Wednesday, May 29th 2019
ASRock X570 Aqua is a $1000 Zen2-ready Liquid-Cooled Monsterboard
We were pleasantly mistaken when we thought ASRock would stop at the X570 Phantom Gaming X or the X570 Taichi for AMD's new "Valhalla" enthusiast desktop platform. It turns out that they have a roughly-$1,000 monster motherboard in the pipes, called the X570 Aqua. Pictured below, the board is based on a slight variation of the X570 Phantom Gaming X PCB. The biggest change of course is the aluminium shroud that covers most of the board's front side. There's also a metal back-plate.
Beneath the metal shroud is what gives the board its name: a massive liquid-cooling monoblock that cools not just your processor (including heavyweights such as overclocked Ryzen 9 3900X chips), but also the CPU VRM, and the feisty AMD X570 chipset. The coolant channel first goes over the CPU through a large micro-fin lattice, then onto the X570 chipset, and finally over the CPU VRM on its way out. Much like the Phantom Gaming X, this board features daisy-chained dual-channel DDR4 memory slots designed to make the most OC out of 2-module setups.
Expansion includes three PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slots, the top two are wired to the AM4 SoC, and the bottom-most one is electrical gen 4.0 x4, wired to the chipset. There are three gen 4.0 x1 slots in between them. Storage connectivity includes two M.2-22110 slots (64 Gbps, PCIe gen 4.0 x4), from which one includes SATA 6 Gbps wiring; and six other SATA 6 Gbps ports. The board serves up not one, but two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports, complete with USB 3.1 and DisplayPort passthrough to the boot! USB connectivity includes six USB 3.1 gen 2 at the rear panel, including two type-C ports, and four USB 3.1 gen 1 headers. Networking includes a 10 GbE connection driven by an AQuantia AQC107 controller, a 1 GbE connection pulled by an Intel i211-AT, 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) WLAN pulled by Intel "Cyclone Peak" PHY, and Bluetooth 5.0. The onboard audio solution is premium Realtek ALC1220 fare.
We've heard from several sources that this board could command a $1,000 price, which is over two times that of the X570 Phantom Gaming X. Value-addition comes in the form of a slightly beefed up 8-layer PCB, two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports, 10 GbE replacing 2.5 GbE, additional 10 Gbps USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, the aluminium front- and back cladding, and of course, the $200-ish nickel-plated copper monoblock. ASRock is only producing 999 pieces of this board, and the one on display is uniquely marked "002/999," so there's that.
Beneath the metal shroud is what gives the board its name: a massive liquid-cooling monoblock that cools not just your processor (including heavyweights such as overclocked Ryzen 9 3900X chips), but also the CPU VRM, and the feisty AMD X570 chipset. The coolant channel first goes over the CPU through a large micro-fin lattice, then onto the X570 chipset, and finally over the CPU VRM on its way out. Much like the Phantom Gaming X, this board features daisy-chained dual-channel DDR4 memory slots designed to make the most OC out of 2-module setups.
We've heard from several sources that this board could command a $1,000 price, which is over two times that of the X570 Phantom Gaming X. Value-addition comes in the form of a slightly beefed up 8-layer PCB, two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports, 10 GbE replacing 2.5 GbE, additional 10 Gbps USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, the aluminium front- and back cladding, and of course, the $200-ish nickel-plated copper monoblock. ASRock is only producing 999 pieces of this board, and the one on display is uniquely marked "002/999," so there's that.
58 Comments on ASRock X570 Aqua is a $1000 Zen2-ready Liquid-Cooled Monsterboard
Both look like puke... bleh
If these didn't need some beefy vrms we wouldn't see such a distinct change across all AIBs.
Win for consumers.
if they knew that Ryzen 3K would be suck, they wont sink in that much investment (Im looking at you, FX CPU. Just see how many mainboard maker make SKU for that garbage compared to Ivy and Haswell at that time).
Intel has ALWAYS rocked more mobo SKUs and it makes sense why if you think about it. Nobody wanted to touch those CPUs as they were a lot slower and used more power out of the box.
But I love PS/2 for keyboard in general. Gaming mostly, so you right ofc.
www.asrock.com/mb/photo/X570%20Taichi(L2).png
www.asrock.com/mb/photo/X570%20Phantom%20Gaming%20X(L2).pngDid you not watch the video? I was in a hurry to get to work, but the exact quote from Buildzoid is "The X370 Taichi has a stronger VRM than the (X370)C6H and, uh, I'd say that board is totally viable for the 12 core... like maxing out the 12 core. It could probably even max out the 16 core for core clocks..."
The X370 Taichi was, in terms of power management, simply the best X370 board. It took high-end X470 boards from other manufacturers to catch up, and the Taichi still has a better VRM than some X470 boards. I imagine though, that many X570 have finally got in line with where the Taichi was with X370 because of the likelihood of a 16 core in the future.
If we're talking about this board in particular, however... even if it has the exact same VRM layout as the X370 Taichi, because it's water cooled it will more than be able to handle whatever the 16 core happens to pull because the limit is thermals, not power draw.
Maybe gen4 switches are not available, I can't say they would be too expensive given the premium they are asking for this board, even if it was $50+ they could do it.
I like the concept, but it needs to be 1/2 the price or I'd just make one myself/get one fabricated locally for that kind of extra money.Maybe they are beefing up X570 for next year, so folks can drop in 24-core parts etc. and won't bitch that they got no upgrade path? We could see X470 "only" supporting up to 16 copre Zen3+ parts but X570 supports more core parts.
That's sort of the case going from X370 to X470. X470 are more likely to work with a 16 core than X370.
This all gives the motherboard makers a carrot rather than have X370 fully support the 2020 models and they don't sell new boards.
I still believe some X370 & 470 will support some of next years models. e.g. you have a 12 core this year at 105W TDP, that could well be down to 95 or less for some 12 core SKUs next year and easily driven by X370 VRMs.
There is a compatibility chart floating around and X470 has most of the boxes ticked for Zen2. That may well change and shuffle down with Zen 2+.
You might not recall it working that way as this is really the first time we've had such good forward compatibility.
Robert Hallock even alluded to that in a recent interview.
There also wasn't as much of a performance leap gen to gen overall and if some X370/470 boards will support even one slot of gen 4 PCIe, that will be another plus for AM4 vs AM3.
IIRC, a single 8-pin EPS can handle well over 300W anyway...what more does it REALLY offer?
And for clarity (feels like the point was missed, :))... I am not saying all X470 boards will be affected, nor am I saying at stock... This is an overclocking* situation. Those with the additional power and subsequently potentially more robust VRM for boards which have that, can handle it. I'm wondering about entry level boards to mid-range and trying to drop in a 12c and overclocking it on those.
*I'm assuming there is the headroom to run all c/t at their boost clocks or more... time will tell. If it is stuck within its boost, most will be fine. Both CPUs are, mind you, are listed at 105W, the same power. I am expecting more OC headroom.