20 Best X570 Motherboard For Gaming (2023 Updated)

USB 2. 0 has been a bit flaky as Sebastian R’s review notes though I only had problems at startup, a newer BIOS may be why we had a different experience. A google did confirm it as an issue but I followed advice I found to disable ErP and this appeared to fix it.

I am not 100% that this is a gigabyte issue. It is pretty rough though that USB should misbehave and my rating has the board down a whole star over it. There have been a lot of recent bios updates (late 2021) including AGESA stuff.

I only have USB issues now with coming out of sleep mode and that is with ERP on (I loaded optimsed defaults at one point). I will turn it off again and expect it will fix the sleep mode USB problem occurring too.

DDR support seems OK, I could not get the rated 3600 out of my kit without angrying up the voltage past XMP (and decided against it) but the RAM is certifed as being for Intel (despite being on the ERP) so no worries there either.

I did notice the USB problem at DDR3600 on startup again too. Weird. Love the optical audio out! Flashing the bios to support the 5700G with a bare (no RAM or CPU) motherboard worked well. Super cool feature.

IšverstiShow in original languageI purchased this motherboard as an emergency back-up replacement to my ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero x570 motherboard, which died 12/16/2021 after only 10 months of time.

This motherboard was one of the cheapest X570 motherboards that I could personally verify at the store had a BIOS version ready for Ryzen 5000. NOTE: If you have a Ryzen 5000 CPU and purchase this motherboard online, there is a chance it may come with a BIOS version that is not ready to support it.

In-store, you can verify Ryzen 5000 readiness by looking for a sticker on the motherboard. It is likely most motherboards purchased online by this point will have the required BIOS for Ryzen 5000, but if you wish to verify this, you would have to see the box in-store.

If you do receive a board that has an old BIOS, this motherboard does NOT support BIOS flashback, which means you would need to install a compatible CPU (Ryzen 3000) to load the new BIOS for your Ryzen 5000 CPU.

AMD offers a loaner program for this, if you do not have a friend to borrow a CPU from, but you may be asked by AMD to go through ASUS first to see if you can send the board back to them to flash it for you.

This would be a headache, so if this is remotely a concern for you, I would recommend going in-store for this purchase. The motherboard is as-advertised and does everything it needs to do. My components transferred into the motherboard and booted up perfectly the first time.

The only tweaks needed were for RAM frequency which were adjusted in BIOS easily and gave no trouble. The motherboard manual is fairy detailed and was able to answer everything I needed to know regarding installation.

The reason for 4 stars versus 5 stars is that I have had two very odd freezes since putting my components into the system. The first freezing happened on the desktop while I was away from the computer.

The screen locked onto the desktop, system time was frozen at the time of the crash, and I could not move the mouse. The second time the computer froze I returned to my computer while it was on the desktop and found that the system time was frozen, but this time I could move the mouse.

I tried clicking on various applications and nothing would respond. After researching, there are some threads out there online that discuss this motherboard having freezing issues. I am fairly confident it has to be the board software and not any other part of my system, because I have observed no other defects on windows or crashes while doing more intensive tasks.

The freezes are very, very intermittent (on the order of 2 weeks+), so I will have to monitor for increases of frequency. It is a minor inconvenience at this point, but is noted so that you can do your own research prior to making the purchase.

If I could go back in time I think I would have gone for a Gigabyte board if I had not been in a pickle for getting a board quickly.

IšverstiShow in original languageUseiden tuntien ongelmanratkonnan jälkeen tulin siihen tulokseen että saamani emolevyn WiFi ei vain toimi, ei ainakaan omassa laitteistokokoonpanossa ja Windows 11 Home:ssa.

Windowsin laitehallinnassakaan ei näy mitään wifiin viittaavaa laitetta, ja Asuksen support sivuilta erikseen ladattu wifi ajurin asennusohjelma ei tunnu edes käynnistyvän, vaan sulkeutuu heti käynnistyksen jälkeen antamatta mitään virheilmoitusta.

Asuksen armoury crate taas listaa ja osaa päivittää emolevyn chipset ajurit, yms. mutta niillä ei tunnu olevan toimintaan vaikutusta (eikä se edes listaa mitään wifi-ajureihin liittyvää päivitettävää), joten siitäkään ei ole tilanteessa mitään apua.

Bioskin tarkistettu viimeisimmäksi versioksi ja wifi on biosin asetuksissa enabloituna. Tapauksessani tämä emolevy ei siis osoittautunut lisähintansa arvoiseksi esim. verrattuna halvempaan “Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus” emolevyyn, josta WiFi puuttuisi (kun ei se tässäkään toimi, joten täysin tyhjästä lisähinnan maksamista).

