AMD held an overnight public webinar event inviting motherboard partners to showcase their premium AM5 motherboards. We’ve taken a closer look at many high-end boards, including spec overviews and key design features.
AMD invited representatives from each motherboard manufacturer to discuss their high-end X670E motherboards. These boards will support AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 series CPUs based on the Zen 4 architecture. AM5 motherboards include a new LGA1718 socket. This is itself a radical change from the PGA AM4 socket. Pins are located on the motherboard instead of the CPU.
AM5 includes support for PCI Express 5.0. Most include 16 lanes spanning one or two physical 16x slots, plus four dedicated lanes for PCIe 5.0 SSDs. The AM5 platform also includes support for DDR5 memory, higher power delivery specs, and in a welcome move, compatibility with AM4 CPU coolers. This means that almost all coolers released in the last 5+ years are AM5 compatible.
The CPU itself will be released in September. So at the moment, details like performance, memory and overclocking capabilities are yet to be revealed, but this motherboard showcase gives us a glimpse of what we can expect from the new platform. Let’s start with what we bring to the party.
ASRock
ASRock showed five X670E motherboards. The flagship is his X670E Taichi Carrara, a special edition board made to celebrate his 20th anniversary for ASRock. It contains a unique marble aesthetic so look for some interesting mod builds with it X670E Taichi includes 26 phase his VRM and Thunderbolt 4 support .
Interestingly, Asrock will release some cheap X670E boards. The Steel Legend and Pro aren’t traditionally known as high-end models, so these promise to bring his X670E’s features down to a lower price point.
Highlights include USB4 with fast charging and M.2 cooling with fan support. High-end PCIe 5.0 drives seem to be trending a bit better.
Asus
Asus first showed off the ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme. The board has great connectivity options with tons of USB including USB4, 10G and 2.5G LAN and Wi-Fi 6E. Supports up to 5 M.2 drives and up to 3 PCIe 5.0 when using a bundled add-in card. It features dual PCIe 5.0 PCIe slots, a high-end VRM and audio solution, and what Asus calls the AnimMe Matrix LED display. Don’t expect this to be affordable!
The Crosshair X670E Hero doesn’t look like much to lose compared to the Extreme. It doesn’t have 10G LAN and an AniMe display, but it does have a powerful VRM and tons of connectivity support, including dual USB 4 Type-C.
At first glance, Asus seems to have almost every feature imaginable. I personally look forward to the rumored Crosshair Apex.
biostar
Biostar doesn’t have a ‘Big 4’ profile, but at first glance the Valkyrie certainly looks like a premium board. It features a powerful 22-phase 105a VRM, tons of USB (but not USB 4), and triple PCIe slots.
It has dual PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots and includes HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4 display support for use with the Ryzen 7000’s new onboard graphics capabilities.
gigabyte
Gigabyte has prepared a comprehensive presentation showcasing some of their upcoming boards. X670E Aorus Xtreme leads the industry with 18+2+2 VRM, 10G LAN and support for up to 4 PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives.
The Aorus Master will return with 2.5G LAN and 2 PCIe 5.0 + 2 PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, but will definitely be cheaper than the Xtreme.
The Aorus Pro AX and Aorus Elite AX replace the popular X570 version and are set to offer a balanced feature set at an affordable price.
A Gigabyte rep confirmed that a Tachyon model is in development, but it won’t be based on the X670. interesting!
MSI
MSI’s X670E series is topped by the MEG X670E Godlike. It’s a beast and could be the most expensive X670E board if the current godlike price is any indication. Packed with features such as monster VRM, finned heatsink array, PCIe 5.0 m.2 expansion card, 10G LAN and more.
MEG Ace loses almost nothing in comparison while keeping M.2 expansion card and 10G LAN. The X670E Carbon Wi-Fi is a more sweet spot gaming model with most of the excess features removed.
These are mostly high-end motherboards and admittedly many of them are very expensive, but it’s nice to see the X670E chipset (which is really the chipset). (opens in new tab)) is not exclusive to flagship models. More attractively priced he is expected to be followed by X670 non-E motherboards and B650 boards. PC Gamer has full coverage of Ryzen 7000 series CPUs and AM5 motherboards in the coming weeks and months. stay tuned!
