ASRock X670E PG Lightning - Nice AMD Zen 4 Motherboard For $250 USD

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ASRock X670E PG Lightning - Nice AMD Zen 4 Motherboard For $250 USD

When it comes to new AMD AM5 motherboards featuring an X670 series chipset, one of the cheapest options right now is the ASRock X670E PG Lightning that retails for around $249 USD. I picked up one of these motherboards at launch and has been working out well on Linux for those wanting to build a cost-minded AMD Zen 4 desktop system.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/asrock-x670e-pg

[M@GOid]

The last decade really skyrocketed the cost of multiple PCI slots. 10 Years ago it was common to find a mobo with multiple, full length slots for a reasonable price. Today you better prepare yourself to pay for near workstation prices.

Personally it doesn't affect me, but I feel for those who need it.

[tildearrow]

And again, no ECC. Of course.

I honestly don't care about overclocking. I want stability!

I know it's a mid-cost motherboard, but back then $250 wasn't considered mid-cost...

[ms178]

The rather basic feature level for a 250 USD board (without optical sound output on most "entry"-level boards) is an insult to consumers. Thankfully the market rejects them.

[mlau]

(without optical sound output on most "entry"-level boards)

This is something that bothers me as well. Forget LEDs, I want SPDIF out on a uatx board.

[fitzie]

And again, no ECC. Of course.

I honestly don't care about overclocking. I want stability!

I know it's a mid-cost motherboard, but back then $250 wasn't considered mid-cost...

That's odd, because there were reports that it did support ECC. And their specs used to say that it did.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASRock/comments/y3x33h/ecc_ddr5_support_x670e_pg_lightning/

I'm sure there will be more options next year. Anyway, it's best to wait until ddr5-6000 becomes available with ECC. That seems to be the sweet spot.

https://wccftech.com/amd-confirms-ryzen-7000-ddr5-6000-memory-sweet-spot-auto-fclk-recommended-for-overclocking/

[mazumoto]

I wouldn't be so optimistic about sensor support. My Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master board with an ITE SuperIO is still not fully supported and requires acpi_enforce_resources=lax (from the top of my head, might be named a little different) as kernel command line parameter. I've given up on ever seeing proper support.
So I'll probably go ASUS next, if I can verify the board is supported in advance. But ASUS is way more expensive for AM5 boards currently.
By the way, I think the B650E chipset is a better choice (that double chipset thing for X670 is just stranfe and seems like it's wasting power for very little gain), bit the cheapest option is around 360 Eur for an ASUS board and that seems way too expensive to me ...

[fitzie]

The last decade really skyrocketed the cost of multiple PCI slots. 10 Years ago it was common to find a mobo with multiple, full length slots for a reasonable price. Today you better prepare yourself to pay for near workstation prices.

Personally it doesn't affect me, but I feel for those who need it.

As someone with a lot of hard drives, losing pcie slots with every new generation is annoying. Also, they are shrinking the number of sata ports in the chipset too. I may be able to upgrade to zen4 ryzern if some mb come out with 10gig ethernet on the motherboard, otherwise it is the end road for a big box pc. And I doubt threadripper will be anything but a rebadged epyc, like the pro was in zen 3.

[MorrisS.]

Any image about the whole system you assembled?

[BNieuwenhuizen]

FWIW the other blemish I've seen with this motherboard is that it doesn't seem to support S3 suspend with EXPO (or whatever the Intel equiv was) RAM. There is a new beta bios though since a few days that claims S3 improvements, so it might have resolved itself by now.