Tai selvästi kalliimpaan “Asus TUF Gaming X570-Pro WiFi II” emolevyyn, joka on itsellä myös käytössä ja joka on toiminut täysin ongelmitta. Tämän tuotteen raudan laatu tai ajurit on siis melkoinen pettymys.

Koska wifiä voi käyttää koneessa erillisen usb wifi donglen avulla, en itse aikonut palauttaa emolevyä takuuseen, sillä koneen kuljetuksista takuuseen aiheutusi suuremmat kustannukset kuin siitä erillisestä wifi usb donglesta ja kone ei olisi käytettävissä huollon aikana.

Näinollen tuotteen laadun ongelmat jäävät omaksi tappiokseni. Voi olla että muilla tuotteen ostajilla on parempi onni emolevynsa laadun kanssa ja wifi sattuukin toimimaan, mutta tuote saa minulta reilusti miinusta huonosta laadusta / tuotteen ominaisuuksista, joiden toimivuudesta ei ole taetta.

IšverstiShow in original languageThe first PC I built lasted for about 10 years and never gave me any serious problems. This year, the power supply failed and it wouldn’t POST anymore. Since it was already a decade old (practically prehistoric in the computer world these days) I put it aside and built a 2nd PC.

I chose the ASUS Tuf Gaming X570 on a whim (and more positive reviews), after I had spent a couple days selecting parts based around a Gigabyte something-or-other board. And I don’t regret it! Once I got my bearings, I breezed through connecting everything and the out-of-box POST and video card test went perfectly (after I used a good HDMI cable).

I was able to get into the BIOS and look around at temperatures and whatnot. There are a ton of options to customize how this thing runs. Placing it in the case wasn’t an issue, but installing the Cooler Master CPU fan took some figuring out.

Anyway I felt compelled to write this review mainly because of the trouble I had installing Windows 10 Pro, but also because of the other Cons I mentioned. I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten the Windows 10 problem if it hadn’t been for other customers on Newegg, so this is a thank you to them.

I tried to install it multiple times and failed every time (Windows encountered a problem with your machine blah blah blah). This went on for days. Then I remembered the reviews on here talking about the WiFi and Bluetooth.

So I disable both of them in the BIOS and Shazam! Specifically, the problem is with the WiFi controller. Even after I installed the OS, if I enabled the WiFi controller Windows 10 encountered a problem.

I couldn’t find any explanation for the conflict but I don’t use the WiFi so I quit worrying about it. The board doesn’t have an integrated graphics card, which is something OBS requires for the Window capture option to show video if you record the video from an application like VLC.

Only my GPU shows up in Device Manager. I worked around that by using the Game capture feature. I don’t understand the reasoning that well but apparently this board “gets” video from certain 5th Gen Ryzen CPUs, but earlier Gen require a GPU? But the board won’t boot up without a GPU anyway? I have a 3rd Gen Ryzen 9 CPU so I don’t know.

The last thing; there is an output for a USB-C connection but there’s no USB-C module on the board. There’s a USB 3. 2 but you’d have to convert it to a type C with an adapter, which kind of sucks because the Xbox PC controller I wanted to buy needs USB-C.

And I’m not going to sacrifice all of the available USB 3. 0 outputs for one type C; I don’t game nearly enough to justify that. The ASUS Tuf Gaming X570 (Plus WiFi) is a very great motherboard! The Windows 10 thing is really what’s preventing me from giving it a perfect score.

But the cons don’t outweigh the pros and I’d recommend any PC enthusiast to purchase this! Build specifics are below. ASUS Tuf Gaming X570 (Plus WiFi) board AMD Ryzen 9 3rd Gen 3900x CPU, Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition CPU fan Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660Ti video card Samsung 970 EVO M.

2 2TB SSD Seagate 16TB USB 3. 0 HDD Crucial Ballistix 3600 MHz DDR4 DRAM 16GB (8GBx2) RAM Corsair RM750, 750 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified power supply Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Phanteks RGB LED Strip be Quiet! Pure Wings 2 case fans.

Mine is the non WiFi variant, and I have had the board up and running for over a year. Performance has just gotten better over time. The board has been 100% stable. Initially I had a 3600 in this board, moved to the 5600X (because I couldn’t get the 5800X at the time).

Features are great, plenty of fan headers, layout is good, a pair of m. 2 slots, etc. I picked up this (actual) motherboard for my uncle and dropped a 5800X into it. The thing screams with 3600 MHz RAM.

It’s a fine board that runs upwards of 200 bucks (at times) online. I was able to pick mine up at Micro Center for 180. That store is simply amazing. I highly recommend this motherboard, the integrated intel WiFi is very good.

