This motherboard is everything I expected it to be for $95 (when I bought it). I put my 2700x processor in this motherboard, and I can overclock BCLK to 103 which turns it into 4.0Ghz, but anything after crashes and for some reason disables my SATA ports (lol), so I've stuck to high overclocks on my x470 motherboard (also by Asus but non-ROG). I'm able to overclock my RAM to 3400Mhz without XMP (because XMP is terrible IMO). It's more expensive than some or most B450 because it has more overclocking capabilities, and because it's ROG. The BIOS has a built-in AI OC, which means it will find the best settings according to your CPU cooler and apply the overclock. Don't know what else to say so here's a pro/con list.
Pros
-cheap
-effective
-works with Zen+ right out the box
-RGB (duh)
-IO shield preinstalled
-all the design details
-good heatsinks for cooler parts
-two m.2 SSD slots? or ports? whatever you call them
-easy overclock, in fact, there is an AI overclock
-6 SATA ports for some reason
-8 USB ports
-crisp audio
-comes with stickers
Cons
-sometimes the AI OC doesn't work
-no SLI (big let down for me, I was gonna try 2080 NVlink)
-not sure if this is a B450 thing or all MOBOs, but if you put a PCI-e 8x, it will convert your GPU from 16x to 8x too
-no built in wifi, dish out $30 on an ASUS USB wifi adapter or just go ethernet
*****UPDATE******
New Bios update 0602 fixed the voltage issues with the board (make sure you update your bios) was able to get my Ryzen 5 2600 (non X) to 4.1Ghz with good enough temps on a Cooler master MA410P tower heatsink with a Corsair ML120 Pro fan instead of the stock RGB fan, with 3200Mhz ram and 2065Mhz OC on the Asus Strix OC GTX 1060 6GB. need to do some more messing around with my OC's but everything is pretty stable
I love this motherboard as great option for a Budget ROG board on AM4! I have had nothing but great quality products from the Asus Republic of Gamers line (all the way back to LGA 775 with the Maximus II Gene and then a Maximus IV Gene-Z on LGA 1155). now they have the ROG Strix line for high quality budget options vs their higher end options. I can be sure a newbie pc builder can work with this board and a gaming pc no problem. also I have had no SPD memory bricking (that was on Crosshair VI board and Gskill trident z rgb memory last year) using the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro with Corsair iCUE (as the ram currently doesnt support Aura). this board also has great VRM cooling was able to get a Ryzen 5 2600 to 3.85Ghz on a Cooler Master MA410P (swapped out the RGB fan for a Corsair ML120 Pro non RGB) with good temps and the VRM stayed cool. the only downside this board requires Windows 10 to receive windows updates if your hesitant to upgrade platforms, if you're still on 7/8.1, or just a tin foil hat user (Microsoft puts the same telemetry in windows 7 and 8.1, so windows 10 or not there's still the same telemetry) (yes it has Windows 7 drivers but Microsoft will not service windows update to earlier then AMD Summit Ridge and Intel Kaby Lake based chips). this board is more expensive then the cheaper Asrock and MSI B450 boards (most B450 boards go for about $70-$110) but again if you Republic of Gamers on a budget, dont need Nvidia SLi (which Im assuming you're only running 1 GPU if you're getting this), need good a OC-ing B450 board, and higher quality then those Cheaper Asrock and MSI as well as the god awful boards Gigabyte produces then get this.
Great motherboard at a decent price. Purchased as a replacement to an A8 based board, I had zero configuration issues with getting it working on the very first boot. The BIOS even forces you to review settings before loading the OS that first time.
My only complaint about this board is with the printing by the headers. Clearly, as suggested by the marketing, this board is intended to be seen and has aesthetic touches to that end, the most troublesome of which is the really tiny print.
If you wear reading glasses, have lots of good light, a good workspace, and be prepared to just follow the manual diagram vs. the board labels. The manual is a life saver on that!
The absolute best Ryzen motherboard you should get if you don’t intend to use SLI. The VRM supplies stable power compared to my old MSi motherboard. The components are high quality, and the RGB lighting adds a nice touch. The audio codec needed some tuning, it might be a bug. But it was quickly fixed. Aura Sync worked seemlessly, but some of the gimmicks you won’t need. Fan control is excellent.
With my Ryzen 2700 and a Arctic Freezer 33 cooler, I was able to reach 4.2 GHz at a comfortable temperature of 60 degrees C. Way better than the crashing with MSi.
Overall, I don’t see any reason not to like the board.
I am not a computer expert but do have some experience. This board has a great feature, the LED on the mother lights up during boot to let you know if there is a hardware issue. My sons pc crashed and we had to rebuild. I replaced the mother board and still not fixed but I noticed a LED white light on and saw in manual that it was a video card failure. I replaced graphics card and it still didnt work. The light was now yellow indicating a RAM problem. I erroneously over clocked the CPU and RAM, this made it unstable then failed. Once I reset the RAM to not over clock the system worked great and the board no longer lit up. This was a great diagnostic tool that was very helpful for me a novice. Would highly recommend to anyone who is building there own system and also do not over clock until everything is working fine.
