Biostar Racing X470GT8 Review: Ryzen Higher For Less

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A recent change in memory configuration forced us to begin our X470 testing anew, beginning with a retest of Gigabyte’s X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi, followed by the newly added ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate. These two full-ATX boards stand as our baseline for comparing the far-more-economical Biostar Racing X470GT8.

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SoundIntegrated HD audio
NetworkIntegrated gigabit networking
Graphics DriverGeForce 399.24

The same platform that cooled the intense heat of our X299 motherboards works equally well with AMD’s AM4 processors, as proven in the overclocking evaluation of our next page.

Comparison Products

Benchmark Settings

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Synthetic Benchmarks & Settings
PCMark 8Version 2.7.613 Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
3DMark 13Version 4.47.597.0 Skydiver, Firestrike, Firestrike Extreme Default Presets
SiSoftware SandraVersion 2016.03.22.21 CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD4K Random Read, 4K Random Write 128K Sequential Read, 128K Sequential Write
Cinebench R15Build RC83328DEMO OpenGL Benchmark
CompuBenchVersion 1.5.8 Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
Application Tests & Settings
LAME MP3Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x265 mp4
BlenderVersion 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark, BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-ZipVersion 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Adobe After Effects CCRelease 2015.3.0, Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark-driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CCRelease 2015.5.0, 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark-driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CCRelease 2015.4, Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark-driven routine
Adobe IllustratorRelease 2015.3.0, Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark-driven routine
Game Tests & Settings
Ashes of the SingularityVersion 1.31.21360 High Preset - 1920 x 1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920 x 1080, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 20152015 Season, Abu Dhabi track, Rain Medium Preset, no AF Ultra High Preset, 16x AF
Metro: Last Light ReduxVersion 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920 x 1080, High Tesselation, 16x AF Very High Quality, 1920 x 1080, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF
The Talos PrincipleVersion 267252 Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF Ultra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF

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Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
  • Ratlle
    Thank you Mr. Soderstrom i'll wait for your Benchmark Results & Final Analysis.Seems like here you don't have the MSI control features .
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    Price seems a bit high, with it lacking SLI support. If I were to build an ATX Ryzen build today, I would probably use an ASRock - X470 Master SLI/AC.
    Reply
  • Rexer
    First build was a Biostar 12 yrs. ago. Didn't last 6 months so I haven't paid much attention to them. Replaced it with a Foxcon board. Doesn't sound like I'm a winner. I don't see any audio chips in usual places. How's the audio quality or did I miss something? Like to know what it would do with a superb sound card. Maybe feed it into a home audio pre-amp. Tired of coming home to good whiskey and crappy sound.
    Reply
  • thrones.rush
    its not sheer resistance by the way.its shear resistance, as in how much force needed to shear it off
    Reply
  • Crashman
    21377924 said:
    First build was a Biostar 12 yrs. ago. Didn't last 6 months so I haven't paid much attention to them. Replaced it with a Foxcon board. Doesn't sound like I'm a winner. I don't see any audio chips in usual places. How's the audio quality or did I miss something? Like to know what it would do with a superb sound card. Maybe feed it into a home audio pre-amp. Tired of coming home to good whiskey and crappy sound.
    It has the same ALC1220 as nearly anything it competes against. You can read more about the circuitry at the board's microsite, but I think Biostar would be better off if it hired you to write the dang thing :D

    Reply
  • Calculatron
    Unfortunate about the DRAM issues!

    I've been keeping an eye on Biostar for a while, now, since they've really upped their game and quality over the last couple years. When I rebuilt my rig around the X370 platform, it was a really hard choice between the Gigabyte Aorus K7 and Biostar GT7. I ended up going with the Gigabyte product, but only because I managed to catch an Amazon Warehouse deal.
    Reply
  • lpide
    Seems like a good deal, even with limited DRAM overclocking.

    Good to see them coming back as the other big brands seems to be getting worse in quality.
    Reply