I have the system it’s in sitting over a story off the ground and several walls and 100 feet away from the router. Connection strength is decent to rock solid (from a comcast router with no external antennas).

Picked this up paired with a 5900X and 3080 Ti. Handles everything great. I’m not an RGB fanatic so I would recommend this if that’s not important to you and you want a solid motherboard. Good connection placement and had no issues with cable management.

The only complaint I have, and I’d have it with most motherboards, is manufacturers really need to come up with a better system for the case connections. Maybe an adapter, or some kind of single plug standard.

Having to fumble around with power +/-/ground is my least favorite part of a new build. It just feels like we could have come up with something better by now! Anyways, rant over: I would recommend this motherboard!.

This product was a shining beacon to me when I was doing my first modern build in a while, paired it with a Ryzen 5 3600, 2060 Super and 2x8GB of 4266 ram. The board theming paired fantastic with my NZXT red/black case and I was a pretty happy camper, even if the 2 SATA ports didn’t work out of the box.

This was until some months later when, after turning my computer off and attempting to turn it back on, the fans went into 100% and EZDebug flashed CPU and RAM, all while the cpu fan twitched instead of spinning.

If you look online at reviews of this and other MSI boards, you’ll see that it’s more common than you’d wish for. After troubleshooting for 6+ hours combined, breadboxing/re-configuring and switching out components, it was determined that the CPU issue was present regardless of what was in the socket/cooling it (used a brand new AMD 3 3200G + stock cooler).

Because the fan header mentioned above failed to operate correctly, my CPU ran without a cooling solution, overheating it and thus killing it. So now not only do I have a dead motherboard that can’t operate regardless of CPU, but I also have a CPU that’s fried in a time where component availability and pricing is increasing substantially.

I’ve been approved for an RMA so I have to go ship the motherboard to MSI to tinker with it for a month while I sit without a computer, however at this point with the already apparent flaws and the fact that I’m insanely sure that they’re going to deny fault for the CPU since this has been a common theme for them, I’m not sure I want this board at all, much less anything to do with MSI anymore.

I can only hope they either offer a credit so I can try a different board from them or, if they refuse to acknowledge killing my CPU, a refund so I can stop using them entirely. I’ll update this rating if they actually take responsibility for the actions of this mobo (or if they proceed to deny it so I can lower it to 1 egg), otherwise I suggest steering clear of this specific motherboard and to go to either a higher grade one from MSI or something else entirely (since the price is already close to a lot of other brands).

Excellent entry-level X570 motherboard that is compatible with the latest Ryzen CPUs (assuming you update the BIOS). Pros: It has all the bare essentials such as good looks, good enough VRMs (more on this in Cons), 2x M.

2 slots, including one that handles older SATA3 M. 2. BIOS update ability without needing a CPU or RAM installed. I was able to prep my bare mobo before my CPU even arrived by downloading the latest BIOS online and updating it.

Thus I didn’t need a loaner CPU. Plenty of individually controlled fan headers (but why at the bottom?) Excellent BIOS with lots of features Connector for LED control. if you’re into that kind of thing.

Nothing imroves peformance like RGB (sarcasm) Cons: VRMs are good enough for running most Ryzen CPUs at stock, including most of the 7 series. If you want to overclock or go big, like Ryzen 9 series, get a better motherboard Fan headers are at the bottom of the motherboard.

Only two uptop and the rest below. Why??? A third m. 2 slot for wifi would have been nice but I can say this about all mobos that don’t include one.

I have been putting my own PCs together for friends, family and myself for almost 20 years now. MSI is a name that has been around for quite a while, and one that I always trusted and counted on to perform as advertised.

From mother boards to video cards and gaming PCs; they usually provide a lot of performance for reasonable amounts of money. When I pick components out for builds, I always try to focus on cost/performance ratios.

This board solidly meets that criteria when compared to the sea of x570s out in the market right now. Sure you can spend $600 and get arguably 10-15% potential performance on benchmarks or under ideal conditions – but this board makes everything so much more easier and enjoyable to use while sacrificing little in comparison to them.

Appearance: With that being said, this board walks a nice line between “looking professional” and all out gaming “glitz” RGB goodness. With the Mystic RGB lights off, it case easily pass the “incognito” factor for those that don’t want their retinas seered out every time they glance at their case.

Personally, I find it is just the right amount – while I know for others it won’t be “enough”. The pre-installed I/O sheild does a good job of keeping the rear IO section clean and clear and helps add the boards overall sleek and “solid” feel.

Physically holding the board, provides the feeling that is made of quality materials and the color and design choices help remind you why you spent this amount of money on a quality board. The VRMs are solid and look great.

