Luke and Leo Get Technical (Ep9) – AMD X570S

In this episode, Leo and Luke discuss new AMD X570S motherboards with an appearance by MSI's MPG X570S Carbon EK X. As usual, ramblings hit a variety of topics including liquid cooling, airflow, and Leo's own system that he uses daily.

Video Timestamps:

Video Points

• That name enough of a mouthful?
• EK liquid cooling by default
• Should we have basic VRM heatsink installed as standard?
  • How do you stress test in a simple way initially?
• Leak tester included
• That EK monoblock is heavy!
  • Nickel-plated copper
• Nice and easy to install, by the looks of it
• About 100 $/£ extra for the block worth it?

AMD X570S

• Is it new chipset?
  • No
• Technically, the X570 chipset itself has not changed according to our AMD contact
  • X570S is a marketing term used by the motherboard vendors to highlight their ‘silent' chipset boards
• There are some older fanless X570 boards, remember
  • Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme
  • ASUS Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
• B550 is technically inferior
  • But is it really inferior in reality?
  • The lack of an onboard fan has always been quite appealing to us
  • Though less PCIe Gen 4 capability is a downside
• Have you been annoyed by your X570 motherboard's fan?
  • And how fast does it spin?
• Passively cooling the X570 chipset shouldn't be such a tough task
  • Especially with the monster heatsinks on modern motherboards
  • Were the original X570 designs too cautious with chipset cooling?
• Gigabyte, ASUS, and MSI X570S board reviews coming soon
• What about cooling those Gen 4 SSDs under the cooling shroud?

Liquid cooling airflow is a challenge

• Rad positioning can hugely influence your motherboard, VRM, and SSD cooling behaviour
• Liquid cooling the GPU is glorious!
  • CPUs show good benefit too
• Do you run a CPU-only liquid cooling loop?
  • What is your opinion on custom liquid without the GPU in the loop?

Leo forgets to breathe when around glorious hardware

• CPUs make him short of breathe
  • And so does working with wallet-busting graphics cards!
• Don't mess up the block installation!

Things are flowing…

• The monoblock has a small flowmeter integrated
  • Will it make any noise, Luke asks?
  • ‘No', Leo answers!
• A noisy flowmeter on a passive board would be ironic

How much cooling does AMD Ryzen need?

• The 5950X kicks out a bunch of power
  • But its thermals are OK
  • The 5900X, on the other hand!
• Austrian muscle to save the day…?
  • We're talking about Noctua, of course!
  • Never mind, Arnie!
• Cooling the GPU reaps major rewards!
  • But we won't argue with CPU liquid cooling either

Anybody remember the R9 295X2 and its single 120mm rad?

• Dual R9 290X GPUs overclocked and on a single board
• All cooled by a 120mm radiator
  • Now, that was an optimistic way to manage 500W of graphics card!
• The rule of thumb is 1x 120mm unit plus 1x120mm per component
  • So maybe we are simply overdoing it with radiator area on custom loops
  • Especially when compared to the R9 295X2
• But will new hardware and higher-powered processors change things?

MSI X570S passively cooled, with a monoblock

• Leo will be doing an actual review of this board, so keep an eye out for it
• And we will also be looking at other X570S motherboards
• Do you think AMD X570 has earned a price premium over Intel mainstream chipset motherboards?

Let's talk Leo's own system

• Would you be happy to buy X570/AM4 knowing that a replacement platform is due next year?
• Leo runs Threadripper 2000 on X399
  • It was upgraded from Threadripper 1000 when Threadripper 2000 was discounted
• Leo really wants Threadripper 3000
  • And the high-end, absolutely superb TRX40 platform
  • Better raid the piggy bank!
• Do YOU care if a platform is end-of-life when you want to buy it?
  • Does Windows 11 quirky support change your perspective?
• Maybe AM4 and Zen 3 would be a very good option for Leo to upgrade to?

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: Are you excited by some of the new X570S options? Or is your upgrade money earmarked for Intel Z690 or AMD AM5?

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