right-hand side to display the information. With Aurora, you can control system volume (Smart Ear), canned power plans (GT Touch), RGBs (Vivid LED DJ), Fans (A.I Fan), hardware monitoring (H/W Monitor) and overclocking/overvolting (OC/OV).

Overall, I like this software. The user interface is easy both to read and to find the items you are looking for. Fan, RGB, and overclocking control worked without issue. I would like to see more temperatures in the hardware monitor section (VRMs, for example), but what’s there is informative, if only at a high level.

Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver to version 496.13. Additionally, our game selection has been updated, as noted in the table below. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:

Test System Components

EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the outgoing 1.2KW monster we used) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for launch day testing.

Benchmark Settings

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Benchmark Results and Final Analysis

Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo), with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. For this baseline testing, the Windows power scheme is set to balanced (default), so the PC idles appropriately.

To get the most out of the Intel Alder Lake chips, you need to be on Windows 11 with its updated scheduler. In most cases, Windows 10 performs well. However, some tests (Cinebench R20, Corona and POVRay) take a significant hit. In short, if you’re going with Alder Lake, you must upgrade to Windows 11 for the best results across the board. That may change with patching and updates in the future, though.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetics provide a great way to determine how a board runs, as identical settings should produce similar performance results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are places where motherboard makers can still optimize for either stability or performance, though, and those settings can impact some testing.

The B660M Silver performed well during most synthetic benchmarks, landing around the average of other DDR4-equipped motherboards. The only below-average tests were Cinebench R23 and POV-Ray’s multi-threaded tests. But if you’ve read our previous reviews, you know that’s a recurring theme due to the thermal throttling of the processor. The Procyon tests were all averag, as was the AIDA64 memory bandwidth.

Timed Applications

In the timed applications, the B660M Silver mixed in with average for LAME and Corona but was slower than most in Handbrake. LAME testing was completed in 9.60 seconds (average is 9.69) and 52 seconds in Corona (spot on the average). The x264 test completed in 120 seconds, against a 115-second average, and 305 seconds in x265 (barely above the average of 303 seconds). Nothing off here either.

3D Games and 3DMark

Starting with the launch of the Z690 chipset, we’ve updated our game tests, moving to Far Cry 6 and shifting from F1 2020 to F1 2021. We run the games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). As the resolution goes up, the CPU tends to have less impact. The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used resolution with settings most people use or at least strive for. We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error differences. We’ve also added a minimum FPS value, which can affect your gameplay and immersion experience.

In F1 2021, the B660M Silver proved itself a performant entrant, lurking around the average of all the boards with 141 frames per second minimum and 164 frames per second average. In Far Cry 6, the story was the same, as our testing showed a 121 frames per second minimum and 137 frames per second average.

In our synthetic 3DMark tests, the Biostar scored 14,201 on Time Spy and 17,899 on Fire Strike Extreme. All the results for games and gaming benchmarks blend in with our other results and shows the B660M Silver is a competent gaming motherboard.

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU and Cache enabled for power testing, using the peak power consumption value. The wattage reading is from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter to capture the entire PC minus the monitor. The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts are the same.

At idle, the DDR4-based Silver consumed 47W from the wall, with load power shooting up to 345W. While the idle value is good and better than most, the load wattage was higher than average.

During stress testing, we saw very little throttling, which was surprising. The 70A MOSFETs and the heatsink keep the power bits running within specification. The board peaked around 66 degrees Celsius on our external sensors and 78 degrees Celsius in software, both well within specification.

Overclocking

Overclocking the CPU isn’t possible on B660-based chipsets, but the platform allows memory speed adjustment. With our DDR4-3600 and DDR4-4000 kits, we simply set XMP, and off we went without a hitch. Surely there’s some headroom left, but unless you’re chasing after every ounce of performance, we suggest sticking with the sweet spot, around DDR4 3600 with a low CL rating.

Bottom Line

Priced at $159.99, the Biostar B660M Silver is an inexpensive Micro ATX Alder Lake option for the general user. The board doesn’t do anything poorly, but also doesn’t deliver anything spectacular. That isn’t a bad thing, though! Hardware-wise, the B660M Silver includes what’s expected for this class board. You get capable power delivery, two M.2 sockets and four SATA ports, premium last-gen audio, plenty of USB ports on the rear IO, and more. While there are plenty of comparables in this space, it’s still a worthy option to for your Alder Lake processor.

As far as competition goes, all major partners have an option around this price range. The ASRock B660M Steel Legend is the least expensive at $114.99 (down from $159.99). Asus’ TUF Gaming B660M-Plus WIFI D4 sits at $169.99. Gigabyte’s B660M Aorus Pro AX is also $169.99, and the MSI MAG B660M Mortar WIFI DDR4 is  $159.99, just like the Biostar. Most of the hardware in this range is similar, offering two M.2 sockets and at least four SATA ports (MSI and ASRock have six). The difference comes in audio codecs (Biostar and MSI have the best here), integrated Wi-Fi (the Biostar and ASRock do not come with it), and maybe a few other things like USB port count and speed. If it’s looks you’re after and need integrated RGB, ASRock and Gigabyte have you covered on that front.

The Biostar B660M Silver is a great affordable way into the Micro ATX Alder Lake space. The black-on-silver design fits most build themes and doesn’t draw attention to itself out of the box. Hardware-wise, it has most everything users are looking for. But for the price, I would like to see Wi-Fi included as most of the other comparables include that handy feature. If you’re looking for a B660-based Micro ATX motherboard, the B660M Silver doesn’t stand out compared to others, but is still a worthwhile consideration for your Alder Lake needs. 

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AMD on Thursday gave a sneak peek at its next-generation high-end platforms for its upcoming Ryzen 7000-series (Raphael) Zen 4 processors in AM5 form-factor together with its motherboard partners. Since AMD's X670 and X670E platforms will cater to enthusiasts, they will pack the most innovative features as well as provide advanced overclocking capabilities.

AMD's X670 and X670E Platforms

First and foremost, AMD confirmed that high-end AM5 motherboards for next-generation processors would utilize its X670 and X670E chipsets. The X670 will support overclocking and appease 'regular' enthusiasts. In contrast, the X670E (dual-chip design) features 'unparalleled' expandability, extreme overclocking, and PCIe 5.0 connectivity for up to two graphics cards and an M.2 slot for an NVMe SSD.

AMD itself outlines several key features of its AM5 platforms that will differentiate them from previous-generation motherboards, including TDP of up to 170W to maximize the performance of next-generation processors with up to 16 Zen 4 cores, up to 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes (x16 for a graphics card, x4 for an SSD, and x4 to connect to the chipset), dual-channel DDR5 memory support, up to four DisplayPort 2 or HDMI 2.1 outputs (which confirms that there will be AM5 processors with integrated graphics), up to 14 USB ports (including several USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ports as well as USB-C), and Wi-Fi 6E support on select motherboards.

Motherboard makers traditionally try to differentiate themselves from the competition, so they will be offering AMD X670/X670E platforms with beefed-up CPU voltage regulating modules (VRM) capable of delivering hundreds of watts of power to AMD's new processors to boost their overclocking potential further. What is a bit surprising is that neither AMD nor its partners talked about supported DDR5 speeds on the upcoming AM5 platforms.

Some AMD X670/X670E mainboards will also come with an M.2-25110 slot(s) for upcoming high-performance SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface that requires more sophisticated cooling. Motherboard makers prepare rather sophisticated cooling solutions for next-generation drives to ensure their consistent performance.

Regarding connectivity, since USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is not a widespread standard, there will be motherboards with USB4 or Thunderbolt 3/4 ports supported by an external controller (though it is unclear which one) for those with Thunderbolt 3/4 or next-gen USB 4 devices. Also, some mainboards will come with a 2.5GbE port enabled by an Intel controller, whereas the most advanced platforms will come with a 10GbE port enabled by Marvell's AQtion silicon.

As for Wi-Fi 6E, some AMD X670/X670E motherboards will support the latest WLAN connectivity using AMD's RZ616 Wi-Fi 6E controller developed by MediaTek, whereas others will use Intel's Wi-Fi 6E solutions.

Now, let's look at what Asus, ASRock, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI are prepping for early AM5 adopters.

Asus

The world's largest motherboard maker is readying two platforms to support AMD's AM5 rollout — the ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme and the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero — but more are coming. The mainboards will feature a VRM based on the Infineon ASP2205 power management IC (PMIC) and Vishay SIC850 110A smart power stages. In addition, the Extreme model will feature a 20+2-stage power delivery, whereas the Hero will come with 18+2-stage VRM.

Of course, Asustek's ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme and ROG Crosshair X670E Hero will come with premium connectivity, including two USB4 ports, a 2.5GbE/10GbE connector, an advanced audio subsystem, and a Wi-Fi 6E (Intel AX210) adapter.

ASRock

ASRock's initial AM5 lineup will consist of five motherboards, including two flagship X670E Taichi Carrara and X670E Taichi platforms, X670E Steel Legend, X670E Pro RS, and X670E PG Lightning.

These motherboards will use an eight-layer printed circuit board (not the maximum number of layers possible, so to speak), a high-performance active cooler for M.2 SSDs, and USB 4 Type-C connectors.

Biostar

Being a relatively new entrant to the enthusiast motherboard market, Biostar will have one X670E motherboard ready for the AM5 launch — the X670E Valkyrie.

This platform will feature a 22-phase VRM with 105A Dr.MOS stages, two PCIe Gen5 x16 (operating in x8 or x16 mode), a PCIe Gen4 x16 slot (operating in x4 mode), four M.2-2280/22110 slots PCIe Gen4/5 with advanced heat spreaders, a 2.5GbE connector, a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port, and two display outputs (DP 1.4, HDMI 2.1).

Gigabyte

Gigabyte preps four high-end AMD X670E/X670 motherboards, including the X670E Aorus Xtreme, X670E A Aorus Master, X670 Aorus Pro AX, and X670 Aorus Elite AX. The flagship X670E Aorus Xtreme will feature an 18+2+2 power delivery design based on the Renesas RAA229628 PMIC, 18 Renesas RAA2201054 SPS 105A V-core power stages, two ON NCP303160 SPS 60A SoC power stages, and two Renesas ISL99390 SPS 90A power stages. Other platforms in the lineup will use a 16+2+2 VRM featuring different PMICs and MOSFETs (see the table in the gallery below).

The most exciting part about Gigabyte's AMD X670E and X670 motherboards is that only the former will support a PCIe 5.0 interface, whereas the latter will only feature PCIe 5.0 for SSDs. Meanwhile, all of Gigabyte's Aorus AM5 mainboards will have at least one M.2-25110 slot for next-gen SSDS, a 2.5GbE/10GbE port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connector, one or two display outputs, and a THB_U4 header for Thunderbolt.

MSI

MSI is working on four high-end AM5 motherboards: the X670E-based MEG X670E Godlike, MEG X670E Ace, MPG X670E Carbon Wi-Fi, and the X670-powered Pro X670-P Wi-Fi. The flagship MEG X670E Godlike platform will feature a 24+2+1-phase power delivery (with 105A power phases for V-core), whereas the slightly less advanced MEG X670E Ace will come with a 22+2+1 VRM (with 90A power phases for V-core). Speaking of MSI's VRMs, the company's motherboards will use an all-new VRM cooling system with direct touch heat pipes and a MOSFET baseplate.

All four MSI AM5 motherboards will come with M.2 Shield Frozr coolers for next-generation SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface, a 2.5GbE connector, and a Wi-Fi 6E adapter. Furthermore, the flagship MEG X670E Godlike and MEG X670E Ace will come with MSI's M.2 Xpander-Z Gen5 Dual adapter to house two M.2-25110 drives with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface.

Summary

AMD is expected to release its Ryzen 7000-series 'Raphael' processors and AM5 desktop platforms this September. The new platforms will bring numerous innovations, including DDR5, PCIe 5.0, USB 3.2 Gen2x2, and Wi-Fi 6E support. By now, five leading makers of motherboards for the DIY market have announced 16 motherboards based on AMD's X670 and X670E chipsets with different features and which will cover a broad range of price points.

According to a report by TechPowerUp, Biostar has announced a brand new motherboard at Computex, the X670E Valkyrie. This new model is one of Biostar's first motherboards equipped with the new AM5 socket from AMD and features AMD's flagship X670E chipset for the next generation of Ryzen 7000 processors and associated motherboards, which enables PCIe 5.0 support for graphics and storage solutions.

If history repeats itself, this new motherboard will be Biostar's flagship for the AMD 600 series platform; The Valkyrie name has represented Biostar's flagship motherboards for many years, including Intel versions such as the Z690 Valkyrie.

Aesthetically, the X670E Valkyrie has taken a large departure from its predecessors and forgone the inclusion of a double-winged logo, which was a staple in previous designs. Instead, Biostar has opted for a more simplistic design featuring no logos whatsoever and has taken to an angular line aesthetic approach featuring black, grey, silver, purple and yellow accents.

We don't have full details about the board's power delivery design but expect it to have a seriously overbuilt VRM system, which was also the case with the Z690 Valkyrie. What we do know are some key specifications, including DDR5 memory support with DIMMs featuring speeds up to 5600 MT/s.

For PCie connectivity, the Valkyrie features dual PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and a single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. M.2 storage includes a whopping four M.2 slots for SSDs and a fifth M.2 slot for a single Wi-Fi- module. Biostar doesn't say what PCIe generation each slot supports, but we do know that AMD's X670E chipset requirements necessitate one of these M.2 storage slots being Gen 5 supported, at the very least, while the rest are probably running on Gen 4 connectivity.

For I/O, there is a single DisplayPort and single HDMI connector for video outputs -- this will be necessary since all Ryzen 7000 chips will come with RDNA2 integrated graphics. For storage, the board supports an additional six SATA3 ports for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard drives and SSDs.

USB ports consist of two USB 3.2 Gen 2X2 20Gbps ports. We're still waiting to h ear on the rest. Audio consists of a Realtek codec of some sort, and ethernet is running on a 2.5G NIC of unknown origin.

We should know more soon enough, once Biostar releases an official product page to the public.

One of the indisputable trumps of AMD's Radeon RX 6400 graphics boards is their low power consumption, enabling GPU makers to build miniature cards. This is indeed an advantage as most single-slot low-profile graphics cards on the market today are either aimed at professional applications or are outdated. This is perhaps why GPU makers are jumping on the Radeon RX 6400 bandwagon. 

Sapphire Technology's partners were among the first to leak details about the company's upcoming single-slot low-profile Pulse Radeon RX 6400 graphics card, but Sapphire will not be alone with a miniature card based on the Navi 24 graphics processing unit, as we already know. Apparently, XFX is also prepping a single-slot low-profile Swift 105 Radeon RX 6400 graphics board for the retail/channel market, reports VideoCardz. 

The XFX Swift 105 card has 4GB of 64-bit GDDR6 memory, two display outputs, and a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface (x16 mechanical/electrical) interface. While the board's box carries XFX's 'Play Hard' moniker, the Radeon RX 6400 is clearly not designed for any serious gaming and will barely handle outdated titles that are not hungry for graphics oomph. The board also does not support video encoding and AV1 decoding, so multimedia enthusiasts may want to avoid Navi 24.  

Yet, the main advantage of XFX's Swift 105 is its compatibility with virtually all systems that have a PCIe x16 slot (keep in mind that when installed into a PCIe Gen3 machine, the performance of the card may be lower due to limited PCIe bandwidth) as well as driver support that will continue for a few years down the road. By contrast, outdated products like AMD's Radeon RX 550 or Nvidia's GeForce GT 730 are outdated, so their proper support is not guaranteed. 

