Though I think this board is quite interesting and it shows how much ingenuity motherboard makers continue to have in this day and age, there's a funny tingle at the back of my mind that can't help but wonder if a product like this will ultimately hamstring whoever buys it.
Honestly I'd forgotten that the AMD FX platform was limited to PCI-E 2.0 - It's been that long since the 970 series chipset was released AND it's been that long since I've closely looked at its specifications on paper. Still, as has been shown many times over, this STILL shouldn't significantly affect any current GPU that is given a full 16 lanes - at least not more so than other components in the system. Even the Samsung 950 Pro shouldn't hit any significant bottlenecks assuming it gets a full x4 PCI-E 2.0 (~2.0GB/s) worth of bandwidth on the M.2 port... so the PCI-E 2.0 limitation is not where the funny feeling is coming from.
There are also several definite pros to counteract the potential detractor above. I think that the inclusion of an Intel branded NIC is amazing on a non-Intel platform. Although not revolutionary, even on the AM3+ platform, I appreciate the use of a modern (or at least at this point tried and true) sound solution in the form of the Realtek ALC1150. M.2 support, including NVMe, as well as USB 3.1 help round out what is ultimately an ultra-modern set of connectivity. In fact, each of these positive attributes puts my now aging Z77 board to shame.
I've been trying to figure out what my actual gripe with this platform is as I've been writing this. Ultimately, I think that it's the unoriginal issue that I and most of the enthusiast community have had with the AMD FX platform going on several years now: the Piledriver CPU core. The APU platform got Steamroller (and arguably as of today's announcement they'll be getting Excavator too) and mobile got Excavator through Carrizo. Though neither of those provided revolutionary IPC increases over Piledriver, at least there were increases to be had - some level of progress over the last 3 years to at least alleviate the feeling of stagnation on the compute side of the platform. Better wafer quality, yields, and binning have gotten us some new SKUs, but ultimately someone who'd gotten a well binned, overclockable FX-8350 on launch day in late 2012 is looking at essentially the same CPU choices in early 2016. I guess at this point it just feels sacrilegious to me to mate an ageing CPU with such a modern set of trappings.
Put in another way, I know several people who could use a new desktop computer. Since desktops have such long lifespans these days I'd definitely want a system with modern connectivity. That said, I'd have a hard time recommending a system for the long haul that is starting with an older CPU at its heart - especially when the systems in need of replacement are Sandy Bridge systems with fast dual-core or entry level quad-core CPUs. These users either need or want USB 3.0/3.1, and/or PCI-E NVMe SSDs but are otherwise moderately happy with their CPU performance. In these cases, Piledriver isn't always guaranteed to be a step up, something which I would take as a given for a 4-5 year system upgrade. I guess on the flip side, someone who already has a Bulldozer/Piledriver CPU, and is satisfied with their performance could use this motherboard to modernize their platform connectivity - but then to those users I'd recommend either trying to wait it out to see how Zen reshapes the market, or to see if they can make due with add-in cards.
Ultimately, I'll echo what we're all thinking: "Zen can't come soon enough." When it does I think we'll all be happy to put the tired, overworked, and ageing Bulldozer/Piledriver uArch to bed.
I'm confused as to which is the article and which is the comment... :)
Do you really think that "Zen will reshape the market"? They'd have to not only displace a entire Intel segment in performance, but also in volume. I guess I don't see that happening. As a Z77 user, I'm lucky enough to see ASRock release a beta BIOS that adds NVMe boot support, but I'll have to buy an add-in card to get 3.1/Type-C ($30). I probably won't be upgrading until Kaby/Cannon or Zen 2.0... but that remains to be seen.
I guess what I meant by that line is that Zen has the potential to provide pricing pressure and potentially also simultaneously offer some level of competition at the enthusiast level. This is something that the current mix of AMD FX/APU struggles to accomplish now.
In slightly different words, Zen could provide a viable alternative to Skylake for someone planning to build an enthusiast level rig. By doing so at either a similar or lower price point than Skylake they could potentially help bring down prices from Intel. Failing that, there'd at least be another show in town - something that there arguably *isn't* right now.
The chipset is 5 years-old. Which is a minor revision from the 890FX/RD890 chipset, which by itself is a minor revision from the 790FX/RD790 chipset from 2007 (two-thousand and seven). Basically the only thing that changed was support for newer CPU microcodes and other southbridges.
