AMD held a public webinar event overnight where it invited its motherboard partners to showcase their premium AM5 motherboards. We’ve looked at many high-end boards, including an overview of specifications and key design features.
AMD invited representatives from each motherboard manufacturer to talk about their high-end X670E motherboards. These boards support AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 series CPUs based on the Zen 4 architecture. AM5 motherboards include the new LGA1718 socket, which itself is a fundamental change from the PGA AM4 socket. The pins are now on the motherboard, instead of the CPU.
AM5 includes PCI Express 5.0 support. Most will feature 16 lanes across one or two physical 16x slots, as well as four dedicated lanes for a PCIe 5.0 SSD. The AM5 platform also includes support for DDR5 memory, a higher power specification and, a welcome move, compatibility with AM4 CPU coolers. This means that virtually any cooler released in the past five years or more will be AM5 compatible.
The CPUs themselves will be released in September. So for now, some details including performance, memory and overclocking capabilities have yet to be revealed, but this motherboard showcase gives us a welcome look at what to expect from the new platform. So, in alphabetical order, let’s start with what Asrock brings to the party.
ASRock
ASRock showed five X670E motherboards. The flagship is the X670E Taichi Carrara, a special edition board built to celebrate ASRock’s 20th anniversary. It features a definite marble aesthetic, so watch out for some interesting mod builds with those. The X670E Taichi includes a 26-phase VRM and Thunderbolt 4 support.
Interestingly, Asrock will release several cheaper X670E cards. The Steel Legend and Pro are traditionally not known as high-end models, so these promise to bring the X670E features down to a lower price point.
Some of the highlights include USB4 with fast charging and M.2 cooling with fan support. It looks like a high-end PCIe 5.0 drive will be a little on the warm side.
Asus
Asus started showing off its ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme. This board has amazing connectivity options, with loads of USB including USB4, 10G and 2.5G LAN plus Wi-Fi 6E. It comes with support for up to five M.2 drives, with up to three supporting PCIe 5.0 if you use the included add-in card. It has dual PCIe 5.0 PCIe slots, high-end VRM and audio solutions, as well as what Asus calls the AniMe Matrix LED display. Don’t expect this one to be affordable!
The Crosshair X670E Hero doesn’t seem to lose that much compared to the Extreme. It loses the 10G LAN and AniMe display, but still has a powerful VRM and plenty of connectivity support, including dual USB 4 Type-C.
At first glance, it seems that Asus includes just about every feature imaginable. I personally look forward to seeing the rumored Crosshair Apex.
Biostar
Biostar products don’t have the ‘big 4’ profile, but at first glance the Valkyrie certainly looks like a premium board. It has a powerful 22-phase 105a VRM, plenty of USB (but no USB 4) and triple PCIe slots.
It has dual PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots and it includes HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4 display support for use with Ryzen 7000’s new built-in graphics functionality.
Gigabyte
Gigabyte came prepared with an extensive presentation showcasing several of its upcoming boards. The X670E Aorus Xtreme leads the way with an 18+2+2 VRM, 10G LAN and support for up to four PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives.
The Aorus Master returns to 2.5G LAN and two PCIe 5.0 + two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, but will certainly also be a lot cheaper than the Xtreme.
The Aorus Pro AX and Aorus Elite AX will take the place of the popular X570 versions and seem to offer well-balanced feature sets at affordable prices.
The Gigabyte representative confirmed that a Tachyon model was in development, but that it would not be based on X670. Interesting!
MSIA
MSI’s X670E range is topped off by the MEG X670E Godlike. It’s a beast and could end up being the most expensive X670E board if current Godlike prices are an indicator. It’s packed with features, including a monstrous VRM, with a finned cooling fin array, a PCIe 5.0 m.2 expansion card, and 10G LAN.
The MEG Ace hardly loses anything in comparison, keeping the M.2 expansion card and 10G LAN. The X670E Carbon Wi-Fi is more of a sweet spot gaming model and leaves out most of the over-the-top features.
These are mostly high-end motherboards and many of them will certainly be very expensive, but it’s good to see the X670E chipset (which are actually chipsets (opens in new tab)) will not be exclusive to flagship models. We can expect even more attractively priced X670 non-E motherboards and B650 boards to follow. PC Gamer will have full coverage of Ryzen 7000 series CPUs and AM5 motherboards in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned!
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