doesn’t guarantee the mobo’s subtiming straps will be compatible outside of high end x470. though
always check the dimm compat list supplied by the vendor
Im not very familiar with power design on motherboards. I read through the post on the forum here but Im not sure what to look for. Are more phases good or does the reputation of individual components used matter more? If im not overclocking and not drawing tons of power does having more phases make any difference?
Like mentioned above Ive heard that you dont want to exceed 3200, is that true? If I got a kit with a higher frequency would I run it slower and tighten the timings?
so here’s what matters:
- number of phases
- amp rating of the MOSFETs on those phases
- quality of the driver chips and the controller IC
- the Hours@temp rating and total capacitance of the smoothing capacitors
- the ESR and switching time of the MOSFETs
The problem is, it’s a long standing tradition for motherboard manufacturers to lie about their power design specs, and also a long standing tradition for reviewers to not double check with tools as simple as google and a multimeter to make sure they aren’t being lied to.
What most reviewers do is count the number of chokes (inductors) and call it a day. This is a problem because above a certain threshold chokes are the least important part of a VRM design, and also because you can just stick more chokes than you need on the vrm frontend and fool the average reviewer.
More phases can mean more current capability, but it also increases voltage stability and the ability to handle power spikes. that said, an 8 phase using bottom shelf components may still perform worse than a 4 phase using high quality, over spec parts.
I’d recommend watching AHOC/buildzoid for more information on the subject, as he has one of the best quality levels among tech journalists when it comes to his honesty and understanding of the subject matter, despite not even being a journalist.
here’s a quick rundown, check out the rest of his stuff for more in-depth explanations of the EE behind VRM design.
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The reason people say this is because high frequency ram is usually just random highly binned chips. Might be B-die, Might be hynix MFR, etc. but the timings and command rate will be worse almost guaranteed, so you’ll get worse performance instead of just diminishing returns.
This problem is made worse because motherboard manufacturers seem not to be too bothered about adhering to AMP specs, and put seemingly random subtiming straps in their UEFI. I’d go farther than saying look for Bdie specced at 3200 or less and say stick to the listed compatible dimms for your motherboard for this reason.
If you want a decent X470 board then i can recommend the folling boards in order.
-
Asus Crosshair VII Hero. <-- Pretty much the best X470 board overall.
With the best vrm implementation, and best bios. - Asrock X470 Taichi Ultimate. <-- Also a very decent board with great vrm design.
-
Asrock X470 Taichi Non Ultimate. <-- Same board as the Ultimate but lacking the 10gbe ethernet controller.
But offers strong value for money. -
Gigabyte Aorus X470 Gaming 7 <-- Also a really decent board in terms of vrm design.
But the Gigabyte bios can be a littlebit wonky at times.
Midrange boards:
-
Asus X470-F Strix. A really nice midrange board with a decent vrm design.
The main thing with this particular board is that it lacks a few feautures like postcode readout, onboard buttons and a b-clock gen.
But other then that a pretty nice board with some basic rog features. - Asus X470 Prime Pro Also a nice midrange board with all the base features that you would need.
The rest of the X470 boards are a littlebit meh.
More info on X470 boards and their vrm designs.
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I don’t like that LED trash… Also 18, 22, 22, 22, 42 seems not great. I have a kit with better timings rated for 4000MHz. So, not sure if this is the good stuff.
good list. I’d say if you don’t plan on overclocking the regular taichi is probably the best buy for you.
Friend of mine has the Aorus one, though, IDK if GB cheaped out on the copper weight or what, but it will refuse to boot or boot and randomly hang if you max out the IO lanes or fill up the pcie slots with active devices. we tested several combinations (and no, it’s not the psu hitting OCP, we tested that too)
Well that might also be an issue related to that wonky bios i mentioned.
I´m personally never really have been a big fan of Gigabyte boards in general.
And the main reason for that is their bios.
They might have improved on it allot nowdays.
But i still read about bios glitches a bugs so now and than.
could be, but we weren’t getting any error codes except for unexpected shutdown
just weird behavior in general, and it survived 2 RMAs so it can’t be a faulty board
at present it’s a hard pass if you need it for workstation or VFIO purposes imo
You are probably correct about everything except that meaningless LED trash remark, but this is the only source I can find pointing that its not that Samsung B die 
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Well thanks everyone, I agree that the Taichi is the best choice and now I feel confident enough to pull the trigger.
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The Asrock X470 Taichi will be a decent choice.
It offers really good value for money as far as features, connectivity options and vrm design aswell.
The bios from Asrock could still be improved on certain things.
But overall the bios is fine.
Also yeah according to 2700X vs 2600X for 1440P gaming.
Well of course the 2700X is the best you could get atm wenn it comes to Ryzen.
But with a GTX970 on 1440p it probablly wont really make a huge difference in raw gaming performance between both cpu´s.
Because you will be gpu limmited most of the time.
In general the 2600X will offer better value for money wenn it comes to raw gaming performance.
Unless you really have plans to upgrade to the highest end gpu’s in the near future.
Then the 2700X is probablly going to be the better buy overall.
Allthough that also really depends from game to game and how well they scale over multiple threads.
Check the price difference to the ultimate, that varies from region to region. Here in Germany it is like 40,- bucks more and that is well worth it.
@MisteryAngel, OP states that there is interest in linux, virtualization and so on. So it isn’t gaming only.
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yeah, it’s a less bad kind of jank than msi or GB have in their UEFIs
its clunky but functional rather than slick and buggy
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I have to point out that with X370 Taichi & overclocking, these p states sometimes work, sometimes work differently, and sometimes just dont work
With latest UEFI I havent figured out how to make it work, and its locked to 24/7 max clocks
So, that said, I dont see why wouldnt this be the case with other AsRock boards that its going to just be like that
eh, you only need 1 core for IO on the host in my experience, and ryzen gaming performance flattens out past a certain core count. you even got regressions in some cases because of worse boost due to the higher power draw. I’d say the 6 core is “enough” unless he has to compile nightly builds of openoffice
@MasterNurmi OP said he doesn’t care about OC
Then the additional cores on the 2700X could be handy to have.
For a long term system (4-6 years) it would not make sense to not go with the eight core. 35% more potential performance, higher clocks from day one, for just 100,- bucks more compared to the overall system cost…