The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTColorful CVN X570 Gaming Pro V14
While not usually a brand found regularly in the western parts of the world, we saw an X570 model from Colorful, or as they are sometimes referred to, iGame. The Colorful CVN X570 Gaming Pro V14 is a little bit of a mouthful to say, but it has a modest feature set onboard with a Realtek Gigabit NIC, two USB 3.1 G2 ports on the rear panel, as well as two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots. It's aesthetic is quite clean looking with a black and silver design, with a red accented X570 chipset heatsink fan. The CVN series is inspired by militaristic warfare with previous models from iGame taking its design from US Naval aircraft carriers; this is signified by the fighter jet graphics on the boards PCB.
In the top right-hand corner of the board are four memory slots with support for up to DDR4-3466 memory which pails in comparison to the current compatibility from other vendors, even on the cheaper section of the product stack. There are three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/x4; this means two-way NVIDIA SLI and up to three-way AMD CrossFire is supported. On top of that are two PCIe 4.0 x1 slots, while sandwiched between these are two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, each with its own heatsink attached. Also included are six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays.
On the rear panel is a single USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, a single USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, four USB 3.1 G1 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports. Also featured is a HDMI and DisplayPort pairing of video outputs are present which allows users to use the integrated Vega graphics cores of the Ryzen APUs, while the boards six 3.5 mm audio jacks are powered by an ageing Realtek ALC1150 HD audio codec; not seen one of these used for a very long time on a consumer chipset. The CVN X570 Gaming Pro V14's NIC of choice is the Realtek RTL8118AS Gigabit controller which controls the single Ethernet port on the rear panel.
The Colorful CVN X570 Gaming Pro V14 pricing and availability is currently unknown, but we will update once we receive this information. It does feature an interesting controller set, especially the inclusion of an older Realtek ALC1150 HD codec, which would probably make this model one of the cheapest X570 boards around; one would assume. There is support for two-way NVIDIA SLI and the two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots do include heatsinks but is let down again by the lacklustre memory support (DDR4-3466).
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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 ;)