Why should I spend $1,500 AUD to upgrade to the 5930K+board+ram for minimal performance improvement? (And potentially regressive, due to lower clocks.) ;)
Technically Z97 offers 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes, and Z170 offers 20 PCIe lanes. The Haswell and Skylake CPUs offer another 16, bringing it to 24 or 36 lanes respectively. It's also about how they're used: the Haswell's 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes split in CF/SLI would be x8/x8 which is the same as PCIe 2.0 at x16/x16, so Haswell/Skylake offer 16 lanes that have as much bandwidth as 32 lanes on the AMD platforms. Add in the 20 from Z170, and a Z170 + Skylake pairing offers the bandwidth of 52 lanes, more than the 990FX and exactly twice the 970 chipset.
I'll grant you that X99 offers much more but is in a totally separate price category with its $350 entry level CPU.
"The new motherboard has upgraded 8-phase power delivery"
Are you certain? I bet it's a doubled 4 phase which seems to be the popular move with these 970 boards. I highly doubt it's a true 8 phase, especially since they said not to use the 9590. A true 8 phase ASUS board should be able to handle one of those.
An interesting set of data points for those of us still of x58 platforms, especially now that all those cheap hex core Xeons are floating around.
Compared to the AM3+ FX, X58, a platform that arrived in 2008 mind you, Has 40 PCIe 2.0 lanes and more compute capability across the board, even before overclocking is taken into account.
USB 3.1 and M.2/NVMe are really the only features that are missing. And much of that functionality can be added via PCIe cards.
It's nice to see they're updating the platform in some respects, but they're still flogging what amounts to a dead horse. While they're still iterating on the CPU side of things, the inherent limitations with the FX series of chips in regards to IPC and thermals mean that it'll be gone shortly.
Considering the Phenom II hex cores are as powerful as the FX-8xxx chips, it shows that they haven't really moved forward in years. When Zen is released, hopefully two things will happen:
1) They'll be competitive with Intel. 2) AM3 will finally be relegated to support status only.
Since it's 2016 it feels silly debating CPUs released in late 2010 and late 2012 (respectively) I'd say that the FX-83xx chips do generally outperform the Phenom II X6 chips.
Sure it isn't across the board, there are a few outliers where the FX chip severely underperforms the X6, but for the majority of the tests the FX is either tied or significantly ahead of the X6.
I'm not sure I understand the point of a premium motherboard targeted at gaming for current AMD processors. Why put on an elaborate and showy dress with a non-competitive foundation beneath? AMD CPUs are excellent low-budget chips that can keep total hardware costs down when compared to Intel processors if the buyer is willing to sacrifice a little compute power and deal with the higher heat/noise output so paring such a chip with the unnecessary cost of an expensive motherboard seems a bit contrarian. For something that's going to be buried under all the other innards inside a computer case, balancing cost and quality rather than focusing solely on styling seems more prudent in getting the right mix of components.
I know this is three years late, but I can confirm you can boot Win 7 off of an M.2 SSD. Specifically, the Samsung 970 PRO 512GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7P512BW), is the one I have.
I had originally installed the OS to a SSD using a SATA Port, then years later I installed the M.2, and it's drivers, rebooted a couple of times, then cloned my OS from my SATA SSD to the aforementioned m.2 drive using Arconis.
I'm not sure what the procedure is (or if it's possible) to do a fresh OS install directly to the M.2 drive, for this particular mobo.
Just purchased this board and it will be arriving in the mail today! I also purchased AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz. I am upgrading from a basic Acer Mspire board with a Quad Core Athlon II 3.2 GHz. Hoping to notice a massive speed upgrade
Strange they would opt for 970,but guess using 990FX would cannibalize sales. I got ripped off on Amazon (shady 3rd party). Was supposed get a r3 Sabertooth, ended up with 1.1! I'm still happy with it, but miss PCIE3 support. Who really needs 14 USB2 Ports, maybe 8 using remaining for 3 or 3.1.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
25 Comments
Back to Article
MrCommunistGen - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Though I think this board is quite interesting and it shows how much ingenuity motherboard makers continue to have in this day and age, there's a funny tingle at the back of my mind that can't help but wonder if a product like this will ultimately hamstring whoever buys it.Honestly I'd forgotten that the AMD FX platform was limited to PCI-E 2.0 - It's been that long since the 970 series chipset was released AND it's been that long since I've closely looked at its specifications on paper. Still, as has been shown many times over, this STILL shouldn't significantly affect any current GPU that is given a full 16 lanes - at least not more so than other components in the system. Even the Samsung 950 Pro shouldn't hit any significant bottlenecks assuming it gets a full x4 PCI-E 2.0 (~2.0GB/s) worth of bandwidth on the M.2 port... so the PCI-E 2.0 limitation is not where the funny feeling is coming from.
