Comments Locked

40 Comments

Back to Article

  • charlesg - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Typo on last paragraph on last page: "For $190 with Wi-Fi, or $190 without".
  • Ryan Smith - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Thanks!
  • YB1064 - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Perhaps I missed it, but it would be helpful to include a link to a X570 vs B550 chipset comparison table.
  • crimson117 - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Good one here: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3582-amd-chipse...

    Biggest difference is that the B550 chipset itself doesn't support PCIe 4.0, but you still get support from the CPU, just fewer applicable slots. And a positive is that B550 doesn't require active cooling, unlike x570.
  • Skeptical123 - Friday, July 24, 2020 - link

    people need to get over that active cooling thing, it's a minor caveat at best, as much as people bring it you think it would be something actually negative like price, supply, driver support etc...
  • Alexey291 - Sunday, July 26, 2020 - link

    Its just another potential point of failure so it inherently a negative.
  • soresu - Sunday, July 26, 2020 - link

    I'll get over the "actuve cooling thing" when it doesn't add to the sound of the PC - some of us actually care about that even if you don't.

    To say nothing of the fact that basically every X570 mobo uses tiny, thin fans which are the opposite of silent if they ramp up to any significant number of RPM.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, August 1, 2020 - link

    "And a positive is that B550 doesn't require active cooling, unlike x570.

    False. X570 does not require active cooling.
  • cwolf78 - Thursday, November 18, 2021 - link

    I know this is an old comment, but I can't let this stand. X570 absolutely *DOES* require active cooling. True, the fan may not run under low-load on some boards (MSI Tomahawk, for example) but it is needed otherwise. The X570S is the chipset that does not require active cooling.
  • Narg - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Still find it funny to see "Gaming" and "Wifi" on the same product, when we all know (or at least should know) that WiFi kills online gaming performance.
  • Death666Angel - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    So, single players games aren't a thing anymore? I game, but I don't play multiplayer modes or games.
  • ZipSpeed - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    I dunno, I'm not a competitive gamer by any means and I've been playing online via Wi-Fi for years with no issue. Maybe I'm just less sensitive to the variation because I honestly can't tell the difference wired and wireless.
  • PeachNCream - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    I haven't noticed a substantial difference, but there is a lot of hair splitting going on out there and it is well supported by marketing departments at hardware companies that want to land sales from people. Higher refresh rates, faster mouse polling, overclocking to gain like 2% more performance, Killer NICs that claim to give your game's data packets priority over other packets and so forth all appeal to people that feel like buying all of those things will make them more competitive so they get to teabag someone's corpse more often and feel proud of themselves when their only accomplishment in life is being at or around the top of a leader board. It's sad, but male competitiveness easy to exploit because the individual experiencing it is typically blind to it and will not think rationally about it. Why else to obese men purchase large pickup trucks or glitter bomb glowing computers except to feel empowered in some small way? The WiFi versus wired ethernet thing is just one more way to proclaim you feel superior to someone that doesn't care enough to throw a twisted pair cable across a room or two.
  • CardiWAP - Tuesday, August 11, 2020 - link

    Absolute rubbish.
    Play any fighting game and you can tell right away when somebody is on Wi-Fi. Same thing in shooters.
    Wi-Fi really is awful for anything requiring quick action.

    Fighting games are based on frames and you have to be aware at every single moment of the frame data of moves.
    Any added latency, jitter or any hiccup and the things you thought should have worked (and would have worked in a low latency wired connection) doesn't anymore. You drop a combo, you fail to punish a move, you fail to party and you die.
    This particular example that is familiar to me can be extended to any online game requiring quick action, reflexes and constant known data and behavior.

    Not using WiFi in these online games is not about anything you've described. It's just about having the best online experience - meaning one closest to offline. And you obviously wreak havoc playing on WiFi it might also be a question of respect for people playing with/against you.

    The part about high refresh rate monitor is as misinformed and far-fetched as the Wi-Fi one.
    You simply need to drag a simple window in your favourite OS and switch between 60Hz and 144Hz to understand the wonders of the smoothness in high framerate gaming.
    Moreover, the switch to flat screen panels really was in some instances a regression that is somewhat mitigated with high refresh rate panels (in the blur department).

    Overclocking has been a core part of PC gaming for decades so I won't even bother going further than this.

    You might have a leg to stand on regarding Killer NICs and their drivers but they don't jack up the price of the motherboards they are in so it doesn't matter anyway.
  • MrVibrato - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    I didn't know that you spell ISP like "WiFI" in your corner of the world. ;-P
  • Gastec - Sunday, January 3, 2021 - link

    WiFi "kills" more than just gaming performances, it's slower than Ethernet cable connection for everything. A WiFi connection between the computer and the router is useful in certain situations but we can't deny that there is a consistent propaganda campaign to convince the consumers to switch from Ethernet to wireless connections, for a good price of course. The more you buy, the more we profit, after all! :)
  • DanNeely - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    "USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) 2 x Type-A Header (2 x ports)"

    Type A headers are 2 ports, each so this should either be 1x header, or 4x ports.
  • Ryan Smith - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Thanks Dan. That's indeed 1 header.
  • mooninite - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    What about a test network performance? The I225-V has two bad revisions (v1 & v2) and there is no known way to know what version you will buy. A benchmark could confirm it.
  • DanNeely - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    If they're not making it explicit in the specsheet any test Gavin did would be of limited value since there would be nothing stopping Asus from having a silicon lottery where not all production runs use the same version of the controller.
  • Drweejah - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link

