The low-cost alternative to the Ryzen system to high-caliber but more expensive motherboards is the B350 range. Today we tested the ASRock AB350 Gaming K4 motherboard, which comes under the radar just under $ 90. It offers almost everything provided by the bigger cousin except SLI, but a single GPU user can find homes with such motherboards. Our goal today is to ascertain whether ASRock AB350 Gaming K4 can be a top value proposition with the B350 chipset in the game.
The low-cost alternative to the Ryzen system to high-caliber but more expensive motherboards is the B350 range. Today we tested the ASRock AB350 Gaming K4 motherboard, which comes under the radar just under $ 90. It offers almost everything provided by the bigger cousin except SLI, but a single GPU user can find homes with such motherboards. Our goal today is to ascertain whether ASRock AB350 Gaming K4 can be a top value proposition with the B350 chipset in the game.
Overview ASRock AB350 Gaming K4
Most of the world that owns a desktop computer usually has something very simple. A mid-range GPU, no overclock, discrete graphics card, one or two storage devices, simple memory, and mouse / keyboard. Everyone likes to talk about hello, but the reality is that the bigger battlefield is ranked lower. To that end, both major players offer non-overclocked mid-range CPUs, as well as mid-range chipsets for motherboards targeting lower cost segments. Some additional features may be reduced, such as high-end USB ports, storage options, or SLI, but the benefits for simpler systems are lower costs, especially when in these markets, cost is a big factor in gaining market share. So with high end AMD X370 is a more intermediate B350 and A320 chipset, showing a great PC for most people does not need to empty a bank account.
With ASRock AB350 Gaming K4, as implied by its name, ASRock wants it two ways: a competitive gaming motherboard in the B350 chipset room. Do not know why it's called 'AB350', it's just something that ASRock seems to do, but the purpose of the board here is to target the gaming crowd. That means having a relatively full black PCB, a set of red aluminum heatsinks, and a full length PCIe slot for graphics that have extra reinforcement to take on the hardest PCIe hard drive. The top full-length slot runs in PCIe x16 mode from the CPU, while the second slot is also from the CPU, but limited to PCIe x4, and shares the bandwidth with one of the M.2 slots.
Focusing on storage, a total of six SATA 6Gb / s ports comes with four of them tilted at 90 degrees on the lower right side of the board. The remaining two are straight and can be found towards the integrated USB 3.0 front panel header (at the foot of the RAM slot); both ports are supported through the ASMedia ASM1061 controller. The AB350 Gaming K4 has two M.2 slots, with the top one on the amplified PCIe x16 Gen3 slot coming from the CPU, sharing the PCIe path with a second full-length PCIe slot, while the second M2 slot is SATA-only slot. It's a pity that they're both not PCIe, but still not many sub- $ 100 motherboards will happily take two M.2 storage drives with ease.
The AB350 Gaming K4 does not support some of the more budget-focused controllers, which are expected at sub $ 100 bids, but this means onboard audio using Realtek RTL8111 network chips and Realtek ALC892 audio codecs, often bundled with discounts for OEMs. The audio solution is amplified by an ELNA audio capacitor, as well as several degrees of PCB separation to ensure no interference between analog and digital signals at close range. Although the chipset supports USB 3.1 (10 Gbps), ASRock saves some effort in a complicated fashion by relying on USB 3.0 - with five Type-A ports behind, a Backup Type-C port enabled by ASMedia ASM1543 redriver, and one USB 3.0 header . The other is USB 2.0.
Although this board, at this price point, is not really feature rich as shown by only having four 4-pin fan headers. That said, the special CPU fan header does have support for a maximum power rating of 1A / 12V, allowing for high power fans or pumps, and three other fan headers capable of detecting automatically if a PWM or DC fan is connected.
Price wise, ASRock AB350 Gaming K4 is currently for $ 90 simple. Technically this makes it one of the most expensive B350 motherboards on the market, but the value proposition is when comparing it to the more expensive X370 brothers. For most gamers, such as those who do not need SLI support, Gaming K4 has a lot to offer by trimming some top level items, but also comes with ASRock software and gaming capabilities. In benchmarks, he pulls a short distance to his more expensive cousin, and even passes a nice overclock. Why spend $ 250 on features that a user might not need, when a $ 90 motherboard system can still offer a hefty punch - especially if it's reinvested in a better GPU.
Overclocking with Ryzen 7 1700
Usually cheaper motherboards can cause a variety of overclocking problems. For example, power delivery can use cheaper components, resulting in lower overall efficiency. This will drain more heat energy into the heatsink, and if the heatsink is also the same underperformance due to cost, it calculates the problem. If the motherboard has fewer PCB layers, designers often have to make compromises on the trace layout, which can also reduce potential peak frequency.
Fortunately, on K4 Gaming AB350, overclocking is as easy as the X370 motherboard we've tested. UEFI BIOS is very intuitive to use, and is one of my favorites so far from all the B350 based motherboards we've tested. One can easily forget that this is actually not an X370 motherboard in terms of performance, style, design, and color schemes.
Methodology
Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We selected the automatic overclock option and tested stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workload. This stability test aims to capture the immediate cause for memory or CPU errors.
For manual overclocking, based on information collected from previous testing, starting at nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and multiplier increases until the stability test fails. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability test is passed, and the process is repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a very high level (100ºC +). Our test bed was not in the case, which should push the overclocks higher with fresh (cold) air.
Overclocking results
From our previous tests, our Ryzen 7 1700 CPU has limits between 3.9 GHz and 4.0 GHz. Although the hub-bub is over 4 GHz and above the Ryzen chip, while 3.9GHz seems to be a bit, in the full spectrum of the silicon lottery it actually makes sense for Ryzen 7 1700 chips. Even at 3.9 GHz, performance is consistent in our testing of the perameter, with chips pushing close to 190 W on the lower wall of OCCT.
The Ryzen 7 1700 processor that we currently use has a 3.0 GHz base core clock with a turbo clock speed of 3.7 GHz, and has a 65W on-the-box TDP. When overclocked to 3.9 GHz with 1.375 volts, overall power consumption captured on the wall pushed just under 189W at its peak, but sailed through our tests.
Also Read More :
- Review Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) Kaby Lake-G Benchmarked
- [DEAL] ReviewYeston AMD Radeon RX570 Graphics Card : GearBest
- The Plextor M8V SATA SSD Review: TLC Toshiba 3D Di Drive Mainstream
- Motherboard Review: Gaming On a Budget MSI B350 Tomahawk
- Walmart has an Intel Core i7-8700K for more than $ 300 today