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 ESTGaming Performance
Ashes of the Singularity
Seen as the holy child of DirectX12, Ashes of the Singularity (AoTS, or just Ashes) has been the first title to actively go explore as many of DirectX12s features as it possibly can. Stardock, the developer behind the Nitrous engine which powers the game, has ensured that the real-time strategy title takes advantage of multiple cores and multiple graphics cards, in as many configurations as possible.
Rise Of The Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.
One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.
Thief
Thief has been a long-standing title in PC gamers hearts since the introduction of the very first iteration which was released back in 1998 (Thief: The Dark Project). Thief as it is simply known rebooted the long-standing series and renowned publisher Square Enix took over the task from where Eidos Interactive left off back in 2004. The game itself utilises the fluid Unreal Engine 3 engine and is known for optimised and improved destructible environments, large crowd simulation and soft body dynamics.
Total War: WARHAMMER
Not only is the Total War franchise one of the most popular real-time tactical strategy titles of all time, but Sega delve into multiple worlds such as the Roman Empire, Napoleonic era and even Attila the Hun, but more recently they nosedived into the world of Games Workshop via the WARHAMMER series. Developers Creative Assembly have used their latest RTS battle title with the much talked about DirectX 12 API so that this title can benefit from all the associated features that comes with it. The game itself is very CPU intensive and is capable of pushing any top end system to their limits.
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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.