They appear to have had considerable engineering thought put into their placement and layout. Functionality: I bought this for my personal build, and it has not disappointed me yet. Every componet I put into the board functioned flawlessly upon initial boot up and is performing to spec.

In comparison, I just came off of building an x470 board for a friend for his new Ryzen 3600 build. and I had to purchase a Ryzen 2000 series CPU to get his BIOS to post and recognize the new CPU. Needless to say, you don’t have to worry about that with these x570 boards.

The FROZR fans are quite, and the M. 2 heat sinks not only look good, but do a great job of keeping my M. 2 drive cool under load. It refreshing to have a board that works as intended without having to spend some time troubleshooting the first go around.

The EZ Debug LEDs would come in handy if you decide to start OC’ing your memory a bit or happen to have any issues pop up unexpectedly. Given the price point, I do feel that they could have thrown a LED display, but held that back for the more “expensive” models.

The BIOS is refreshing straightforward and simple enough to move around without being excessively hard to hunt things down in. Having WiFi 6 on board is a nice change of pace and also ensure an upgrade path to better and faster speeds as the WiFi 6 equipment continues to come down and price makes it way into the general market (not bleeding edge market.

Final thoughts: I said it before, I’ll say it again – this board cover that “sweet spot” of having all the new and great features that x570 has to offer – all without costing a mortgage payment. Yeah, it missing some feature that I would consider “nice to haves” – but includes many things that some other boards in the $200-$300 range lack.

The closest competitor is the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WiFi) – but goes with a custom Realtek LAN controller with WiFi 5 (compared to the WiFi 6 on this board) and only 1 passively cooled M. 2 slot.

That ASUS TUF board has a cheaper aesthetic to it in my opinion and doesn’t warrant the cheaper price with this board costing just a little more. Gigabyte has the AORUS x570 Elite in this price range as well, but trims a little too much to hit the $200 mark without really giving you anything that the Gaming Pro Carbon doesn’t have until you spend over$300 dollars (the Elite doesn’t even give you a Debug LED on it for example).

Overall, I would say this is the board to beat for the x570 “mid-tier” price bracket. It provides much of what you would expect a high quality expensive motherboard to offer, while limiting the features that were “cut out” in order to meet this price point (.

I’m looking at you Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE). I don’t think anyone from first time system building to OC’ers will be disappointed with what this board has to offer. This review is for the MSI Review Rebate Program My Build: – MSI MPG x570 Gaming Pro Carbon Wifi (this board) – Ryzen 3700x – 32GB Corsair DDR4 3600 (2×16 Dimms) – 1TB M.

2 – Samsung 870 EVO Plus – EVGA RTX 2070 Super XC Gaming – Seasonic FOCUS+ Gold 850W PSU – NZXT H500 case.

This review is for the MSI Review Rebate Program. To give a quick background, I am upgrading my PC which uses an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 and a Prime X370 Pro motherboard. I have pre-purchased the DDR4 3200 MHz RAM, NVMe 1 TB, PSU, 240mm AIO cooler, and Case.

I’ve waited patiently and have conducted a lot of research before finally deciding in purchasing this MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI Gaming Motherboard bundled with the AMD Ryzen 3700X from Newegg.

com. I must say with excitement, that this motherboard is a BIG UPGRADE to my current system. Aesthetically, the motherboard is designed and built well. It is on the Mid-range of MSI X570 line-up and is priced nicely compared to what Asus offers which are overpriced, to be honest with you.

I do not buy top of the line items and the AMD R7 3700X and MSI X570 Carbon AC are a good compromise and offers the best combination for my intended use which is 3D modeling, creation using Maya, Adobe and some light gaming.

Big factors that I like about the MSI X570 Gaming Carbon Pro WIFI are: – Aesthetics. The right amount of ARBG on the board including 5V and 12VDC for your RGB strips and fans compared to just 12V with my older motherboard.

– Robust VRMs. This will likely handle the future R9 3900x with ease. – Bluetooth 5. 0, Wi-Fi 6, and PCIe 4. 0. – Easy to use UEFI menu and Mystic light software to control the ARGB lights. – 7. 1 channel High Definition sound system.

– The Chipset fan also provides airflow to the NVME slots to aid in keeping things cool. Other things that I would like to mention are the Driver, manual and Bios support from MSI website. The PCIe slots are reinforced with stainless steel which provides better support for my 3 fan GPU.

The flash bios button and the assorted array of latest USB ports addressed all the “must-have” on my motherboard criteria. Bottom line: This MSI X570 Gaming Carbon Pro WIFI is highly recommended for those who are in the market of a new motherboard.

