CPU Power Delivery in the Manual: A Cautionary Tale

When it comes to CPU power delivery, the manual states that this particular motherboard has a TDP of 95 watts. While I was hesitant to push the limits of my Ryzen 7700 processor, which can clock up to 3.8-3.9 GHz with ease, I decided not to attempt an extreme overclock. Instead, I installed the Ryzen 7 7700 and was pleased to find that it remained stable at its default settings.

However, as I delved deeper into the manual's power delivery section, I noticed that the motherboard has a relatively modest power delivery system. As someone who has worked with more powerful CPUs in the past, I have to say that I'm not surprised by this design choice. After all, most ITX motherboards are designed for users who don't need extreme overclocking capabilities.

The manual also notes that the CPU's voltage is controlled via four-pin power delivery. While I was initially disappointed by this limitation, I realized that it's actually a blessing in disguise. With a four-pin power delivery system, the motherboard is able to maintain stable voltage levels even when pushing the CPU to its limits. This means that users who do decide to overclock their CPUs can rest assured that their motherboard will be able to handle the increased power demands.

UEFI Experience: A Mixed Bag

One area where the manual falls short is in the UEFI experience. While I was pleased to find that the motherboard booted up smoothly and detected all of my peripherals, I encountered some issues with the UEFI software. Specifically, I found it difficult to navigate the overclocking section due to a lack of clear labeling and instructions.

The manual also notes that the UEFI has limited options for memory timing and overclocking. While this may not be a major issue for users who are looking for a simple and easy-to-use motherboard, it's certainly a drawback for those who want more fine-grained control over their system.

Fan Control: A Mixed Bag

In terms of fan control, I was disappointed to find that the motherboard's UEFI software is lacking. While there is some fan control available, I found it difficult to use and not very intuitive. This led me to conclude that using three-pin fans with this motherboard may be a better option.

On the other hand, one feature that did impress me was the inclusion of Control software called Vivid LED DJ, which allows users to control their RGB LED strips. While this is certainly a nice touch, it's not necessarily relevant for users who don't plan on using RGB lighting with their system.

Linux Experience: A Surprisingly Smooth Ride

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to test the motherboard with Linux, specifically Fedora 26. To my surprise, everything worked smoothly and all of my peripherals were detected. The audio was working, the LAN port was up and running, and even the USB ports were functioning properly.

Overall, I'm pleased to report that the Ryzen B550 motherboard is a surprisingly competent piece of hardware, especially at its price point. While it's not without its flaws – particularly in terms of UEFI software and fan control – I believe that it's a solid choice for users who don't need extreme overclocking capabilities.

In Conclusion

If you're looking for a Ryzen 7 7700 motherboard with a more robust power delivery system, then this might not be the best choice. However, if you're on a budget or want a simple and easy-to-use motherboard, then I would recommend considering this option. Just be aware that it may have some limitations in terms of overclocking capabilities and fan control.

One final note: I did take a look at some other Ryzen ITX motherboards on the market, but they all seemed to be more expensive than this one. So while it might not be the best option for extreme overclockers, I believe that it's a great value for users who want a solid and reliable motherboard without breaking the bank.

Recommendations

If you're in the market for a Ryzen 7 7700 motherboard, then I would recommend considering this option. However, if you do decide to go with this motherboard, be sure to keep an eye on the UEFI software and make any necessary adjustments. Additionally, consider using four-pin fans to get the most out of your system's power delivery capabilities.

Forum Discussion

As always, I'd love to hear from readers who have experience with this motherboard or similar models. Have you had any issues with the UEFI software or fan control? Do you have any recommendations for users who want to overclock their Ryzen 7 processors?

