ASRock B560 Steel Legend

[HEXUS]

Value and performance in one tidy package.

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[Ttaskmaster]

Wow... looks like someone took a LEGO™ model and wrapped it in a Digital Urban Camouflage pattern...

[DanceswithUnix]

Wow... looks like someone took a LEGO™ model and wrapped it in a Digital Urban Camouflage pattern...

It's a bit busy looking isn't it.


I wonder if people moving 100GB Chia plots around will make 2.5GbE and above more popular now.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AdoredTV also tested it and it could handle a Core i9 10900K reasonably well too:
https://adoredtv.com/asrock-b560-ste...alf-the-price/

So that is two reviews which indicate it should be able to handle a Core i5 11600K/Core i7 11700K reasonably OK.

Is there any chance the ASRock B560M Pro4 will get reviewed?? Its under £100,has 6+2 phase VRM with 50A power stages,and a reasonable level of heatsinking:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/B560M%20Pro4/index.asp

[Tabbykatze]

Quite interesting that Asrock has such a disparity on their boards:

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Quite interesting that Asrock has such a disparity on their boards:

Their last two B560 videos have been a tad clickbaity IMHO. They literally made a massive deal in the video before,of the B560 motherboards,needing a few clicks in the BIOS to unlock the CPUs,just because the very expensive ones had MCE on permanently. This makes entire sense if you are using a stock cooler on these motherboards and its literally just a few options you need to unlock in the BIOS. Even in my B460 mini-ITX motherboard,all I need to do is select an expanded TDP. There is nothing else I needed to do. They literally went on about how only expensive B560 motherboards ran properly,and then seemingly ignored the £110~£120 ASRock B560 Pro4 in their own charts which ran their Core i7 11700 sample within 100MHZ of the most expensive B560 motherboard they tested.



The problem is that Hardware Unboxed tested a lot of £70~£100 B560 motherboards but seemingly missed all the ones which had heatsinks. For example they tested this $100 motherboard:
https://www.newegg.com/msi-b560m-pro...quicklink=true

But seemingly forget to add this one:
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E1681315...quicklink=true

That is the mATX version of the ATX motherboard they tested before,and its around £90 in the UK. A motherboard for the same price,with a 6+2 phase VRM with 50A power stages,and reasonably finned heatsinks.

So I am uncertain whether they are being obtuse,when a £70 motherboard with no VRM heatsinks,etc has problems running CPUs. But it was the same problem they themselves showed with AM4 motherboards which had poor heatsinking/no heatsinking.

They are made for horizontal air coolers(like the stock cooler),as they need constant airflow over the VRM. This is why most OEM systems use horizontal air coolers. Most test setups use water cooling so its even worse,as they have no cooling at all.

The take home message is no heatsinking on a motherboard,makes it best avoided!

[Tabbykatze]

The problem they are positing is that these boards are wholly made unequal yet still state they are equal when they certainly are not.

That and they take issue with the fact that Intels loose spec is leading to such a wide range of out-of-the-box performance characteristics with no consistency.

That's the point they are making and they also have to buy all their own equipment by popping out the shops to do so. Maybe they couldn't get that board or decided for that news segment to grab the widest range they could.

HUB seems to be finding flaws and wanting to discuss them, nothing obtuse about that.

Edit: You and I would be very happy going into BIOS to fix this but most won't notice and leave a bad review and most won't want to be going into that cave of heebie jeebies, that's what you have to remember is that there is an uneducated mass that are fearful of the devil bios

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The problem they are positing is that these boards are wholly made unequal yet still state they are equal when they certainly are not.

That and they take issue with the fact that Intels loose spec is leading to such a wide range of out-of-the-box performance characteristics with no consistency.

That's the point they are making and they also have to buy all their own equipment by popping out the shops to do so. Maybe they couldn't get that board or decided for that news segment to grab the widest range they could.

HUB seems to be finding flaws and wanting to discuss them, nothing obtuse about that.

You should watch the first video. They were moaning that many of the motherboards stuck to strict Intel TDP ratings,and that to unlock more performance you had to press a few options in the BIOS. Then said you "had" to get a enthusiast grade B560 motherboard(which ran the CPUs out of spec). Running out of spec as default is bad,because if someone uses a stock cooler,the CPU is going to overheat. This is the default Intel behaviour,because the strict TDP spec is made to work with the crappy stock cooler. If you are going to essentially overclock you really should be using the BIOS,and you still need to enable XMP/DOCP RAM settings manually in many cases.

Its no different than an AMD CPU running without PBO or not using cTDP. AMD motherboards have similar settings. My B75I mini-ITX motherboard from 2013 had such kinds of options,where you can break TDP spec.Literally a few years ago,when a lot of Intel motherboards implemented MCE out of the box,reviewers were complaining saying is was a cheat,and had to turn off "performance optimisation" options.

There is a reason why everyone recommended MSI B450 motherboards because Asus and Gigabyte motherboards ran very hot even in spec,and had thermal issues. Then the same issue was shown in cheaper X570 motherboards,which again in spec ran very hot. Buildzoid and Gamersnexus showed many companies made fake looking VRMs!