There are also several definite pros to counteract the potential detractor above. I think that the inclusion of an Intel branded NIC is amazing on a non-Intel platform. Although not revolutionary, even on the AM3+ platform, I appreciate the use of a modern (or at least at this point tried and true) sound solution in the form of the Realtek ALC1150. M.2 support, including NVMe, as well as USB 3.1 help round out what is ultimately an ultra-modern set of connectivity. In fact, each of these positive attributes puts my now aging Z77 board to shame.
I've been trying to figure out what my actual gripe with this platform is as I've been writing this. Ultimately, I think that it's the unoriginal issue that I and most of the enthusiast community have had with the AMD FX platform going on several years now: the Piledriver CPU core. The APU platform got Steamroller (and arguably as of today's announcement they'll be getting Excavator too) and mobile got Excavator through Carrizo. Though neither of those provided revolutionary IPC increases over Piledriver, at least there were increases to be had - some level of progress over the last 3 years to at least alleviate the feeling of stagnation on the compute side of the platform. Better wafer quality, yields, and binning have gotten us some new SKUs, but ultimately someone who'd gotten a well binned, overclockable FX-8350 on launch day in late 2012 is looking at essentially the same CPU choices in early 2016. I guess at this point it just feels sacrilegious to me to mate an ageing CPU with such a modern set of trappings.
Put in another way, I know several people who could use a new desktop computer. Since desktops have such long lifespans these days I'd definitely want a system with modern connectivity. That said, I'd have a hard time recommending a system for the long haul that is starting with an older CPU at its heart - especially when the systems in need of replacement are Sandy Bridge systems with fast dual-core or entry level quad-core CPUs. These users either need or want USB 3.0/3.1, and/or PCI-E NVMe SSDs but are otherwise moderately happy with their CPU performance. In these cases, Piledriver isn't always guaranteed to be a step up, something which I would take as a given for a 4-5 year system upgrade. I guess on the flip side, someone who already has a Bulldozer/Piledriver CPU, and is satisfied with their performance could use this motherboard to modernize their platform connectivity - but then to those users I'd recommend either trying to wait it out to see how Zen reshapes the market, or to see if they can make due with add-in cards.
Ultimately, I'll echo what we're all thinking: "Zen can't come soon enough." When it does I think we'll all be happy to put the tired, overworked, and ageing Bulldozer/Piledriver uArch to bed.
nathanddrews - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
I'm confused as to which is the article and which is the comment... :)Do you really think that "Zen will reshape the market"? They'd have to not only displace a entire Intel segment in performance, but also in volume. I guess I don't see that happening. As a Z77 user, I'm lucky enough to see ASRock release a beta BIOS that adds NVMe boot support, but I'll have to buy an add-in card to get 3.1/Type-C ($30). I probably won't be upgrading until Kaby/Cannon or Zen 2.0... but that remains to be seen.
MrCommunistGen - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
I guess what I meant by that line is that Zen has the potential to provide pricing pressure and potentially also simultaneously offer some level of competition at the enthusiast level. This is something that the current mix of AMD FX/APU struggles to accomplish now.In slightly different words, Zen could provide a viable alternative to Skylake for someone planning to build an enthusiast level rig. By doing so at either a similar or lower price point than Skylake they could potentially help bring down prices from Intel. Failing that, there'd at least be another show in town - something that there arguably *isn't* right now.
ToTTenTranz - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
The chipset is 5 years-old. Which is a minor revision from the 890FX/RD890 chipset, which by itself is a minor revision from the 790FX/RD790 chipset from 2007 (two-thousand and seven).Basically the only thing that changed was support for newer CPU microcodes and other southbridges.
Wow.. we've come a long way...
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
We have, AMD hasn't.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Intel has gone backward in some respects. Substandard TIM and weak substrate. Sandy owners are still pleased.StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Sandry Bridge-E @ 5ghz checking in.Why should I spend $1,500 AUD to upgrade to the 5930K+board+ram for minimal performance improvement? (And potentially regressive, due to lower clocks.) ;)
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
And Z97 is amazing with its whopping 16 PCI-e lanes.joex4444 - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Technically Z97 offers 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes, and Z170 offers 20 PCIe lanes. The Haswell and Skylake CPUs offer another 16, bringing it to 24 or 36 lanes respectively. It's also about how they're used: the Haswell's 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes split in CF/SLI would be x8/x8 which is the same as PCIe 2.0 at x16/x16, so Haswell/Skylake offer 16 lanes that have as much bandwidth as 32 lanes on the AMD platforms. Add in the 20 from Z170, and a Z170 + Skylake pairing offers the bandwidth of 52 lanes, more than the 990FX and exactly twice the 970 chipset.I'll grant you that X99 offers much more but is in a totally separate price category with its $350 entry level CPU.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
"The new motherboard has upgraded 8-phase power delivery"Are you certain? I bet it's a doubled 4 phase which seems to be the popular move with these 970 boards. I highly doubt it's a true 8 phase, especially since they said not to use the 9590. A true 8 phase ASUS board should be able to handle one of those.
gammaray - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
whats the point of this mobo when they have the 990fx chipset available?JesseKramer - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
Just had a look at the comparison between the 8320E @ 4.8 GHz and i7 990X @ Stock.http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1403?vs=444
An interesting set of data points for those of us still of x58 platforms, especially now that all those cheap hex core Xeons are floating around.
