RYZEN MOTHERBOARDS UNWRAPPED
We take a look at the very best Ryzen has to offer. ByZakStorey
We take a look at the very best Ryzen has to offer, and discover which is the best mobo for your new AMD build
SO, HERE WE ARE: the dreaded annual motherboard supertest. A new architecture and a new platform, filled with uncertainties, early BIOS versions, and all sorts of bugs, errors, and crashes to contend with. An absolute swamp of autoasphyxiated hell for any hardware reviewer. Indeed, many across the industry have dreaded this day, because it means the suspension of sanity for at least two weeks.
Why do we put ourselves through this? We do it for you, our readers, and, of course, because we’re fired by the rampant curiosity that drives each and every human being. It’s rather like asking, “What is the meaning of life?” or “What did 1998’s McDonald’s Szechuan sauce actually taste like?” We simply have to know which motherboard is best, and— more importantly—which board is right for you.
With Ryzen, AMD has positioned itself in a particularly odd place within the marketplace. By default, the processors themselves compete quite happily with the bulk of Intel’s Broadwell-E, high-end desktop platform on performance, at both single and multicore performance, decimating chips that cost almost $700 more than the lowest-end seven series chip. However, the chipset is more akin to that of a mainstream Z170 Skylake motherboard, harboring nowhere near the number of direct PCIe 3.0 lanes, SATA, or M.2 compatibility that its pricier competitor offers. Take it out of the ecosystem entirely, and it even pales in comparison to that plucky blue, over-priced, under-runner from yesteryear.
What does that mean, exactly? To be frank, not a lot. Although Ryzen’s chipset does look somewhat weaker than its Intel counterparts, you have to take into account what people are actually making use of. For the vast majority, a single M.2 PCIe SSD, a full bank of SATA, and two GPUs running in x8/x8—that’s all you’re probably ever going to need. Especially when you take into consideration the fact that Nvidia isn’t even supporting more than two-way SLI anymore.