ASRock is leading its AMD X470 chipset based motherboard lineup with the X470 Taichi Ultimate and the X470 Taichi. Here are pictures of its mid-range lineup based on the chipset, the Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4 and the X470 Master SLI. Both models are based on the same exact PCB, with variations on product design and certain features that place the Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4 a notch above the X470 Master SLI. Built in the ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, an 8-pin EPS, and interestingly, an additional 4-pin ATX power connector, which is usually found in high-end AM4 motherboards. A 12-phase VRM is used to condition power for the AM4 SoC.

The AM4 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of memory; two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x16/NC or x8/x8), and one of the two M.2 PCIe slots. Storage connectivity includes two M.2 PCIe slots, the topmost slot is 32 Gbps, and M.2-22110, while the bottom slot is 16 Gbps; and six SATA 6 Gbps ports. USB connectivity includes ten USB 3.0 ports (six on the rear panel, four by headers), and two USB 3.1 gen 2 ports (including one type-C port), on the rear panel. 8-channel onboard audio with a mid-range CODEC, and gigabit Ethernet with an Intel i219-V controller, make for the rest of the two. The Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4 is slightly better endowed than the X470 Master SLI, in featuring a slightly more upscale onboard audio solution (probably ALC1220 vs. ALC892), Creative SoundBlaster Cinema DSP, RGB LEDs in even the rear I/O shroud, and Fatal1ty Mouse Port (specialized USB port with supposedly lower latency). The two could be priced under $150.

GIGABYTE's upcoming flagship socket AM4 motherboard, the X470 Aorus Gaming 7, eclipsed two other models by the company based on the AMD X470 chipset, the X470 Aorus Gaming 5 /WiFi, and the X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming, pictured below. The X470 Aorus Gaming 5 has two variants based on the inclusion of a WLAN module. Both boards are based on the same PCB design, but the Gaming 5 is slightly better endowed than the Ultra Gaming. First, the common features. Drawing power from a 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connector, the board features a 11-phase VRM to condition power for the AM4 SoC. A single-phase VRM powers the memory.

Expansion slots include three PCI-Express x16, from which the top two are gen 3.0 and wired to the SoC (x16/NC or x8/x8), while the third slot is gen 2.0 and wired to the X470 chipset. Two gen 2.0 x1 slots make for the rest of the expansion. Storage connectivity includes two M.2 slots, from which the top slot is 32 Gbps, and the bottom one 16 Gbps; and six SATA 6 Gbps ports, from which two come directly from the AM4 SoC. USB connectivity includes eight USB 3.0 ports, and two USB 3.1 ports, from which one is type-C. Gigabit Ethernet powered by Intel i219-V controller, and high-grade onboard audio with Realtek ALC1220 (120 dBA SNR) CODEC, WIMA capacitors, ground-layer isolation, and dual headphones amps, make for the rest of them.

GIGABYTE X470 Aorus Gaming 7 was the first X470 motherboard to be shown off to the world. With its chipset name redacted, the board was even shown off at the 2018 International CES, early January. Now closer to its mid-April launch alongside AMD Ryzen 2000-series "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, we have the first clear picture of the board.

The board features the same design scheme GIGABYTE introduced with its Aorus-branded motherboards based on Intel 300-series chipset. There are subtle changes in the retail board, compared to the prototype shown off at CES, such as more decals over the VRM heatsinks and the rear I/O shroud. As detailed in our CES coverage of this board, it has all the bells and whistles to be the company's next flagship socket AM4 product, and could be priced north of $200 or even $250. There could be a sub-variant that lacks the WLAN module.

Here are some of the first pictures of ASRock X470 Fatal1ty Gaming ITX/ac, one of the first few upcoming AMD X470 chipset motherboards built in the mini-ITX form-factor. The board draws power from a 24-pin ATX, and an 8-pin EPS connector, and uses an 8-phase VRM to power the SoC. The AM4 socket is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory; a reinforced PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, and a 32 Gbps M.2-2280 slot (reverse side), besides two of the board's four SATA 6 Gbps ports, four of its USB 3.0 ports, and the onboard audio. The AMD X470 chipset puts out the remaining two SATA 6 Gbps ports and two USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, including a type-C port. High-grade 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11 ac WLAN with Bluetooth 4.1, make for the rest of it.