You can compare the prices, but I think, this will compel you to give it serious consideration as your top pick. My system build: CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 3700X 8-Core 3. 6 GHz (4. 4 Max Boost) Motherboard: MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi Gaming motherboard GPU: ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Overclocked 8G GDDR6 RAM: 32GB XPG Spectrix D40 RGB DDR4 3200MHz Monitor: LG 32GK650G-B 32″ QHD Gaming Monitor with 144Hz Refresh Rate and NVIDIA G-Sync Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB530P PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 750W 80+ Gold MB 12V RGB Sync HD: Silicon Power 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen3x4 M.

2 2280 and Silicon Power 1TB SSD 3D NAND Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240R Addressable RGB All-in-one CPU Liquid Cooler.

It was a great motherboard I kept it air cleaned every month. It was super fast. The load times were great but after a year and a half of owning it the electronics just slowly started to give out. The subs stopped charging after a while.

The rgb on the board would randomly turn on during the night when the computer was off. I would look and sometimes my mouse and keyboard would have power and flashing. Then after a year and half it burned out and I found burn marks behind the board during my routine dust clean.

I contacted support they said it would up to 3-6 weeks for a replacement because of covid and thats depressing. Been a Mai user for a lon time I still love the brand but after spending 200 plus dollars on a mother board I thought it would last longer specially since the last msi board lasted me 4 years of hardcore gaming.

This board does what it needs to do at a fair price. It has front panel USB-C support, which is better than a rear panel USB-C. Only two fan headers is an odd design choice for a gaming board, but workarounds exist if you need more.

Having used the Asus BIOS for the last 20 years, I was a little leery of the Gigabyte BIOS, but like the rest of the board, it gets the job done competently. Technically, I should probably give it four stars because it does have some compromises and it isn’t cheap, but I really don’t have much to complain about for my use case.

I paired it with a 5700G with the hope that the graphics card nightmare will ease by mid-2022. The BIOS was recent enough on my board to support the 5700G, but a newer one was available and installing it was easy.

Maybe I have led a charmed life, but I have never received a DOA part of any kind from any seller in 30 years of building PC’s. Yeah, I’m old. I know that DOA parts are a legit problem, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of handling those supposed DOA parts actually got.

I used the Aorus Elite Wifi Motherboard for my first time computer build and paired it with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X. I wanted to be able to use the PCIe 4. 0 for a M. 2 slot and my GPU and operate cordless via WiFi if need-be.

Its been up and running for about a week now and I am very pleased with the outcome. A couple of minor issues I ran into: (1) I tried to test the motherboard before placing it in the case (RAM and GPU inserted and hooked up to a Power source and the monitor) but could not get a signal to the monitor.

I decided to finish the build and then tried the power button on the case and thankfully it worked. There haven’t been any issues turning the computer on or off since. Not sure if this is due to my lack of experience building.

(2) The other issue was with the ports at the bottom. I decided to add fans to the bottom of my case and this meant that some of the cords had to be awkwardly angled in order to fit (the USB connector slot).

But they work just fine and its actually not noticeable on the finished build. This is prolly due to the case I have, so double check spacing if you also want to have some fans near the bottom edge of the motherboard.

(3) The RGB lighting controls for the fans is “good enough. ” At times the RAM doesn’t light up correctly or at all. The RGB is probably the biggest issue out of the three for me but not so bad that I would remove a star.

Other things to note: I am using a Power Hub to connect/power the fans so that I am not overloading the few fan ports that come with the motherboard. I haven’t tried to overclock, outside of changing the XMP settings, and have had no issues with BIOS.

I currently only use the top M. 2 slot so it isn’t a problem for me, but the GPU does slightly cover the lower M. 2 slot. I am not sure if it is actually a hindrance though. The issues were pretty minor and I am definitely pleased with the way things have turned out so far.

I have recently switched to AMD Ryzen 5 3600x, after some issues with my Intel CPU. The MSI( B450 Tomahawk Max came highly recommended on forums, with experts focusing on the strong VRM for a B450 board and good VRM cooling.

Pros: + Tomahawk “Max” version has a 32Mb BIOS. It will be able to support all the past and future CPUs (Ryzen 4000 is coming out in fall of 2020, some b450 board that have 16MB bios will have to “chose” which older CPUs they will support if switching to the new Ryzens BIOS.

This one most probably will support all of them) + BIOS-flashback function with a button on the IO shield area. This means unbrickable BIOS and possibly flashing back and forth between older and newer BIOSes.

Thus Ryzen 4000 BIOS upgrade will be “unilateral” (non-revertable) as AMD said – well, not on this board, I think. This one has the BIOS-flashback and in my experience that will allow flashing older BIOSes back, if interested.