So far, we only know about single-slot low-profile Radeon RX 6400 graphics cards from Sapphire and XFX. Perhaps, other makers will follow suit. Meanwhile, since most desktop PCs can house dual-slot Mini-ITX graphics cards, there are several GPU manufacturers that plan to offer such products. ASRock, Biostar, and MSI are among them. These cards will feature 4GB of memory, two display outputs, a single-fan cooling system, and will lack extra power connectors, which will make them compatible even with the cheapest desktops from OEMs.  

Meanwhile, Asus is prepping its Dual Radeon RX 6400 4G (Dual-RX6400-4G) graphics card with two fans and presumably factory overclocking. While the performance of this product is something that remains to be seen, we doubt that this board will offer performance that is comparable to that of the best gaming graphics cards available today (after all, AMD's Navi 24 GPU was primarily designed with notebooks in mind), so we are not sure why install a relatively expensive cooler on such a device.

Biostar has announced the new iMiner 660MX8D2 with eight Radeon RX 6600 graphics cards for cryptocurrency miners. And no, it's not an April Fool's Day joke.

Believe it or not, Biostar is pretty active in the cryptocurrency mining scene. The vendor offers everything from mining-oriented motherboards to complete, plug-and-play mining machines. Biostar previously employed AMD's Polaris-based graphics cards, such as the Radeon RX 580 or RX 570. This time, the manufacturer opted for an RDNA 2 worker for the iMiner 660MX8D2, more specifically, the Radeon RX 6600M.

The iMiner 660MX8D2 utilizes eight Radeon RX 6600M graphics cards, the mobile variants of the Radeon RX 6600. However, the Radeon RX 6600 and RX 6600M use the same Navi 23 silicon with an identical shader count, with the only significant difference being the clock speeds. Therefore, Biostar probably just repurposed the mobile dies into desktop graphics. However, it's a common practice, and we've previously seen it with Nvidia's mobile GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card.

Biostar's Radeon RX 6600M 8GB features a cooler with a dual-heat pipe and dual-fan design. The graphics card has a single 8-pin PCIe power connector and offers three DisplayPort outputs and an HDMI port, which aren't necessary for a mining graphics card. It's a shame because these are legit gaming graphics cards that could have gone into the hands of gamers.

The eight Radeon RX 6600M graphics cards reside on Biostar's custom TB360-BTC D+ motherboard with the B360 chipset that supports old 8th and 9th Generation Intel processors. Biostar outfits the iMiner 660MX8D with a feeble Celeron G4900 dual-core chip to minimize power consumption and a 120GB SSD for storage. Unfortunately, there's only a single SO-DIMM memory slot for a DDR4-2666 stick up to 16GB. However, the important thing is that the motherboard provides eight PCIe x16 expansion slots (seven PCIe 2.0 x16 at x1, one PCIe 3.0 x16), so no riser cards are required. In addition, Biostar includes a 2000W 220V power supply to feed the eight RDNA 2 graphics cards.

Biostar advertises the iMiner 660MX8D2 as a hassle-free mining system; even beginners can get it up and working. It's a plug and mine product. The machine boasts an ETH hash rate of 248 MH/s, around 7% higher performance than Biostar's prior iMiner A588x8D2 miner with eight Radeon RX 580. The miner supports all the popular cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Monero, BTG, and Zcash - to name a few.

The manufacturer didn't share the price tag for the iMiner 660MX8D2, so potential customers will have to send an inquiry to Biostar about pricing.

Biostar has added a new graphics card to its arsenal, and it might make you think it's 2017. As momomo_us on Twitter discovered, the company is releasing a new version of the several year old Radeon RX 550. You won't find the it on any list of best graphics cards these days, but Biostar's Radeon RX 550 (VA5505RG41) may be a feasible option for those who don't need high-end graphics.

The Radeon RX 550 from Biostar leverages Lexa Pro silicon, so it's the variant with 512 shading units instead of the Baffin LE-powered Radeon RX 550 that has 640 shading units. The graphics card has a 1,100 MHz base clock and a 1,183 MHz boost clock, allowing it to deliver an FP32 performance of around 1.2 TFLOPs. However, the Radeon RX 550 is slightly slower than the Vega graphics engine found in the Radeon 5 5600G (Zen 3) APU.

The Radeon RX 550 won't offer you a pleasant gaming performance unless you game at 720p (1280 x 720) resolution with the eye candy toned way down. However, the graphics card's 4GB of GDDR5 memory does help with other everyday tasks. In addition, the Radeon RX 550 provides four HDMI outputs with 4K support and can manage up to four displays simultaneously.

Biostar's iteration of the Radeon RX 550 comes in a single-slot design and doesn't require any external power connectors. As a result, the graphics card fits nicely into essential systems, although we recommend a 250-watt power supply as a minimum.

Biostar didn't specify the pricing or availability for the Radeon RX 550 (VA5505RG41). For perspective, the cheapest Radeon RX 550 starts at $209.99. The graphics card debuted at $79 five years ago, so consumers pay a 166% premium for the aging Radeon graphics card. That's the beauty of a semiconductor shortage. Even old models like the Radeon RX 550 or the long-forgotten GeForce GT 730 can still be relevant. But should you overpay for a graphics card that's five years old? No, unless you really don't have any other choice.

A fully "certified and tested" $14,800 ASRock cryptomining server made in collaboration between ASRock and AMD has been spotted by Twitter's Komachi. Most interestingly, the system features twelve AMD BC-250 APUs that push it to a surprisingly powerful 610 MH/s. What are these APUs? The Twitter tipster thinks they might be PS5 "Oberon" processor cast-offs, and we, too, have heard the same story from a source familiar with the matter. This all means that AMD has apparently found yet another use for its defective PS5 silicon in addition to the AMD 4700S we reviewed.

ASRock is one of the most cryptomining-friendly PC and components makers, alongside Biostar. Perusing its site, you will find crypto-purposed motherboards as part of its BTC+ series and useful accessories and guides to getting started in cryptomining. However, it makes crypto mining servers too and sells barebones and fully populated servers to favored customers.

Komachi highlighted one of ASRock's mining rigs for sale in Slovenia. Described as an "ASRock Mining Rig Barebone 610 Mhs 12x AMD BC-250," the system is listed at €13,499, or approximately $14,800. The advert says that what is up for sale is a "quality computer for cryptocurrency mining operations with a guarantee made by a recognized manufacturer ASRock." It goes on to claim that the certified and tested system is the result of "cooperation between AMD and ASRock."

The ASRock mining rig listing shows the system from a number of angles. From the top-down view, you can see twelve PCI cards lined up with no obvious branding. The listing says these are "12 x AMD BC-250 mining APU passive design," meaning each board houses a PS5 APU. Elsewhere in the server is 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, five cooling fans, and a pair of 1200W power supplies.

You will note that there is no system CPU listed. However, one of the PS5 APUs may have working CPU cores used for general processing and housekeeping duties. This theory tallies with the 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, which is how the Sony PlayStation 5 is configured.

Some other details of this ready-to-roll cryptomining system are that it can hit approximately 610 MH/s when mining Ethereum (ETH). For reference, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 can mine ETH at approx 120 MH/s while consuming 300W. (It's the only GPU from Nvidia that isn't locked via the LHR limiter these days, along with the newly launched GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.)

A quick check of US stores, and we see RTX 3090 cards available at $2,200. To match the performance of the ASRock server, you will need about five of these cards ($11,000) plus other components, like powerful GPUs that ensure 1500w for the GPUs alone.

The AMD BC-250 appears to be a known entity in the cryptomining world. For example, an ETH mining profitability calculator site in Norway lists a single BC-250 as being capable of just over 50 MH/s, which tallies with the ASRock server advert (12 x 50 MH/s = 600 MH/s). It adds that running one of these APUs in a mining capacity will make about $3 a day, depending on your electricity costs and the ever-changing value of ETH.

AMD 4700S and 4800S Desktop Kits Sidelined?

Rather than surplus PS5 APUs being used in cryptomining, some would prefer these APUs with active and working RDNA2 graphics cores were used in the AMD 4700S and A4800S Desktop Kits or similar.

Despite recent valuation gains, ETH mining is increasingly difficult, taking the edge off its attractiveness to GPU miners. Moreover, it is expected to transition to Proof of Stake in the coming months, making investments like $14,800 in the headlining ASRock cryptomining rig seem nonsensical.

Biostar has launched a new mining rig that wields the combined grunt of eight AMD Radeon RX 580 GPUs. The system, dubbed the Biostar iMiner A588x8D2, uses what appear to be eight consumer-grade Radeon graphics cards with DVI/Triple display port/HDMI outputs and a twin fan cooling design. The cards look like the Biostar Gaming VA5805RV82 model with 8GB of VRAM. In its press release, Biostar says that it can deliver iMiner systems in "large quantities."

Biostar has a history of crypto mining hardware development, dating back quite a while. For example, it has launched many BTC-series motherboards across processor generations, featuring as many as twelve PCIe slots. The new Biostar iMiner A588x8D2 featuring eight RX 580 graphics cards has used its motherboard technology as a platform. Biostar has previously based lower power iMiner systems on multiple RX 570 8GB (8x) and RX 560 4GB GPUs (12x).

As a crypto mining system isn't GPUs alone, Biostar has kitted out this system with an Intel G4900 processor (2C/2T) and 8GB DDR4 RAM. It says the system can run Windows, Linux, or HiveOS, and we note previous members of the iMiner series ran the ethos 64-bit Linux mining distro. The case looks quite roomy and features four 120mm fans and a specially made "blockchain grade" PSU.

Biostar says that the new iMiner A588x8D2 can deliver an Ethereum hash rate of up to 232 MH/s ± 5% for crypto mining performance. But, of course, this system isn't only for ETH mining (which might not be suitable for if/when ETH changes from proof of work to proof of stake); it can also tackle ETC, RVN, ERG, and other altcoin mining jobs.

If you are in the market for a graphics card for 1080p or some 1440p PC gaming, you could do worse than getting a used or new Radeon RX 580, depending on the price. New GPUs with RX 580 level performance are still being available or in planning, such as the state of the GPU market in early 2022.

Biostar's press release boasts, concerning iMiner A588x8D2 systems, that it "guarantees availability in large quantities for any interested party." Thus Biostar must be sitting on large quantities of Radeon RX 580 cards or components to make them.

Popular Twitter hardware leaker @momomo_us, has just shared an image of over 50 new motherboard models based on Intel's H670, B660, and H610 chipsets. The board's models come from Asus, Gigabyte, ASRock, MSI, and Biostar and come in all standard form factors.

H670, B660, and B610 are part of Intel's newer budget-friendly offerings for the new Alder Lake platform. The biggest differentiation between the three is connectivity, with H670 bringing the most amount of PCIe lanes and USB ports. B660 lands in the middle with decent connectivity, and H610 is as you might expect, the worst with very little connectivity and lacks any CPU PCie lanes for NVME SSDs. To read more about the differences check out our previous coverage of the H670, B660 and H610 chipsets.

Asus

Asus appears to have 22 motherboards on the list, consisting of 15 B660 boards, four H610M models, and just three H670 boards. There will be 4 B660 ROG Strix models in the mix, including a -I, -A, -G, and -F. The -A model will have DDR4 support. The -I should be one of Asus' only mini-itx B660 boards on the market for now.

For TUF models, Asus will have three specifically for B660, the B660-Plus WiFi D4, B660M-Plus WiFi D4, and B660M-Plus D4. As the name implies all these boards will have DDR4 support, with the M in some nothing a Micro ATX form factor.

But by far the most amount of B660 boards belong to Asus' Prime brand, with five B660 boards you'll be able to choose from. There's the B660M-A WiFi D4, B660-A AC D4, B660M-A D4, B660M-K D4, and the B660-Plus D4. 

All of these boards will be Micro ATX, with the exception of the Plus model, and all will come with DDR4 support, which makes sense considering how expensive and hard to find DDR5 is right now.

To round off the final B660 boards, there's an EX-B660M-V5 D4, and Pro B660M-C D4 that don't belong in any particular sub-brand from Asus.

As for Asus' H670 models (assuming this leak is the full list) all the company appears to be producing in the near future are three boards: the TUF Gaming H670-Pro WiFi D4, Prime H670-Plus D4, and Pro Q670M-C. 

This is not too surprising; with how close H670 is in feature set to the Z690 platform, there's not really a lot of market adoption for this chipset. This has also been true of previous H series chipset, where Intel's more value-oriented B-series chipset motherboards have almost always proven to be more popular.

According to this leak, Asus will be making four H610 chipset motherboards, and all of them will be DDR4 and Micro ATX. Three of these will be Prime boards: the H610M-A D4, -D D4, and -E D4. Finally, there's the EX-H610M-V3 D4.

MSI

MSI has the biggest amount of boards in the list, consisting of 24 motherboards, all of them equipped with the B660 chipset. We suspect MSI might be delaying motherboard production of its H670 and H610 boards for a later time, which would explain why MSI only has B660 motherboards on the list.

There will be eight B660 motherboards in MSI's MAG lineup: four Mortar motherboards, two Bazooka boards and two Tomahawk boards. The main differences seem likely to be DDR4 support or DDR5 support. All Tomahawk models will come with WiFi support, and two of the Mortar boards will come with WiFi as well. If history repeats itself, then the Mortar and Bazooka lineups will be Micro ATX only, with the Tomahawks being full ATX.

The largest amount of B660 board models in MSI's lineup belong to the PRO series, with thirteen boards you'll be able to choose from. They consist of -A, -G, -E and -C models with both DDR4 support, DDR5 support, and some having Wi-Fi support as well. All the models are Micro ATX, with the exception of the B660-A.

The remaining three in MSI's list include the B660M Bomber and B660M Plus. These should also be Micro ATX, and the Bomber board has a DDR4 version as well. 

Gigabyte

According to the list, Gigabyte has 13 boards in all, with four being H610 and the rest featuring the B660 chipsets. 

The Gigabyte B660 lineup will seemingly consist of five Gaming X boards. Three of the five boards are Micro ATX, with those supporting DDR4. The standard ATX B660 Gaming X will feature both DDR5 and DDR4 models instead. The downside is a lack of any built in Wi-Fi support, which the Micro ATX boards come with.

The remining list of B660 Gigabyte boards are the company's entry level offerings, the D3H DDR4, DS3H AX DDR4, HD3P, and the D2H DDR4. The HD3P should be the cheapest board you can get from Gigabyte that features DDR5 support. All these boards are Micro ATX, as well.

Finally we have four H610 boards, the H610M H DDR4, H610M S2H DDR4, H610M S2 DDR4, and the H610I DDR4.

ASRock

ASRock is the only other company in this list, besides Asus, to feature H670 boards as well as B660 and H610. There are 14 ASRock motherboards in the list in all, with three being H670, eight being B660 and the final three consisting of H610 boards.

The three H670 boards are the H670 Steel Legend, H670M Pro RS, and the H670M-ITX/ac. The latter is the only H670 ITX board on the entire list.

For B660 boards, ASRock has two Steel Legend boards on the list, one ATX and one micro-ATX. The rest include the following, Pro RS, HDVP/D5, HDV, C, ITX/ac. All of these boards are Micro ATX, with the exception of the ITX/ac and Pro RS which has both a ATX and Micro ATX model. Then of course, the B660M-ITX/ac is indeed another ITX motherboard. If ASRock's new model names are correct, then the HDVP/D5 could be the only DDR5-supported B660 board. By the model names alone, it's not clear if the Steel Legend models use DDR5 or not.

Finally we have three H610 boards, the HDVP/D5, HDV/M.2 and HDV. As the name implies, one has DDR5 support, one has M.2 and the other lacks both features.

