Wednesday, July 5th 2023
TechPowerUp is Hiring a Motherboard Reviewer
TechPowerUp, your place on the web for in-depth PC hardware reviews and enthusiast news, is looking for a desktop motherboard reviewer. Our current reviewer, ir_cow, is going to focus on DRAM module reviews exclusively. The motherboard reviewer job requires a high level understanding of the layout and workings of modern motherboards, including detailed technical photography of its various onboard devices, VRM, memory, commentary on layout and ease-of-installation/use, as well as performance benchmarks, and overclocking capabilities.
We expect our potential motherboard reviewer to be able to identify key components of the motherboard, the various controllers, VRM, PHYs, and chipset; the expansion slot layout and the way PCIe lanes are distributed across the motherboard; and other important aspects, such as the motherboard's own cooling mechanisms. You also need a solid grasp on memory timings, and tuning for a given platform, and the willingness to explore and learn. Our performance testing involves not just the CPU performance on a given motherboard, but also that of certain onboard devices, such as audio, and those of storage interfaces. Some of our recent motherboard reviews should give you a good idea of our review format, article structure, and the testing involved.
The TechPowerUp motherboard reviewer position is paid, part-time, remote (worldwide), and would typically require an output of at least 3-4 reviews a month. Besides being a paid position, TechPowerUp will assist you with sampling from all leading brands. We will also provide guidance and assist you with baseline hardware such as processors, memory modules, storage, coolers, and everything else needed for testing.
Interested? Contact us at w1zzard@techpowerup.com. Tell us a bit about yourself, where you live, how old, and what makes you the right candidate. It's perfectly okay if you're not exactly a literary genius, or lack experience writing reviews. We are interested in motivated enthusiasts who understand motherboards and love to play with the newest hardware, just like we do. All the best!
We'll pool applications for two weeks and then go through all of them, so be patient. Please spend a few minutes on your application so it stands out, from the dozens (if not more) of submissions.
We expect our potential motherboard reviewer to be able to identify key components of the motherboard, the various controllers, VRM, PHYs, and chipset; the expansion slot layout and the way PCIe lanes are distributed across the motherboard; and other important aspects, such as the motherboard's own cooling mechanisms. You also need a solid grasp on memory timings, and tuning for a given platform, and the willingness to explore and learn. Our performance testing involves not just the CPU performance on a given motherboard, but also that of certain onboard devices, such as audio, and those of storage interfaces. Some of our recent motherboard reviews should give you a good idea of our review format, article structure, and the testing involved.
Interested? Contact us at w1zzard@techpowerup.com. Tell us a bit about yourself, where you live, how old, and what makes you the right candidate. It's perfectly okay if you're not exactly a literary genius, or lack experience writing reviews. We are interested in motivated enthusiasts who understand motherboards and love to play with the newest hardware, just like we do. All the best!
We'll pool applications for two weeks and then go through all of them, so be patient. Please spend a few minutes on your application so it stands out, from the dozens (if not more) of submissions.
122 Comments on TechPowerUp is Hiring a Motherboard Reviewer
Look at what happened with 11th gen (same motherboards) and '*600' CPU's like the 11600K, thermal throttling boards - let alone the 700 and 900 model CPUs
Anywhere from 142W to 261W with the same CPU, depending on the boards honouring intels power limits, going all-out, or overheating and slowing itself somewhere in-between
This is why i developed that focus on undervolting settings, just because a board *CAN* run that CPU at 4.6GHz doesn't mean the user wants that - they may want a board that can do it if they want, but the best board would be the one that lets a user choose anything from 65W to 270W, as the users chooses
It's 2023. Everything can be automated nowadays, especially digital data collection. I also don't think that mighty W1zz will let anyone plot charts by hand.
We know that Asus and others sell boards with "HDMI 2.1" ports which are effectively HDMI 2.0b from the previous era and can support 4K/60 monitors with TMDS signal up to 18 Gbps.
Asrock has deployed much better, real HDMI 2.1 ports with FRL chip and speeds of up ro 32 Gbps (like on PS5) to drive smooth pictures on 4K/120 monitors.
We need reviewers to tell us the speed of video ports too, as vendors often publish very vague nomenclature and consumers are confused.
What I actually do is tick "Upload directly to review", click "Render Graphs" and 28 seconds later it shows "Finished".
I shoud have figured you'd make some kind of software wizard for this...
1 - even if level shifter/redriver chip is there, we still do not know which features a vendor decided to implement. Suppose it's IC with FRL6 capability over HDMI port. The port is technically capable of 48 Gbps output, but vendor might restrict it to either 24Gbps, 32Gbps or 40Gbps, as FRL signalling allows for four modes of operation above 18 Gbps.