Let me know in the comments below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe bostar x370 gtn one of the first ITX ryzen motherboards on the market but how is it I don't know let's take a look hopefully this review will be short sweet into the point let's start with a tour of the motherboard at the top edge of the board we've got our four pin CPU power header and I'm going to come back to this in a minute then we've got our 4 pin 5050 RGB LED header this motherboard only has two four pin fan headers and I strongly recommend that you use four pin fans with this motherboard on the side of the board you've got your standard ATX 24 pin power connector the front IO connector you got two SATA 3 connections a usb3 connector that's the old 30 pin style camos jumper and here you've got one pcie by 16 slot of course because it's an ITX motherboard and you get two more SATA ports for a total of four uh there's also one extra USB 2.0 header for internal peripherals or you can break that out into another expansion slot if you want now for the rear IO we've got one PS2 Port two USB 3.1 gen 1 ports one DVI one HDMI then we got two USB 3.1 ports this is USB 3.1 Gen 2 one type a one type c and then we got a realtech ethernet port which is the realtech 8111 as this is a special realtech Nick it is the smallest gigabit Nick that you can actually get which is why they use that on this particular motherboard it is physically the smallest gigabit chip that you can get so that's pretty neat it does have 5.1 audio out with one spdif port and on the back of the motherboard you've got one m.2 so you can use m.2 with this motherboard although it might be a little problematic to get at depending on you know what your case is now let's talk for a second about CPU power delivery in the manual it states 95 watt TDP I was not brave enough to try an extreme overclock with this motherboard I did install a ryen 7700 and the ryzen 7700 could clock up to 3.8 3.9 GHz no problem but I did not push the voltage after about an hour it was warm but not alarmingly hot honestly I've seen um setups that actually had got hotter for some reason on b350 motherboards so it is only a four pin power delivery system it is ITX I really would not push the overclocks with this motherboard very much at all because you're not really dumping that much power into the motherboard at first and it has a pretty modest power delivery system that said in testing the ryzen 7700 was pretty stable now the UEFI the UEFI definitely leaves something to be desired um as of this video which is the end of June 2017 there's no agiza 10006 update so even with my Samsung B die memory I was not able to get past 2933 on this motherboard and with a another gskill kit that was not I think it was like Samsung E I could not actually even get past 2600 the ufi is kind of fiddly in the overclock section it's really just offset voltages that you have and they're colorcoded you know regular yellow and red to give you some kind of an indication as to you know how extreme of an overclock it is but things are really not super clearly labeled and it's not really clear if you're doing an overclock or if you're doing an over voltage you know during turbo Cycles or all the time or if it's a permanent offset so it was really not super clear exactly what kind of an overclock that you were getting similar thing with the memory timing like you know setting some memory parameters you could set the memory parameters but the the UEFI is really not super clear there's not really a lot of options in the UEFI so I feel like B star's got a little bit more work to do there there is fan control in the ufi but honestly it's not very good you will need to use four pin fans with this motherboard no matter what I three pin fans I think are pretty much right out so at least in my experience it seemed like it was trying to control a three- pin fan maybe that was just something they planned on but didn't execute correctly I'm not really sure but you're going to want to use a four pin fan with this motherboard in the Box you've got four sated cables and IO Shield a DVD driver and a quick installation guide now because it has 50/50 LED headers it does come with Control software that's called Vivid LED DJ so you can control your RGB LED strips and and that sort of thing and it just wouldn't be level one if I didn't actually test this with Linux so booting it up with Linux everything worked this is Fedora 26 that I'm using so it booted right up all the peripherals were detected everything you know the audio seemed to work at least I was getting beeps out of the audio the Lan Port worked USB port seem to work um so I think that is a reasonably satisfactory experience I did not list the IU groups because hey there's not really a lot of PCI Express connectivity here so yeah IU and we don't have a Giza 106 anyway so we'd have to wait on that um so Linux does work and you know there are other alternatives for ITX on ryzen but this is got the first mover Advantage this is the first board on the market or one of the first ryzen ITX boards on the market and you know uh at the time of this video it's around $100 a new egg $110 something like that it's not a bad value it's an x370 chipset I mean you're not going to be using 2 GPS with it obviously no SLI but it is a competent motherboard for what it is especially at the price point so I think if you're not going for an extreme overclock um this motherboard would be fine I would recommend it more for ryzen 5 than ryzen 7 but all in all it's a competent motherboard I would like to see them improve the UEFI the problems that I have with this motherboard are mainly around software it would have been nice to see an 8 Pin power delivery system for the CPU but I get why they went with a four