Biostar

Last but not least, we have Biostar, with just two B660 motherboards on the list, the GTA and GTN. Their model names don't really denote anything special, so we have no idea if they will pack DDR5 or DDR4 support or what form factor they will come in.

After our first Z690 reviews from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock, Biostar gets a seat on the Alder Lake test bench. The Z690 Valkyrie is Biostar’s flagship motherboard, in a small product stack. The Valkyrie’s styling remains essentially unchanged, but it does increase M.2 socket count, upgrades the power delivery to 105A SPS MOSFETs, and includes DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support. The other significant difference is in the price. The Z590 Valkryie was $400-450 at launch (then seemed to drop precipitously), while the MSRP on the Z690 version jumps to $599.

As this is our first Biostar Z690 review, we’ll cover the product stack before jumping into details about the new Valkyrie. For Intel’s latest chipset, Biostar has a total of three motherboards. First, the flagship Valkyrie with DDR5 ($599), the Z690A Valkyrie (DDR4, $579), and the ‘budget’ Z690GTA (DDR4, $399). There aren’t many options to choose from and the pricing is notably higher compared to previous generations. You won’t find a mATX or MiniITX board in the lineup, but there are certainly opportunities to expand for the company to expand.

Moving back to the Valkyrie, Biostar’s changes focus mainly on power delivery more than anything. It kept the same phase count and stepped up to 105A MOSFETs to support the power-hungry Alder Lake CPUs like the flagship Intel Core i9-12900K we test with. The appearance has also changed slightly, in the IO cover area and the bottom half of the board, losing some of the polarizing pink accents. Overall I think it’s an improvement, but still lagging behind other comparably priced boards.

USB count on the rear IO remains unchanged, but there are now four video outputs (two HDMI, two DisplayPort), an odd addition for a flagship board. Curiously, Biostar includes Wi-Fi antenna connections but no actual Wi-Fi adapter, which feels misleading. Either a board has integrated Wi-Fi, or it doesn’t. So including antenna mounts doesn’t offer much except for extra confusion.

Performance on the Valkyrie was average to slightly above average, depending on the test. It was on the faster side of average for games, Cinebench R23 single thread and POVRay single thread, and the x265 decoding in Handbrake. The other benchmarks were right around the average. Where the Valkyrie stood out, and not positively, was power consumption under load. Our test system pulled nearly 400W from the wall.

The high power use is caused by the higher Vcore used in the current BIOS during stock operation. In fact, the board throttled a bit in the Cinebench multi-threaded test and thermally throttled during the AIDA stress test. We’ll cover that behavior, go over features, overclocking, and see what we end up with from our time with the board. But it’s safe to say this isn’t one of the best motherboards you can buy.

Before we start, here’s a complete list of the Z690 Valkyrie specifications from the Biostar website.

Specifications - Biostar Z690 Valkyrie

Inside the box, along with the board, are a set of accessories whose aim is to get you up and running without a trip to the store. Although the Valkyrie comes with the basics, it’s a thin accessory stack, especially compared to other $600 motherboards. Below is a complete list of the included parts.

• User Manual
• DVD Driver
• (4) SATA Data Cables
• Smart Connector

At first glance, we get a better look at the subtle changes from the last generation. The upper-left corner still has a louvered look to it, with RGB lighting from underneath. The VRM heatsinks are the same as the previous-gen model, with just design differences on top. There are two tiny fans on each VRM heatsink tasked with keeping the VRMs cool. They do a good job overall, but the fans spin up and get loud under heavy loads by default. That said, all you need to do is adjust the fan speed in the BIOS to mitigate the issue.

The bottom part of the board uses the same heatsink and shrouds from the Z590 model. The only difference here are the design elements. The Z690 version has grey stenciling over the PCIe area and minimizes the polarizing pink highlight color. The second RGB element is in the chipset heatsink and lights up the Valkyrie symbol from below. The RGB implementation is minimal, but the colors are saturated and bright. Overall, the Z690 Valkyrie does look better than the previous-gen model, but it doesn’t give off that premium aesthetic other boards have around this price point.

Shifting to the top half of the board, we get a closer look at the rear IO cover, VRM heatsinks, and more. The only thing that changed in this area is the design above the left VRM heatsink. Power goes to the CPU via two 8pin EPS connectors (one required, the other optional) located to the left of the top VRM bank.

To the right of the socket, you run into the first two (of five) 4-pin fan headers. The headers support both PWM (4-pin) and DC (3-pin) devices. Annoyingly, Biostar doesn’t appear to list the output of these ports. For safety, assume each header outputs a maximum of 1A/12W until the company updates the available information.

Next are four single-side locking DRAM slots capable of supporting up to 128GB of RAM at speeds listed to DDR5 6000+(OC). This is one of the lower overclock values we’ve seen so far, but still is a lot of headroom over the platform’s maximum rated speed (DDR4 4800). As always, reaching these speeds is dependent on the CPU and memory kit. Your mileage may vary. Our DDR5 5600 kit ran without issue.

In the upper-right corner, we run into the three onboard RGB headers. There’s a single 4-pin RGB header and two 3-pin ARGB headers. If the integrated lighting isn’t enough, simply plug in your compatible RGB strips and control them through the Valkyrie Aurora utility or the Vivid DJ software.

On the right edge of the board, there are handy Power and Reset buttons (labeled P and R, respectively), the 24-pin ATX connector for powering the board, a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 2 header and a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C header.

The Z690 Valkyrie rides on a 20-phase VRM with 19 phases for Vcore. Power flows through the 8-pin EPS connectors to a Renesas RAA229131 20-channel controller, then to the 105A Renesas RAA22010540 Smart Power Stage (SPS) MOSFETs yielding 1,995A available for the processor. This is plenty of support for stock and overclocked operation of the Intel Core i9-12900K (including sub-ambient cooling - though this board isn’t a weapon of choice for that activity). Like the ASRock Z690 Taichi, the matching VRM’s on the Valkyrie don’t get in the way of the processor. From a VRM standpoint, there’s a lot of overclocking potential.

On the bottom half of the board, shrouds cover the majority of the PCB. Hiding the last-generation Realtek ALC1220 audio section on the left side is a plastic heatsink. Poking up through the shroud are a few audio caps, while next to them is the line that separates the audio bits from the rest of the motherboard. Although most users should find this solution acceptable, I expected to see the latest audio codec on a flagship board at this price.

In the middle of the board, we’ll start with the PCIe slots. The Valkyrie has three reinforced full-length slots to prevent shearing from heavy graphics cards. The top two slots run at PCIe 5.0 speeds, with the primary (top) slot capable of x16 speeds and the middle x8. When both are in use, the primary GPU slot runs at x8 speeds. The bottom full-length slot is connected via the chipset and runs at PCIe 4.0 x4.

On the M.2 storage front, the Valkyrie sports four total sockets, all of which have some form of heatsink to help keep things cool. The top three of the M.2 sockets run PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) speeds, with the first slot supporting up to 80mm modules and the lower two supporting up to 110mm devices. The bottom socket runs at PCIe 3.0 x4 and supports both SATA- and NVMe-based storage modules. If you’re looking to add Wi-Fi to the board, the M.2 Key-E socket shares space with the top M.2 socket.

Continuing right, we move over the chipset heatsink and the second RGB lighting area to the right edge. Here we spy the eight SATA ports that support RAID0/1/5/10 modes. There is some lane sharing going on between the SATA ports and M.2 sockets on the Valkyrie. In short, you can run up to four M.2 NVMe modules and all eight SATA ports. If one of the M.2 modules is SATA-based, SATA port 4 is disabled. The manual has pictures of all the possible configurations, but just know that SATA port 4 gets disabled when a SATA-based M.2 device is used.

Across the bottom are several headers, including USB ports and RGB. Here’s the complete list, from left to right:

• Front panel audio
• (3) 4-pin system fan headers
• Thunderbolt header
• COM header
• (2) USB 2.0 headers
• Front panel header
• Debug LED
• LN2 and BIOS switches
• TPM header
• Speaker header

Moving around back to the all-important rear IO area, the Valkyrie comes with a pre-installed IO plate matching the Valkyrie aesthetic. It sports a black background with gold writing to identify each port. From the left side, we see two of each DisplayPorts and HDMI ports for use with onboard video. Curiously, the versions for each port are different in that there is a DP v1.2 port and v1.4, along with HDMI v1.4 and v2.0. Just be sure to use the correct port for your needs, although we have to think the vast majority of users buying a $600 motherboard are going to pair it with a dedicated graphics card.

Continuing right, we run into a legacy PS2/Mouse/Keyboard port, seven USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) ports and the USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port. With only seven USB Type-A ports on the rear IO, be sure there are enough for you here before buying. Just above the right USB Type-A stack is the Realtek 2.5 GbE port. Last but not least is the 5-plug plus SPDIF audio stack.

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Firmware

Biostar’s BIOS and the other Z690 boards we’ve looked at previously keep the same look as the last generation. There’s an EZ Mode that's more informational than tweakable, covering high-level status information, including RAM and CPU speed, temperatures and more. Once in the Advanced section, there are headings across the top with options under each. There’s a fair amount of switching sections to reach all of the overclocking functionality, and the listing of some values in milliwatts is confusing. I’d also like to see a description for highlighted items, as most other boards have. But outside of that, the BIOS is easy to navigate and read, with high-contrast dark grey background and white letters.

Software

Biostar uses a single application called Aurora to cover multiple functions, including Fan control, RGB lighting, monitoring, overclocking and more, but little has changed in the Z690 version. Once opened, there is a menu system in the left column with a larger right-hand side to display the information. With Aurora, you can control system volume (Smart Ear), canned power plans (GT Touch), RGBs (Vivid LED DJ), Fans (A.I Fan), hardware monitoring (H/W Monitor) and overclocking/overvolting (OC/OV).

Overall, I like this software. The user interface is easy to read and find the items you are looking for. Fan, RGB, and overclocking control worked without issue. I would like to see more temperatures in the hardware monitor section (VRMs, for example), but what’s there was informative, if only at a high level.

Test System / Comparison Products

As of October 2021, we’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver to version 496.13. Additionally, our game selection was updated, as noted in the table below. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware used is as follows:

Test System Components

EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the outgoing 1.2KW monster we used) for our test systems, and GSkill sent us a fast and good-looking DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for launch day testing. MSI and Asus also sent launch day kits.

Benchmark Settings

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Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo), with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. For this baseline testing, The Windows power scheme is set to balanced (default), so the PC idles appropriately. To get the most out of the Intel Alder Lake chips, you need to be on Windows 11 with its updated scheduler. In most cases, Windows 10 performs well. However, some tests (Cinebench R20, Corona and POVRay) take a significant hit. In short, if you’re going with Alder Lake, you must upgrade to Windows 11 for the best results across the board. That may change with patching and updates. We’ll keep you posted.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetics are a great tool to determine how a board runs, as identical settings should produce similar performance results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are places where motherboard makers can still optimize for either stability or performance, though, and those settings can impact some testing.

The Z690 Valkyrie traded punches with the Z690 boards we’ve tested so far. In 7-Zip, Cinebench R23 and POV-Ray, it was a tale of multi- versus single-threaded. The Valkyrie performed well in the single-threaded tests, but was slower than average in some heavy multi-core tests thanks to the high voltage and some thermal throttling. Testing in the Procyon suite was average throughout. AIDA test results showed the Valkyrie the slowest in latency by a couple of nanoseconds, but nothing alarming.

The only thing out of the ordinary is the difference in single versus multi-threaded results. Since the board pours the volts on heavy at stock, some minor performance losses are in some of the multi-threaded results. To get around this, simply set the voltage to a static value (I went with 1.25V, same as the overclock), and all tests are right where you’d expect them to be.

Timed Applications

LAME testing on the Valkyrie landed in the middle of all Z690 results so far, while the Corona results were tied for the fastest we’ve seen so far. There’s nothing to worry about in these shorter tests. Handbrake results were also good, with x264 tests mixing with the other results, while the x265 test was actually the fastest we’ve seen by a few seconds. So far, the gap between the fastest and slowest Z690 result is eight seconds, or around 2.5%.

3D Games and 3DMark

Starting with the launch of the Z690 chipset, we’ve updated our game tests. We’ve updated Far Cry: New Dawn to Far Cry 6 and shifted from F1 2020 to F1 2021. We run the games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). As the resolution goes up, the CPU tends to have less of an impact. The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used resolution with settings most people use or at least strive for. We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most differences falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS value, as that can affect your gameplay and immersion experience.

In F1 2021, the Z690 Valkyrie averaged 165 frames per second (FPS), with minimums of 142 fps - both the fastest so far. Far Cry 6 averaged 136 fps, with minimums of 120 fps which is average against the other Z690 boards we’ve tested to this point. Still, it would be difficult to tell the difference between boards when gaming without staring at the frame counter.

In the synthetic benchmarks, our trend of not seeing a significant difference between results continues. 3DMark Time Spy scored 14,470 (average), while in Fire Strike Extreme, the Valkyrie scored 16,835 - the lowest Z690 result so far. Here again, the difference between the tested boards is negligible and first to last really doesn’t tell us much.

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

Using the peak power consumption value, we used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU and Cache enabled for power testing. The wattage reading is from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter to capture the entire PC minus the monitor. The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts are the same.

At idle, our Z690 Valkyrie consumed 57W, one of the lowest results so far. On the other hand, load wattage peaked at 395W, which is the highest result so far (by over 50W). With the BIOS we used for this testing, it’s clear the board uses a lot more voltage than necessary. The overabundance of volts didn’t translate into a performance difference, but did manage to force our CPU to thermally throttle during stress testing. While this is fixable via manual tweaking, we hope Biostar comes out with an updated BIOS that puts the stock voltage in check.

VRM temperatures on our Z690 Valkyrie reached just under 50 degrees Celsius during stock testing and 48 degrees Celsius when overclocked. That wasn’t a typo. The temperatures are well maintained due to the active cooling found on the VRMs, even doing better than the Taichi, which is also actively cooled. That said, the VRM heatsinks and fans are more than capable of keeping the MOSFETs and other power bits below running well within specifications. The fan does ramp up and gets loud with heavy loads and stress testing out of the box, but you can adjust this in the BIOS.

Overclocking

Overclocking with Alder Lake is a bit different than we’re used to due to the hybrid core configuration. Now, you can overclock the P and E cores separately, though they both use the same voltage domain. You can push one and not the other, or both, so there’s some flexibility. To that end, we set an overclock to 5.1 GHz across all P-cores and 4.1Ghz on all E-cores. This yields a 200 MHz bump on the P-cores and a 400 MHz increase on the E-cores. We’re topped out on the P-cores, primarily due to temperatures, but the more efficient E-cores still have some headroom.

Overclocking on the Z690 Valkyrie was a relatively straightforward process. We already know the required voltage (~1.25V) for Vcore, so we set it and see what happens. In this case, there was a significant amount of vdroop, dropping nearly 0.1V according to CPUz. We ended up setting LLC to 1, which kept things closer to/just over the 1.25V value specified in the BIOS. After that, the board handled the overclock without issue during our testing.

On the memory side, we haven’t had a chance to dig in and play with DDR5 yet. We only had one kit available and a lot of testing to do with Z690 boards when we wrote this. That said, our current DDR5 5600 kit (from GSkill) is what we’re thinking is around the sweet spot, at least initially. To that end, we were able to set XMP and go, yielding a 600 MHz increase from the maximum rating of the platform. Here’s to hoping that prices come down on RAM over time, as DDR5 kits are expensive and hard to find in stock.