Apparently, ASRock's Taichi line of motherboards featuring an industrial and less flashy aesthetic, is so well received by the market, that the company is readying two SKUs based on AMD's upcoming X470 chipset for socket AM4 processors, the X470 Taichi, and the X470 Taichi Ultimate. The two SKUs are nearly identical, except for the Taichi Ultimate featuring 10 GbE networking, some onboard buttons (power and reset), and a more premium looking 2-tone rear I/O shroud that runs the entire length of the board. The rest of the feature-set is identical between the two. Both boards feature ASRock's new Polychrome RGB lighting system.

Built in the ATX form-factor, the Taichi draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, one 8-pin EPS, and a 4-pin ATX power connectors. A 15-phase VRM conditions power for the AM4 SoC, while a 2-phase VRM powers the memory. Expansion slots include two reinforced PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots wired to the SoC (x8/x8 when both are populated), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4) wired to the X470 chipset, and two other gen 2.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes two M.2 slots (from which at least one is electrical gen 3.0 x4 and wired to the SoC), and ten SATA 6 Gbps ports. Networking connectivity includes 802.11ac + BT 4.2 WLAN on both models, the Taichi features one 1 GbE interface, while the Taichi Ultimate features a 10 GbE interface in addition to the 1 GbE. Audio is ASRock's highest grade solution, with a Realtek ALC1220 at the helm of things. The two boards could be priced in the $200-300 range.

As the launch of AMD's Ryzen 2000 processors gets nearer, images of upcoming X470 motherboards are gradually starting to show up on the internet. Last week, we got a glimpse at the ASUS ROG Crosshair VII, and we start this week with a teaser of MSI's X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard. The new motherboard is available with and without onboard WiFi functionality. There's certainly a striking resemblance to the previous X370 Gaming Pro Carbon. While the overall black and silver theme remains practically untouched, the new heatsinks look spectacular. Other cosmetic changes include the addition of RGB lighting to the I/O shroud, the PCH heatsink, and the right edge of the motherboard.

Upon closer examination, the MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC has two 8-pin EPS connectors, as opposed to the single 8-pin EPS connector found on its predecessor. According to Canard PC Hardware magazine's review, the power consumption of the new Ryzen 2000 processors is only slightly higher than the previous generation. Our guess is that the second EPS connector on the MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC is there for the extreme overclockers who plan to overclock the heck out of their chips. Big MSI aficionados might recall that the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon's VRM consists of a 8+2 phase design. Well, the X470 variant now comes with an upgraded 8+4 phase VRM. However, the new motherboard has one less PCIe 1x slot than its predecessor, but makes up for it by having two more SATA III ports for storage. And last but not least, the M.2 Shield on the X470 is longer than the one on the X370, and therefore, it should provide better cooling for your M.2 SSDs.

ASUS' top of the line X470 motherboard for the upcoming AMD Ryzen 200 series of CPUs has seen some sexy leaked images of it on the web. The new motherboard features, among other things, full drop-in support for AMD'snew 2000 series CPUs - without the need for any BIOS fiddling. The software features are expected to be on par with its X370 counterpart, with some added magic dust thrown in for the sake of keeping things fresh.

Hardware-wise, though, there are some slight changes as well. The most relevant of these is the addition of a second M.2 slot, for users who want to take their builds based on this form-factor to another level - smaller drives than the usual 2.5" is always welcome - and they usually look much better as well. One of the M.2 slots features a pre-installed heatsink for better heat dissipation. Other features include 6 SATA III ports (a decline from the X370 version's 8 due to the inclusion of the extra M.2 slot) and two less USB slots (from a total of 14 in the X370 to 12 on the X470) in exchange for a PS/2 port... Arguably the strangest "improvement" to the design. The heatsink design has been slightly reworked as well, in an effort to keep things fresh, but the power delivery mechanism seems to be the same. Don't ruin what works, right?

Whereas not the sexiest leak one can see these days, the packaging picture of ASUS' upcoming X470-F STRIX is nothing to scoff at. This ASUS motherboard is expected to enter ASUS' lineup in the same positioning as the X370-F STRIX motherboard from the previous generation, offering the same borderline functionality and features, with one or two design improvements thrown in for good measure. As a X470 motherboard, the ASUS X470-F STRIX should offer out-of-box support for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 2000 series of processors in the cleanest, more trouble-proof way possible.

Some small redesigns this X470-F STRIX has had over its X370 counterpart is that the southbridge heatsink has been extended to cover the top portion of the first PCIe x16 port - likely to house a second M.2 add-in slot, since that amount of heatsink over motherboard PCB would simply be wasteful. From the packaging, we can see that there are 3x PCIe x16 slots, two of which are reinforced. Some power delivery improvements have reportedly been done as well. The southbridge heatsink itself has seen a redesign, it seems, abandoning the angular look it had before - a step back, if you'll ask me. Expect this ASUS X40-F STRIX motherboard to be available from the Ryzen 2000 series' launch, on April 19th.