Since the BIOS on this particular board might support all Ryzen generations, that’s just a precaution. Still = unbrickable bios. + Good 4+2 phase VRM, capable of overclocking even a 3950x (with serious airflow over the VRM) + Large and efficient VRM heatsink covering the IO area + Very good performance with my RAM XPG 3600CL17 – I can easily drop the timings to 15-16.

I have recently tested this memory with one of the latest Intel “K” CPUs on another board and it couldn’t run even at XMP settings properly. This MSI b450 T Max board’s BIOS was ironed out and has no issues with the memory at this point.

In fact it outperformed that intel z490 board. Cons: – SATA ports 5 and 6 do not work even with the most current BIOS – a problem reported by a few users! I moved my two mirrored HDDs to ports 3 and 4 and solved the issue, but two practically dead ports is not ok in my book.

– No Addressable RGB header! I had an AIO with a hub that connects only to an A-RGB header and was out of luck. I cannot control the RGTB via software, but the AIO has a separate remote, so there is that.

Some people report using a 12v to 5v RGB converter (with some complaining of burnt cables) or another hub that can do the conversion. – Board layout could be better – the Front Panel connectors are located in the middle-lower part, a bit of a stretch for some cases.

– RGB software control only available via Dragon Center, which installs other bloatware too. The Dragon Center recognized both the RGB strip on the motherboard (sort of “under” the RAM area) and my XPG RGB ram, but only if there is no XPG software already installed.

It did not recognize my Power Color Red Devil rx5700 (flashed to XT). RGB integration is an issue for all vendors, it’s not an MSI specific issue, but it’s good to know, I think. I ended up with my AIO rgb being controlled by remote, as there is not ARGTB header and had to install another software for my GPU.

– Audio amplification is not as good as one of the main competitors. Neutral: ~ the BIOS takes getting used to. Conclusion: with all its minuses, this is a very solid board in terms of the quality and looks.

I assume it will be able to drive Ryzen 4000 without a problem – the MSI b550 Bazooka has the exact same VRM, so that’s your proof. For $20 discount when you bundle this motherboard with a CPU, I got it for $95.

That’s a killer price from Microcenter! I’d say it’s a must buy.

Choosing a motherboard can be tricky given you have to consider form factor, features, etc. The MSI Tomahawk MAX, however, is one of the most highly reviewed B450 boards, which is what made me interested in it.

It is not hard to see why. It is very affordable (Around $105 for me, since I purchased a Ryzen CPU with it), and it also performs very well. It has a good VRM and good power delivery for a mid-tier build.

It has a single M. 2 slot in the center, and has plenty of fan and rgb headers that are easy to access. The BIOS is very easy to navigate, just click XMP to get your RAM up to its highest frequency (the board supports up to around 4000 mghz RAM).

The top of the board, where it says ‘Arsenal Gaming’ even has a channel to hide your cpu fan cable. As far as looks go, it is an all black and grey board, so it will look good with just about everything.

The only lights it has are a set of about 8 or so LED’s on the back the board that light up red by default, but can be changed to different colors and settings through MSI Mystic Light! You can also turn off the rgb lighting completely through the app if you prefer.

The io shield is not attached, but was not too hard to install on my case. Overall, this was the perfect B450 mobo for my first build, and I am very happy with it.

Before I start venting (a lot) about this motherboard, I want to state for the record that I have been building high-end, watercooled, gaming PCs since 2003, I have two degrees in Computer Science–just to let you know that I know what I am doing.

I got lucky day at Micro Center and got this motherboard with Ryzen 5950x. Coming from Intel 9700k and Gigabyte Z390 Master (which has been my go to Motherboard because of its overkill VRMs). After reading positive reviews about the Dark Hero, I went with this motherboard.

The last Asus motherboard I got for a gaming build was in 2007, that one had to do an RMA while I was overseas (it was a nightmare that I still remember). I thought that Asus must have evolved since and they have better QA/QC for their motherboard.

I installed this motherboard with g skill trident z 3600 mem. CPU cooled by Aquacomputer cuplex Next + custom loop with massive radiator space. First thing I did is flashed Bios with latest version (3204), setup my raid, loaded mem settings.

Everything went smoothly and I made it to Windows. No overclock so far (PBO is on auto, which is disabled-don’t know, but in Asus language, Auto = disabled). Downloaded couple games, synthetic tests such as Cine bench, 3d Mark, AIDA64 etc.

and went through the normal stability tests. First thing started acting up is my USB devices, mouse and keyboard stutters, USB sound blaster disconnects. I started research online and found out that it’s a common issue, disabling C-State should take care of it.

