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
CPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
Rendering - Blender 2.79b: 3D Creation Suite - link
A high profile rendering tool, Blender is open-source allowing for massive amounts of configurability, and is used by a number of high-profile animation studios worldwide. The organization recently released a Blender benchmark package, a couple of weeks after we had narrowed our Blender test for our new suite, however their test can take over an hour. For our results, we run one of the sub-tests in that suite through the command line - a standard ‘bmw27’ scene in CPU only mode, and measure the time to complete the render.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7.1: Ray Tracing - link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 1-2 minutes on high-end platforms.
Compression – WinRAR 5.60b3: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30-second 720p videos.
Synthetic – 7-Zip v1805: link
Out of our compression/decompression tool tests, 7-zip is the most requested and comes with a built-in benchmark. For our test suite, we’ve pulled the latest version of the software and we run the benchmark from the command line, reporting the compression, decompression, and a combined score.
It is noted in this benchmark that the latest multi-die processors have very bi-modal performance between compression and decompression, performing well in one and badly in the other. There are also discussions around how the Windows Scheduler is implementing every thread. As we get more results, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.
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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.