Leaks surrounding motherboards based on AMD's upcoming X470 chipset, which will accompany its first-wave of Ryzen 2000-series "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, are on the rise. We now see a fairly clear picture of the retail packaging of ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) Crosshair VII Hero, specifically its "WiFi" sub-variant that includes a WLAN card. This board surfaced on benchmark database listings. There's no product image on the box, but the logos make things pretty cut and dry - AMD X470 chipset, socket AM4, support for NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire; ASUS Aura Sync RGB LED management, and an unchanged Ryzen logo. We have confirmation of ASUS readying at least two ROG motherboards based on the X470 so far - the Crosshair VII Hero, and the Strix X470-F. It remains to be seen if the chipset also gets the company's coveted ROG "Extreme" treatment.

Hot on the heels of last week's possible ASUS ROG Strix X470 motherboard leak, the board layout drawings of at least three upcoming ASUS AMD X470 chipset motherboard models were leaked to the web. These drawings are typically part of the motherboards' user manuals. From these, we can make out that ASUS is using an identical PCB design for two products - the ROG Strix X470-F Gaming, and the Prime X470-PRO. The two have their I/O headers and ports at identical locations. ASUS will probably differentiate the two with different color schemes, heatsink designs, and a few ROG-exclusive software features on the Strix X470-F.

The third model is the TUF X470-PLUS Gaming. This product could be positioned a notch below the other two, it lacks one of the three PCI-Express x16 (electrical x4) slots, and uses Realtek-made gigabit Ethernet controllers, instead of Intel-made ones on the other two. The specs sheets of the Prime X470-PRO, which also appear to be sourced from the manuals, go into details of these specifications, most of which will be common with those of the ROG Strix X470-F. The specs sheet seems to suggest that the company's 2nd generation Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" processors support higher memory clocks.The specs sheets follow.

ASMedia Technology, a tech company that's best known for designing high speed controllers (most recently, USB 3.1 Gen2, and AMD's X370 chipset), has posted tremendous increases in revenue and profits. The Taiwanese company distributed cash dividends per share in the order of $0.21 in late 2017, after achieving revenues of roughly $102 million, up 44.7% YoY (Year over Year).

While ASMedia is one of the implied companies in the latest AMD nightmare (the suspiciously timed and apparently interest-driven CTS flaw disclosure), AMD is keeping with ASMedia for its X470 chipset design and production. Which was to be expected - even if AMD wanted to change partners or develop the chipset in-house, AMD's Ryzen 2000 series and the accompanying motherboards' release is impending. The company is expected to continue its strong growth on continued shipment of USB 3.1 controllers, adding USB 3.2 controllers to its portfolio, and increased profits derived from the development of AMD's X470 chipset.

The folks at VideoCardz received a picture of a soon-to-be-released ASUS X470 motherboard from an unnamed sender. Judging by the motherboard's aesthetics and design, we suspect that it belongs to the Strix Series. Although there are no signs of the Strix branding on the motherboard, the rear I/O cover and the 8+2 phase VRM resemble the ones used on the ASUS ROG Strix X370-F Gaming motherboard. Initially, the "Republic" marking threw us off as ASUS isn't known for placing the Republic of Gamers branding on their previous Strix motherboards. The "Hybrid" marking remains a mystery though. The Chinese characters 玩家 that are located beside one of the memory slots literally translates to "Players", which certainly suggests that this will be a gaming-oriented motherboard. As of the time of this article, there are five confirmed X470 motherboards from ASUS: Prime X470-Pro, ROG Strix X470-F Gaming, ROG Strix X470-I Gaming, ROG Crosshair VII Hero, ROG Crosshair VII Hero (WI-FI), and TUF X470-Plus Gaming.

SiSoft's hardware database is a fountain of information for soon-to-be-released hardware if you have the patience to go through all the entries. On this occasion, we get a glimpse of AMD's future Ryzen 5 2600 processor. Similar to its predecessor, the Ryzen 5 2600 is a 65W six-core processor with twelve threads. However, this new model features a 3.4 GHz base clock which is 200 MHz faster than the Ryzen 5 1600 that we reviewed last year. It will also come with 6 x 512 kB of L2 cache and 2 x 8 MB of L3 cache. Being an engineer sample and all, take these specifications with a pinch of salt. According to the entry, the processor was tested on an ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero motherboard that sports AMD's X470 chipset. Unfortunately, we don't have any more details at this time.

