The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTMSI X570-A Pro
Moving along to the last of MSI's seven deep X570 product stack is the entry-level MSI X570-A Pro. For users not looking to spend the $200 + for gaming branded boards and looking for more office-based and professional use, the MSI X570-A Pro includes a decent core feature set which includes the same 8+2 power delivery as the MPG X570 Gaming Plus ($169), but with basic design. Also included is a Gigabit NIC, DDR4-4400 support, and one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot.
On the MSI X570-A Pro is two full-length PCIe 4.0 which operate at x16, and x8/x4, and three PCIe 4.0 x1 slots. Also featured is one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, but this slot doesn't come included with a heatsink; a total of six SATA ports make up the rest of the board's storage options. This model is very resemblant of the X570 Gaming Plus, but with a more professional look with its all-black theme, but without RGB or red accented heatsinks. On the X570 chipset heatsink is a cooling fan, and the X570-A Pro also has four memory slots with support for DDR4-4400 and up to a maximum of 128 GB. It also shares the same 8+2 power delivery as the X570 Gaming Edge WIFI and X570 Gaming Plus models, and also includes an 8-pin and 4-pin pair of 12 V ATX CPU power inputs.
MSI's X570-A Pro includes one USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports on its rear panel. A clear CMOS switch is present, along with an HDMI video output, and a PS/2 combo port. The single Ethernet port is controlled by a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit NIC, while the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are powered by a premium Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec.
The MSI X570-A Pro as it stands is the cheapest model from its X570 product stack with an MSRP of $159. It's solid and uniformed all-black look is very simplistic, and users not looking for NVIDIA SLI support and more than two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots will find this as an attractive model. This no-frills and inexpensive (compared to some others) makes this one of the cheaper entry points onto the X570 chipset for users looking to benefit from X570's features such as PCIe 4.0.
225 Comments
View All Comments
PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Pretty much this. Modern games on DX12 won't see any benefit unless the game developer bakes in support (which they appear uninterested in doing for cost reasons) and older games run very well on a single modern GPU. AMD and NV are hardly acknowledging SLI these days either and nowhere but at the top end so there is even less compulsion for developers to bother with supporting it. All in all, you're better off not worrying about SLI unless the industry changes direction significantly in the next few years.ajlueke - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
The real question however, is does all this power delivery actually have any practical benefits? If I drop a 3000 series CPU in an X570 board vs X470, can I achieve any additional performance? And what is the power consumption differences in the respective chipsets? That is the type of info I would like to see.PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
It's a marketng differentiator only as motherboard manufacturers all use the same core components and are quick to emulate one another with similar features. Through branding and obscure features that do not significantly impact computer operation, they search for something they can offer that may encourage you to make a purchase in a very, very crowded field of offerings.lopri - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Solid power delivery for high-performance CPUs is perhaps the farthest thing from obscure marketing features. OEMs do play with marketing BS for differentiation, but the underlying power delivery system is extremely important and can impact everyday operation for these multi-core CPUs.PeachNCream - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
At long as it meets AMD specifications, no it won't. If it doesn't meet specifications, then it's a bad design. There's no reason to tout being mediocre or a hair or two above mediocre unless you're running out of unique bullet points for the backside of the box that nobody bothers to read anyway.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Stock performance will be the same across the board unless the manufacturer royally screwed up and the power delivery has to throttle due to temperatures (which there are some cases of with super cheap motherboards and 8 cores). Doing OC (and PBO is already OC) is where things start to change. More / better phases means less heat output and better voltages (ripple). This can potentially give you better clocks. But most of this is only useful when you start OCing on water or sub zero systems. Air cooled overclocking will hardly benefit at all. And regarding power consumption you can go into a lot of detail. Sometimes more power phases simply destroys efficiency, when they are all fired up all the time. Sometimes more power phases are smartly managed and load balanced to be kept at their optimal efficiency. It really depends on the implementation.Peter2k - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
If you leave everything at stock, then there is no real reason to upgradeMost people would think keeping the socket backwards compatible as an upside
In a desktop the only real reason why we think about power draw going up from 5w to 11w is because manufactures like to keep the cooling block small, and those need a fan
Chipset fans bring back memories out of terrible noisy days
Also I remember chipset coolers to be a bit bigger in the past, I'm sure if you're just trying to provide food cooling, without trying to hit that gamer look, then you can cool that chipset without active fan
If you want to try your hand at OC'ing you should probably want the better power delivery
And there is no telling if the older boards will also run fine with higher memory speeds
Guessing they would, at least until the magical 3600, that's not that outlandish high
And how much that affects performance this time around still has to be tested
Short story
You have a Ryzen already, just make it a drop in replacement
No need to throw out the board
Peter2k - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Any one that would argue about the electricity costs going up (I've encountered those) should also not that all that shiny bling probably draws more watts then the 6w or so difference between last gen and this genpavag - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
I expected benchmarks.sorten - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
You expected benchmarks on 35+ boards that were released two days ago, and many of which aren't even available at retail?