Final Thoughts

But at $599.99, the price went up significantly from the last generation. While BOM prices and other external market influences (including logistics and COVID) affected all motherboard partners, this is a big bump. There’s a lot of competition in this price space, including the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero ($599.99), MSI MEG Z690 Ace ($599.99), ASRock Z690 Taichi ($589.99) and the much less expensive Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master ($469.99). All of these premium motherboards would be a great (if expensive) Alder Lake starting point. But the Master still offers the best overall value of the group, selling for nearly $100 less than the others and sporting similar, premium hardware and appearance. If the Valkyrie were priced around $500 or less, it would make a more compelling option. Given what happened with the

By now, most readers are aware that Intel has produced a good processor both in performance and price (power is another issue) with the Alder Lake platform. The difference in performance, if only the motherboard is changed, is negligible in most cases. The Z690 Valkyrie allowed our Intel Core i9-12900K to stretch its legs in most tests, but in some highly threaded applications and stress tests, its default high voltage for Vcore chopped the top off due to thermal throttling. In short, this board and the current BIOS uses too much voltage at stock speeds and should be adjusted for best results and lower temperatures. That said, you’d be hard-pressed to see the difference in performance, as it isn’t too big in any of our tests.

The Z690 Valkyrie improves its appearance by minimizing the pink highlighting and changing up some of the patterns on the heatsinks. While the board doesn’t look bad, for $599, there are definitely better-looking motherboards available. That said, looks are subjective, and this board doesn’t exactly stick out like a sore thumb. Hardware-wise, Biostar upgraded the Z690 Valkyrie’s power delivery to 105A SPS MOSFETs, which is plenty capable of driving the i9-12900K. Besides adding another M.2 socket, thanks to Z690’s available bandwidth, there isn’t much difference between this board and the Z590 version.

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In conjunction with Intel’s Alder Lake CPU announcements, motherboard partners have pulled back the curtain on dozens of new Z690-based motherboards to go along with the upcoming 12th Gen chips. The new motherboards support the latest and greatest technologies from the new processor, including a bump to PCIe DDR5 (some motherboards have DDR4 support, more on that later), PCIe 5.0 and upgraded power delivery. Although there’s a lot to be excited about hardware-wise, what I’m looking forward to most are the new board designs. We’ll review many of these over the coming months, and some will be good enough to make our best motherboards page.

For now, we’ve comprised a list of motherboards with as much information directly from the partners as possible. That said, many details  (including pricing) will arrive later, so we’ll provide what we have and update the information here as we get it.

Intel Z690 Chipset: Different Socket, Similar (but Upgraded) Features 

At the time of this writing, Intel has not released the full details of the Z690 chipset. However, we do know a few things that differentiate Z690 from the previous-gen Z590. Unlike Z490 and Z590, Z690 uses a different socket with more pins, dubbed LGA1700. The new socket is not compatible with LGA12/15xx, so any heatsink, AIO, or custom block requires new mounting hardware. Many cooling companies, including (but not limited to) be quiet!, Alphacool, MSI and Noctua are offering free upgrade kits. Be sure to reach out to whoever made your cooler and ask about that if you plan on purchasing the new platform and using your existing cooling solution. 

In addition to the flagship Z690 chipset, Intel is also releasing lesser H670, B660 and H610 chipsets that cater to budget-conscious or business users, with the latter set as entry-level. Like the 500 series, we expect the H670 and B560 to overclock memory but not the CPU. For those waiting for an HEDT update, you're not forgotten, as the X699 chipset appears to be on the horizon. Workstation users will get the W680 and W685 for Xeon processors.

Like Comet Lake, Alder Lake supports a total of 20 lanes from the CPU itself. In total, there are 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and four additional PCIe 4.0 lanes. The platform divides the 5.0 lanes as x16 or x8 for graphics and x4/x4 for storage, enabling a full 64 GBps bandwidth. The four PCIe 4.0 lanes provide additional storage connectivity. 

Outside of the new socket, one of the most significant differences in the new Z690 chipset is native PCIe 5.0 support, which doubles the available bandwidth to 64 GBps. While we’re a ways away from PCIe 5.0 hardware, and even further from when that type of throughput is needed, the bandwidth is here. AMD was first to market with PCIe 4.0; now it’s Intel’s turn to lead the bleeding edge with PCIe 5.0. With all of this available bandwidth, you can run more devices (M.2 slots, for example) off the CPU-connected PCIe lanes and not lose performance from your graphics card. There are also faster lanes on the chipset, allowing devices to use fewer lanes to achieve their full performance, increasing board makers' flexibility with where to attach items.

The DMI link between the chipset and CPU has also increased. Z590 doubled the link speed, moving from PCIe 3.0 to x4 to PCIe 3.0 x8. With Z690, Intel is doubling that again, but this time the DMI link jumps up to PCIe 4.0 x8. The increase doubles the bandwidth available for any chipset-connected devices (networking and storage, for example) and allows users to run more attached devices concurrently without losing performance.

DDR5 also makes its consumer desktop debut here, offering users increased bandwidth and capacity along with lower power consumption. Alder Lake sports a 128-bit memory bus, so four 32-bit DDR5 channels (DDR5 = two 32-bit channels /module). The base voltage drops to 1.1V for JEDEC specs instead of the 1.2V we’re used to with DDR4. High-performance kits will still be at 1.2V or above. For those who don’t want to spend the premium to invest in DDR5, you’re in luck. 

Surprisingly, there are Z690 boards that only support DDR4. Rumors suggest that, currently, the performance differences between DDR4 and DDR5 aren’t significant in many use cases. However, we don’t expect much difference until DDR5 matures (speeds increase and latencies decrease). But we’ll investigate and report back once we have the boards in hand.

While there are other distinctions, most are more subtle. Here’s a look at how Z690 compares with Intel’s previous mainstream flagship chipsets. Keep in mind some details are still uncertain as of this writing.

The networking situation doesn’t change too much on Z590. The chipset continues integrated support for Intel CNVi Wi-Fi, but upgrades to Wi-Fi 6E support as the maximum supported, versus Wi-Fi 6 on the previous platform. This upgrade won’t matter for most users, as to run 6E speeds you need to have a router capable of 6E and an internet service provider that offers speeds to take advantage of it. For much more on this, see our Wi-Fi 6 and 6E explainer feature. Like Z590, board partners need to just add the Wi-Fi card to the board for support. 

You’ll find 2.5 Gb NICs on most Z690 boards on the wired front, while some flagships go higher with 5 GbE or 10 GbE. Some budget boards will still use 1 GbE, which is still acceptable for most users. Since a majority don’t have 1 Gb-plus internet service in the first place, the faster ports are still valuable for transfers within your network (assuming the slowest part is up to the task).

We know that USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbps) is again supported natively. The chipset diagram describes up to four 3.2 Gen 2x2 ports, 10x 3.2 Gen 2, 10x 3.2 Gen 1 and finally, 14 USB 2.0 ports. There’s obviously not enough physical space for the maximum for each, so each board will have a different count.

SATA3 6 Gbps ports also get a bump up to eight total (from six). Any motherboards with more than eight ports will use a third-party controller, typically from ASMedia. As mentioned earlier, the most significant differences are the PCIe 5.0 support from the CPU and DDR5. Intel has caught up to and surpassed AMD on that front, at least with CPU-connected lanes. While PCIe 5.0 video cards don’t exist in the desktop market yet, the increased bandwidth means other attached items can use fewer lanes and function as fast as possible, minimizing lane sharing and the resultant disabling of ports as you plug more devices in.

While Z690 has arrived, we still dont’ know exactly how the CPUs that will drop into them will perform. Rumors have the new Golden Cove cores sporting a 19% IPC increase over Cypress Lake (Rocket Lake’s microarchitecture), which should best AMD’s Zen2/Ryzen 5000 series processors. But we’ll have to wait for our own testing to say anything for sure on that front. But at the time of this writing, there are over 60 Z690 boards to choose from. So if you’re looking to build a new PC based on Intel’s latest, there should be something for everyone. 

Alder Lake CPUs 

Alder Lake is built on the Intel 7 process node technology and is the first to use a hybrid architecture in the desktop space. The hybrid design in Intel’s terms includes having a set of high ‘Performance’ cores coupled with high ‘Efficiency’ cores -- or P-core and E-core as Intel calls them. The new Performance cores are based on the new Golden Cove microarchitecture, with the Efficiency cores based on the Gracemont architecture. The theory is that the P-cores will handle single-threaded tasks that require low latency, while the E-cores will be better in multi-threaded or power-limited situations. It's worth noting that hyperthreading still makes its way into these CPUs, but only on the P-cores and only on specific processors..

As far as the list of processors goes, six unlocked desktop variants will be available at launch, starting with the flagship Core i9-12900K. The new top-end unlocked processor is a 16-core (8P+ 8E) / 24 thread part with a base clock of 3.2 GHz boosting to 5.2 GHz. The budget end sits with the i5-12600KF, a 10-core (6P+4E) 16 thread part. Refer to the table and image below for a list of the processors announced so far, as well as other high-level information.

Where Rocket Lake went with fewer cores/threads than the previous-generation Comet Lake, Alder Lake processors increase their count over Rocket Lake. Comparing flagship-to-flagship, the new i9-12900K doubles the core count and has a 33% increase in total threads available. Couple that with the expected Instructions Per Clock (IPC) increase and, on paper, you should have a faster processor compared to previous-gen parts. 

The flagship chips have a TDP of 125W for base power and a maximum turbo power (PL2) of 241W. What we do know is that Alder Lake uses more energy than Comet Lake. With that, I do wonder what cooling needs are like, especially when overclocked. To that end, Intel has made adjustments to the CPU itself by thinning out the die and the sTIM layer, while increasing the thickness of the integrated heat spreader (IHS). To support the new processors, board partners have raised the bar on VRM and VRM cooling in Z690. Flagship-class and high-end motherboards step up to 105A MOSFETs, while mid-range and budget boards also get a bump to keep these processors going.

Memory support for the new CPUs also gets a considerable bump from DDR4-3200 to DDR5-4800 when using the new Alder Lake-based processors. At the time of this writing, we didn’t have details on memory support for Z690 boards, but you can expect it to be well over the base spec. We’ve seen some supporting well over DDR5-6000. As usual, your mileage will vary, and working with the correct CPU (with an excellent integrated memory controller), memory kit, and motherboard choice are critical when chasing high memory clocks. That said, the sweet spot for memory speeds and performance per dollar changes as the process matures. Speeds will go up while CAS rating/timings, in general, will go down. For now, it seems like somewhere in the DDR5 5200-5600 range is likely where the sweet spot will be, at least initially. We do know that DDR5 pricing is going to be notably higher than DDR4. So it goes.

Z690 Motherboards: The Full List (So Far) 

With the chipset details out of the way, we’ve provided a list of all Z690 motherboards announced below, doing our best to ignore rumors and unsubstantiated leaks. However, several board partners didn’t respond to inquiries in time for publication, so there's a strong chance that some things will change. Board partners provided the limited information listed in the following tables. We’ll break things out on the following pages and offer some thoughts on the respective launch lineups after. Unfortunately, pricing is an essential piece of information that no vendors have provided yet, but we’ve filled in the tables with what data we have. 

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ASRock: 20 boards

• Improved aesthetics and power delivery
• 2.5GbE LAN on most (all?) SKUs
• Wi-Fi 6(6E) on some boards

At the time we wrote the article, ASRock had yet to respond to our inquiries about their lineup, so we're relying more on rumors than we'd like. That said, we fully expect ASRock to come out of the gate sporting a full lineup of motherboards to choose from. The information below is sourced from the web in regards to the  count and names.

From the images we do have, you’ll notice the appearance of the boards has changed. At a high level, we expect to see PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support, more powerful VRMs, updated audio codecs, and an increase in M.2 storage count on most boards. ASRock, like the other board partners, will also have boards with DDR4 options available. 

Familiar names make an appearance again in Z690. They include the Z690 Taichi, PG Velocita, Extreme, Phantom Gaming 4, Pro and more. There are mATX- and Mini-ITX-sized boards, along with entry-level and halo products. But again, with so few details, there are plenty of question marks in the table below.

Asus: 14 boards 

• Improved aesthetics and power delivery
• Teamed Power Architecture (on most boards)
• AI Overclocking Based on CPU quality and Cooler Efficiency
• 2.5GbE and 10GbE NIC Available, along with Wi-Fi 6E

Asus’ initial Z690 lineup consists of eight boards, with the rest likely filling out in the weeks and months to come. Out of the gate are samples from each of the company’s internal market segments, including the ROG Maximus (XIV Extreme/Hero/Apex), ROG Strix (Z690-E Gaming), TUF Gaming Z690-Plus Wi-Fi, Prime Z690-A and the ProArt Z690 Creator.

The premium gaming and overclocking-focused ROG Maximus XIV series continues to bring the best of what the platform has to offer from Asus. Large passive heatsinks help cool the teamed 105A VRMs underneath, save for the Glacier, which includes a water block for the CPU and VRMs.

Asus includes AI overclocking from the BIOS or the AI Suite, which tests the processor to see which cores are best. Like some other brands, CPU quality and efficiency determine the outcome. All Maximus boards include at least a 2.5 Gb LAN, with the Extreme using Marvell AQtion AQC107 10GbE. You’ll also find up to eight SATA ports and five M.2 slots in this lineup.

Historically, the ROG Strix series spans several boards of various sizes, including ATX, Micro ATX, and Mini-ITX. All employ a capable VRM design, but details are scarce across this entire lineup. Many boards receive the updated Supreme FX Realtek 4080 audio codec, though. 

The Asus Prime motherboards have expanded significantly for Z690, with five options including an mATX option. These Prime boards offer users a less-expensive way into the platform without sacrificing too many features and offer a unique black and grey/silver design aesthetic. 

The TUF series boards are geared more toward gamers with more modest budgets and needs. Users still get capable power delivery and heatsinks, integrated Wi-Fi 6E on the Plus (Wi-Fi), along with an updated appearance and an overall increase in M.2 socket count. 

In all, Asus has boards of all shapes, sizes, and likely budgets to fit your needs. Although the company is launching with up to 14 boards, we’ve only listed what Asus provided below.

Biostar: 3 boards 

• Up to 20-phase design
• Wi-Fi 6 capabilities on all boards 

Biostar is releasing three Z590 based boards —  two that carry the Valkyrie name (Z690 Valkyrie and Z690A Valkyrie) and the Z690GTA on the budget side. The Z690 Valkyrie boards include a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port, four M.2 sockets, eight SATA ports, 2.5 GbE and Wi-Fi 6, and more. A 20-phase VRM, like the Z590 version(by count), should handle overclocking the flagship i9-12900K. 

The Z690GTA hails from the budget side and offers users a slew of USB ports (though not a 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port), the same (last generation) Realtek ALC1220 audio codec as the Valkyrie, three M.2 sockets, and a less-powerful but still capable (17-phase) VRM. Styling on the Z690GTA has also changed, with this generation sporting a black-and-light-blue theme. Over the years, Biostar has continuously improved and we expect that to continue with Z690. We just hope the BIOS layout is updated, as that was one of the company’s shortcomings in the past.

EVGA: 2 boards

EVGA is another company we haven’t heard back from, but we expect that the EVGA Z690 product stack has two boards: the familiar Z690 Dark and Z690 FTW. The Dark is the flagship board in an E-ATX form factor, sporting a beefy VRM and other gaming and overclocking features. The FTW is also focused on the gamer and overclocker, but tends to be the less expensive but still a well-appointed option.

Details are non-existant here, but we expect the boards to receive similar updatesas the other Z590. boards with PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support, an updated audio codec, updated aesthetics, and perhaps another M.2 socket or so. As usual, we expect these to be available well after launch. 