That is certified by MSI to run a Ryzen 9 3950X perfectly fine. What do you think is going to happen after a few hours of Blender using an AIO water cooler?



That is certified by ASRock to run a Ryzen 9 5950X fine.

Its again the old adage,of doing some research before you buy. Over the last 15 years motherboards without proper heatsinks always had problems. MSI and its exploding AMD motherboards comes to mind.

AMD like Intel is guilty of not telling their OEMs to be more discerning in what they said should be used on low end motherboards.

[Tabbykatze]

What a surprise, you brought it back to AMD to continue your cob with them over the price increase

I do jest but what you've highlighted is motherboard manufacturers being poor show with AMD spec and not the topic at hand which is Intel liberally allowing their motherboard manufacturers flaunt the spec as they see fit and then when they follow spec being disingenuous with their marketing.

Lets keep this on topic rather than continuing your crusade against AMD.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What a surprise, you brought it back to AMD to continue your cob with them over the price increase

I do jest but what you've highlighted is motherboard manufacturers being poor show with AMD spec and not the topic at hand which is Intel liberally allowing their motherboard manufacturers flaunt the spec as they see fit and then when they follow spec being disingenuous with their marketing.

Lets keep this on topic rather than continuing your crusade against AMD.

I literally explained the issues for you,and you came back with this reply?? What has the bolded parts got to do with anything??

Oh just wind it in with the bolded parts. I have probably done more to popularise AMD products on this website than anyone else,so don't go and start all these accusations. Even AMD liked some of my posts and sent me a whole Llano bundle once. Where were you with all your stories when I was criticising Intel and Nvidia?? None of these companies care two craps about us - only their shareholders.

When Zen1 had issues,some accused me of being on a "crusade" against AMD then,and all the problems I pointed out were real. Oh so you are thinking this is like some Islam vs Christianity battle(Crusades). I didn't realise you prayed to your CPU and GPUs. Sorry I didn't mean to offend you.

I have consistently kept to a value/money focus for 15 years,instead of just flip-flopping on whatever is "popular". Yet on this same forum,you had to do the same research for AMD motherboards and some of us pushed dozens of people away from numerous B350/B450/B550 motherboards which did have the issues.

Long before you were on this site,I actually went through the VRM sections of many AMD motherboards,cooling,etc right back in the Phenom and Athlon days almost 15 years ago,and told people the very same thing. Had Intel fans bigging up "problems" with AMD motherboards too,which I showed could be managed very easily.

Those people I helped used those systems for years with no problem. I have nothing to prove to people,because these are basic things. Its not rocket science!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is a chart from the latest Hardware Unboxed Q and A section.



Now include the B450/A320/A520 motherboards in that list,which are worse. B550 was a giant upgrade over B350/B450.

The Ryzen 7 5800X has close to Ryzen 9 power consumption,because its a poor bin. So the same applies,if you were to upgrade to an 8 core.



This is nothing to do with me being unfair to AMD. Its to do with the fact motherboards with poor VRM/heatsink combinations will have longterm issues with anything apart from 65W TDP CPUs ran at stock.

Just because the OEM says it will work fine has been proven to be consistently irrelevant.

[Tabbykatze]

I literally explained the issues for you,and you came back with this reply?? What has the bolded parts got to do with anything??

Oh just wind it in with the bolded parts. I have probably done more to popularise AMD products on this website than anyone else,so don't go and start all these accusations. Even AMD liked some of my posts and sent me a whole Llano bundle once. Where were you with all your stories when I was criticising Intel and Nvidia?? None of these companies care two craps about us - only their shareholders.

When Zen1 had issues,some accused me of being on a "crusade" against AMD then,and all the problems I pointed out were real. Oh so you are thinking this is like some Islam vs Christianity battle(Crusades). I didn't realise you prayed to your CPU and GPUs. Sorry I didn't mean to offend you.

I have consistently kept to a value/money focus for 15 years,instead of just flip-flopping on whatever is "popular". Yet on this same forum,you had to do the same research for AMD motherboards and some of us pushed dozens of people away from numerous B350/B450/B550 motherboards which did have the issues.

Long before you were on this site,I actually went through the VRM sections of many AMD motherboards,cooling,etc right back in the Phenom and Athlon days almost 15 years ago,and told people the very same thing. Had Intel fans bigging up "problems" with AMD motherboards too,which I showed could be managed very easily.

Those people I helped used those systems for years with no problem. I have nothing to prove to people,because these are basic things. Its not rocket science!

I decided to take a moment to review myself and realise that I have been substantially an idiot and being how I was was not really picking out the unbiased side of things.

Sorry for being a rubbishx3.

[wazzickle]

Just fyi I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable in the world of tech, i.e. knowledgeable enough to be the authority amongst most people I know on problem-solving, building new PCs, gaming tech, etc etc, and have considered / am still considering setting up a pc-building business, but still I have to stop myself sending CAT a pm every time I have a question that isn't instantly answered by googling: he knows everything and he's basically always right. I love how this thread played out.