X470 Motherboards look great! Which are you hoping get good reviews?

[Firejack]

Been watching the preview videos, reading the product websites and scanning the manuals today trying to narrow down what X470 ATX Motherboard I want. Got 2 clear favourites at the moment that I can't split.

• Gigabyte Aorus X470 Ultra Gaming (£132.98 @ Scan)
• Asus Prime X470-Pro (129.95 @ OcUK)

Honestly surprised how much value you get in a mid-range motherboard these days. Both these motherboard have everything I want without breaking the bank. Planning on getting an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and going with a small overclock on the included Prism Cooler. Paired with 8/16GB of DDR4 depending on what deals I can find. Will be keeping my Crucial SSD, Samsung HDD, Radeon 380 4GB. All powered by a new Seasonic Focus Gold 650w I picked up last week.

Both the Gigabyte/Asus motherboards have decent audio solutions. With the Realtek ALC1220 in the Gigabyte motherboard and Asus's SupremeFX spin on that codec in the Asus motherboard.
Intel Gigabit LAN in both. USB Type-C. Plenty of DC/PWM fan headers. Even some nice RGB lights that will keep the disco going on my windowless Fractal Design Define S case

Quite a few budget X470 motherboards out. The best one seems to be the Asrock X470 Master SLI (£99.99 @ CCL). Cuts down on a lot of features like audio etc. Still, offers a 12 phase VRM. Not sure of the configuration. However that sounds great for the money. The Gigabyte wasn't lacking either with an 8+3 VRM and 6+4 on the Asus.
The Asrock motherboard also has a 8-pin + 4-pin 12v EPS power configuration so its really going to have some serious power available.

Worth noting that the Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 AC Wifi has a nice looking heatsink for the VRMs. Uses a heat pipe and lots of fins to keep things cool. This is probably my favourite X470 motherboard overall. Packed with everything you could ever want. Intel LAN/WLAN with Bluetooth 5 (didn't know this was a thing yet!), power reset/ clear CMOS buttons on the rear I/O panel and some really fancy lights!

Most of the higher end motherboards don't seem to come with any sort of graphics port. So no 2200G/2400G support. Not that I guess you'd be pairing an APU in these overclocking monsters.
The Taichi Ultimate was the only Enthusiast motherboard I could see with HDMI out. Limited to 1.4b though. Seems a bit odd on an otherwise no compromise motherboard. ECC memory support, Gigabit/ 10 Gigabit and AC Wifi - a few of the better features.

Not sure if Asus has just left out the details in the documentation. None of their X470 motherboards seem to have ECC support. I always like to see ECC support in case I choose to run ZFS at some point.

Asus seems to of gone with Display Port 1.2 and DVI for graphics out with Gigabyte going HDMI 2.0. Not sure about the DVI but 4k+Freesync should work with Raven Ridge. Disappointing to see HDMI 1.4b used on so many motherboards. Think only MSI offered Display Port 1.2 and HDMI 2.0 on their X470 Gaming Pro Carbon. Again though not sure anyone will be paying £164 for a motherboard to throw an APU in.


Looks a great line up for launch. Best I can remember for an AMD lineup for sometime. Ryzen really has delivered and shaken up the market. with Ryzen 2/ Zen+ looking at doing the same

What X470 motherboards are everyone else excited to learn more about in the reviews?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It will be interesting to see when the B450 boards are out too!! Good spot on the ASRock board though,since that use to be high end B350 money for a motherboard!!

Also there are some budget X370 boards which have been released recently too:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/24...board/MBD2328/
https://www.cclonline.com/product/24...board/MBD2329/

Not bad at all for £70 to £80.

[Firejack]

Asus have an article up walking you around their new X470 motherboards. Fairly interesting read: https://edgeup.asus.com/2018/the-x47...r-ryzen-build/

Two main points from my point of view. Seems the TUF X470 PLUS Gaming is meant to be the cheapest motherboard in the range. Right now its priced between the Strix X470-F Gaming and Prime X470-Pro. Could be worth keeping an eye on the TUF as if the price drops to what is suggested in this article it could be a very decent budget choice.
The other interesting point is the new VRM layout for the Crosshair VII Hero. In that 10+2 configuration with the VRM spaced equally out to the top and left of the CPU. Could mean some serious power can be put through to get high overclocks. Thanks to the even distribution of heat.



