Finished Looks

Getting a closer look at the system setup here and we can see what BIOSTAR is going for with the VALKYRIE series. The neon design has been toned down from previous iterations, but still presents itself as a "gamers" motherboard. The RGB implementation is limited to just the PCH heatsink and Rear IO, with the word VALKYRIE inscribed across. One thing to note is the spacing between PCIe slot one and two is just three slots. Large graphics cards that reach over 3-slots will block the second slot. On that note, not long ago, that it was hard to imagine ever needing four slots for a single video card. It is truly absurd this is now an actual real concern.

Test System

Supporting Hardware

Testing is performed with the newest available version of the BIOS at the time of review. All BIOS settings related to the CPU are left untouched. EXPO is enabled for the memory. However, if the primary, secondary or tertiary memory timings are incorrectly set by the BIOS, it is tested as-is, to mimic a standard user. The same goes for the CPU. Unless it is a bug in the current BIOS—i.e., not present in other versions—any and all CPU boost parameters are left alone.

Note: Using BIOS 5.26 / X67AE83 (first retail), DDR5-6000 automatically has the memory controller in a 2:1:1 Ratio. (Infinity Fabric-Memory-Memory Controller). Sometimes this will change to 2:2:1 if the system fails to post or after changing the DRAM timings. It is best to enforce 2:1:1 for best performance results. However this may introduce stability issues depending on the memory configuration.