After briefly showing off the EVGA X570 Dark, Vince "K|NGP|N" Lucido has taken the motherboard for a spin. The famous overclocker pushed the Ryzen 3 5300G's FCLK up to 2,433 MHz under liquid nitrogen (LN2).
The EVGA X570 Dark is a premium motherboard that's tailored toward extreme overclocking enthusiasts. We don't doubt that the engineers have added some optimizations for memory overclocking. That's not to discredit AMD's Ryzen 5000G (Cezanne) processors, which have become the favorite toys for overclockers.
Lucido had the Ryzen 3 5300G was running at 5.5 GHz with its FCLK to 2,433 MHz. In a 1:1 ratio with the memory clock, this means that the Ryzen 3 5300G can exploit DDR4-4866 memory without any latency penalizations. The overclocker didn't settle for sloppy timings, either. He tightened the timings all the way down to 14-13-12-21 (1T).
It's clear that the EVGA X570 Dark motherboard can handle a high FCLK, though at the end of the day, your mileage will vary, depending on your APU's IMC. Aaron Bakaitis, another overclocker, claimed that he got his FCLK up to 2,550 MHz or DDR4-5100 without breaking the 1:1 ratio.
The really good Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) samples typically peak at a 2,000 MHz FCLK (DDR4-4000) so the Ryzen 5000G's 2,550 MHz (DDR4-5100) is a big feat. Naturally, APUs benefit from fast memory, but they also target entry-level gamers so it's unlikely that someone would blow tons of money on a memory kit.
Lucido said in his Facebook post that the EVGA X570 Dark motherboard is ready, insinuating that it will arrive very soon to compete with tbe best Z590 overclocking motherboards. There's still no word on the pricing. Given the price tags on previous Dark motherboards, it wouldn't surprise us one bit if the X570 Dark carries a price tag in the $500 range.
