The Best AMD X670E Motherboards: 22 Board Roundup, VRM Thermal Test

[HardReset]

I didn't say they were different. I was adding to your statement ("only difference is that X670E requires board to offer more PCIe 5.0 lanes") by pointing out that X670E also requires motherboards to provide PCIe 5.0 mode for the PEG slot.

Yeah, misread that one.

 

[FlaJunkie]

Thanks for all the comments...this is a great group!
I want suggestions for a motherboard based on these criteria:
I don't game, but I have used my computer to crunch Mersenne Primes before.
I will use an AMD Ryzen™ 9 7950X and a supporting motherboard so that I won't need a video card
One 5.0 M.2 of 2+ TB capacity.
I don't want WIFI.
32G of DDR5 RAM is fine. But what kind? 1 Row? 2 Row?
The fastest USB ports are critical.
I don't want to spend much on this motherboard but $250-$500 will be OK.
Suggestions?

 

[neeyik]

Thanks for all the comments...this is a great group!
I want suggestions for a motherboard based on these criteria:
I don't game, but I have used my computer to crunch Mersenne Primes before.
I will use an AMD Ryzen™ 9 7950X and a supporting motherboard so that I won't need a video card
One 5.0 M.2 of 2+ TB capacity.
I don't want WIFI.
32G of DDR5 RAM is fine. But what kind? 1 Row? 2 Row?
The fastest USB ports are critical.
I don't want to spend much on this motherboard but $250-$500 will be OK.
Suggestions?

With that budget, the choice is easy -- ASRock X670E PG Lightning. The rear panel has one USB 3.2 20 Gbps Type-C, one USB 3.2 10 Gbps Type-A, six USB 3.2 5 Gbps Type-A, and four USB 2.0 Ports. The board also has two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.2 5 Gbps headers, for attaching additional panels.

In terms of RAM, you're better of focusing of clock speeds and timings value, rather than the number of ranks. You've not expressed a budget for the memory but something like Kingston's Fury Beast DDR5-5600 32 GB kit is pretty decent (despite its ridiculous name). One can spend way more than that but don't bother with anything faster than DDR5-6000.

 

[FlaJunkie]

With that budget, the choice is easy -- ASRock X670E PG Lightning. The rear panel has one USB 3.2 20 Gbps Type-C, one USB 3.2 10 Gbps Type-A, six USB 3.2 5 Gbps Type-A, and four USB 2.0 Ports. The board also has two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.2 5 Gbps headers, for attaching additional panels.

In terms of RAM, you're better of focusing of clock speeds and timings value, rather than the number of ranks. You've not expressed a budget for the memory but something like Kingston's Fury Beast DDR5-5600 32 GB kit is pretty decent (despite its ridiculous name). One can spend way more than that but don't bother with anything faster than DDR5-6000.

Thanks for that. AMD recommends the ASRock X670E Taichi for an AM5 motherboard. It's twice as expensive as the Lightning, and the only advantage for me is the advanced audio.

The Taichi does have four more internal SATA3 ports than the Lightning, but I don't see needing eight SATA3 ports.

And by using the internal graphics, I have no use for the PCIe slots unless I would use them for some non-graphical cards.

The memory recommendation is what I would use. If I put this together, I'll use your link.

 

[FlaJunkie]

Wow. This M.2 will need to be tied down!

FireCuda 540 2TB

 

[Gastec]

Ridiculous cost for budget boards $300 or less. When did $300 become entry level board... What are the motherboard companies thinking?

They are thinking of taking even more money from trapped consumers. And because I am writing from the future, the planned obsolescence is in full swing: Firefox, Chrome have dropped support for Windows 7 and Steam will cease to function on Windows 7 PC's on January 1st 2024.

 

[Nematode]

64 GB unbuffered DDR5 DIMMs should be coming out next month. I'd very much appreciate an article about building a system with them, one that looks at memory errors, as 128-256GB in a desktop system is quite a bit of exposure to cosmic rays and alpha particles.

ECC on the desktop has gone through times when both AMD and Intel supported it and times when they did not. Right now the e.g. 7950X high end desktop CPU supports ECC, but it's not clear that the motherboard and memory manufacturers are playing along. 24GB UDIMMs are the largest currently supported, but the only supplier making 48 GB ECC UDIMMs that I found was Nemix. Presumably Crucial and Kingston are trying to push me into a server motherboard which will end up costing $1000 more for the registered memory and Threadripper CPU, and even then I can't even buy as fast a CPU.

Who needs 128 GB of memory? I just ran a buckling simulation on a small part of my structure, and SolidWorks grabbed 20 GB. I'm going to need more memory (and better discipline about setting element sizes) if I'm going to simulate the whole thing....

Things I'd like to see in the article:
* Which motherboards support e.g. 2x64GB and 4x64GB.
* Measured power cost of 4x32GB vs 2x64GB. Should be lower, but really?
* Since some of the extra power dissipation for a 4 DIMM vs 2 DIMM system should be inside the CPU, there may be a measurable performance loss from thermal throttling. You can't easily tease apart this effect from reduced memory bandwidth, but that doesn't matter, the bottom line is benchmark hit.
* Measured memory bandwidth of 4x32GB vs 2x64GB. Should be better, but really?
* Bootup times after the first training boot.
* Which, if any, suppliers are making 64 GB ECC UDIMMs. Announcement dates?
* Which motherboards support ECC.
* Performance impact of ECC.
* If possible, memory error rate detected with ECC. I don't know if this is practical, since I'd hope that raw memory error rates are very low and ECC is rarely used.

Finally, I have a question about this motherboard review. The 7950X can draw up to 225 watts, and a maximum of 1.475 V. I don't know if those two go together, but it suggests something like 150-170 amps. How are any of these VRMs supplying that?

 

[MasterMace]

One of the frustrating aspects of the AM5 socket is how terrible it is trying to get 4 sticks of RAM to work in the motherboards. The socket cannot send the full 1.4v to all 4 sticks, and so each mb vendor has a separate "Qualified Vendor List" that drastically limits what RAM you can use in each motherboard, specifically for the 4 dimm slot option. When you try to move up to a 4x32gb or larger setup, the options become even more limited.

 

[cassiohui]

Sorry to be that guy but....where's the Asus ProArt?