The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTMSI MEG X570 Godlike
Swinging around onto MSI's X570 product stack and we open up with its most premium and ultimately the flagship, the MSI MEG X570 Godlike. The MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE is its flagship X570 motherboard designed for both enthusiasts and gamers with a range of high-end controllers, accessories, and also features a 20-phase power delivery; 14-phase for the CPU VCore and 4-phase for the VGT/SoC.
The X570 chipset on MSI motherboards including this model is actively cooled by a single fan featuring double ball bearing technology which MSI is calling Zero Frozr. Aesthetically the MEG X570 Godlike is impressive and even features an OLED screen which is implemented between the four DDR4 memory slots and the 24-pin ATX 12 V motherboard power input. The four memory slots have support for DDR4-4800 and up to 128 GB of total system memory. Touching on the accessories bundle included with the X570 Godlike is an Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE add-in card and M.2 Xpander-Z Gen4 M.2 PCIe add-on card which allows users to add an additional two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives on top of the three PCIe 4.0 x4 slots that are present on the board. Each onboard M.2 slot includes its own individual Lightning Gen4 M.2 heatsink.
The MSI MEG X570 Godlike comes with an M.2 Xpander-Z Gen4 and Aquantia 10 G NIC add-on card
The MSI MEG X570 Godlike's PCB is four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16, x8/x0/x8, and x8/x4/x4, with the last full-length slot locked down to PCIe 4.0 x4. This means both two-way NVIDIA SLI and up to four-way AMD CrossFire multi-graphics card setups. A lot of focus has also been put enthusiasts with its 16-phase power delivery for the VCore; this power delivery uses Infineon TDA21472 MOSFETs with IR3599 doublers and runs from an IR35201 Digital PWM controller. Providing power to the CPU is two 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs setting the Godlike up as MSI's most enthusiast-level desktop board for any AMD platform in recent times.
Looking at the rear panel of the X570 Godlike, there are three USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, and two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports. Commonly featured on premium models, the MSI MEG X570 Godlike also has a pre-installed rear panel IO shield. Also present is a Flash BIOS button with a highlighted Type-A port dedicated to firmware flashing, as well as a Clear CMOS button, and a PS/2 combo port. The onboard audio is powered by two Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codecs with five 3.5 mm jacks and S/PDIF optical output, MSI has included an ESS E9018 DAC for good measure, which also adds a dedicated 6.3 mm jack for studio headphones which is included in the accessories bundle. The rear panel has two Ethernet ports with a Killer pairing consisting of an E3000 2.5 G, and E2600 Gigabit NIC.
The MSI MEG X570 Godlike E-ATX motherboard has an MSRP of $699 which for everything that is included is quite impressive. With an impressive accessories bundle which includes an Aquantia AQC107 10 G NIC add-on card, an Xpander-Z Gen4 M.2 card which adds a scope for an additional two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives to be installed bringing to total to five is also a nice touch. It's not a cheap investment, but it's an impressive option for gamers, enthusiasts, and hardware aficionados looking to create a high-end system using Ryzen 3000.
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abufrejoval - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
PCI4 and 5, or for that matter IF will trigger rethinking motherboard layouts and form factors."The [Enthusiast] motherboard" dates back to 1981 or the dawn of the IBM Personal Computer, and physics are catching up everywhere, even on the motherboard.
Distance has a huge impact on speed, latency and power, so 'flat' and 'square' are both the first obstacles and the first who need to compromise. In the future every milimeter of distance between the die carrier and your point of interest will need to be paid for, in energy/time or extra switching silicon.
Linear extrapolations of the past have little use, when the barriers are exponential.
TheUnhandledException - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Even if you keep the board a square moving the CPU and chipset to the center of the board and having PCIe slots on either side would cut the trace to the furthest slots in half.The_Assimilator - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Hopefully at the same time we can ditch 12V as the rail to rule them all, so that we can bring the amperages in current systems back down to sane levels.ChubChub - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link
Would be cool to see the CPU on one side of the board, and the cards on the other; would shrink those distances, but would require a new form factor, which would kindof suck (but I can picture what the dual-sided boards would look like, and I think it's a pretty neat idea having two independent sides for cooling (also, in a tower setup, a CPU sitting vertically on the board, which would be nice).Targon - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
This is why if Gen-Z gets adopted, we could have PCI Express hanging off the Gen-Z bus as a way to deal with these issues.sing_electric - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
I was thinking that the mobo costs made price comparisons more difficult. Then I remembered that AMD is still throwing in a pretty good stock cooler, while Intel makes you BYO. For MOST users, that means that your total build cost will be lower with AMD.If you're doing something exotic - say, with liquid cooling or heavy overclocking that requires a certain thermal solution - then sure, you lose those savings, but if you're spending $300 to keep your machine cool, is the price difference of the motherboard really going to sway you one way or another?
Oliseo - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
You're actually comparing the bundled CPU cooler to a $300 custom loop Intel Cooler?You're expecting people to take you seriously as well?
Targon - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
Consider that for those who buy the i9-9900k, you can't get away with a 95W cooler, even if the rated TDP is 95W. So, you do need to buy at least a $30 cooler for air cooling on the 9900k, while AMD does provide a cooler to handle the typical performance of its processors. Even then, $330 for the Ryzen 7 3700X or 3800X for 8 cores/16 threads, vs. the $489 for the 9900k+$30 or $40 will still be more expensive for an 8 core/16 thread chip.What many don't realize is that if you go with AMD and get a B450 or X470 chipset motherboard(that has an updated BIOS or with BIOS flashback), you get the motherboard price you want, and the cost of ownership will still be lower. Since Intel doesn't offer PCI Express 4.0, going with PCI Express 3.0 on the AMD side won't be a big deal from the comparison point of view. Overclocking potential has not been compared between the enthusiast class X470 and X570 based motherboards from what I have seen as well, but it could make a difference for many people.
Flunk - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
I like how almost all of these boards have 2 or more M.2 slots. I had to be very careful when I bought my Z170 board to find one with 3 M.2 slots.But now there are boards with 3 slots so maybe I'll have to snag that Aorus Ultra.
drexnx - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
it's amazing how fast number of M.2 slots has become the primary thing I look for in a mobo anymore too