We headed to the GIGABYTE Aorus booth at the 2018 International CES to check out the only motherboard based on AMD's upcoming 400-series chipset visible in the entire show, the Aorus X470 Gaming 7. We snapped a lot of pictures. The first thing that caught our attention is the board's updated styling, which resembles the one GIGABYTE introduced with its Intel Z370-series motherboards. The second thing of course, was two 32 Gb/s M.2 slots, confirming that AMD has indeed addressed 300-series chipset's greatest shortcoming - lack of PCIe gen 3.0 general purpose lanes. Since the AM4 SoC puts out 4 gen 3.0 general purpose lanes of its own, which wired to one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot on 300-series motherboards, the new 400-series boards will have at least two of these slots, one wired to the AM4 SoC, and another to the chipset.

The Aorus X470 Gaming 7 could become the company's flagship socket AM4 product based on AMD X470 chipset. It's been designed as such. Built in the ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 4-pin ATX power connectors. A 12-phase VRM supplies power to the AM4 SoC. It's interesting to note that GIGABYTE chose some very high-current chokes for the chip's main voltage domains. The VRM heatsinks, too, are elaborate aluminium fin-stack types, with the two heatsinks spreading heat over a heat pipe. Is this a telltale sign that certain Ryzen 2 parts could have >95W TDP? The CPU socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 when both are populated), and one of the two M.2 slots (we're guessing the top M.2-22110 slot). Both it, and the bottom M.2-2280 slots have included heatsinks. Other expansion slots include an x16 (electrical x4) slot wired to the chipset, and two x1 slots, which are all gen 3.0.

Here are some of the first pictures of GIGABYTE Aorus X470 Gaming 7 WiFi, one of the first socket AM4 motherboards based on the upcoming AMD X470 chipset, which will launch with out of the box support for 2nd generation Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" and Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs, in addition to current-gen Ryzen chips, when it launches early-Q2 (April). The presence of more than one 32 Gbps M.2 slot bodes well, as it confirms that the chipset features PCI-Express gen 3.0 general purpose lanes (current AMD 300-series chipset have gen 2.0). One can also spy three x16 slots, from which two will be wired to the CPU, with SLI support; and the board's overall design scheme matching that of the company's Intel 300-series chipset motherboards.

There is more clarity on when AMD plans to launch its 2nd generation Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, along with companion 400-series chipsets. Retailers in Japan, citing upstream suppliers, expect AMD to launch Ryzen # 2000-series (or "Ryzen 2") processors in March 2018, along with two motherboard chipset models, the top-tier AMD X470, and the mid-range AMD B450. An older report pegged this launch at February. The two chipsets are differentiated from their current-generation 300-series counterparts in featuring PCI-Express gen 3.0 general purpose lanes. The "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, on the other hand, are expected to be optical-shrinks of current Ryzen "Summit Ridge" silicon to the new 12 nm silicon fabrication process, which will allow AMD to increase clock speeds with minimal impact on power-draw.

AMD Ryzen 2 "Pinnacle Ridge" processors will be built in the existing socket AM4 package, and are expected to be compatible with existing socket AM4 motherboards, subject to BIOS updates by motherboard manufacturers. AMD plans to nurture the socket AM4 ecosystem till 2020. Future motherboards based on AMD 400-series chipsets could also feature compatibility with existing "Summit Ridge" Ryzen processors. These motherboards will come with out of the box support for Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs, something that requires BIOS updates on current 300-series chipset motherboards.

A recent AMD roadmap leak showed the company's "tick", process-improved plans for 2018's Zen+, as well as its painter-imbued aspirations with Zen 2 in 2019. Now, there's some new info posted by DigiTimes that's being sourced straight from motherboard makers that points to the company's Pinnacle Ridge launch being set sometime in February 2018.

This information seems to have been delivered to the motherboard makers straight from AMD itself, as a heads-up for when they should be expecting to ramp up production of next-generation chipsets. Sources report that AMD will follow their Summit Ridge, Ryzen launch, with the initial release of Pinnacle 7 in February, followed by the mid-range Pinnacle 5 and entry-level Pinnacle 3 processors in March 2018. DigiTimes also reports that AMD is expecting to see its share of the desktop CPU market return to at least 30% in the first half of 2018 which, coeteris paribus, is more of a simple mathematical progression than clarvoyance.