The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTASRock X570 Extreme4
The ASRock X570 Extreme4 is another model which strafes itself away from the more gaming-oriented models from its product stack. Very similar in design and feature set to to the ASRock X570 Steel Legend, the X570 Extreme4 uses a black PCB with darker gunmetal grey colored heatsinks. It also has addressable RGB integrated into the rear panel cover and chipset heatsink, with support for ASRock's Polychrome Sync software.
Looking at the expansion slots available on the ASRock X570 Extreme4, there are two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots with support for x16, and x16/x4 which means up to two way AMD CrossFire is supported; the top full-length slot includes a coating of ASRock's Steel armor for better durability. In addition to this are three PCIe 4.0 x1 slots, and located underneath each of the full-length PCIe 4.0 slots are two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, each with an individual heatsink which links into the actively cooled X570 chipset heatsink; also featured is eight SATA ports with RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays all supported. Underneath the rear panel cover and the heatsinks is a 10-phase power delivery with an 8-pin and 4-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input to power the processor. At the top right-hand corner is four memory slots with support for up to DDR4-4666 and users can install up to a maximum of 64 GB of RAM.
On the rear panel is one USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C and six USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports, as well as an HDMI video output. While the ASRock X570 Extreme4 doesn't come with Wi-Fi enabled, there is an M.2 Key E 2230 slot for users to install their own wireless interface, and there are mounting holes located on the rear IO shield for this. Also located on the rear panel is a PS/2 combo port, a single Ethernet port controlled by an Intel I211-AT Gigabit NIC, and there are also five 3.5 mm color coded audio jacks and a S/DPIF optical output which are powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec.
With a very similar feature set and overall aesthetic to the ASRock X570 Steel Legend model, the X570 Extreme4 features a more modest design with less of a focus on gaming, and more on performance whilst keeping a good quality core feature set. The ASRock X570 Extreme4 has an MSRP of $240, but users in the US can purchase a Wi-Fi 6 enabled version for the slightly higher cost of $250.
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The_Assimilator - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Nope, I really do need that many USB ports! In the past I've used various add-in cards and hubs to achieve this, but my experiences with these devices, and their drivers, and compatibility has been spotty at best, and they also take up space or PCIe slots - hence why I'd much prefer if it was all just integrated on the board.Just to be clear, I don't need 10 USB 3 ports - 8 USB 3 and a pair of 2.0 would be perfect. Considering almost all of these boards have a pair of USB 2.0 headers for 4 ports in total, but cases today don't offer more than a single USB 2.0 front-panel connector - plus that these boards' IO panels have plenty of extra room - I don't see why manufacturers can't drop one of those headers and just give us an extra two rear 2.0 ports as standard.
Qasar - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
why not pick up a usb header to slot plate adapter, im sure you have unused card openings on the back of your case under the video cardDanNeely - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
More ports on the back mean fewer available headers for internal connections. x570 has 12 total USB 3.x ports; so most boards maxing out at 8 on the back and 2 headers (2 ports/header) internal seems about right. Going higher means adding either USB3 controller chips (eats PCIe lanes but gives independent ports for greater total system throughput) or on board USB3 hubs; both of which drive up costs. With making the boards PCIe4 capable already driving up costs a lot the board makers are looking to economize elsewhere.shabby - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
I noticed the cheap asrock boards have 8 usb3 ports in the back.plonk420 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
THANK YOU SO MUCH for the VRM information! i don't even OC but i like to keep an eye on what VRMs boards are using... hopefully will help with longevity if i'm going to thrash either Vcore or SoC (keeping components like caps cooler)thomasg - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
In my opinion, all those boards are just silly.All they bring over the 2 years old X370 platform is PCIe 4.0 support, a bit more USB 3 Gen2 as well as often a second m.2 slot.
On the other hand, the southbridge fan is a ridiculous idea, especially consindering all the silly enormous heatsinks they mount to everything BUT the chipset.
And for that, they go for a premium of about 60% over X370 when it was fresh.
I paid 170 dollars for my PRIME X370-Pro day 1 (over 2 years ago), now the successor is 270 dollars.
The WS is the only board looking buyable, but then again, it also is actively cooled and doesn't even bring NBase-T.
I could forgive that, wouldn't they charge well above 300 dollars for it (while the other boards are close to MSRP in germany, the WS is already far below its MSPR).
Nope, thanks, I'm skipping X570.
Death666Angel - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
"I paid 170 dollars for my PRIME X370-Pro day 1 (over 2 years ago), now the successor is 270 dollars."Take that up with ASUS. I can get the X570 Phantom 4 from AsRock with (4x2) power stages (which means easier 3950X oc vs your x370 Pro) for 170€.
And for me, I'm starting to think that having 3 whole x4 slots (2 M.2, one x16) of 4.0 speeds is a nice addition versus the one 3.0 x4 M.2 and one 3.0 x2 or 2.0 x4 slot with another 2.0 x4 slot all the 4xx and 3xx mainboards offer. If I'm spending ~500€ anyway (32GB and 8 core), I might as well just spend another 170 on the mainboard vs 100 on a B450 (I need mATX, so only the MSI Mortar and AsRock Pro4 suite my needs).
And if you need Thunderbolt or over GbE speeds, these boards are the only way to go, frankly, since the 2.0 chipset lanes of the older chipsets are just terrible for this.
This doesn't satisfy your niche? Great, move along. That's the incredible thing about AMD supporting AM4 for this long. But no need to shit over a product that is pretty great overall, just because you don't need it's features.
thomasg - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
Indeed, it doesn't satisfy my niche, I'm just complaining about the new downsides of the new X570 platform, and specifically the available implementations.I'm not telling anyone not to get one, anyone who wants to take advantage of the extras is of course free to adopt the new boards.
I think I should be able to freely "shit over a product" as I wish without you having to take personal offense.
fearby - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Being in a hot climate I'd love to know what one has the best chipset cooling.gavbon - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
We are doing X570 chipset thermal analysis in our motherboard testing ;)