Biostar Racing X470GT8 Review: Ryzen Higher For Less

Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Our benchmark and power measurements use DDR4-2400 DRAM defaults with all CPU-based power saving technologies enabled in firmware.

Synthetic Benchmarks

The Racing X470GT8 takes a slight lead in 3DMark scores across three tests, though it started out down a little in the graphics score of our lowest settings.  Everything looks normal in PCMark, and even Sandra Memory Bandwidth is spot-on.

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With no clear indication of performance differentiation in our longer Cinebench and Compubench tests, it’s time to see if any of these boards stands out in games.

3D Games

Though it lagged behind by a measly 1 FPS in our lowest F1 2015 test, the Racing X470GT8 appears to have an overall lead of approximately 1 FPS across the average of titles and settings.

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Timed Applications

The Racing X470GT8 wins a couple of our shorter timed tests, and loses a few longer ones, as if its throttling back slightly over time. That doesn’t seem to affect Adobe After Effects results however, so maybe the other small differences occurred by happenstance?

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Power, Heat, & Efficiency

The Racing X470GT8 throttled back a little more than its competitors under heavy CPU load, which had a greater impact on our power and heat measurements than on performance metrics, so we’re going to ask users to take the results with a grain of salt. The actual difference between it and the other boards was around 125MHz, which should be around 10W according to our observations, and we can’t get a more-precise number by which a true measure of efficiency would be possible.

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Overclocking

The Racing X470GT8 had the greatest amount of voltage sag, resulting in the lowest full-load CPU core voltage, yet still held a higher stable frequency at 4.30GHz. Evidence of the lower voltage reported in software was affirmed in a power reading of around 260W at 4.3GHz full-load, rather than the approximate 267W of the boards that achieved only 4.25 and 4.27 GHz.

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DRAM overclocking was nearly impossible, and while retesting with faster-rated modules was an option, the modules we’re using are known to blow past DDR4-4000 on certain other motherboards.

Final Thoughts

Cheapskates love performance-per-dollar charts, because they typically show the board with the fewest features as having the best value. On the other hand, the more-expensive competitors do have a few features that we’d like to use.

For example, both competing boards here have dual M.2 storage slots. The hyper-expensive X470 Taichi Ultimate also includes 10Gb Ethernet, in addition to an identical Gigabit Ethernet controller and a low-end Wi-Fi controller. That sounds like a great configuration for builders who would like their most-powerful system to also be a media hub for their entire home. But the difference in price is quite excessive at $120. Heck, you could almost buy a second Racing X470GT8 for that price premium!

The Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi sits in the middle with a vastly superior Wi-Fi controller, but no 10Gb Ethernet. Gigabyte has the firmware and RGB control nailed down tight on that board, making it a great choice for people who are willing to pay for things done right. But from a features standpoint, it’s still hard to give that board the extra $75 credit it would need to keep up with the Racing X470GT8’s pricing value.

The modestly-priced Racing X470GT8 thus gets an extra point for value, and that puts it into award territory. As editor, I hate giving such a poor DRAM overclocking board an “Editor’s Choice”, but perhaps that’s only because I’m also a DRAM editor. But superior CPU overclocking at a price that easily undercuts the competition is enough to make this board a winner, even if it's not great at pushing memory to the highest possible clock speeds.

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