The ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming Motherboard Review
by Gavin Bonshor on January 25, 2021 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Asus
- ROG
- AM4
- Ryzen 3000
- X570
- Strix X570-E
- Ryzen 5000
- X570-E Gaming
Overclocking Ryzen 3000
Experience with the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming
Despite AMD's Ryzen 5000's presence on the current market and with support for these across various AM4 chipsets, we do all of our AM4 testing with the Ryzen 7 3700X processor for consistency. Overclocking can yield many benefits in performance, but at the drawback of extra heat and power. This is a consequence of adding more CPU VCore.
Most power delivery is over-engineered to support the latest processors, however hot they run. This is a continuance of CPU vendors constantly pushing default and turbo clocks, pushing the silicon to its limits. Anyone looking to overclock will need to consider more aggressive cooling types such as large premium AIOs.
Using the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming for overclocking, the firmware itself is user-friendly and benefits from a consistent design throughout. All of the board's overclocking settings can be found in the Ai Tweaker section of the Advanced mode, which can be accessed by pressing the F7 key. Overclocking the CPU is easy to do which can be done as easily as altering the CPU Core Ration and CPU VCore voltage. For more in-depth overclocking and tweaking, ASUS includes base clock (BCLK) control which not only overclocks the CPU but the memory too.
Touching on memory overclocking, ASUS includes a wide variety of customizable memory latencies for fine-tuning. Users can enable X.M.P 2.0 profiles on memory with built-in profiles, although ASUS for its AMD models calls this D.O.C.P or Direct Over Clock Profile. This is just ASUS's fancy way of saying X.M.P. AMD recommends a maximum FCLK (Infinity Fabric Clock) of 1800 MHz, which ties in with what DDR4-3600 memory in a 2:1 ratio. This is AMD's recommended sweet spot for the best memory performance.
Overclocking Methodology
Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.
For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, start off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed. The process is repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (105ºC+). Our testbed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.
We overclock with the Ryzen 7 3700X for consistency with our previous overclocking tests.
Overclocking Results
The ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming performs very competitively against some of the best AM4 boards we have tested. At default settings, the board is using conservative CPU VCore levels at full load, with slightly higher CPU VCore with PBO active. Despite including an enabled mode, the default profile does include elements of PBO with little operating both profiles in POV-Ray performance.
In our manual testing in increments of 100 MHz from 3.8 to 4.3 GHz, we saw an increase in POV-Ray performance throughout our testing. Along with the increase in CPU VCore from 4.1 to 4.2 and beyond, this brought extra temperatures and power, but not enough to cause too much of a negative effect.
The VDroop control when using the default load-line calibration settings is also tight, with the CPU VCore under volting throughout the majority of our testing, with slight overcompensation when testing at 4.3 GHz. Overall the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming is a capable performance in our overclock testing.
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pradeepsekar - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
Correct.Just sharing my experience -
I got a 5950X and Corsair 3600 C18 RAM from the QVL. Loaded up the latest BIOS 2802 and them boom - error and the board would not boot. Had to take it to the ASUS service center, and wait for over an hour. The engineer assigned was super helpful though. He had me wait for some time, and tested the board with a lower processor. He downgraded the BIOS to the next lower stable version, and it worked well when I got it home. Now I am on 3001 and everything continues to work fine. It occasionally greets me with multiple beeps, but ends up booting into Windows anyways... Need to investigate that more but it is not replicable... Anyways, I will stay away from the beta BIOS versions :-)
I agree about the placement of the chipset and the graphics card - they are right next to each other. I am on a NVIDIA Founders edition card. It blows all the warm air out of the chassis and not into it. So for the moment I have not seen high temperatures (yet). The chipset fan looks like a tiny fragile thing one would see on a laptop - with a lot of potential to make a noise when it gets running at a high speed...
Coming from a much older version the menus took some getting used to. All options are present and laid out neatly, as I realized later - with several options that I do not understand fully, and hence do not intend touching till I know better! Just got the RAM running with the XMP (DOCP) profile. I do not intend to overclock the processor - a crazy thought perhaps, but my rig is already screaming fast at everything I throw at it...
Spunjji - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
Beaver M. could learn a lot about what a persuasive, measured post looks like from this one. Cheers for sharing your experience.Knightworld - Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - link
Try running 3200 MHz for the RAM XMP profile. That's what the highest the CPU can handle while being stable without OC. That's the recommended by AMDKnightworld - Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - link
Well of coarse there will be BIOS updates. This is quite an old board in terms of computer standards. Lots of chipset optimisations to accommodate Zen 3 ryzen.Knightworld - Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - link
Also the chipset placement is pretty standard in all boards. Be it ASUS and MSI or Gigabyte or any other MoBo manufacturer. The chipset doesn't ramp up in boost or anything so it usually remains at a constant temp. And using the second slot for main GPU cause more strain on the chipset, since the second slot connects to the chipset and not the CPU. Also with the new GPU from Nvidia, the 3000 series your chipset shouldn't have any issues with the cooling since the special GPU coolers help with that. Tho that is only if you upgrade the GPU.Oxford Guy - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
'Both the CPU and SoC are Teamed together, which allows the power delivery to run cooler and it improves transient response with quicker bursts of power without the drawbacks of phase doublers.'What drawbacks?
Oxford Guy - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
'This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS. Most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds'1. Reviews expensive enthusiast board, where we literally are told about what specific VRM components are present.
2. Makes claims above.
3. Facepalm.
nils_ - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
I saw this in another benchmark article as well. Know your audience Anandtech, of course we care about this. Most people don't build their own computers, so why even benchmark individual components?Spunjji - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
I'd go as far as to say this is the first instance where I've seen this particular criticism being levelled and haven't been inclined to immediately dismiss it. That text doesn't really belong in this article.Oxford Guy - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
1. Most users aren't going to use POV-Ray so don't include it in the article.2. Most users aren't going to worry about what VRM components are on the board so don't include it in the article.
3. Most users aren't going to use a RAID array so don't include information about RAID in the article.
4. Most users aren't going to use ethernet that's any faster than gigabit so don't including info about that in the article.
How long should this post be? It's the exact non-credible argument used to test at JEDEC. Now that AMD is rating, officially, for 3200 (which means even the lowest-quality AM4 board will support it), the problem isn't as severe as it was but it's still stupid since everyone has known that 3600 was the sweet spot for the previous round of Zen, not 3200.