EVGA Releases the X570 Dark: First Ryzen Motherboard from EVGA, Built for OC
by Gavin Bonshor on September 23, 2021 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- EVGA
- Overclocking
- AM4
- X570
- X570S
- EVGA X570 Dark
- EVGA Dark
Back in July, we reported that EVGA was teasing its first AMD-based motherboard since the AM2+ days. Fast forward to now, and that dream of an EVGA model for AMD's Ryzen processors led by in-house engineer and extreme overclocker Vince 'KINGPIN' Lucido is now a reality. The EVGA X570 Dark benefits from a large premium 17-phase power delivery (14+2+1) designed for pushing Ryzen 5000 to its limits and support for up to DDR4-4800 out of the box across two memory slots to minimize latency.
The EVGA X570 Dark, as expected, is primarily suited to extreme overclockers, with a variety of performance-enhancing features across the large E-ATX sized PCB. One of the most notable design characteristics includes a transposed AM4 CPU socket for better support when mounting an LN2 (liquid nitrogen) pot, and an empty CPU socket area to minimize risks when insulating for sub-ambient cooling. All the major power connectors are also at right angles, to be less of an issue when extreme overclocking for records.
EVGA uses a 16-phase power delivery organized into a 14+2 configuration, with fourteen premium 90 A power stages for the CPU section. It's a slightly different design to accommodate the transposed socket as it stretches around the bottom of the AM4 socket. It is using active VRM cooling with two cooling fans and uses a 10-layer PCB design. The 17th power stage is for the memory. Providing power to the CPU is a pair of 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs. Some of the most notable features of the EVGA X570 Dark include voltage monitoring points at the top of the board, as well as a variety of switches to enable/disable features that might be critical to sub-zero overclocking stability.
For end-users wanting to have a daily system, there are dual PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, eight SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, as well as 2.5 GbE wired and Wi-Fi 6 wireless networking. Looking at PCIe support, EVGA includes two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating at x16 and x8/x8, with a half-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot. Other features include a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec backed by EVGA's NU audio solution, eight 4-pin cooling headers, a passively cooled chipset heatsink, and two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C port on the rear panel.
The EVGA X570 Dark is currently available to purchase directly from the EVGA website for $690. This isn't a cheap motherboard, but overclocking-focused motherboards such as this come at a hefty premium. Although it has plenty of features for a daily Ryzen 5000 based system, the hope is that it provides the substance for extreme overclockers looking to push Ryzen 5000 silicon to its limits.
Our review of the EVGA X570 Dark will be coming very soon - it arrived a couple of days ago and is currently on our testbed!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
24 Comments
View All Comments
Silver5urfer - Friday, September 24, 2021 - link
Stop staying the same thing that I heard over and over all over the damn place. I know about EVGA DARK I don't even want a crappy TB4 controller because it delays POST. The price is too high and AM4 is already short of EOL, Zen 4 is pegged at Q3-4 Zen3D is only thing left and there's no guarantee how it will OC given the extra Silicon and the Zen 3 doesn't reward OC in Memory nor in high clock speed unlike 10900K.LN2 pot you say, then why EVGA boards are even selling and why people are not just using LN2 pots and break records but rather end up in a Corsair 5000D cases and custom loops and air cooled rigs at EVGA forum ?
The board is insanely expensive for it's mediocre USB ports, I/O, M.2 Drives, even DIMM, Ryzen doesn't get well with Dual Rank kits unlike Intel. And it's better to put 4x8GB 4000MHz C15 G.Skill on this at 3800MHz tops stable which is very hard already for Zen 3 IMC to handle.
Eliadbu - Saturday, September 25, 2021 - link
if you heard the same thing over and over again maybe it's the truth, ever it crossed your mind ?Zen 3 is far from EOL, EOL usually can take place several years from the point the product is being replaced by newer one. and even if we get zen 4 at q 3-4 this is 1 year from now and that is a lot of time for the people the board is aimed for.
OC on zen 3 does give you added performance like also memory OC but you need to tweak the settings (like the infinity fabric clock) for getting the optimal results.
If you ask about all EVGA boards in general not all of them are designed for extreme OC. this boards does and you can see in all the features and aspects of this board, people can use EVGA boards as they like and EVGA won't stop them since in the end their boards they can do whatever they like but this board while it can be used for 24/7 rigs its features and design philosophy was aimed for Xtreme OC.
the boards is expensive for different aspects (form USB headers or gazilion m.2 slots) like the triple bios, probe it connector, slow-mod switch, SLI support, better telemetry, massive heatsink, power delivery design, board layout etc etc.
the 2 DIMM desgin is for more optimal memory pathway which allows faster clocks again Xtreme OC feature.
If you ever going to do Xtreme OC you will understand why this board is well fitted for Xtreme OC and where its price comes from. as I said this board is not for you it's for people who appreciate these features.
Silver5urfer - Sunday, September 26, 2021 - link
Only people who are either hardcore fanboys or shills do that sort of crap. Ryzen doesn't have any OC potential. That's a known fact and it reaches instability with a lot of memory issues on top. This board is nothing special. OCers like Buildzoid and Luumi use MSI X570 Unify on LN2, you can keep doing the PR service.This board doesn't deserve that price tag. No matter what, there are boards like GB Xtreme which have even bigger VRMs and Heatsinks than this. DARK is the only Xtreme OC why is this priced more than Z590 DARK ? When the Z590 infact has more HS, More VRMs, More M.2 slots, 20gbps USB port on rear ? Yeah some magical BS they are only doing this because of demand of X570 boards and that's it. Nothing else. This is a rip off of the X570. It doesn't even have damn backplate at such high cost.
And all that said, I'm interested in this board because of BIOS and expecting no USB issues not your PR kerfuffle BS.
Duwelon - Thursday, September 23, 2021 - link
I have an EVGA Z270 board which has been fairly solid, but I wish EVGA supported their boards a little bit more. Their BIOS updates stop coming pretty quickly compared to other vendors like Asus, and mine hasn't had an intel security update since 2019, or about 1.5 years after release. Asus and other vendors seem to provide support much longer and I can't see myself going with EVGA over one of them anytime soon because of that.