July 2021 – Motherboard Review

ASRock X570S PG Riptide – Tom’s Hardware

July 23, 2021 by Stephen

As far as features go, the most significant difference with the X570S Riptide compared to ASRock’s X570 lineup is the lack of a chipset fan. The Riptide looks like a budget board, with most of the PCB exposed, outside of the chipset and M.2 heatsink, but it’s far from unattractive. Outside of that, the Riptide includes two PCIe 4.0 M.2 sockets, Killer-based 2.5 GbE, six SATA ports, and VRMs capable of supporting the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 5950X processor at stock and while overclocked.

MSI MEG B550 UNIFY – Hardware-Journal

July 23, 2021 by Stephen

The MSI MEG B550 Unify is the manufacturer’s most expensive B550 motherboard, which is also reflected in many points and functions. One can name here the power supply, the layout, the network connection, the audio solution and much more. That the rather discreet board is also suitable for overclockers is shown by the sibling model Unify-X, which only has two RAM banks and is also supposed to run particularly high memory speeds. However, the present sample should first be examined more closely.

GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS PRO AX – TechPowerUp

July 23, 2021 by Stephen

The AORUS line from Gigabyte spans a broad range of products: laptops, peripherals, and core components. Across the enthusiast spectrum, the AORUS name denotes Gigabyte’s gaming-focused products, with the AORUS motherboard range featuring a consistent naming scheme that includes the Pro, Elite, Ultra, Master, and Extreme motherboards. Within this lineup, the AORUS Pro AX is Gigabyte’s mainstream offering with a strong feature set and palatable price.
The Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Pro AX features an impressive direct 13-phase VRM utilizing 90 A power stages and Gigabyte’s signature finned cooling solution. An ample helping of USB ports as well as 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet and four M.2 slots promote superior connectivity, while Gigabyte’s signature AORUS styling provides an attractive, neutral platform to build on. The Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Pro AX is promising on paper, so let’s see how it performs in practice!

BIOSTAR Z590I VALKYRIE – Hardware-Journal

July 17, 2021 by Stephen

With the Biostar Z590I Valkyrie , the manufacturer is not only introducing a new series of mainboards, but has also been offering a mini-ITX mainboard with an Intel socket for a long time. When it comes to equipment, you go a slightly different way than usual and actually rely on newer connections and standards. In some points, however, you notice the austerity course a little. The following test clarifies where this shows and what the small board can do.

ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 – TechPowerUp

July 17, 2021 by Stephen

The ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 features a robust 10-phase VRM with top of the line power stages and a substantial VRM cooling solution. The ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 also offers great connectivity with WiFi 6, 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet, and Thunderbolt 4, and the Phantom Gaming ITX line has a history of offering great performance, so let’s see how this latest entry into the family stacks up!

MSI MPG B560I GAMING EDGE WIFI – Hexus

July 15, 2021 by Stephen

The primary M.2 has a decent, chunky heatsink and is connected to the CPU’s lanes, meaning there’s PCIe 4.0 x4 connectivity for 11th Gen Core chips. A second, uncooled, resides on the back and interfaces with the chipset at PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds. We find it unnecessary to have four SATA ports on a mini-ITX board; two ought to be sacrificed for a third M.2.
Moving on around, it’s a shame that MSI uses the older ALC897 audio codec. Rival Asus ROG Strix B560-I Gaming includes ALC1220 and 20Gbps USB on its price-comparable board.

ASRock B550 PG Riptide – Hexus

July 12, 2021 by Stephen

ASRock uses a 10-phase power supply (8 CPU, 2 SOC). The electrical topology is similar to what we see on other relatively budget ASRock boards insofar as UPI doublers and PWM controller are allied to Vishay 50A MOSFETs. The B550M Steel Legend is closest in terms of specification. Get past these numbers and know that the power-delivery system pushes a maximum 400A for the CPU, which is plenty enough to generate 500W – or at least 2x anything we see from even a heavily overclocked Ryzen 9 5950X.

NZXT N7 Z590 – KitGuru

July 12, 2021 by Stephen

On the face of it this sounds like a reasonable approach but things are not entirely straightforward. For example, the NZXT N7 Z590 supports a full range of RGB headers, however the motherboard itself does not include any integrated RGB. That is a minor matter but the alarm bells start to ring when the aesthetics have been prioritised over performance and good engineering practice. This is particularly true of the plastic covers over the two M.2 slots that act as insulators, rather than heat sinks.

MSI MEG B550 UNIFY – TweakTown

July 9, 2021 by Stephen

For specifications, the Unify is set up quite well with a 14+2 power design, MSI using Infineon stages this time around each able to handle 90A output current, plenty for the latest Zen 3 series. Of course, AM4 is the socket, and B550 is our chipset, so we have support for DDR4; 2133MHz JEDEC through 5100MHz via DOCP. Max memory is rated at 128GB across four slots.

BIOSTAR Z590I VALKYRIE – FunkyKit

July 9, 2021 by Stephen

We don’t often get the chance to review BIOSTAR motherboards, so when the Z590I Valkyrie showed up, we were super excited. This motherboard uses Intel’s latest Z590 chipset and is compatible with all Intel 11th Gen Rocket Lake-S processors. We are hoping that this motherboard will be special, because of its exceptional design and multiple unique features. I hope that this review will answer the question on whether the Z590I Valkyrie from Biostar is a great motherboard, and will it find a home in your next gaming PC?