Compared to the AM3+ FX, X58, a platform that arrived in 2008 mind you, Has 40 PCIe 2.0 lanes and more compute capability across the board, even before overclocking is taken into account.
USB 3.1 and M.2/NVMe are really the only features that are missing. And much of that functionality can be added via PCIe cards.
Vive la X58
extide - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
Its 36+8 lanes. X79 moved to 40 lanes.bill.rookard - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
It's nice to see they're updating the platform in some respects, but they're still flogging what amounts to a dead horse. While they're still iterating on the CPU side of things, the inherent limitations with the FX series of chips in regards to IPC and thermals mean that it'll be gone shortly.Considering the Phenom II hex cores are as powerful as the FX-8xxx chips, it shows that they haven't really moved forward in years. When Zen is released, hopefully two things will happen:
1) They'll be competitive with Intel.
2) AM3 will finally be relegated to support status only.
extide - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
Well, #2 is guaranteed to happen, AMD has said it want to move to just the AM4 and FP4 sockets.MrCommunistGen - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
Since it's 2016 it feels silly debating CPUs released in late 2010 and late 2012 (respectively) I'd say that the FX-83xx chips do generally outperform the Phenom II X6 chips.http://anandtech.com/bench/product/203?vs=697
Sure it isn't across the board, there are a few outliers where the FX chip severely underperforms the X6, but for the majority of the tests the FX is either tied or significantly ahead of the X6.
legolasyiu - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
I wonder if this motherboard can achieve overclock above 9Ghz, because of 8 phrase and better voltages regulators than Asus Crosshair V Formula-ZNotmyusualid - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
Quote: I'm confused as to which is the article and which is the comment... :)Hil-friken-larious man.
Thanks for the first good laugh of the day.
top1234 - Thursday, February 4, 2016 - link
Download Games Free Full Version: http://th3gamesfull.blogspot.com/BrokenCrayons - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
I'm not sure I understand the point of a premium motherboard targeted at gaming for current AMD processors. Why put on an elaborate and showy dress with a non-competitive foundation beneath? AMD CPUs are excellent low-budget chips that can keep total hardware costs down when compared to Intel processors if the buyer is willing to sacrifice a little compute power and deal with the higher heat/noise output so paring such a chip with the unnecessary cost of an expensive motherboard seems a bit contrarian. For something that's going to be buried under all the other innards inside a computer case, balancing cost and quality rather than focusing solely on styling seems more prudent in getting the right mix of components.computerfarmer - Tuesday, March 29, 2016 - link
Does anyone know if you can "boot" from an M.2 ssd as the manual states this is for data only?SeymorOnion - Sunday, January 13, 2019 - link
I know this is three years late, but I can confirm you can boot Win 7 off of an M.2 SSD. Specifically, the Samsung 970 PRO 512GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7P512BW), is the one I have.I had originally installed the OS to a SSD using a SATA Port,
then years later I installed the M.2, and it's drivers, rebooted a couple of times, then cloned my OS from my SATA SSD to the aforementioned m.2 drive using Arconis.
I'm not sure what the procedure is (or if it's possible) to do a fresh OS install directly to the M.2 drive, for this particular mobo.
MouseTM - Tuesday, April 5, 2016 - link
Just purchased this board and it will be arriving in the mail today! I also purchased AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz. I am upgrading from a basic Acer Mspire board with a Quad Core Athlon II 3.2 GHz. Hoping to notice a massive speed upgradeunimatrix725 - Sunday, August 28, 2016 - link
Strange they would opt for 970,but guess using 990FX would cannibalize sales. I got ripped off on Amazon (shady 3rd party). Was supposed get a r3 Sabertooth, ended up with 1.1! I'm still happy with it, but miss PCIE3 support. Who really needs 14 USB2 Ports, maybe 8 using remaining for 3 or 3.1.FrankWhite44 - Saturday, December 9, 2017 - link
Just ordered a 970 aura am3+ hopefully it's all it's cracked up to be 😊