Gigabyte: 22 boards

• 60-105A VRMs
• Daisy Chain + Shielded Memory Routing
• USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) port for all Z690 boards
• 2.5 GbE-plus NICs on all models (up to 10 GbE)
• Front USB Type-C for all Z690 models
• New styling 

Gigabyte joins the Z690 fray with more than different options, including the gaming-centric Aorus line and the familiar Xtreme (with two PCIe 5.0 slots), Master, Ultra, Elite and Pro boards along with the more budget-focused Gaming X and UD series. The Vision (designed for creators) was replaced last year by the Aero line, which aslo has made its way to Z690. You’ll find all sizes and budget tiers, including several boards that run with DDR4 instead of DDR5. So if you want to save a bit of money and go with DDR4, you have that option with Gigabyte. If you’re jumping into DDR5, the new Z690 boards include Ultra Durable SMD DDR5 Armor and Shielded Memory Routing to get the cleanest signal to the chips. 

One of the most significant changes to these boards, outside of the different socket, are the VRMs. Power delivery ranges from 15 total phases using 60A parts to 23 phases and 105A parts at the high end. Most, if not all SKUs received an upgrade to support the new processors and their higher power draw. Gigabyte also updated some cooling methods, including Fins-Array III to cool the VRMs and Thermal Guard III, a heatpipe connected to fins for the top M.2 socket (Xtreme only). 

All boards include a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C (20 Gbps) port, 2.5 GbE NIC, and most include Wi-Fi 6 or 6E (outside of some UD boards that use AC/AX Wi-Fi). Other features include the jump to next-gen Realtek 4000 series audio codec in some models and an increase in M.2 sockets, with many running up to four (Aorus Master has a whopping five!) thanks to the increased lanes and bandwidth from the CPU.

Like a few other board partners, there’s something for everyone in this deep product stack from Gigabyte.

MSI: 18 boards

• 70A to 105A VRMs
• 2.5 GbE LAN and Wi-Fi 6 or 6E for All Models
• Memory support up to DDR4 6800
• USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port for all models
• New styling

MSI attacks Z690 with 18 SKUs covering both DDR5- and DDR4-compatible motherboards. The MEG/MPG/MAG lines (Gaming) and Pro lines (for Creators) all make a return. At the top of the stack, the MEG boards all use a direct power arrangement, with the MEG boards all using 105A SPS MOSFETs. All MEG and MPG boards use Direct Power (no phase-doublers), while the MAG and Pro series use a “Duet Rail” power system (DRPS). In the end, all of MSI’s Z690 boards use an upgraded VRM to support the Alder Lake processors better.

In addition to the power delivery improvements and aesthetic changes, a vast majority of MSI boards support four M.2 connectors (some even support five), also an upgrade from the last generation. Any board that comes with the M.2 Xpander card also gets PCIe 5.0 support for the storage module. It's worth noting is MSI uses an EZ M.2 Clip to help install/remove M.2 SSDs quickly without fumbling around with tiny screws. Other popular features include the M.2 Shield Frozr to keep the M.2 modules cool, and heatpipe-cooled VRMs on a lot of the lineup.

On the networking front, unlike other brands, the existing MSI lineup doesn’t have a 10 GbE NIC on its flagship or any other board. However, you do find 2.5 GbE NICs on all boards and Wi-Fi 6E on mos models. All boards include at least one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port and support many others. SATA port count across the Z690 stack varies from four to six depending on the SKU. Between the increase in M.2 count and SATA ports, nobody should lack storage options in this generation. Like other vendors, MSI uses the latest Realtek audio codec (4000 series) across most of its line, with last-generation’s 1200 series found on others.

The venerable Godlike is missing from the list.. But we hope to see this board soon, as previous versions have been monsters. Rest assured, the rest of the fan favorites are here, including the budget-friendly MAG Z690 Tomahawk and Torpedo boards, as well as overclocking-centric Unify-X and a Mini-ITX board. There’s something for everyone here, too.

NZXT: 2 boards

We reached out to NZXT for information, but they also didn’t respond in time for publication. That said, we expect to see them in the market again with an N7 Z690 SKU. In the past, the NZXT boards were based on an ASRock part, and we don’t expect that to change. There are rumors of a more budget-focused motherboard, dubbed the N5 Z690, that will also hit the market. But, again, those are rumors and not confirmed. 

Supermicro

We also reached out to Supermicro to see what the company has cooking for Z690. Like NZXT and ASRock, we didn’t hear back in time for this article, but we expect to see a SuperO board on this platform eventually. The server-like motherboards from SuperO are typically well built and option-heavy, but its server roots (aesthetics and BIOS layout) can be a turnoff for some. 

That’s it for now, though there’s plenty on offer already for Z690. After a couple of years of trailing AMD with technology and performance, the addition of PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support, along with other improvements, has Intel leading the mainstream motherboard charge once again. As noted earlier, we’ll fill in some of the question marks above as we get more info and add in pricing as soon as we have it.

Time will tell whether the claimed 19% IPC increase for Alder Lake-S CPUs and hybrid architecture will help Intel retake the gaming crown and offset the BIG.little core configuration compared to AMD. One thing is clear though: Intel’s board partners are ready and waiting to give Alder Lake-S the support it needs to get the most out of the company’s new processors. If only some of these companies could keep their recent graphics cards in stock at reasonable prices to drop into these new builds, the end of 2021 might be an interesting time to build a new PC.  

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Prices are surging for the copper and copper-clad laminates (CCLs) used to make printed circuit boards (PCBs), which are then used for pretty much every type of electronics device. According to reports from DigiTimes, the cost of manufacturing devices like PC motherboards and graphics cards is rising due to a copper foil shortage, nad now the question is how much of that cost the manufacturers will pass on to the end user. According to some of our quick calculations, the impact of the copper foil shortages could be most felt in lower-end devices, while more expensive premium products might see less of an impact due to already-inflated pricing. 

Costs Are Rising

It's no secret that chipmakers can't produce enough semiconductors due to the overwhelming demand for electronics, which is why chip pricing is high. But in addition to actual chips, all kinds of electronics use PCBs made of glass fiber and copper foil.

The price of copper went up from $7,755 per ton in December 2020 to $9,262 per ton today (September 28, 2021). The cost of copper foil surged 35% since Q4 2020 due to the rising prices of copper and energy carriers. As you would expect, the price for copper clad laminates (CCLs), a foundational component used for making PCBs, increased due to the costs associated with the prices of copper foil and energy. The trickle-down effect continues, and now price quotes for PCBs are increasing, too. 

This will affect costs and possibly prices of all kinds of electronics, but PCs, motherboards, and graphics cards will experience more pricing pressure than other components because they tend to use large PCBs with a high layer count. 

Every PCB is built using multiple CCLs, depending on the number of layers. Each CCL consists of several sheets of fiberglass plastic impregnated with epoxy resin that are stacked together and then covered with ~0.035-mm thick (or even thinner) copper foil on both sides. Traces on motherboards are formed by etching away unnecessary copper using processes like those used in microelectronics production (you can read more about the process here). 

Each ATX-sized CCL (305x244 mm) uses around 23 grams of copper (we calculated it here), but a high-end motherboard uses a PCB with at least eight layers (i.e., eight CCLs), so it consumes at least 184 grams of copper (probably more, but we'll stick with this number). Therefore, before processing, a metric ton of copper is enough to build 5,434 eight-layer motherboards, which means that one ATX motherboard consumed $1.42 worth of copper in December and uses $1.70 worth of copper today. But that's before we add in the costs of turning the copper into a usable form, and before the impending price hikes.

While the cost of copper per motherboard did not increase significantly, the cost of copper foil and CCL production increased because of copper prices and rising energy carrier prices.

Right now, a roll of 0.0005-inch copper foil (width: 12 inches, length: 1200 inches) costs $423. Based on our estimates, such a roll is enough for ~62 ATX-sized CCLs, which means $6.8 per CCL or $54 of copper foil per eight-layer ATX PCB. Keep in mind that this is an estimate, and makers of CCLs for motherboards hardly use off-the-shelf copper foil. In addition, transportation fees are high since the demand for transport also increased due to the pandemic, leading to other secondary cost increases.  

Overall, the costs of copper, copper foil, copper-clad laminates, PCBs, and manufacturing have increased quite meaningfully due to various factors. The price increases are not going to stop, though. Chinese CCL makers recently announced price hikes for their PCB customers, DigiTimes claims. Copper foil suppliers are also reportedly mulling increasing their processing fees to CCL makers in early 2022, which is why the latter are now negotiating with their customers to provide them reasonable offerings while ensuring decent profit margins. 

Other Factors

In addition to the demand for PCs, other factors are driving up the prices of PCBs and CCLs. Copper prices are increasing not only because of high energy prices, but because demand for copper wires is growing as many applications switch from aluminum wires to copper wires. Transitioning to renewable energy sources requires brand new power generation equipment, which further hikes the demand for copper wires.   

Meanwhile, as carriers transit to 5G networks, they acquire appropriate equipment, including base stations and networking systems that happen to use loads of copper wiring as well as high layer count PCBs that use many CCLs. Growing demand for such equipment naturally adds pressure on copper foil makers, CCLs and PCBs. 

Should We Worry?

The price of copper hit a historical high in June, but since then, it went down and is now on the levels of 2010 ~ 2011, according to MacroTrends. But what impacts the costs of electronics is not the price of copper per se, but rather the price of copper foil, which is quite high these days. 

While the cost of copper foil, CCLs, and PCBs is surging, its impact on pricing for graphics cards, motherboards, notebooks, and desktop PCs will vary.

A 10% price increase of one of the key components will be noticeable in the case of entry-level motherboards that are not sold with hefty profit margins and retail for $100 – $200. The same can be applied to inexpensive electronics that use relatively complex PCBs and relatively cheap active components (e.g., entry-level PCs). Hence, if you buy budget hardware, you may want to think about your purchase strategy.

The cost of active components (processor, memory, PMICs, etc.) still accounts for the lion's share of electronics build of material (BOM - the price to construct the product). Thus, even if copper foil pricing increases by 10%, it will hardly impact the price of a high-end motherboard that nowadays may retail for $350 – $900, since manufacturers might absorb the increase without passing it to the end-user. Something similar can be said about graphics cards and their retail prices: even if one ingredient gets a 10% price hike, a graphics card that uses it will hardly get significantly costlier at retail since it is already sold at an inflated price. So, if you buy expensive devices, you should probably not worry about the prices of copper, copper foil, CCLs, and PCBs.

But in addition to pricing, there is also the demand aspect. The world is deploying more electronics than ever, so until supply chains are ready to support this demand, there will be multiple factors that will affect the pricing and availability of electronics.

Creating a serious custom cryptocurrency mining rig requires specialized hardware and that includes crypto-specific motherboards, GPUs, power supplies, and for Chia farmers extra storage options. Biostar has today presented a motherboard dedicated to mining multiple cryptocurrencies, using Intel's high-end Z590 chipset.

Called the TZ590-BTC DUO, at the heart of this beast, lies a Z590 chipset connected to the LGA 1200 socket, capable of housing all of Intel's 10th and 11th generation of Core processors. It connects up to 128GB of DDR4 memory running at 3200 MHz, which was proven to be an important factor for Chia coin mining operations. But this board is not a one-trick pony as it can be used to mine many different cryptocurrencies.

A single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and an additional eight PCIe 3.0 x1 expansion slots provide multiple opportunities to add your choice of GPUs for Ethereum mining. Just don't forget the cables.

Besides the numerous PCIe expansion slots, there are multiple storage options in the shape of up to four NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD slots and SATA III connectors for as many as 10 additional HDDs. This setup is perfect for Chia coin plotting, where the fast SSDs are used for extensive plotting efforts, while the slower SATA hard drives are used to store the plots.

This board doesn't lag in the IO department either. It has one PS/2 port for mouse and keyboard, one HDMI port for external display output, one VGA port for more legacy display support, four USB 3.2 Gen1 ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. Connecting to the outside world via the single Gigabit Ethernet port is powered by an Intel I219V LAN chipset 

Overall, the motherboard features a very healthy selection of I/O, expansion, and storage options, all tailored towards one specific purpose. And that is cryptocurrency mining. If you happen to want one for your next mining rig, the pricing and availability are currently unknown, leaving us to wonder and rely on Biostar's regional distributors for more information.

Biostar has officially revealed its list of motherboards that will be compatible with Microsoft's new Windows 11 operating system. These supported boards feature TPM 2.0 to ensure the best compatibility with the new OS.

This list is Biostar's current list of Windows 11 supported motherboards lineups and should be expanding soon to other chipset models. The most notable lineups that are still missing are the Intel 300 series chipsets and any Intel H series chipsets (like H270 & H370).

Biostar is the first manufacturer to officially have a Windows 11 support list for its motherboards, and we should expect to see simliar lists from other popular board makers such as Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock, and more.

This should make building a PC a bit easier, as the new Windows 11 system requirements can easily slip under the radar for a novice PC builder who doesn't know that features like TPM 2.0 are now a requirement to support Microsoft's latest OS.

With Intel’s new Rocket Lake CPUs and new chipset hitting the scene, Biostar took the opportunity to step up its game developing new motherboards for Z590, including the Valkyrie that we have on the test bench for review. Expected to be an upper-midrange option, it comes with high-end power delivery, three M.2 sockets, along with several fast USB ports and a price tag somewhere between $400 and $450. A company rep told us US pricing still isn’t final yet.

Biostar’s current Z590 product stack isn’t as robust as most other board partners. Currently, it consists of three boards: the flagship Valkyrie we’re looking at here, the Z590I Valkyrie (ITX), and the more familiar and budget-oriented Z590GTA. In addition to these three, the company also has a B560 board, the B560GTQ, and two H5120 based boards in the H510MH/E 2.0 and H510MX/E 2.0. While Biostar doesn’t have as many SKUs as the competition, the company still provides mid-range, budget, and ITX-size options.

On the performance front, the Valkyrie was generally on the slower side of testing, albeit not by much in many tests. Our DDR4 3600 memory kit defaulted to Gear 2, which increases latency and reduces bandwidth. The latest BIOS at the time of this writing (5.19 according to CPUz) added the ability to switch gears. However, I could not quickly get our board to work at Gear 1 running DDR4 3600, as I could with ,ost other Z590 boards. Hopefully, another BIOS update will address the bandwidth/latency shortcomings and allow the board to get close to the expected memory bandwidth.

Early performance aside, Biostar brought a solid board to the table. From its flagship-class VRMs, three M.2 sockets and premium audio (albeit from the last generation), the Valkyrie is a step up from its Z490 offerings. Curiously, a Wi-Fi antenna is included, but the board does not come with Wi-Fi. You’ll need to add a card (up to 6E capability) or stick to Ethernet. There are plenty of USB ports on the rear IO, with six USB 3.2 Gen 2 or greater. We’ll cover all the features the Valkyrie has to offer below. But first, here are the full specifications from Biostar.

Specifications - Biostar Z590 Valkyrie

Starting with accessories, Biostar includes what you need to get started and not much else. All that comes in the box along with the motherboard are four SATA cables, a DVD with drivers, a User Manual and Smart Connector.

• User’s Manual
• Driver DVD
• (4) SATA cables
• Smart Connector

In looking at the Z590 Valkyrie for the first time, the jet black PCB and overall styling give off a mid-range vibe with all the shrouds and neatly organized headers across the bottom. The left side of the socket behind the rear IO is covered by a large shroud reaching over the left VRM heatsink. A small heatsink covers the top set of VRMs, along with two tiny fans that actively cool the power bits underneath. Another pair of fans are hidden under the rear IO shroud as well.

The PCIe area is covered in heatsinks/shrouds, with only the three full-length PCIe slots poking through. There is red highlighting in this area that gives way to gold highlights on the chipset heatsink. A second RGB lighting zone illuminates the chipset heatsink and Valkyrie symbol/branding. Overall the motherboard looks good and has a unique color scheme. For the most part, users should have few issues working this board in with their builds, as the red and gold highlights don’t stick out too much. That said, at the expected price, there are more refined boards available.

