TechPowerUp is Hiring a Motherboard Reviewer

[Pluribusunum47]

Forsooth, the board reminds me of thine Mother!
With rounded curves and frills that gloweth in the moonlit caverns of my E-ATX case,
Her Booty times are of legend and her Vdroop smoother than the silken anti-static lingerie she arrived in.

Total score:
Your mother out of my house.


Random requests like that add to my motivation, i'm an odd person.


Being aware they can do it, is the part that matters.

Very few boards can undervolt with a plain voltage offset on the 5800x3D for example, yet its how mine runs 10-15W below the same CPU on any other board
(I run -30 curve and the voltage offset together) - we dont need it benchmarked, just to be aware X board has it and Y board doesn't

VRM's are frustrating because board makers deliberately mislead users all the time, even to the point they bluntly lie about what's included on the boards

Some things commonly treated as "bad" like VRM doublers, high end people like buildzoid say are totally fine

Some boards are just designed to be low end for low wattage CPU's and then marketing pretends they can do more - and we get situations like the "65 watt" 10700 non K that no one could predict, where a low end part uses absurd amounts of power the board makers likely couldnt plan for in advance
View attachment 304463

The more i think about this and the more i talk to ir_cow, the more tempting it's becoming to try for this. My only concern is about letting TPU down by being too slow when it comes to the charts side of things. I'm not an artsy person, so making those is something that would take me longer than testing the hardware.

I'd also really want to work with the requests of TPU members, i've been doing it to all our reviewers over the years so being able to fire up these boards and test the things users asks for matters to me - which means i'll need to stockpile enough parts to have more than the one review/test setup going at any given time.


On the underclocking features, i guess i'd look at:

Out of the box/BIOS defaults
Intel/AMD stock (PBO off, intel PL1/PL2 settings)
Unlimited settings and how the board handles it with a higher wattage CPU from the lineup - so we can tell users the maximum wattage range the boards should be used for
What under/overclocking settings the board has - even if they aren't tested in the review, like:

• Default voltages at stock/XMP
• Is it missing common OC/UV features (like offset voltages)
• Offset voltages, and for which components (CPU, SoC, etc)
• Does it having something unique and helpful like MSI's memory try it, or just generic "auto OC" crap that runs insane unsafe voltages?

There will be always a difference between
Marketing and real life is human nature no species lying better than we do
I got a lot experience from datasheets and non working reality and even buyin parts that should work but not .So for me a test of a Motherboard is not to praise all posibilitys without test them all because there is so much parts out there i.e. ram , gpu, cpu...........
So its a new board so it should work with statistic MAINSTREAM equip what ppl would afford . If therequest is to test only highend equip than you need the stuff for testing it and doin this in an afford who is controllable/definable or you have an overload on yourself . My expierience is common parts are much easy handable, then still in these days they want outstanding marks on there parts but for what price , i think in terms like do i need it really and important need i another HEATSPREADER or can i do it with less power......

 

[Mussels]

Don't they have templates for the charts?

still gotta input values and typey type - it's not like all these programs spit out .txt files with their values for us

There will be always a difference between
Marketing and real life is human nature no species lying better than we do
I got a lot experience from datasheets and non working reality and even buyin parts that should work but not .So for me a test of a Motherboard is not to praise all posibilitys without test them all because there is so much parts out there i.e. ram , gpu, cpu...........
So its a new board so it should work with statistic MAINSTREAM equip what ppl would afford . If therequest is to test only highend equip than you need the stuff for testing it and doin this in an afford who is controllable/definable or you have an overload on yourself . My expierience is common parts are much easy handable, then still in these days they want outstanding marks on there parts but for what price , i think in terms like do i need it really and important need i another HEATSPREADER or can i do it with less power......

As mentioned in my post on the previous page, we had 65W CPU's using 200W+ of power, and motherboards that couldn't even handle the 65W

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

 

[W1zzard]

still gotta input values and typey type - it's not like all these programs spit out .txt files with their values for us

Actually ..

 

[zlobby]

Actually ..

I was waiting for this.

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.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

plot charts by hand.

This is useful skill. Because include more brain activity.

 

[Tek-Check]

We need a person who would be willing to test all connectivity options and give us PCIe topology diagrams. Back I/O ports m, especially iGPU HDMI and DP ports, need to have their bandwidth tested.

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.

 

[W1zzard]

This is useful skill. Because include more brain activity.

I have around 200 charts per graphics card review, I've posted 10 RTX 4060 reviews in 2 days.. so at 3 minutes per chart I would spend 100 hours on making just the charts. i.e. I could bring you maybe 1 review instead of 10.

What I actually do is tick "Upload directly to review", click "Render Graphs" and 28 seconds later it shows "Finished".

 

[Mussels]

Actually ..