Some adjustments seem to of been made to Gigabyte Aorus X470 Ultra Gaming/ Gaming 5 AC Wifi webpages. Both show ECC support as "operate in non-ECC mode" now. Rules out any plans for ZFS I might of had in the future on these motherboards.

[scaryjim]

... Most of the higher end motherboards don't seem to come with any sort of graphics port. So no 2200G/2400G support. ...

"Actually, I think you'll find ..."

Not to be that guy, but they should support both chips just fine - you simply won't be able to use the IGP. Slap a dGPU in and you're away...

[Firejack]

Yes you are correct. My wording wasn't the best.
Looking on the Gigabyte Aorus X470 Gaming 7 AC Wifi webpage I actually found reference to new 2200GE/2400GE APUs. Slightly lower base speed versions of the existing APUs but at 35w. Thought that sounded interesting...

Back to motherboards, OcUK has Pre-orders for most of the Gigabyte motherboards now. The Gigabyte Aorus X470 Ultra Gaming, that I was interested in, is just £125.99

[scaryjim]

... Looking on the Gigabyte Aorus X470 Gaming 7 AC Wifi webpage I actually found reference to new 2200GE/2400GE APUs. Slightly lower base speed versions of the existing APUs but at 35w. Thought that sounded interesting... ...

There were leaks and rumours floating around a month or two back of those; be interesting to see if they make it to retail any time soon (they're *definitely* interesting if you're into SFF builds ).

It'll also be interesting to see if AMD launch any quad core or lower 2000 series CPUs, or if they leave that space to the Ryzen APUs ... after all, the 2400G is around the same price that a, say, 2500X would be, and is overclockable, so does it make sense for them to release a 2500? I guess if they've got binned dies that only work as quad cores and the OC-ability of the chips is good it might - a 2500X at a slight premium over the 2400G, with > 4GHz boost clocks, would still make quite a formidable chip (not to mention an overclockable quad core 2300X at < £100... )

[Biscuit]

It took till the very end of X370s life for top end mATX boards to come out. It too so long that one came out for threadripper first

Hopefully it doesn't take so long this time.

[Xlucine]

Wonder if we'll finally see the plain 400 "chipset"?

[scaryjim]

Wonder if we'll finally see the plain 400 "chipset"?

Also interesting to me as an SFF enthusiast, but I'm starting to think that will only ever turn up in a limited number of OEM designs, not retail boards. Which is frustrating, because an A300/A400 mITX board should be dirt cheap to make. Board manufacturers have obviously decided that mainline chipsets are the way to go for retail mITX boards, sadly:

https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer...2600/2716/2746
https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Compone...00046=Mini+ITX

[DanceswithUnix]

Some adjustments seem to of been made to Gigabyte Aorus X470 Ultra Gaming/ Gaming 5 AC Wifi webpages. Both show ECC support as "operate in non-ECC mode" now. Rules out any plans for ZFS I might of had in the future on these motherboards.

The Asus Prime X470-Pro doesn't mention ECC ram support level which is annoying as it otherwise looks rather good

[MLyons]

Really hoping the Asus Prime X470-Pro comes out good as it's the only neutral coloured board

[MrJim]

Really hoping the Asus Prime X470-Pro comes out good as it's the only neutral coloured board

The Asrock 'Taichi' motherboards are fairly neutral coloured, and have fairly minimal RGB. They also tend to have pretty high quality power delivery too.

[MLyons]

The Asrock 'Taichi' motherboards are fairly neutral coloured, and have fairly minimal RGB. They also tend to have pretty high quality power delivery too.

Ideally i want an all black board with RGB on it. The Taichi board seems to have too much on it.

[Biscuit]

I would quite like it if they actually put proper heatsinks onto components rather than slabs of metal connected with heatpipes.... it either needs to be cooled (therefore put a proper cooling system on)or it doesn't (save the money and dont put one on)...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Also interesting to me as an SFF enthusiast, but I'm starting to think that will only ever turn up in a limited number of OEM designs, not retail boards. Which is frustrating, because an A300/A400 mITX board should be dirt cheap to make. Board manufacturers have obviously decided that mainline chipsets are the way to go for retail mITX boards, sadly:

https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer...2600/2716/2746
https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Compone...00046=Mini+ITX

Agreed,although TBF the Intel mini-ITX boards with any degree of overclocking ability are not cheap either.

[Blaineoliver]

A number of the b350 boards will operate at HDMI2.0 even if the port is HDMI 1.4 on the specifications. Found that building a 2200G system for my brother.