Focusing on the top half of the board, we get a close-up look at the louvered shroud covering the rear IO and left VRM bank. The right side uses a piece of acrylic that the RGB lighting shines through brightly. Just above are two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) for the CPU. To the right is the top VRM heatsink. To the right of the heatsink are the first two (of five) four-pin fan headers. CPU_Fan, CPU_OPT and SysFan1/2/3 support both three and four-pin fans. The manual doesn’t mention output, so it’s best to assume each supports 1A/12W.

Continuing right are four unreinforced DRAM slots supporting up to 128 GB of RAM. Biostar lists RAM speed up to DDR4 5000(OC), but as always, your mileage may vary. In our case, this board didn’t like to run our DDR4 3600 memory kit at 1:1 to the memory bus and was using Gear 2. I’m no memory overclocking expert, but if other boards are working 1:1 with DDR4 3600, there are few reasons this one shouldn’t be. We also had trouble running our DDR4 4000 sticks as well. But we’re still early days on this platform, and this board isn’t even available for sale in the US as of this writing, so we’re hopeful an update will improve these compatibility issues.

On the right edge are several items, including all three RGB lighting headers. The Valkyrie comes with two 3-pin ARGB headers and one 4-pin RGB header. Most boards come with four RGB headers (two of each), but I’d imagine few would run into problems with three. Below are three onboard buttons; Power, Reset and Clear CMOS, each backlit with red, orange and blue LEDs, respectively. Next is the 24-pin ATX connector that feeds power to the motherboard. Finally, just below that is the front panel USB 3.2 Gen2x2 header.

One of the places Biostar upped its game is with power delivery. The Valkyrie sports a 20+1+1 phase (CPU, System Agent, Graphics) VRM designed to run Intel’s flagship CPUs. The two 8-pin connectors feed power to a Renesas ISL69269 multi-phase controller (X+Y=12) through 10 Renesas ISL6617A phase doublers on its way to 20 90A ISL99390B MOSFETs. Some quick math yields 1800A of total power for the CPU. You won’t have any concerns with power delivery when overclocking.

Moving on to the bottom half of the board, we’ll start by looking at the audio section on the left side. Hidden under a plastic shroud is the Realtek ALC1220 codec. While this is a premium audio codec that most find plenty acceptable, it isn’t the latest and greatest (4000 series) that many other Z590 based boards use. Poking through the shroud are four Chemicon brand audio capacitors. We don’t find any fancy opamps or other audio features, but most users should be happy with the sound output by this board.

In the middle of the board, we spot three reinforced full-length PCIe slots mixed in with three M.2 sockets. The top and second slot are both wired to the CPU, yielding a PCIe 4.0 setup on both. The top slot is x16, while the 2nd slot runs at a maximum of x8. When both slots are populated, they run at x8/x8 speeds. Biostar mentions AMD Crossfire support, but not SLI (even though they have the required amount of PCIe lanes). The bottom full-length slot is connected to the chipset with PCIe 3.0 x4 capabilities.

The Biostar Z590 Valkyrie has three M.2 sockets, all of which have heatsinks to help keep the modules underneath running cool. The top socket is CPU-connected, supporting up to PCIe 4.0 x4 drives up to 80mm. The bottom two M.2 sockets support PCIe (3.0 x4) and SATA-based modules up to 110mm. When using a SATA-based M.2 module on the middle socket, SATA_5 is disabled. When using the bottom M.2 socket with a SATA-based M.2 module, SATA_6 is disabled. In short, if you have two SATA-based M.2 modules, that still leaves four SATA ports available and the primary M.2 socket for PCIe-based modules if needed. RAID support for M.2 devices wasn’t listed.

To the right is the chipset heatsink, you’ll see the Valkyrie symbol and additional RGB lighting. On the right edge of the board is a USB 3.2 Gen 1 header, while just below that are the six SATA ports (supports RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10). Finally, just below that is a BIOS switch that swaps between the dual BIOS - an excellent value add for a board equipped for overclocking.

The bottom edge of the motherboard is usually a mess of headers and ports, and while the Valkyrie has those, all headers (that aren’t fans) have plastic around them, which cleans up the look quite a bit. Below is the complete list of headers and switches, in order from left to right.

• Front Panel Audio
• (3) System Fan headers
• Thunderbolt
• COM
• (2) USB 2.0 headers
• Front Panel
• 2-character debug LED
•  LN2 switch
• TPM SPI header

On the USB front, there are a total of eight ports -- enough for most users. One USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C, five USB 3.2 Gen 2, and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. Just above the two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports is the Realtek 2.5 GbE port. If you plan on using the integrated graphics, you have a choice between HDMI (2.0) and DisplayPort (1.4) connections. There is a combo keyboard/mouse PS/2 port if you’re still hanging on to PS/2 based peripherals as well. Finally, we see a gold-plated 5-plug plus SPDIF audio stack.

Last but certainly not least, the rear IO area. Biostar uses an integrated IO plate that gives the board a more premium look and feel. It’s black, along with the Valkyrie branding written in gold above the Wi-Fi antenna connections. There are also vents cut out designed to bring cool air through the IO plate and through the fans to cool the left VRM bank. Remember that this board does not include Wi-Fi out of the box, so if you just look at the pictures and not dig down in the specifications, you could easily be misled. In order to get Wi-Fi out of this board, you will need to purchase a Key-E Wi-Fi card.

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Software

Biostar uses a single application called Aurora to cover multiple functions, including Fan control, RGB lighting, monitoring, overclocking and more. Once opened, there is a menu system in the left column with a larger right-hand side to display the information. With Aurora, you can control system volume (Smart Ear), canned power plans (GT Touch), RGBs (Vivid LED DJ), Fans (A.I Fan), hardware monitoring (H/W Monitor) and overclocking/overvolting (OC/OV).

Overall, I like this software. The user interface is easy to read and find the items you are looking for. Fan, RGB, and overclocking control worked without issue. I would like to see more temperatures in the hardware monitor section (VRMs, for example), but what’s there was informative, if only at a high level.

Firmware

To give you a taste of the Firmware, we’ve gathered screenshots showing most BIOS screens. Like most others, Biostar has both an EZ Mode and Advanced modes. The EZ Mode is informative, listing Boot Priority, system information, including CPU, Memory and storage information. You also have access to A.I. Fan, XMP functionality, and more. In the Advanced section, there are headings across the top to guide you to the right place. When overclocking, you’ll have to dig down into multiple sections to access everything you need, but it’s all there. The latest BIOS adds the ability to change the Gear modes for memory.

My primary pet peeve with Biostar BIOSes is how you enter some values. For power limits, in Watts, if I wanted to set it to 300W, I need to type in 300000. While this is simple to figure out (the BIOS says as much), why not just list it in watts? Voltage is volts. Why is this different? Even extreme overclockers don’t need that kind of granularity in that option. Minor quibbles aside, we had no issues working in the BIOS.

Test System

As of March 2021, we’ve updated our test system to Windows 10 64-bit OS (20H2) with all threat mitigations applied. On the hardware front, we’ve switched to all PCIe 4.0 components. We upgraded our video card to an Asus RTX 3070 TUF Gaming and the storage device to a 2TB Phison PS5-18-E18 M.2. Along with the hardware changes, we’ve also updated the games to F1 2020 and Far Cry: New Dawn. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted (typically during new releases). The hardware used is as follows:

Benchmark Settings

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Benchmark Results

Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including stock Thermal Velocity Boost), with all power-saving features enabled. Optimized defaults are set in the BIOS and the memory set using the XMP profiles. For this baseline testing, Windows is set to the balanced power plan.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetic tests are a great tool to figure out if a board runs out of spec, as identical settings should produce similar performance results. Advanced memory timings are the one place where motherboard makers can still optimize for either stability or performance, though, and those settings can impact some testing.

The Biostar board’s performance in the synthetic benchmarks was a bit inconsistent. In 7Zip, for example, compression results were the lowest we’ve seen, but the decompression results were in line with other boards. Cinebench results were spot on in that short-running test.

Timed Applications

LAME testing has the Valkyrie running this benchmark the fastest at 11.1 seconds, a full 0.3 seconds faster than the other boards. Meanwhile, the Corona test resulted in the second slowest time at 86 seconds (compared with an 83 second average for most other boards). Handbrake times were also on the slower side of most results. Biostar didn’t up a great showing here outside of the LAME results. Hopefully, an updated BIOS gives way to better memory performance and these results might improve.

3D Games and 3DMark

We’ve recently updated our game tests to F1 2020 and Far Cry: New Dawn. The games run at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset. As the resolution goes up, the CPU tends to have less of an impact. The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used resolution with settings most people use or at least strive for.

Our synthetic graphic tests, 3DMark Time Spy and Fire Strike, the Valkyrie scored the lowest here as well, but only by a very small amount. F1 2020 reached 207 frames per second (FPS) average, which was in line with the other results. In Far Cry: New Dawn, our board averaged 139 FPS, a couple of percent lower than the other boards we’ve tested, where most were in the mid 140 range. I’d imagine this is due in part to the low memory bandwidth issues we observed.

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

For power testing, we used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU and Cache enabled, using the peak power consumption value. With Rocket Lake, we need to disable AVX-512 instruction sets otherwise, temperatures are out of control at stock speeds on some boards. The wattage reading is from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter to capture the entire ecosystem. The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts are the same.

At idle (desktop, no applications running), the system used 61W from the wall, while during load it peaked at 259W. These results land in the middle of the pack and are nothing to worry about.

As we expected, the Valkyrie’s robust power delivery and active cooling kept the MOSFETs running nice and cool. During stock testing, they peaked at just over 50 degrees Celsius, while during overclocking, using almost 40W more, they ran just about the same temperatures. You can thank the active cooling for that. While we’re on the subject of fans, these things can get loud when under heavy loads. A simple fix is to adjust them manually. The whole power delivery system can handle anything you throw at it.

Overclocking

Overclocking with the Valkyrie was straightforward. After raising the power limits (using milliwatts) and adjusting LLC to mitigate vdroop (there was very little), away we went on the CPU. Our board handled the additional stress from the overclock without concern.

When overclocking the i9-11900K, we decided to do so by testing without AVX-512 instructions. When you unlock all of the power limits, you’re thermally limited with the CPU reaching 100 degrees Celsius in several seconds. Since every board is different from how they follow (or not follow) Intel specifications, we’ve removed that variable. The bottom line is that if you need to use these instructions, you’ll need to set a significant offset compared to non-AVX-512 loads. To that end, we settled on a 5.1 GHz overclock at around 1.3V. Our CPU uses around 225W in this configuration which lands between stock power use (195W) and AVX-512 power use (~265W) and is the end of the line due to thermal constraints.

On the memory front, the Valkyrie ran our DDR4 3600 kit at a 1:2 ratio out of the box. Although I certainly gave it a college try, I could not get this kit working at 1:1. Memory bandwidth was much slower than the other sticks no matter what we tried. I dropped in the DDR4 4000 2x8GB kit, but I also wasn’t able to get this stable enough to complete our 30-minute stress test, so went back to 32GB of DDR4 3600 which worked fine otherwise. Hopefully an updated BIOS comes out to get the 1:1 ratio working at higher speeds and memory compatibility improves. For now, stick to the QVL, and you should be fine.

Final Thoughts

Biostar’s Z590 Valkyrie has stepped up its game and brought a well-rounded board to market. Gone are the mediocre Biostar boards with paltry power delivery and minimal features, and in comes an incredibly capable (by power delivery) overclocking board. Along with the more robust power delivery, the Valkyrie has three M.2 sockets, two USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C ports (rear IO and front panel), and 2.5 GbE, which puts it up there with the big boys. Pricing wasn’t quite final when this was written, but Biostar expects the board to be in the $400-$450 range.

Performance out of the box was, in general, a bit slower than the rest. In some tests, like the AIDA64 memory tests, the results were really low, which also affected the outcome in some of the other tests. Once the BIOS gets ironed out and we see the appropriate memory bandwidth, these tests should respond well, making the board perform like any other. We’ll keep an eye out for new BIOS releases and follow up when that happens.

Outside of the curiously low memory performance and seeming inability to (currently) run 1:1 with DDR4 3600, the most frustrating part of this board is the inconsistent manner in which voltage or wattage is displayed/entered in the BIOS. While this is a minor thing, I do wish for consistency in the BIOS. There is no need to have two different values. This board should als have integrated Wi-Fi, especially if you’re going to include an antenna and show it in all the images.

As far as competition around the $400-$450 price range, there are a few boards that directly compete with the Z590 Valkyrie. The first example is the Gigabyte Z590 Aorus Master ($409.99) we’ve already reviewed, followed by the Asus ROG Strix Z590-E Gaming Wi-Fi ($379.99), and the ASRock Z590 Taichi ($429.99 - review soon!). All of these boards offer capable power delivery, three M.2 sockets and six SATA ports. All sport 2.5 GbE and integrated Wi-Fi (unlike the Biostar), though the brand changes with each (some Killer and Aquantia along with Intel). If you need Wi-FI, you’ll have to buy it separately here, while the other boards include it. To that end, we’d like to see the Valkyrie priced much closer to the $400 price point.

In the end, we love the improvements Biostar implemented on the Valkyrie. From its overkill power delivery,  two USB 3.2 Gen2x2 ports (one front panel) and its ability to overclock, there is a lot to like about this motherboard. But like many brand-new motherboards using a new chipset with a new CPU, there are some growing pains. That said, we expect things to improve with each new BIOS. Once all the kinks are worked out, particularly the woeful memory performance, the Valkyrie would be a solid option to build your Z590 based system.

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Evidently, not all reference Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards will arrive with the same clock speeds — Biostar (via VideoCardz) has listed a reference design that flaunts a small factory overclock.

Biostar refers to the graphics card as "VA67T6TEL9 Ver. RX6700XT M," although it's uncertain if that's the actual model name or the part number. The manufacturer used a render of AMD's reference Radeon RX 6700 XT, but the packaging itself has the "Extreme Gaming" label. The last bit may allude to the fact that Biostar's version is clocked higher than the usual reference edition.

AMD lists the Radeon RX 6700 XT with a 2,321 MHz base clock and game and boost clocks up to 2,424 MHz and 2,581 MHz, respectively. The Biostar Radeon RX 6700 XT features slightly higher clock speeds across the board. The graphics card arrives with a 2,330 MHz base clock, and game and boost clocks that scale to 2,433 MHz and 2,615 MHz, respectively. The increase in base and game clocks is negligible, while the boost clock showed a 1.3% uplift.

In case you missed AMD's announcement, the Radeon RX 6700 XT debuts with the Navi 22 silicon that's fresh out of TSMC's 7nm cooking oven. Navi 22 ushers in 40 Compute Units (CUs) for a grand total of 2,560 Streaming Processors (SPs). The graphics card also packs 40 ray accelerators. The Radeon RX 6700 XT offers 12GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory that runs across a 192-bit memory interface to supply a memory bandwidth up to 384 GBps. The number might look disillusioning, but let's not forget that AMD offsets the memory with 96MB of Infinity Cache.

The Radeon RX 6700 XT will hit the stores on March 18 for $479. The RDNA 2 graphics card will take on the GeForce RTX 3070, which starts at $499. With the graphics card shortage still transpiring, it might not be a battle of who is the fastest, but rather which card is readily available for purchase. AMD has promised to have substantially more Radeon RX 6700 XT stock at launch, so let's hope the chipmaker delivers.

