The best AMD motherboard will power your entire AMD gaming system. This component should be chosen with care. It can be difficult to choose from so many options. The truth is that very few AMD motherboards are affordable and offer all the features you require. To help you choose the right one, we tested many different AMD chipsets and boards.
Before adding any AMD motherboards to your cart, it is important to decide which chipset you prefer. AMD has always remained faithful to the AM4 socket through multiple CPU generations. There are many options. There are many choices, including the X570 and B550 chipsets. These options will continue to be available until Zen 4 CPUs are released with the new AM5 socket in 2022. It is important to ensure that your motherboard matches any AMD CPUs you plan to install in your build.
Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
This motherboard is the X570 motherboard and the most recent AM4 board.
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset: X570 Memory, 4x DIMM, up 128GB, DDR4-4866 (OC)
There are many reasons to buy
Clean design
Excellent performance.
I’m not a fan of chipsets.
There are many reasons to getaway
-Expensive
-Over-the-top
ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is Asus’ last best AM4 motherboard. This package incorporates all of the BIOS updates, electrical layout tweaks, and PCB upgrades over the past four years into one mature package.
The Dark Hero is subtle in its design. Although it might seem a little bland, some may find it to be suggestive. The new motherboards are more discrete in their RGB implementations, so we may be at “Peak RGB”. Crosshair VIII Apex, Extreme, and Gigabyte are also not available. This is especially surprising considering that MSI and Gigabyte boarded at a higher price than the Dark Hero.
A motherboard that costs $400 USD isn’t cheap but feels more affordable than the MSI Godlike and Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme.
Modern ATX boards have a similar layout. It is simple to reach the sockets, without needing to remove the entire heatsink assembly. Notable: The chipset cooling fan is not available. Hooray!
If you need additional USB ports for your plasma balls or head massager, there are no better boards. There are eight USB 3.0 Gen 2 ports. One of these ports is Type-C. Four USB 3.0 Gen 1 ports connect them. All ports are available, including flashback, BIOS clear and LAN/WiFi antenna. The IO shield is preinstalled on all motherboards.
Power stages now have a 90A rating instead of 60A. It now matches other premium X570 boards. Even if you’re into benchmarking on LN2 (and this board will see many overclockers), it will stand up to any punishment. Heatsinks can be large and heavy.
One of the most challenging tasks tech journalists must perform is testing motherboards. You may have to fight the board to get it working.
Performance differences between boards with identical partnering components are often very small.
Infinity Fabric clocks of 2,066MHz were achieved. Combining this with a 1:1 clock produced DDR4-4133 with precise timings. This is something we have never been able to achieve with Ryzen 5000 silicon boards or other boards. Dark Hero booted with a higher SoC voltage and CCD voltage.
The Crosshair VIII Dark Hero might not be the best AM4 motherboard. We would need to test it more, but we can easily say that the Dark Hero has been voted one of our favorite AM4 motherboards. The Dark Hero is a ROG legend, we are certain. It will take months and months of user feedback before we can make a definitive decision.
MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WIFI
The X570 is a more affordable high-end model.
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset: X570 Memory: 4x DIMM, 64GB, DDR4-4400
Expansion Slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x8), 1x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x4), 2x PCIe 4.0 x1Video ports: HDMI USB ports: 8x rear IO, 4x internalStorage: 2x M.2, 6x SATANetworking: 1GbE LAN, Wi-Fi 6 Form factor: ATX
Reasons to buy
Twin PCI-e 4.0 M.2 Slots
WiFi 6 Compatibility
Reasons to Get Away
Fans and heat shields -M.2 make it difficult to replace them.
The MSI MPG X570 is a combination of cutting-edge motherboard technology, designed to maximize AMD’s Ryzen 5000 processors, such as the Ryzen9 5900 X and Ryzen9 5950X. You could buy a cheaper option and still get the chips’ performance, but MSI also offers a stylish design, lots of connectivity, and a rock-solid VRM.
The MSI MPG X570 features four DIMM slots capable of handling speeds up to 4,400MHz (although it’s not worth going above DDR4-4000), and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots–MSI’s MPG X570 focuses on getting the best out of the highest-end components, whether they be NVMe SSD or DDR4 RAM.
There are seven USB Type-A ports for peripherals, and one USB Type-C port for high-speed data transfer and connectivity on the rear I/O panel. Your precious ports won’t be without you for more than a week.
