The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTASRock X570 Steel Legend
Another mid-range board from ASRock is the X570 Steel Legend which blends a good range of features in with solid aesthetics with addressable RGB within its the power delivery and chipset heatsinks. The board sits on a black and urban camouflage themed PCB, with steel silver heatsinks, with elements of black to add contrast. This model is also very similar to the ASRock X570 Extreme4 in terms of components used, feature set, and overall design with the main difference coming via the color scheme.
In addition to the straight-lined heatsinks which makes the board look attractive, is a solid feature set including two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which run at x16, and x16/x4 due to chipset constraints. This means up to two way AMD CrossFire multi-graphics card setups can be used. In the top right corner is four memory slots with support for up to DDR4-4666 which is very impressive, and these slots support up to a maximum of 64 GB. The storage capabilities of the ASRock X570 Steel Legend include two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots each with its own individual heatsink, and blends into the actively cooled X570 chipset heatsink quite nicely. Also featured is eight SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, and ASRock's U.2 kit which is available separately is also supported.
The rear panel on the ASRock X570 Steel Legend is more comprehensive for a mid-range model than the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4, with a single USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, and six USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports. A single Ethernet port is powered by an Intel I211-AT Gigabit NIC, and while there is no wireless interface included, an M.2 Key E 2230 slot with inserts included on the IO shield allow for users to install their own. There are five 3.5 mm color coded audio jacks with a single S/PDIF optical output which are driven by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec, a DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI video output for Ryzen 2nd and 3rd gen APUs, and finishing off the rear panel is a PS/2 combo port.
The ASRock X570 Steel Legend offers users a similar feature set to its X570 Phantom Gaming 4, but with better onboard audio (Realtek ALC1220 vs ALC1200) and utilizes addressable RGB effectively within the heatsinks. This model also uses a straight forward 10-phase power delivery and includes an 8-pin and 4-pin set of 12 V ATX CPU power inputs to provide power to the processor. Price wise, the ASRock X570 Steel Legend has an MSRP of $200, while users in the USA can also get a version with Wi-Fi 6 at a cost of $210.
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TheUnhandledException - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Why on the last page would you label a section "3 or MORE M.2 Slots". I looked up all the boards in the section to find the one with four slots. All of the boards listed have exactly three m.2 slots. It isn't 3 or more m.2 slots. It is three m.2 slots.Sychonut - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
Great job Gavin!! This is impressive.umano - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
Can't wait for the new threadripper platformbinkleym - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
Given that several motherboards are having to remove features (RAID, graphical BIOS, user profiles) from the BIOS in order to fit the AGESA for Zen 2, it would be nice if motherboard reviews would start mentioning the size of the BIOS, so we can easily discern which motherboards are designed to be future-proof, and which ones are nickel'd and dime'd into early obsolescence.ballsystemlord - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
Spelling and grammar corrections (I did not read the descriptions of all the MBs):"...with that link consuming 4 dedicated anes from each chip."
Missing "l":
"...with that link consuming 4 dedicated lanes from each chip."
"Notably motherboard vendors have said that the upcoming 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X was the baseline for which the new VRM designs were validated against."
Missing comma:
"Notably, motherboard vendors have said that the upcoming 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X was the baseline for which the new VRM designs were validated against."
ballsystemlord - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
@Gavin Could you guys start adding a column of boards that have 6 or more PCI(e) slots, it seems that they've been getting fewer and fewer since M.2 came out?Thanks!
ballsystemlord - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
I mean total slots. Not any particular size.stux - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
In your “if you want thunderbolt 3” section, you really should mention the ASRock Creator. Otherwise the choices are water cooling specialist limited edition or ITX.peevee - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link
Why "DDR4 support" and "memory channels" are listed in the chipset table? These are CPU features, not chipset features.BerserkZodd - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
I ordered an X570 Steel Legend and a MP600 Gen4 PCIe M2 drive. My motherboard is still being shipped but it looks like the heatsink that goes over top of the M2 slots is one big piece, meaning my very expensive m2 drive wouldnt fit under that. Can anyone confirm if that is in fact one giant heat sink or does the M2 part come off separate.