Biostar has introduced two motherboards based on Intel's Z590 platform that belong to its all-new Valkyrie range. The new premium family includes two new boards, the ATX Z590 Valkyrie and a Mini-ITX Z590i Valkyrie,  models which are expected to address the needs of demanding gamers and enthusiasts offering them advanced features that they come to expect from high-end mainboards. 

For many years Biostar focused on entry-level, midrange, and specialized motherboards leaving lucrative higher-end platforms for gamers and enthusiasts to larger players. Several years ago, the company unveiled its Racing-series platforms designed for gamers, and while they were clearly not entry-level or niche products, they still did not compete directly with enthusiast-grade hardware. With its Valkyrie, Biostar wants to finally offer motherboards designed for enthusiasts who demand advanced overclocking capabilities along with a rich set of features.

The initial Biostar Valkyrie family includes two models that support Intel's processors in the LGA1200 packaging (Comet Lake-S, Rocket Lake-S): the Z590 Valkyrie and the Z590I Valkyrie. To maximize overclocking potential, both motherboards use 10-layer printed circuit boards (PCBs), Dr. MOS-based digital voltage regulating modules (VRMs) featuring solid-state inductors and capacitors as well as active cooling, and advanced memory circuitry. Due to different form-factors, the Mini-ITX Z590I Valkyrie uses a 10-phase VRM, whereas the ATX Z590 Valkyrie comes with a 22-phase VRM.

 Additional features include a sophisticated chipset cooling, iron-enforced PCIe x16 slots, more robust power connectors, and protected I/O ports.  

The smaller Biostar Z590I Valkyrie features two DDR4 memory slots that support up to 64GB of DDR4-5000 memory, one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot for graphics cards, four SATA connectors as well as one M.2-2280 slot for a PCIe 4.0 x4 or SATA SSD. 

The bigger Biostar Z590 Valkyrie carries four DDR4 memory slots to install up to 128GB of DDR4-5000 memory, three PCIe x16 slots for graphics cards (two PCIe 4.0 x16/x8, one PCIe 3.0 x16 working in x4 mode), six SATA connectors, and three M.2-2280 for SATA or PCIe drives. 

Being high-end offerings, Biostar's Z590I Valkyrie and Z590 Valkyrie motherboards offer rather advanced set of input/output technologies that includes a 2.5GbE port, an M.2-2230 slot for an optional Wi-Fi 6 adapter, multiple USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A connectors, one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port, two display outputs (DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0), and a 7.1-channel audio subsystem with 3.5-mm and optical connectors. 

Traditionally for enthusiast-grade motherboards, Biostar's Z590I Valkyrie and Z590 Valkyrie feature connectors for RGB LED strips as well as comes with software to control these LEDs. 

Biostar has been expanding its product lineups for some time now, so the introduction of higher-end motherboards is not exactly surprising. Nonetheless, Biostar's decision to compete directly with advanced platforms from the Big Four makers may be an important milestone for the industry because ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI have been commanding the retail motherboard market for about a decade now after second-tier mainboard makers refocused to other products. Of course, only time will tell whether Biostar will be able to compete with its bigger rivals successfully, but at least the company decided to try. 

Biostar yet has to disclose pricing of its Valkyrie-series motherboards, but it is safe to say that these platforms will be more expensive when compared to the company's Racing family of products.

In conjunction with Intel’s Rocket Lake CPU announcements, board partners pulled back the curtain on several new Z590-based motherboards to go along with the upcoming chip. The new motherboards promise native PCIe 4.0 support (with Rocket Lake CPUs), USB 3.2 Gen2x2 support from the chipset and upgraded power delivery. Best of all, we’ll get to see some new board designs. All of the major board partners have released a slate of options based on the new chipset -- many of which we’ll eventually review -- and a select few may even make it to our best motherboards page. 

On the CPU front, the Rocket Lake CPUs took a step backward on core count at the top end, with the flagship  Core i9-11900K set at 8-core/16-threads (like the i9-9900K had in 2018), while  the Core i9-10900K was a 10-core/20-thread part. But the reality is, that change won’t affect a lot of users. At this time, there aren’t many (possibly any) games that show a marked performance improvement above an 8-core/16-thread setup. And if your work needs more, you can step up to the HEDT platform or buy an AMD Ryzen 5000 series/X570 combination.

Helping to make up for the core count deficit, the new CPU architecture is supposed to bring significant IPC improvements as well as AVX-512 support, faster base memory speed (up to 3200 MHz), 20 CPU-connected PCIe 4.0 lanes, Intel Xe integrated graphics and more. As with previous launches, Intel will certainly fill out the product stack with other variants such as 6-core/12-thread processors down to 4-core/8-thread parts. When the time comes, we’ll have a full CPU review as well as an updated product list. Until then, we have some high-level information about the new Z590 chipset and the motherboards that go along with it to tide you over.

Intel Z590 Chipset: Same Socket, Different Features  

At the time of this writing, Intel has not released the full details of the Z590 chipset. However, we do know a few things that differentiate Z590 from the previous-gen Z490. Unlike Z390 to Z490, the LGA 1200 socket remains the same, which in this case means both Rocket Lake-S and Comet Lake-S chips will work with Z590 based motherboards; Z490 requires a BIOS update to work with Rocket Lake processors. In addition to the flagship Z590 chipset, Intel is also releasing B560 and H510 chipsets. Typically these lesser chipsets are locked to prevent overclocking. However, there are rumors of B560 overclocking. Stay tuned on that front.

The most significant difference between the two chipsets is native PCIe 4.0 support when using a Rocket Lake processor. A Rocket Lake CPU shares 20 PCIe PCIe 4.0 lanes between the PCIe slots/GPU and M.2 socket/storage. It feels like Intel has finally caught up to AMD’s B550 chipset, at least, but still isn’t close to the lane count and flexibility of X570.

Another significant difference with Z590 is the DMI link between the chipset and CPU. On Z590, Intel has doubled the link speed, going from PCIe 3.0 x4 to x8. The jump to x8 effectively doubles the amount of bandwidth available for any chipset-connected devices (storage and networking for example). Additionally, the chipset now has native support for USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps), so we should see these ultra-fast USB Type-A and Type-C ports on most Z590 motherboards.

Other differences are more subtle, outside of the native PCIe 4.0 support on all boards. Here’s a look at how Z590 compares with Intel’s previous mainstream flagship chipsets. Keep in mind some details are still uncertain as we wrote this.

Intel hasn’t shared too many details on the Rocket Lake CPU, including TDP. We know it will have a TDP/PL1 of 125W with a PL2 (turbo) power limit of 250W, with a 56-second duration. With fewer cores and threads to cool, perhaps thermal mitigation will be less of an issue on the new CPUs. But we’ll see the continued use of formidable VRMs and large heatsinks to keep these power-hungry CPUs in check. Some Halo products may include active cooling on the VRMs or even integrate water blocks to cool the VRMs and CPU. 

Memory support for the new CPUs also gets a small bump from DDR4 2933 to DDR4 3200 when using the new Rocket Lake-based processors. The new value now matches AMD’s official maximum for memory support. Some of the new boards support overclocked DDR4 to speeds well over 5000 MHz - similar to what we saw with Z490. As usual, your mileage will vary, and working with the correct CPU (with a good integrated memory controller) and memory kit is critical when chasing high memory clocks. That said, the sweet spot for memory speeds and performance per dollar is likely around where it currently is, DDR4 3600-3800 with CL14/16. Much beyond that and the kits’ price goes up sharply while performance doesn’t follow linearly.

The networking situation doesn’t change too much on Z590. The chipset continues integrated support for Intel CNVi Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi 6) and Wireless-AX. All the board partners need to do is add the Wi-Fi card to the board. You’ll find 2.5 Gb NICs on most boards on the wired front, while some flagships go higher with 5 GbE or 10 GbE. The budget boards will use 1 GbE, which is still acceptable for most users. Since most of you don’t have 1 Gb-plus internet service in the first place, the faster ports are still valuable for transfers within your network (assuming the slowest part is up to the task).  

Little is known about the USB configuration far, but we know that the USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbps) is supported natively. Port counts for USB USB 3.2 Gen1/2 (5/10 Gbps, respectively), haven’t been confirmed either, but we don’t expect it to change much from the six (Gen2) and 10 (Gen1) ports already supported.

No details were shared on the SATA3 6 Gbps port count, but we expect that to remain the same at six as well. Any motherboards with more than six ports use a third-party controller, typically from ASMedia. As mentioned earlier, the most significant difference is simply PCIe 4.0 support from the CPU. Intel has finally caught up to AMD on that front, at least with CPU-connected lanes. All of the fancy new PCIe 4.0 video cards have a native home on an Intel-based system. The performance difference with current-generation video cards usually isn’t much, but still worth having if only for faster storage capabilities. 

While Z590 has arrived, we still awhile to wait to see how the new CPUs fare, which is rather unfortunate. At some later point, lower-priced B560 and H510 chipset-based motherboards will be available. But at the time of this writing, there are over 45 Z590 boards to choose from. So if you’re looking to build a new system based on Intel’s latest, there should be something for everyone.  

Z590 Motherboards: The Full List (So Far)  

With the chipset details out of the way, we’ve provided a list of all Z590 motherboards announced and found on the various company websites. Board partners provided the information listed in the following tables. We’ll break things out by the company on the following page and offer some thoughts on the respective launch lineups. 

Sadly, US pricing is an essential piece of information that vendors haven’t provided yet, but we’ll fill in the chart as we receive the information. That said, early pricing info from Europe indicates that prices will be high, especially for flagship boards. 

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ASRock: 12 Boards

• 2.5GbE LAN on most SKUs
• WiFi 6(6E) on some boards

ASRock’s Z590 motherboard lineup consists of 12 SKUs -- 10 ATX, one Micro ATX (mATX) and one Mini-ITX (mITX). The Taichi appears to be the flagship, followed by the Velocita and Extreme boards slotting below it. Next, the now-familiar Phantom Gaming line occupies the mid-range space, while the Extreme 4 and Steel Legend boards fill in the entry-level spots.  

On the networking side of things, each board features (up to) a 2.5 GbE port (Either Killer- or Realtek-based) while other, more budget-oriented boards include a single 1 GbE port from Intel. Any board that includes Wi-Fi supports the integrated CNVi on the chipset and WI-Fi 6 capability. 

For those who need more than the native six SATA ports, the Z590 Taichi includes eight. Multiple boards, including the Taichi, Extreme, and PG Velocita, offer three M.2 sockets. The smaller Phantom Gaming-ITX TB3 and the ATX Taichi and Velocita include active cooling on the VRM heatsinks to keep temperatures down under heavy loads. ASRock chose the Realtek ALC1200 and ALC1220 codecs for audio, along with Nahimic software support. Like most boards these days, all will also have their share of integrated RGB lighting and headers, along with multiple fan headers, as do most of these motherboards today.

Asus: 6 Boards

• Teamed Power Architecture (Maximus XIII boards)
• Optimem III for High-Frequency Memory Speeds
• AI Overclocking Based on CPU quality and Cooler Efficiency
• 2.5GbE and 10GbE NIC Available along with Wi-Fi 6

Asus’ initial lineup consists of six boards, with the rest filling out in the weeks and months to come. Out of the gate are samples from almost each of the company’s internal market segments, including the ROG Maximus (XIII Extreme/Hero), ROG Strix (Z590-E Gaming), TUF Gaming Z590-Plus (Wi-Fi), and the Prime Z590-A. What’s currently missing is the Pro Art series. 

The premium gaming- and overclocking-focused ROG Maximus XII (MXII) series continue to bring the best of what the platform has to offer from Asus. Large passive heatsinks help cool the 18+2-phase teamed VRMs below, save for on the Glacier, which includes a water block for the CPU and VRMs.  

Asus includes AI overclocking from the BIOS or the AI Suite that tests the processor to see which cores are best. Like ASRock, CPU quality and efficiency determine the outcome. All Maximus boards include at least a 2.5 Gb LAN, with the Extreme using Marvell AQtion AQC107 10GbE. You’ll also find up to 8 SATA ports and four M.2 slots in this lineup.  

The ROG Strix series historically spans several boards in various sizes, including ATX, Micro ATX, and Mini-ITX. All employ a robust VRM design, but details are scarce. The Strix Z590-E Gaming WiFi we know about uses a 14+2 configuration, the same (by count) as the Maximus XIII Hero and TUF Gaming. All boards include the Supreme FX S1220A codec and will have multiple RGB LED headers, for your audio and visual pleasure. 

A bit down the product stack, the Asus Prime motherboards (Z590-A right now) target gaming and productivity users. These boards use a solid VRM design and employ some of the more high-end features, including AI Overclocking, a pre-mounted IO shield, 2.5 Gb LAN, and front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 2. 

The TUF series boards are geared more toward gamers with more modest budgets and needs. Users still get capable power delivery and heatsinks, integrated Wi-Fi 6 on the Plus (Wi-Fi), USB 3.2, and USB 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gbps) Type-C ports. Audio is handled by a Realtek ALC S1200A. Although not the company’s flagship, it’s still adequate for most users.

Biostar: 3 Boards

• Up to 22 Phase Power Design
• Wi-Fi 6 Capabilities on All Boards

Biostar is releasing three Z590 based boards -- two ATX and one Mini-ITX. All boards include Wi-Fi 6 and have stepped up to 2.5 GbE (Z490 was all 1 GbE). Both ATX boards sport a solid VRM phase count and will support stock operation and overclocking, while the VRM on the mATX board was not listed. These Biostar boards lacked the punch to overclock flagship-level CPUs well in the past. Here’s to hoping the updated boards improve on that side, as the value and features are typically on point. 

EVGA: 2 Boards

• 22-phase VRM (Dark)

EVGA Z590 boards consist of the familiar Z590 Dark and Z590 FTW. The Dark is the flagship board in an E-ATX form factor, sporting a beefy 18-phase VRM around the socket. The FTW model uses a lesser, but still capable, 17-phase power delivery. Memory support wasn’t listed when we wrote the article, but we expect to see the similar values compared to the Z490 counterparts. 

The FTW has six SATA ports on the storage front, four of which are sourced from the chipset, while two come from an ASMedia controller. The Dark includes eight total SATA ports, six from the chipset and the other two from ASMedia. Both boards have two M.2 PCIe ports (one of which is PCIe 4.0 x4) and will fit up to 110 mm drives. 

The Realtek ALC12220 codecs handle audio on both boards with NU Audio software support. Both the FTW and Dark include a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port and several standard Gen2 and Gen1 ports. As usual, availability on these boards will be after initial release.  

Gigabyte: 8 Boards

• 60-100A VRMs
• Daisy Chain + Shielded Memory Routing
• 2.5 GbE-plus on all models

Gigabyte joins the Z590 fray with eight different SKUs initially, ranging from the gaming-centric Aorus line, featuring a familar naming convention (Xtreme, Master, Ultra, Elite, etc.), to the new Tachyon SKU. Power delivery in the Aorus line ranges from 21 to 13 phases with up to 100A MOSFETs (Extreme and Tachyon boards). Cooling these are large heatsinks, some connected via heatpipe, but all passively cooled. Some of the notable differences between the Aorus boards reside in VRM phase count and MOSFET capability and the number of M.2 slots (3 or 4). The boards include six SATA ports, aside from the Ultra, with four.  

Additionally, all Gigabyte boards use a 2.5 GbE or greater. All listed boards outside of the Z590 Aorus Elite include Wi-Fi 6. Overall, the Aorus boards have the most features, and with that, a higher price tag. 

Missing from this initial list are the Vision motherboards and the more entry-level Ultra Durable line. We should see the product stack fill out as time goes on. All boards use a Realtek solution on the audio side, either the premium ALC1220 codec or the new ALC4080 codec.   

