Asus TUF X470-Plus Gaming Review: Attractive Value

Test Configuration & Benchmark Results

Comparison Products

Test System Configuration

Since the initial X470 launch (including the excellent Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7), we’ve upgraded our memory configuration with a four-piece set of Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4-3466 of the company's limited edition High Contrast SKU. The aesthetic is attractive, and we hope to hit higher memory speeds in our overclocking section on subsequent reviews.

We were sampled a Ryzen 7 2700X box sample from AMD for use with our test bench, which is cooled by the Corsair H110i 240mm AIO cooler. With the updated processor, it's time to upgrade our GPU from our trusty GTX 970 to a respectable MSI GTX 1080. Our test monitor is a 4k LG variant that enables us to test FHD, WQHD, and UHD for all our gaming benchmarks.

We still employ the Toshiba RD400 256GB M.2 NVMe drive for storage, and various hard drives for Steam Libraries and miscellaneous software.

Benchmark Suite

For our purposes today, we'll include our launch X470 data (which included our older test bench running a 1700X and GTX 970) just to give some perspective.  Also, we're going to include results for the MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC which we're also in the processor of reviewing, to give us a complete set of X470 data for analysis today.

Also note: We are only comparing the three X470 boards against themselves for any value or performance wins here. But we do add the testing data for the 1700X into the mix to show what an older system looks like stacked up against a more modern machine. With that said, let’s look at some charts.  

Test Results: Synthetics and Applications

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This batch of synthetics starts out with PCMark 8, and it may be the least-exciting data we’ve seen to date. Comparing all the 2700X data, we see on average only 1 percentage point separating the Gigabyte from the TUF, with the largest deltas seen in the Adobe benchmark. Comparing against 2017’s test bench, we see a much-more-substantial 9% increase in performance in all workloads except the storage suite.

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With Sandra, we see similar tight margins across all samples, but this time the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 comes out ahead in all but the memory suite.  The Asus stumbles across the finish line in Sandra, but excels in the IOmeter test. We see some very odd results with our Cinebench run, where the MSI sample takes a pretty drastic hit in performance of roughly 8 percent compared to the Asus and Gigabyte samples. MSI does stand up to the challenge though, showing strong results with Compubench. But the Asus TUF X470-Plus Gaming takes another last place finish among the GTX 1080 systems.

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Our gaming synthetics consist of 3DMark’s Skydiver, Firestrike, and Firestrike Extreme, which are all pretty light for this system. The TUF takes second place in Skydiver and Firestrike, but it appears that not even the updated processor or graphics card can help lift our 1440p results of Firestrike Extreme. It's interesting to note that the Asus TUF X470-Plus Gaming takes a hit with Graphics in Skydiver. The physics score helps lift the Combined metric up, showing a pretty good balance for the platform as a whole.

In application tests, the Asus and Gigabyte samples fare well with Handbrake, besting the MSI by nearly four minutes and rendering the Sintel 4k video. The TUF Alliance board shows promising results with the Adobe suite, with the MSI sample starting to pick up steam. Asus continues to take the top spot with the Productivity apps and File Compression shows a 7 second win before the trailing competitor.

With Synthetic performance like this, the Asus TUF X470-Plus Gaming is off to a good start in our test bench. With any luck, the trend will continue in its intended environment: real-world gaming.

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