It did, but not completely, it happened but less frequently. I was OK to live with it until next Asus/AGESA bios comes to solve it. I enabled PBO to see what I can get with Asus out of the box, all cores under load was at 4.

45, but boy the random restarts, the computer became a Christmas tree. I disabled PBO (which is outrageous especially after spending $$$) just so I can have my zoom meetings. Third issue was DX crashes (this happens randomly even with optimized defaults, no PBO, no mem profiles).

It would happen a lot until disconnect PSU and let all power discharge, then it will be OK for a little while. I then started the troubleshooting journey, tried ever single BIOS version since its release, each for at least two days.

All three issues happened but each bios would make one worse and other better. I tried every single setting on the BIOS to gain a bit of stability but nothing helped. I then called Asus, which BTW I haven’t called Tech Support for hardware since I had the Asus Striker Extreme motherboard back in 2007.

I was hoping that I’d get connected to someone who’s knowledgeable like EVGA team, but of course I got someone who was going through a checklist (is the power cable connected, is the Power Supply working), after 30 minutes, he said that I would need to send for repair it will take 4-8 weeks for the repair to be completed and they will send it back to me, I asked for advanced RMA (where you pay for one and they’ll refund you when you send defective), the only advanced RMA they have is they send you a Board which you have to return when you get yours after repair (with hard tubing watercooling build that takes hours to reinstall, no thank you).

After three weeks of complete pain, I decided to go Gigabyte X570 Master (look it up, most overclockers, including gamers nexus, use). I finally got one through Amazon which arrived today. NO issues whatsoever.

few hours in, PBO with curve optimizer (- 25 on all cores +75 boost) rock stable so far with cores ranging from 4. 75 – 5. 150 (yes, not a typo) under load. No USB issues, no DX crashes or random restarts.

Asus is the typical company that spends a ton of effort and money in marketing and paying reviewers to overhype their products, as they should don’t get me wrong. I just wish they spend comparable amount of resources on customer support and QC/QA.

You may think I am just unlucky, and to an extent, bad luck may have a role in this terrible experience. I have tried many motherboards including Gigabyte, As-Rock, EVGA, MSI and I have had some issues, but nothing I couldn’t solve.

I will stay away from Asus, and yo.

First things first. I havent built a computer since 1999, so Im basically new to this and out of touch with the latest and greatest tech. So take my opinions for what they are worth. I think its a great board.

It would have been been nice if it came with the TPM-M R2. 0 module pre-installed, but I understand why it doesnt. Had issues installing Windows 11 because it tried to access the TPM that wasnt there.

So I had to use Rufus software to make a bootable USB without that security feature. Maybe thats common knowledge, but I had to figure it out the hard way. My only other issue was the antenna for the WiFI 6 has two threaded connectors that go on the back panel, and it appears one of those connectors either are not threaded, or threaded incorrectly and will not screw in.

Anyway, I would recommend this board.

Excellent fit and finish all around. typical of ROG expectations. Well protected in packaging. Well laid out manual for installation but would have appreciated more documentation on BIOS in manual. Good news is ASUS just has one of the most intuitive BIOS menu schemes around, and it was easy to figure things out and get everything up and running on first boot, including the DOCP settings for the 3600 MHz memory I went with.

Pay attention to the QVL, which is available on the ASUS website, and you shouldn’t have any issues. Solid platform for PBO controlled OC using AMD Ryzen Master utility. Great looking board without too much RGB gaudiness.

Great onboard sound as well. Game or create!.

This is the first Asus motherboard that I’ve purchased – and I have used many over the last 10 years – that I would NOT recommend for a system upgrade. This is NOT my first “upgrade rodeo,” either. I have 4 different machines that are at various stages of “obsolescence” – since just about every component is obsolete the moment it’s purchased.

If you are building a brand-new system, the experience might be different. I can’t say, as I have not built a new (as in, all components new and new OS installation) system since Windows 10 launched.

I fully admit that I installed my main micro backwards on the motherboard, and that led to a return to Asus for diagnosis. Buried deep on their website is a troubleshooting guide that would have prevented that return.

It is sad that 2 contacts with their online chat never got to the level of “are the pins on your microprocessor bent?” – the issue that was preventing the board from starting up. If that was the only issue, then I’d give the motherboard more “eggs.

” Issues have not stopped there. I spent two hours trying to figure out why my M. 2 2TB SDD drive was not recognized. I followed Asus’ online documentation with ZERO success. In frustration, I moved the SSD to the second M.