Feature Product
- Powered by 2nd generation AMD Ryzen AM4 and 7th generation Athlon processors to maximize connectivity and speed with dual NVMe M.2, USB 3.1 Gen2, gigabit LAN and up to 64GB of DDR4 (3200 MHz)
- 5-Way Optimization with Auto-Tuning and Fan Xpert 4 automatically tailors overclocking profiles to your unique build for maximum OC performance and dynamic system cooling
- Aura Sync RGB lighting plus 2 additional RGB headers provide a nearly endless spectrum of colors with the ability to synchronize effects across an ever-expanding ecosystem of enabled products
- Industry-leading 8-channel HD audio with the ROG exclusive SupremeFX S1220A driven by Japanese capacitors. Operating System-Windows 10 64-bit
- Pre-mounted I/O shield ensures streamlined installation and represents ROG's attention to detail and quality
Description
Experience next-level performance with the ROG Strix B450-F Gaming, powered by 2nd generation AMD Ryzen AM4 processors. Unlock your system's potential with 5-Way Optimization featuring Fan Xpert 4 while personalizing your build with Aura Sync RGB. Integrated NVMe M.2, gigabit LAN and USB 3.1 Gen2 deliver maximum connectivity speeds.
If this board would have taken a RAID configuration like I expected it to do, it would have been 5 stars easily. However, it did not and since I was earlier told by ASUS that it would, I deducted two stars. They got one back for their technical support determining the problem. Of course, I expect that from ASUS, but anything over an hour on the phone helping me is still worth a star.
What I wanted was a 512 GB PCIe SSD for the boot drive, two 4TB drives in a RAID1 configuration (I actually wanted to go with RAID5 but ASUS dropped support for it), and an optical SATA drive. The optical drive was the issue. I originally had the two HDDs connected to the wrong ports (5 and 6, where I thought I was connecting them to 1 and 2... oops!) so they were disabled due to the SSD. So I called ASUS and told them what I needed to do. The rep walked me through the process and we got the RAID1 working fine. But then I realized my optical drive didn't show up any more. After some cursing and thinking and researching, I found out that when we configured the RAID1 controller, it uses RAID1 on ALL SATA ports, not just the ones in the RAID. So I had to make a decision between a RAID and an optical drive. I kept the optical drive.
I'm still in the process of setup, but so far everything else seems to be working well. The board is well-designed, with good documentation and friendly, knowledgeable support. Even with the RAID support issues, ASUS rocks, and I for one hope they keep rocking!
I bought this motherboard for my first build after I decided to get new hardware for a prebuilt I have, and realized that some of my new stuff (mainly graphics card) wouldn't fit in the prebuilt case. I ended up pretty much building a whole new PC and it started with this motherboard. It was easy to install everything and the motherboard sits perfectly in my Corsair 100R case. BIOS is easy to understand and you can customize a lot in there. The manual was pretty clear with the exception of the front panel connectors, the manual says to insert the connectors one way but the board has a slightly different configuration. I have nothing against this MB with the exception that the I/O shield gets in the way of the graphics card. The lower part of the I/O shield juts out in a way that installing a graphics card there is a no go. This in turn makes it so that my graphics card sits right above my power supply, and when it gets hot my card ends up pulling hot air and crashes some games. I haven't tried removing the shield and I don't know if it's possible, but I would love to use the upper slot for my card. All in all though, I'm happy with the card and the performance, I just wish I could use that other slot.
***EDIT*** I was able to move my graphics card to the upper slot by wiggling the mount in between the case and the I/O shield. Changed from 4 stars to 5!
Very nice MB from ASUS. Minimal RGB on the board itself. I am not into RGB. Gimme a nice Fractal case (quiet running), good air cooling and I am a happy guy. (Radiators belong in cars, not PC's). Updated the board BIOS, set the ram, bumped the CPU to 4.0GHz (it will do 4.2GHz) and everything is running just fine. I put in a Ryzen 2600 and when AMD releases the next gen next spring I will probably update the processor again.
10-15-18 Amazon has the Ryzen 2600 on sale for $150, that is a GOOD deal!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B41WS48/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
So this is the second AM4 motherboard that I have purchased since the launch of Ryzen, and I can confidently say that this is leagues better than the X370 Motherboard from Gigabyte that I got that was originally valued at $210. What it come down to at this point is bios configuration and just getting things to work. While it's not entirely fair to compare generational differences in this manner since neither exactly has even playing field when it comes to it's support. But already do I extensively love this board more than my previous one, especially since I got a new chip that OC's extremely well!
What I am very happy about was how fast this shipment came. I ordered this with standard shipping and had to ship it APO since I am overseas at the moment and this came half a week before the processor that I ordered the same day from Newegg. Thank you Amazon!
Now, it would likely be 5 stars if I hadn't found damage on a RGB header on the board when I first opened the packaging. I don't know when that would have occurred, but for me I don't really care to "glam" up my pc more than what parts came with what I purchased, so I'm never really going to use the header, and the pin bent right back into place, but it's disappointing to see and I don't know if there could be damage elsewhere that is not apparent at this time. However right now it definitely appears as though everything is working perfectly fine. Especially since according to UserBenchmark I've got a CPU in the 98th percentile on OC performance, and I haven't even pushed it terribly hard yet. I don't plan too since I can't brick this motherboard yet, but I am already loving how much easier it is to use the bios in Asus motherboard vs. Gigabyte's
However, what I find extremely weird is that in the bios I can't figure out how to get direct control over the voltage, it only lets me offset and that's a downside versus the Gigabyte board that I had, but then again I have yet to update and bios and even still I haven't really looked anything up since I can just use the Ryzen Master Software which I think might be safer? I don't have a clue it's a but more intuitive but I don't like that I can't boot to 4.1 because I don't know how to use the bios.
The board is okay and function properly way better than my old motherboard. It's VR compatible and it works flawlessly with my rift.
I have not overclocked it yet because I have the stock cooler installed for now.
The thing I don't like about it is the way it's built cheaply and cost-effective. And it can can perform very well with this value.
0 comments:
Post a Comment