So far, only Asrock is telling us exact speed of HDMI 2.1 FRL port on their AM5 boards (32 Gbps). This needs to change and motherborad reviewers can help with this, so that vendors such as Asus cannot muddle the waters on their website by telling us "HDMI 2.1 4K/60". That's nonsense and they need to be called out on this. Technically, they are not breaching HDMI Licensing Administrator rules, as all HDMI ports are "2.1" ports (2.0b spec was cancelled), but they are vague enough because they do not tell us whether it is TMDS port (18 Gbps) or higher FRL port (24 Gbps). "4K/60" can be many things on displays, from 8-bit 4:2:0 (9 Gbps) all the way to 12-bit RGB (24 Gbps) image. The span is not trivial. Asus should say "4K/60 TMDS" or "4K/60 FRL". In this case, we know exactly that the port is either 18 Gbps or 24 Gbps.
For reviewers, it's enough to have one 4K/144Hz 10-bit monitor with full speed HDMI 2.1 port supporting 48 Gbps signal. Or one of 4K/120 LG TVs that support up to FRL6 input, such as Gen 9, 2 and 3. All those TVs have full speed ports. The speed of HDMI port can be easily checked in graphics settings by sending only 4 different signals (varied bit depth, refresh rate and colours) from iGPU to display:
FRL3 - 24 Gbps - 4K/120 10-bit 4:2:0 or 4K/60 10-bit RGB
FRL4 - 32 Gbps - 4K/120 8/10-bit 4:2:2
FRL5 - 40 Gbps - 4K/120 10-bit RGB or 4K/144 8-bit RGB
FRL6 - 48 Gbps - 4K/120 12-bit RGB (LG) or 4K/144 10-bit RGB
2 - Ryzen 6000 and 7000 CPUs/APUs natively support HDMI FRL 48 Gbps signal, so on motherboads that have short traces from CPU to video ports, redrives and level shifters are often not necessary, such as boards on many mini-PCs or ITX.
as for msi am5 lineup, models (eg b650 carbon) with it66318fn used are speced as 4k60, while models (x670e tomahawk) with pi3hdx12211 are speced as 4k120.
gigabyte has a similar practice as well, x670e master got ps8209a and listed as 4k60 tmds while b650e master got nb7nq621m and listed as 8k60.
if traces/signal is short and clean enough on mobo, then every am5 mobo should have hdmi 48g listed without any extra ic used. in fact mid range and high end mobo PCB is full of 10g usb redrivers, even for the front type e port provided from pch (even shorter traces).
although asrock am5 x670e is unique, the prices of their entry level x670e is the cheapest among others and zero gen5 redriver ic is used to support gen5 pcie slot and gen5 m.2 slot, maybe the PCB used is simply too good (same 8 layers).
since redriver is has its own limitation, if what you are worrying about is whether a 12g redriver would be set/used as 6g then i think every ic on PCB should be reviewed/tested by professional equipment, which is simply too much to ask for a free of charge website.
Definitely the sort of thing you want to know about a motherboard, as you claim a GPU/IGP supports 4K 120Hz but only with DSC, and that rules out a ton of 4K 120 displays (Exactly like how the current gen game consoles are limited, and perform poorly on displays that require DSC)
This is alongside showing awareness of trends being implemented with new video standards on iGPU, such as:
- Meteor Lake CPUs will be the first Intel chips to natively support HDMI 2.1. Which motherboards will take an advantage of it?
- Ryzen 7000 natively support DisplayPort 2.1 at 40 Gbps. Has any motherboard implemented it? Not to my knowledge?
- Thunderbolt does not support FreeSync, but does it support AdaptiveSync?
etc, etc, ....I remember this being mentioned elsewhere. Has Philips been notified of it, and if so, any firmware update?
zero response to technical support on this issue, despite it being present for a *long* time
When it does display you get extreme lag issues and Ctrl-F6 lets you adjust the resolution with 1366x768 being the only 16:9 option available, but while its lag free all the text in the tooltips is cut off
BIOS updates seem to have brought this to boards that never used to have the issue, like my AX370 Gaming 5
My 4K TV works over HDMI, while i have issues with 1440p and 4K displays on DP on an aorus x370 and B550 board. A DP to HDMI cable solved the issue for the most part, interestingly enough.That's more relevant than ever before, with the primary NVME slot halving GPU bandwidth on current gen intel boards, for example. Non stop help threads about GPU's stuck at 8x in facebook groups for that one.
Regardless of getting the job, i've gone and got a new multimeter with a thermal probe, and learned how ir_cow did his review photographs... at least i can do better diagnosis and images of my own toys, in the future.
The old man will be watching....