The MPG X570 supports Wi-Fi 6. In order to get the fastest speeds, a WiFi 6-compatible router is required godlike productions. You can still use Wi-Fi 4/5 routers (formerly 80211n and 80211ac). You also need an HDMI port. Most X570 boards lack it. Our recommendation is to use an AMD APU with integrated graphics on a board like this.
ASRock X570S PG Riptide
The best budget motherboard X570
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset: X570SMemory 4x DDR4-4733, up to 128GB
Expansion Slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 2x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x4), 3x PCIe 4.0 x1video ports: HDMI USB ports: Up to 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 8x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 6x USB 2.0
Storage: 2x M.2, 6x SATANetwork: Killer E3100G 2.5G LANForm factor: ATX
There are many reasons to buy
A great value X570 board.
Strong gaming performance
There are many reasons to getaway
WiFi is not available
Aging ALC897 audio codec
If you’re looking for an AMD motherboard below $200, the B550 motherboard is a great choice. There are also new X570 models. The X570S model has AMD’s top boards, even though the core chipset is very old.
In the new X570S nomenclature, silence is denoted by the ‘S’. The whiny fans that were included with the X570 boards of the first generation had an annoying effect on the chipset. The new X570S boards provide enhanced connectivity options. These boards offer faster than Gigabit LAN speeds and WiFi 6E. They also have passive chipset cooling. Although the ASRock X570S Riptide doesn’t have WiFi 6E, it is a great deal for a high-quality chipset board.
The cost of the rear I/O for a board like this is very reasonable.
S/PDIF is included in the standard audio ports. A Killer E3100 2.5G controller handles network duties. There are eight USB ports. There are four Gen 1 ports and four Gen 2 ports. There are also two 2.0 ports. This is a huge selection of ports.
While the ASRock Riptide performed slower in productivity-based tasks it was able to perform well under gaming loads. ASRock boards have excellent memory bandwidth, according to our tests. The final 0.1% BIOS polish may be made available. There’s nothing to be unhappy about and it will make gamers very happy. The performance of X570-based motherboards is within a range between one and two percent or within a margin.
The X570S Riptide is a budget-friendly option that will be happy to host a high-spec PCIe 4.0. It will be in the feature fight against more expensive boards, however. You can evaluate the X570S Riptide in two ways.
A B550 board may be worth considering if you only have one drive and one GPU with PCIe4.0. These include models like the ASRock B550 PG Velocita or MSI MAG B550M Mortar. Both are worthwhile alternatives.
Gigabyte X570S Master
The most powerful AMD motherboard boasts over a million USB ports.
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset: X570SMemory 4x DDR4-5100, 128GBExpansion slots: 1xPCIe4.0x16 and 2xPCIe4.0x16(x4)Video ports not available: NoneUSB ports up to 3x USB3.2Gen 2, 8xUSB3.1 Gen 1, 6xUSB 2.0Storage : 2xM.2, 6xSATANetwork : Killer LANE3100G 2.5G
There are many reasons to buy
Cooling, strong VRM
There are a lot of USBs
Four M.2 slots
There are many reasons to getaway
Only one 2.5G LAN
It would be wonderful to have -5G.
Gigabyte achieved exactly this with the X570S Aorus Master. It shares many similarities with its highly-regarded 2019 predecessor. With some significant feature updates and design tweaks, the X570S Aorus Master motherboard will remain a top-of-the-line competitor for AMD motherboards. Computex 2019 was a daunting event for us. We were concerned about the almost universality of chipset fans. Active cooling was required in certain cases because of the 15W TDP, and heat from multiple PCIe4.0 drives, but this is not always the case. Ambient cooling users will have no problems. It looks incredible with its VRM cooling. It performed well in our tests. PBO enabled on the 5800X processor produced a peak temperature of 48 degrees Celsius. This is 5 degrees Celsius less than the ASRock PBG Riptide Test.
Rear I/O is fully functional, especially in terms of USB connectivity. Twelve ports are available: four USB 2.0 ports; five USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports; and one Type C USB 3.0 Gen 2×2 Port. It is time to address the absurd USB naming scheme. But that’s a different story. Finally, there’s a single Intel i225V 2.5G LAN connection.
Performance-wise, there isn’t much you can choose from between X570 motherboards. The X570S Master was able to handle multi-threaded loads while the X570S Master’s single-threaded performance is average. Gaming performance is very good, with a small margin for error. It also showed strong M.2 SSD performance.
Many features make AM4/X570 relevant and current with the Aorus Master. There are many USB and storage ports. It is also very attractive. Although it is expensive at $400, it offers many great features for that price.
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