    The Intel I225-V is trash. I had to add a nic to get internet.
  • DZor - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    In November I bought Gigabyte x570 Ultra and 3900X and now I plan to buy something for my son for gaming. I'm not happy with Gigabyte despite high grades. My biggest problem with Gigabyte is, as today usually, software. Better to say crappy software. For example every BIOS update deletes previous settings and usually I'm not able to load previous ones - every time remember what I did and set all manually! Oh my God! Not even Windows BIOS update is not clever enough to migrate BIOS settings. Their Windows software is one of biggest craps I ever seen in my life!!!
    How is situation with Asus and others?
    BTW Gigabyte has a crappy software called Easy Tune. When I "overclocked" my CPU via this app my Windows refused to boot! Thanks God I have second installation and was able to delete exes to get Windows booting.
  • obiwancelery - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    I've got bad news for you. I upgrade my BIOSs as soon as they're out. I have a Ryzen 5 2400G on a Asus TUF B450M-PLUS GAMING (great combination). I found it nifty I could store the settings so one day I flash my BIOS and then get my optimal settings. Black screen. As far as I can see, the settings are useless from one version of the BIOS to the other. Bummer. From what I can see, it's a new "trend". If anyone knows how to get this to work I'd love to know. I'm about to adjust the memory timings ... many, many settings to change. Upgrading the bios will suck.
  • DZor - Thursday, July 23, 2020 - link

    Thanks!
    You see that's reason why 20 years ago I switched from self-built PC to brand names like HP or Dell. I had many HPs, Dells and Lenovos with many BIOS updates and NEVER EVER entered BIOS after upgrade!
  • Avalon - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    "The usual battleground for a good solid motherboard is in the $200 range" - No, it's not, and we need to stop perpetuating this. A good, solid motherboard needs to be in the $130-$150 range. If your board is coming with RGB lightning, has 16+ phases for power delivery, and looks like one of the Transformers, you've gone beyond "good".
  • PeterCollier - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    You forgot the "military grade" caps
  • Reflex - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    I mean, 10-15 years ago that was the range of good solid motherboards. But inflation, reduced volume/slower upgrade cycle and higher base requirements (for signaling, power delivery, etc) would be expected to drive prices up. What we see now is essentially the same as what we saw before once factoring in inflation and market conditions.

    RGB lighting and additional power delivery phases are like dimes in the cost. And most of the R&D is shared with higher end boards. I think it just costs more to make a board now.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, August 1, 2020 - link

    Inflation plus AMD wants to improve its margins. And, now that AMD is offering better CPUs than Intel, motherboard makers want more margin on AMD boards.

    Plus, Zen/AM4 has more demanding board specs than AM3+, in terms of things like voltage precision.

    Board makers will try to push prices higher. It's up to consumers to push back.
  • CardiWAP - Tuesday, August 11, 2020 - link

    Yes please pair your 10700K or 3900X with these boards and see how they fare. I hear Asrock really nailed the $130-$150 range on Z490.
  • Reflex - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Not sure if this would help anyone, but the Asus and ASRock boards can actually get their WiFi upgraded. I realized that because I have a ROG Strix B350-I and the integrated Realtek WiFi/BT solution is garbage.

    It seems the 'integrated' solution is actually a vertically mounted M.2 card. If you take the shield off (two screws on the underside of the board) you can pull that card out and put in an AX200 (not the 201, that is specific to Intel chipsets).

    I did the upgrade and it worked perfectly. BT is now reliable and WiFi is faster.

    Not sure if that would help anyone.
  • shaddixboggs - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    I won't give a dollar to ASUS for an AMD product. They've crapped the bed one too many times at this point.
  • Alim345 - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Are higher benchmark scores of some boards are due to default bios configuration or beefier power delivery systems?
  • deadstardragon - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Page 4 - Board Features - "For users looking to use compatible Ryzen APUs, there's an HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.2 output pairing"

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought this MOBO had an onboard integrated graphics processor thus circumventing the need for a specific Ryzen APU. Given that, could you not use, say, a Ryzen 7 3700X like in your test setup and still take advantage of the onboard HDMI/DP?
  • mr0vka - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Has anyone read the article before posting? Are anandtech authors paid based on a numer of characters? This article contains multiple typos, and then (which is really irritating) multiple repetitions of the whole sentences across the article. In one place the only change in the whole paragraph that is being duplicated is “AMD” changed to “AM4”.

    WTH!?
  • supdawgwtfd - Thursday, July 23, 2020 - link

    You must be new here...

    Has been an ongoing issue for years now.

    It's to be expected when they have no editor.
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, July 23, 2020 - link

    Anandtech has been dropping that ball for a good half decade or more. Part of the problem is article and table standardization through the use of prior articles and tables. That invariably results in mistakes when clearing old data before entering new information. Those sorts of errors show up constantly making it very clear there is lots of copy and paste sorts of slapdash happening behind the curtain. Professional writers and good editorial proofing are things you should look elsewhere to find.
  • quantumshadow44 - Thursday, July 23, 2020 - link

    pathetic. With msi x570 tomahawk msrp $210 this board has no chances.
  • danjw - Sunday, August 2, 2020 - link

    I think it would be better to list deltas from ambient in the VRM temperature chart. Since that is the real data, save users from having to do the math in their head. ;-)

    Also, I would really like to see Linux benchmarks added.
  • DiYBeast - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link

    Love it Asus rog makes the best top their boards

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now