As far as the Xtreme Waterforce at the top, not much is known outside of what we see below. We know it includes hybrid cooling already installed, with the other features similar to the Xtreme. The only thing missing here is a Micro-ATX board, but we expect to see that and the rest of the lineup down the road.

MSI: 14 Boards

• 2.5 GbE LAN or Faster for All Models
• Tabbed Routing for Memory (support up to DDR4 5000)

MSI hits the Z590 scene with 14 SKUs across its MEG, MPG, MAG and Pro lines. There are three high-end SKUs in the MEG series, the Godlike, Ace, and the Unify boards. All use a mirrored power arrangement with the flagship Godlike sporting a full 20 phases with 90A MOSFETs. The rest of the boards outside of the Z90I Unify all use phase doublers.

Additionally, the MEG-class boards have the highest rated memory support at DDR4 5333 (up from 5200/4800 for Z490). All MEG boards sport six SATA ports and three M.2 sockets, while the Godlike takes that to another level with four M.2 sockets on the board and two from the M.2 Expander card, totalling six. They also include 2.5 and 10 Gb NICs and integrated Wi-Fi 6. Last, the MEG Ace includes a ‘Lightning’ USB 3.2 Gen 2 (20 Gbps) port as well--one of several that have incorporated this feature. 

Moving down the product stack, the MPG line consists of four boards, all using a ‘duet’ rail power delivery. We find the Gaming Carbon WiFi, Gaming Force (new SKU), Gaming Edge WiFi, the Micro-ATX Gaming Edge WiFi, and the Gaming Plus. The ATX-size boards sport six SATA ports (mATX is four) and have three M.2 slots. All MPG boards with “WiFi” in the name have integrated Wi-Fi 6 capabilities. If you need more speed out of your USB ports, all MPG boards include a USB 3.2 Gen2 (20 Gbps) port, too. 

The MAG Tomahawk, MAG Torpedo and A Pro serve different markets: gamer and creators, respectively, and look different. However, their hardware configuration is similar, sharing the same capable design for power and the same number of SATA ports and M.2 slots. Both sport 2.5 Gb NICs.

That’s it for now, though it’s already a lot! As noted earlier, we’ll fill in some of the question marks above as we get more info, as well as dropping in pricing once that arrives as well. While it still feels like Intel is playing catch-up on the platform front, the addition of PCIe 4.0 support and a doubled DMI link makes the feature sets between the two X86 rivals feel a lot closer than it has since at least launch of X570 a year and a half ago. 

Time will tell whether the claimed 19% IPC increase on the upcoming Rocket Lake-S CPU will help Intel retake the gaming crown and offset the loss of a couple cores on the top-end Core i9-11900K. But one thing is clear: Intel’s board partners are ready and waiting to give Rocket Lake-S some extra thrust. And if Ryzen 5000 shortages remain a serious issue much longer, eager enthusiasts who’ve been waiting since last year to put together a new build could give Intel’s latest platform another big boost.  

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Chinese media outlet MyDrivers recently reported that Intel's B460 and H410 chipsets are out of stock and could ultimately result in increased motherboard pricing during the first quarter of 2021. We've consulted with our own industry source, confirming that a shortage of lower-end chipsets is taking hold. 

It's no surprise that the hardware industry is in a rough place right now, and consumers are the ones to suffer. Now, adding to the pain of the ongoing shortages of graphics cards and AMD processors, Intel's B460 and H410 chipsets might not be far behind. To make matters even worse, PCBs and other electronic components necessary for motherboard manufacturing are either out of stock, or the prices have risen substantially.

According to MyDrivers, motherboard manufacturers received the last wave of B460 and H410 shipments this month, and supply isn't likely to improve in January. The report says that Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI have adjusted their shipment strategies and will raise pricing. Although the report doesn't provide specifics, MyDrivers claims that ASRock and Biostar are in an even worse situation.

While B460 and H410 chipsets might be in a bad place, the supply for Z490 chipsets is tolerable. This is because Z490 is built on the 14nm process node, while the B460 and H410 chipsets are manufactured with the older 22nm process node. 

The same strategy reportedly applies to Intel's forthcoming 500-series chipsets for Rocket Lake-S, too. The Z590 chipset is rumored to be manufactured with the 14nm process, while the B560 and H510 chipsets come out of the 22nm oven. Intel likely put the previous-gen 22nm chipsets on the backburner so it could build up enough inventory for the looming 500-series motherboard launch, which is rumored to take place at CES 2021. The official Rocket Lake-S launch is rumored to follow later in the first quarter. 

We've heard through the grapevine that supply for the Z590 chipset will be limited too, although inventory isn't at the point of shortage – all of which is normal surrounding the launch of a new line of chipsets. 

However, Intel reportedly recommended that its motherboard partners order more B460 and H410 chipsets in advance because supply will be very tight in the upcoming months. There's no definitive timeline on how long the shortage will last, but it may endure throughout the first quarter of 2021. 

Although Intel never explicitly expressed it, the general expectation was the impending 11th Generation Rocket Lake processors would slot fine into the current LGA1200 motherboard with the 400-series chipset. If there was any doubt, multiple motherboard manufacturers have officially confirmed the processors' backward compatibility.  

ASRock, for one, has already updated various product pages to affirm support for Rocket Lake. The new description now reads "Supports 10th Gen Intel® Core Processors and 11th Gen Intel Core Processors (LGA1200)," with the latter alluding to Intel's Rocket Lake-S chips. Thus far, the preliminary list of motherboards (via momomo_us) includes the various offerings from different tiers, such as the Z490 Aqua, Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3, Z480 Creator, and H470 Steel Legend.

On the other hand, Biostar reportedly shared a banner advertising Rocket Lake-S support on the brand's Z490 motherboards. The vendor has also updated the motherboard product pages to reflect the change. However, it would appear that Rocket Lake-S's rapport might only be with the company's Z490 motherboards since the B460 product pages don't proclaim support for 11th Generation chips.

While it's possible to enable Rocket Lake-S processors on all LGA1200 motherboards, we suspect that support will vary from one motherboard vendor to another. Besides the shift to the Cypress Cove microarchitecture, one of Rocket Lake-S's biggest attraction is PCIe 4.0 support. Nonetheless, some vendors might not have initially purposed some of their 400-series offering to support PCIe 4.0, especially the entry-level motherboards. That could be the explanation of why Biostar didn't mention Rocket Lake-S support on non-Z490 motherboards.

The current consensus is that Intel will probably take advantage of CES 2021 to announce Rocket Lake-S, which should come accompanied by new 500-series motherboards. Availability, however, is another story. If one Twitter user's roadmap is genuine, Intel might not commence Rocket Lake-S mass production until January 2021, meaning that the processors won't be hit the retailer shelves until February or even March.

Biostar has announced the new B550M-Silver motherboard for gamers, mainstream users and content creators. The motherboard aims to offer high-performance within an accessible price point.

Like its name suggests, Biostar's new offering features a black PCB with some passive heatsinks slathered in a silver color to accentuate the design. Powered by AMD's B550 chipset, the B550M-Silver comes in a standard microATX form factor and with native support for Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors. The motherboard is armed with four DDR4 memory slots that support frequencies over DDR4-4400 and a maximum capacity of 128GB of memory.

High-speed storage options on the B550M-Silver consist of one speedy M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slot and a standard M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slot. Both accept SSDs with lengths up to 80mm, whether they're SATA-or PCIe-based. However, you'd want to use the latter if you want to exploit the interfaces' full performance. The motherboard also lands with six conventional SATA III connectors.

In terms of expansion, the B550M-Silver supplies a single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot for AMD's Radeon RX 6000 (Big Navi) or Nvidia's GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere) graphics cards. There's also a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot that runs at x4 and a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot for you to connect your other devices that are less bandwidth hungry.

The B550M-Silver doesn't suffer from slow Internet connectivity either. The motherboard has a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, which is based of the Realtek RTL8125B controller. There is support for Wi-Fi 6 too, but you'll have to buy your own wireless card to get that feature.

In case you plan to use the B550M-Silver with a compatible APU, the motherboard puts one DVI-D port, one HDMI port and one DisplayPort output at your disposal. The motherboard also comes with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse combo port, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and two USB 2.0 ports.

The Realtek ALC1150 codec takes care of the audio workloads on the B550M-Silver. The motherboard has three standard 3.5mm audio jacks, but support 7.1-channel audio.

Biostar didn't reveal when the B550M-Silver will be available or how much it'll cost.

AMD has officially stated that Ryzen 5000 support for the 400 series chipset will be coming in 2021, but that doesn't appear to be the case anymore. Three companies have shared (so far) that they will support AMD's new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs before 2021, Biostar, Asrock, and Asus. With Asrock already having beta BIOS's ready for the shiny new CPUs.

To ensure compatibility, you'll need a BIOS for your specific B450 motherboard that supports AGESA 1.0.8.1 at the very minimum. This AGESA code enables Ryzen 5000 Renoir compatibility. In order to get the full performance out of your Ryzen 5000 CPU you'll need to make sure your B450 motherboard has a BIOS supporting AGESA 1.1.0.0 or greater.

Biostar has said via Twitter that they will be supporting Ryzen 5000 CPUs coming soon, whether that's before 2021 or after 2021 we are not sure. Regarding Asus, they are more straight forward with the deadline, marking a December release for AGESA 1.1.8.0 BIOS's that will be available for all its 400 series motherboards (not just B450). 

Asrock is the strangest of the three though; reportedly Asrock has released beta BIOS's for its entire B450 lineup of boards (no word on X470), but quickly withdrew them from the public eye. AnandTech covered the strange occurrence and they have no idea why the BIOS updates were pulled.

As for the remaining motherboard manufacturers like MSI, and Gigabyte (to name a few), they have kept quiet on the matter. Presumably, these remaining companies will be waiting until Q1 of 2021 -- as AMD has said (which is the official deadline) -- before releasing new BIOS's for the Ryzen 5000 CPUs.

So for now, there are still no official BIOS updates for B450 motherboards that support the new AGESA codes and thus the new Ryzen 5000 processors. But fortunately, it looks like Asrock, Asus, and presumably, Biostar will offer support before 2021.

According to a report from ComputerBase, Biostar is joining Asus and MSI in supporting the new Ryzen 5000 (Zen 3) CPUs on its B450 and X470 motherboards. That's encouraging - because it isn't a strict requirement from AMD, it's up to motherboard makers to decide if they want to support the new chips on older platforms. Seeing a smaller player like Biostar participate bodes well for broader support for Zen 3 on 400-series motherboards; we expect that the remaining hold outs, Gigabyte and ASRock, will follow suit. 

Biostar will begin adding support at the beginning of 2021 with a beta BIOS featuring AGESA code Combo-AM4 v2 1.1.0.0. 

Luckily, Biostar's 400-series boards will keep all features intact in BIOS, meaning there will be no need to strip anything out to make way for Zen 3 support, like the cut-down GUIs we see with some motherboards.

However, if things go according to plan, backward compatibility with Zen 2 will be dropped once you upgrade to a Zen 3 supported BIOS, so beware, it is a one-way trip.

Ryzen 5000-series CPUs will drop on November 5, but again, you'll have to wait until January 2021 before you can run a Zen 3 CPU in your 400-series chipset motherboard.  

It seems like an unusual time to release a B450 motherboard, but Biostar has done just that and launched the B450NH for AMD's chips. The motherboard accommodates Ryzen processors from Summit Ridge to Matisse and Ryzen APUs from Bristol Ridge through Picasso.

The B450NH, which is based on the B450 chipset, comes in a mini-ITX form factor with two DDR4 memory slots. The motherboard supports memory speeds up to DDR4-4000 and capacities up to 64GB. Surprisingly, the B450NH plays nice with both non-ECC and ECC memory modules.

Biostar equips the B450NH with four SATA III connectors that support RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays. However, you only receive one M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slot for ultra-fast SSDs up to a maximum length of 80mm. There is a small catch though. Older APUs, such as Bristol Ridge and Raven Ridge processors only support SATA-based M.2 drives.

Biostar's B450NH incorporates two Realtek products. The RTL8111H Ethernet controller provides a single Gigabit Ethernet port for Internet connectivity. The ALC887 audio codec, on the other hand, handles the audio responsibilities. The motherboard comes with three 3.5mm audio jacks for your audio devices.

The motherboard has a HDMI port and D-Sub port, but you'll need to pair it with a Ryzen APU to make use of them since Ryzen processors lack integrated graphics. The rear panel also houses a PS/2 combo port, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports. For added connectivity, Biostar has placed a USB 2.0 header and USB 3.2 Gen 1 header on the B450NH with each header capable of delivering up to two corresponding ports.

Biostar didn't reveal the pricing or availability for the B450NH.

Though Biostar might not be the first that comes to mind when purchasing a motherboard, the company does make some pretty good value offerings, as evident from two new releases: the Racing Z490A-SILVER & the Racing Z490T-SILVER (spotted by techPowerUp).

These 'Silver' boards come in with ATX and Mini-ITX formats, packing the basic features one needs on boards like these but without going overboard on expensive goodies and eyecandy. 

The ATX board, the Racing Z490A-SILVER places four DDR4 memory slots next to its LGA1200 socket, complemented by two PCIe x16 slots below, though the second one is only wired to four lanes. It also comes with USB 3.2 Gen 1. The board also comes with two full-spec M.2 slots and one more for installing a WiFi card in.

On the Mini-ITX side, naturally, some compromises have to be made. There are only two DDR4 memory slots and a single PCI-Express x16 slot, and the M.2 slot is on the rear of the motherboard. It does come with USB 3.1 Gen 1 though, and it also has WiFi built onto the board.

No word on pricing yet, but you can expect these boards to be among the more affordable Z490 options in the $150 to $175 range.

Over the past few months since its launch at the end of April, wev’e looked at several boards based around Intel’s latest mainstream Z490 chipset, covering mid-range boards and most of the flagships. Now it’s time for a deep dive into four of five small Mini-ITX motherboards including a close look at features, performance and more, to give you the information needed to make an informed purchase of a small form factor (SFF) Z490-based motherboard.

Specifically, we’ll be looking at the ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 ($279.99), Asus ROG Strix Z490-I Gaming ($299.99), Biostar Z490GTN ($199.99) and the Gigabyte Z490I Aorus Ultra ($269.99). We also reached out to MSI, but the company didn’t get a board to us in time for this roundup.

All of these little boards support up to the flagship Intel Core i9-10900K processor, with some mentioning PCIe 4.0 support for the GPU and a single M.2 port (requires a future processor), just like their larger peers. Note though, that PCIe 4.0 will only work with future Intel Rocket Lake CPUs. Motherboard partners came up with creative ways to fit features on these smaller boards, including stacking M.2 sockets, with others using riser cards for things like SATA, RGB/Fan headers. Unlike larger boards, these smaller models include just two DIMM slots with up to 64GB of memory support, as well as four SATA ports. From there, each board offers different features.

Highlights out of the way, all four of the boards performed admirably in our testing suite. Those that were loose with Intel specifications out of the box (ASRock, Asus and Gigabyte) performed as well as their larger peers in most tests. However, the Biostar Z490GTN adheres to Intel more strict specifications. As a result, in heavy longer tests (handbrake for example), the Biostar board can be notably slower than the competition due to this adherence and some current-limit throttling. 

The ASRock, Asus, and Gigabyte boards overclocked our power-hungry CPU without issue, while the Biostar simply isn’t capable of handling our overclock without immediately running into current limits. Below we’ll dig into the specifications and features, performance and overclocking for all four boards. 

We’ll start with the Biostar Z490GTN and subsequent boards with a detailed specifications table followed by a board overview. Testing and concluding thoughts will follow on the later pages.

Specifications - Biostar Z490GTN