Well in the case sign me up

I shoud have figured you'd make some kind of software wizard for this...

 

[TumbleGeorge]

What I actually do is tick "Upload directly to review", click "Render Graphs" and 28 seconds later it shows "Finished

WoW!... For what so much time? I think that modern computers made this job for... milliseconds.

 

[W1zzard]

WoW!... For what so much time? I think that modern computers made this job for... milliseconds.

It pulls data from the database, turns it into 200 charts, optimizes the PNG output for file size, uploads them all to the review, in just 28 seconds... so 140 ms per chart. Try timing how long Photoshop needs to save a file, or Excel to save a chart image

 

[TumbleGeorge]

200 charts

Another WoW!

 

[asdkj1740]

We need a person who would be willing to test all connectivity options and give us PCIe topology diagrams. Back I/O ports m, especially iGPU HDMI and DP ports, need to have their bandwidth tested.

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.

you can check whether redriver/level shifter ic is used simply by looking at the pcb.

 

[Tek-Check]

you can check whether redriver/level shifter ic is used simply by looking at the pcb.

Yes and no.
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.

 

[asdkj1740]

Yes and no.
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.

the fact is both asus c9h and asrock x670e steel legend have no level shifter/redriver for HDMI port used.
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.

 

[zlobby]

Well in the case sign me up

I shoud have figured you'd make some kind of software wizard for this...

You owe me, buddy!

 

[chaoshusky]

Never seem to have a ghost chasing problem myself, find the issue in a few hours or so lol

 

[Mussels]

These two quotes below are the best example of TPU at it's finest, just look at the raw knowledge.

Yes and no.
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.

I'm planning on buying a new display, leaning towards a phillips over the popular M32U for that reason - two DP ports and two full 48Gb/s HDMI 2.1 ports
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)

the fact is both asus c9h and asrock x670e steel legend have no level shifter/redriver for HDMI port used.
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.

 

[ir_cow]

I'm planning on buying a new display, leaning towards a phillips over the popular M32U for that reason - two DP ports and two full 48Gb/s HDMI 2.1 ports

Not a fan of Philips right now. The 4k monitor I have also never will show the BIOS. It says blank until window loads. I can get it to show up if I turn off the power, but switch inputs doesn't do it. Quite annoying. It on my second test bench now. https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/276E8VJSB_27/4k-ultra-hd-lcd-monitor - Avoid this monitor!

 

[Tek-Check]

I'm planning on buying a new display, leaning towards a phillips over the popular M32U for that reason - two DP ports and two full 48Gb/s HDMI 2.1 ports
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)

Agreed. Motherboard reviewer needs to have basic knowledge about testing capabilities of video ports HDMI, DP and Thunderbolt/USB4.
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, ....

Not a fan of Philips right now. The 4k monitor I have also never will show the BIOS. It says blank until window loads. I can get it to show up if I turn off the power, but switch inputs doesn't do it. Quite annoying. It on my second test bench now. https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/276E8VJSB_27/4k-ultra-hd-lcd-monitor - Avoid this monitor!

I remember this being mentioned elsewhere. Has Philips been notified of it, and if so, any firmware update?

 

[chaoshusky]

We all have knowledge mate, i just tend not to throw it around so much. I'm an actual electronics and hardware engineer...nobody cares

 

[zlobby]

We all have knowledge mate, i just tend not to throw it around so much. I'm an actual electronics and hardware engineer...nobody cares

We only care when you screw up, or when you budge and allow your bosses to dictate engineering of cheap solutions! Other than that - yeah, we couldn't care less even if you could do Fourier transforms in your head.

 

[MvKeinen]

Imo a good motherboard test should also cover things like temperature, ie if there is a fan, how loud is it, under which circumstances it could be removed etc. Also I've had problems with HDMI outputs too weak to drive a long cable while on other boards it was fine. Information about these things would be awesome. Pretty much the content creator side of things.

 

[R-T-B]

We all have knowledge mate, i just tend not to throw it around so much. I'm an actual electronics and hardware engineer...nobody cares

If your applying someone does. References matter. Otherwise yeah it's the internet.

 

[kapone32]

As an ex Threadripper user the most important thing to me in a MB review is how the PCIe slots are actually wired.

 

[Mussels]

Not a fan of Philips right now. The 4k monitor I have also never will show the BIOS. It says blank until window loads. I can get it to show up if I turn off the power, but switch inputs doesn't do it. Quite annoying. It on my second test bench now. https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/276E8VJSB_27/4k-ultra-hd-lcd-monitor - Avoid this monitor!

I've had this issue with many monitors at present on gigabyte boards because with CSM disabled they display 16:10 resolutions only
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.

As an ex Threadripper user the most important thing to me in a MB review is how the PCIe slots are actually wired.

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.