The $120 MSI X470 Gaming Plus Review: Only 4-Phase VRM, Not 11-Phase as Advertised
by Gavin Bonshor on October 4, 2018 10:00 AM ESTCPU 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.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v1.0.2: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. For HandBrake, we take two videos and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container: a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short. We also take the third video and transcode it to HEVC. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2017. 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.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test v2.1: 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 wins 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. We are using the latest version of 3DPM, which has a significant number of tweaks over the original version to avoid issues with cache management and speeding up some of the algorithms.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: 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 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
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gavbon - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
Depending on what happens with AMD's roadmap into 2019, we might get a sample in for review as we've seen quite a few different mini-ITX boards from different vendors on AM4; would make sense to test the B450 Gaming ITX/ac too! All depends on time reallyDragonstongue - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
B450 pro carbon AC all the way, very close to same price and MUCH better overall build quality..one would figure a "top end" chipset would not be trying to cut things down just to make potential sales when there are many options that are readily available, why add tons more choices and instead settle on making those choices as best as they possibly can be.they could have for example completely made no RGB added a few USB ports (like USB2 or "standard" USB3.1a support) or even used that price difference to use the much better 1220a audio (like found on the B450 gaming pro carbon AC) or even put more higher quality VRM or beefier heatsink design...RGB should not be a "direct focus" when they are trying to cut corners to hit a lower MSRP level, if anything RGB should be the "last" focus in that regard.
VRM, good amount of USB, real good heatsink design, great audio and so forth IMO are vastly more beneficial then disco light show RGB...am sure some folks like it being "on board" but many of those same people add their own lighting ANYWAYS...maybe a dedicated couple of sockets for powering user added lighting might be "ok" but disco light show soaking up a chunk of BOM in most cases is stupid.
new craze of bleed eyeballs with lighting needs to die horrible death, creating more waste and problems with software/hardware and cutting back quality to be able to do it, benefits few people and harms the rest for nothing.
gavbon - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
B450 Pro Carbon AC looks good on paper, but I'm a big fan of the B450 Tomahawk (review coming soon) - Not as flashy, bit cheaper and probably more than any gamer is going to use with a single graphics card installed!drexnx - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
are the RGBLEDs in this (and the B450 tomahawk as well) true 16.7 million colors capable, or gimped with only 7 color choices like the B350 tomahawk?Arbie - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
I am continually amazed at what motherboard manufacturers can produce at these price levels. The materials, technology, and effort that goes into putting something like this on a retail shelf is mind-boggling. If it cost $1K I could hardly argue, considering what it takes. $120 seems like a giveaway - a planter stand for my backyard costs the same. This must be one of the toughest markets in the world.Oxford Guy - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link
Especially considering how much they pay marketeers to come up with new deceptive advertising.WatcherCK - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
Gavin, thanks for highlighting the fact that board makers can be very flexible with their descriptions of board features (is it to the point of being misleading)? Just wanted to add that Buildzoid/Actual Hardcore Overclocking has been digging into the state of B450/X470 boards recently with a deep dive into the VRM setups... My take away so far is that the MSI boards appear to be fairly well setup for their price compared to others, but there is a board out there for every usage scenario/price point you want more you pay more as with all things in life :)Oxford Guy - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link
"board makers can be very flexible with their descriptions of board features"... a roundabout way of saying they lie.
The_Assimilator - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
Back in the LGA775 days, MSI sold a high-end motherboard called the P6N Diamond that was advertised to have support for quad-core CPUs. Except they skimped on the power delivery circuitry, so "support" meant "if you use a quad-core your system will randomly reboot itself".Good to see things haven't changed.
Galcobar - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - link
The overview page states the HDMI connector is 1.4, while the every other mention states it is 2.0.