AND THE WINNER IS...
MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon
WHAT A ROLLERCOASTER this has been. At the start, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy— and we were right. Three motherboards, one chip, and this reviewer’s soul have been claimed by the beast of bedlam that is Ryzen’s monstrous new AM4 platform.
On paper, Ryzen and its new chipsets are sound. Logical even. After all, the vast majority of I/O included on modern mobos goes untouched by mainstream users. And despite Ryzen’s seemingly high-end, professional heritage, its price point puts it in the realm of the average joe. The rumored X399 platform, hopefully coming soon, should be a re-envisioned HEDT variant of Ryzen, with a far more expansive chipset (hopefully mostly on the processor), but for now, this is what we have to play with.
AM4 is still in its infancy, and so are the chips. For the vets out there, who remember the early days of Hyper-Threading, and even Nehalem’s launch, the teething problems will come as no surprise. So, don’t let this put you off investing in the Ryzen platform, because the bugs are being ironed out at a phenomenal rate. It seems every new BIOS update improves performance and stability at a rate of knots.
So, on to the motherboards. Two of the boards in this issue’s supertest particularly impressed us: Asus’s Crosshair VI Hero and MSI’s X370 Gaming Pro Carbon. The Hero was the first board we got hands-on with during our Ryzen testing, and it’s not difficult to understand why AMD chose to ship this one out to us. Its ease of use, support for high-end memory from the get-go, and in-depth UEFI BIOS made it a breeze for most reviewers not wanting to dig more than skin deep into AMD’s latest platform.
However, it’s the Gaming Pro Carbon that really stole the show. Coming in at $80 less than the Crosshair VI Hero, and packing that vital core performance, its stability, memory support, and overall feature set are more than enough for anyone looking to sate their eight-core desires. That carbon finish? Well, it’s certainly different. Let’s call it that. OK, MSI, truthfully: We don’t like this finish. Keep it black, have a brushed aluminum styling on it, clean it up, keep the lines straight and the MSI logo sharp, and you’d be on to a classic. But the checkered carbon look? Not for us.
But back to the biggest positive of them all: the price. There’s $80 difference between the Crosshair VI and this beauty. With that saving, you could upgrade from a six-core Ryzen 5 1600X to an eight-core Ryzen 7 1700. Whack that clock speed up to 4GHz, and you’d easily be rolling above the 1800X, and within spitting distance of Intel’s Core i7-6950X.
Ultimately, AMD’s AM4 platform, for the time being at least, is still a touch messy. Go with boards you know you can trust, search around to find the best deals, and don’t get scalped. And if you’re really keen to become an early adopter, make sure you stick to the premium lines from mobo manufacturers, otherwise you’re likely to get burned.
Its stability, memory support, and overall feature set are more than enough for anyone looking to sate their eight-core desires.