2 slot where no PCIE card is installed, and it worked. Clearly, you CANNOT install a PCIE card AND an M. 2 device at the same location. I spent several hours trying to figure out why I was getting a constant barrage of “read” errors off my older Maxtor 6V200E0 200GB SATA drive.

The drive worked perfectly with the Asus A88XM motherboard that the Crosshair VIII replaced. This Maxtor drive _does_not_ work with the Crosshair motherboard, and it’s _the_motherboard_ that does not like the drive.

The drive works perfectly with another Asus motherboard (in the computer I’m using to write this review). The Crosshair VIII is not terribly stable with Windows 10, _especially_ with old versions. I had a Windows 10 crash after installing the AMD chipset support drivers.

That crash locked the Windows 10 partition. My computer is a dual-boot Windows 10/Linux machine, and a locked partition means trouble. I could not get Windows to repair the drive, I could not get Linux to recognize the Windows 10 partition as bootable, and finally, I decided to re-format the drive as I’d already spent 2 hours trying to find fixes for the issues.

After reformatting the drive, Fedora 36 (current version of the OS) installed quickly, and the motehrboard runs rock-solid with Fedora 36. I had the system running for 3 hours. Unfortunately, Windows 10 has not been so kind.

I cannot install the newer versions of Windows 10 _at_all_ – when installing from a USB stick, the Windows installer complains about a missing driver that I cannot find (yet the USB stick worked without issue on a Toshiba laptop when I installed an SSD several months ago).

I can only use an early Windows 10 DVD. The early version of Windows 10 installs, but Windows crashes seconds to minutes after starting the machine up while trying to pull updates from Windows Update.

(In fact, while writing this review on my other Asus-based machine, the Crosshair system locked up for the 6th time _this_morning_ while trying to install Windows updates) Based on past experiences, I did not expect this level of headaches.

Past motherboard upgrades have typically only required changing out drivers for the motherboard chipset. But a system crash after installing drivers? Re-installing an OS? Fugeddaboutit!.

As many other reviewers have noted, this is board is a solid, nearly top of the line product. It is the best board I’ve used to build a system. So why only four eggs? The power supply you need for this board will need two CPU 8×8 cables and two places to plug those cables into your PSU.

The QVL for this board seems not to know this. It recommends, for example, a Corsair RM 650x, a perfectly fine PSU, which doesn’t work for this main board. It has one 8-pin power connector (along with the 24 pin course).

The bios. even after being flashed with the newest version, complains on bootup, that “The system has only detected a single 4-pin connector connected for the CPU. “It is recommended to connect both the 8-pin and the 4-pin power plugs or dual 8-pin plugs for a system stability and to prevent the motherboard from overheating under heavy usage.

” Until both 8-pin and 4-pin connectors are installed, the bios will complain on each bootup. The rest of my system would not require much power: a Ryzen 5 3600X CPU and a GTX 1660 GPU, but the bios complained (and complained) nonetheless.

The Rog Crosshair VIII Hero manual gives no hint of this, saying “DO NOT connect the 4-pin power plug only, the motherboard may overheat under heavy usage. ” And “Ensure to connect the 8-pin power plug, or connect both the 8-pin and 4-pin power plugs.

” It also recommends, “For a fully configured system, we recommend that you use a power supply unit that complies with ATX 12 Specification 2. 0 (or later version) and provides a minimum power of 350 W.

” It goes on to make recommendations for heavy usage. I read this as saying that, besides the main 24 pin power connection, a single 8-pin connector would be sufficient for my modest build. The QVL which lists the Corsair power supply I purchased to drive my build would seem to agree.

The Corsair RM 650x, however, has only one outlet and one cable for an 8-pin connection. This main board requires two of these CPU power connectors (or one 8-pin and one 4-pin since half of the second 8-pin is not used).

I was able to find an older but more powerful PSU that allowed my build to work correctly. Its two 8-pin cables made the bios’ bootup complaint disappear. But I have a perfectly good, but apparently nonreturnable Corsair PSU which is useless to me.

So, this is a great board, but be careful choosing your power supply.

Has many good features and easy to assemble. Lots of options for setting up your gaming system. Just don’t choose this one if you’re after on-board RAID support. Took me 4 BIOS updates to even get the drives to stay in the array and still having issues with adding a new drive – RAID or non RAID.

If you’re after on-board RAID then def better to look at an Intel based board. Latest BIOS update has support now for TMP so board is compatible with Win 11. But also has many other new options that are poorly documented and seems a mission to find anything like a changelog or explanation of what half the new options mean or how to configure them.

I matched this board with a Coolmaster dual fan CPU cooler tower that tends to block the first RAM slot so can be tricky to use all 4. Works fine with just 2 modules. Spacing for other components tends to be pretty standard if not generous.