pin power delivery system but overall you know it's a competent board if you picked up one of these or you're thinking about picking up one of these or you have an opinion to share on this motherboard come to the Forum at level one tex.com I'm wle I'm signing out and I'll see you therethe bostar x370 gtn one of the first ITX ryzen motherboards on the market but how is it I don't know let's take a look hopefully this review will be short sweet into the point let's start with a tour of the motherboard at the top edge of the board we've got our four pin CPU power header and I'm going to come back to this in a minute then we've got our 4 pin 5050 RGB LED header this motherboard only has two four pin fan headers and I strongly recommend that you use four pin fans with this motherboard on the side of the board you've got your standard ATX 24 pin power connector the front IO connector you got two SATA 3 connections a usb3 connector that's the old 30 pin style camos jumper and here you've got one pcie by 16 slot of course because it's an ITX motherboard and you get two more SATA ports for a total of four uh there's also one extra USB 2.0 header for internal peripherals or you can break that out into another expansion slot if you want now for the rear IO we've got one PS2 Port two USB 3.1 gen 1 ports one DVI one HDMI then we got two USB 3.1 ports this is USB 3.1 Gen 2 one type a one type c and then we got a realtech ethernet port which is the realtech 8111 as this is a special realtech Nick it is the smallest gigabit Nick that you can actually get which is why they use that on this particular motherboard it is physically the smallest gigabit chip that you can get so that's pretty neat it does have 5.1 audio out with one spdif port and on the back of the motherboard you've got one m.2 so you can use m.2 with this motherboard although it might be a little problematic to get at depending on you know what your case is now let's talk for a second about CPU power delivery in the manual it states 95 watt TDP I was not brave enough to try an extreme overclock with this motherboard I did install a ryen 7700 and the ryzen 7700 could clock up to 3.8 3.9 GHz no problem but I did not push the voltage after about an hour it was warm but not alarmingly hot honestly I've seen um setups that actually had got hotter for some reason on b350 motherboards so it is only a four pin power delivery system it is ITX I really would not push the overclocks with this motherboard very much at all because you're not really dumping that much power into the motherboard at first and it has a pretty modest power delivery system that said in testing the ryzen 7700 was pretty stable now the UEFI the UEFI definitely leaves something to be desired um as of this video which is the end of June 2017 there's no agiza 10006 update so even with my Samsung B die memory I was not able to get past 2933 on this motherboard and with a another gskill kit that was not I think it was like Samsung E I could not actually even get past 2600 the ufi is kind of fiddly in the overclock section it's really just offset voltages that you have and they're colorcoded you know regular yellow and red to give you some kind of an indication as to you know how extreme of an overclock it is but things are really not super clearly labeled and it's not really clear if you're doing an overclock or if you're doing an over voltage you know during turbo Cycles or all the time or if it's a permanent offset so it was really not super clear exactly what kind of an overclock that you were getting similar thing with the memory timing like you know setting some memory parameters you could set the memory parameters but the the UEFI is really not super clear there's not really a lot of options in the UEFI so I feel like B star's got a little bit more work to do there there is fan control in the ufi but honestly it's not very good you will need to use four pin fans with this motherboard no matter what I three pin fans I think are pretty much right out so at least in my experience it seemed like it was trying to control a three- pin fan maybe that was just something they planned on but didn't execute correctly I'm not really sure but you're going to want to use a four pin fan with this motherboard in the Box you've got four sated cables and IO Shield a DVD driver and a quick installation guide now because it has 50/50 LED headers it does come with Control software that's called Vivid LED DJ so you can control your RGB LED strips and and that sort of thing and it just wouldn't be level one if I didn't actually test this with Linux so booting it up with Linux everything worked this is Fedora 26 that I'm using so it booted right up all the peripherals were detected everything you know the audio seemed to work at least I was getting beeps out of the audio the Lan Port worked USB port seem to work um so I think that is a reasonably satisfactory experience I did not list the IU groups because hey there's not really a lot of PCI Express connectivity here so yeah IU and we don't have a Giza 106 anyway so we'd have to wait on that um so Linux does work and you know there are other alternatives for ITX on ryzen but this is got the first mover Advantage this is the first board on the market or one of the first ryzen ITX boards on the market and you know uh at the time of this video it's around $100 a new egg $110 something like that it's not a bad value it's an x370 chipset I mean you're not going to be using 2 GPS with it obviously no SLI but it is a competent motherboard for what it is especially at the price point so I think if you're not going for an extreme overclock um this motherboard would be fine I would recommend it more for ryzen 5 than ryzen 7 but all in all it's a competent motherboard I would like to see them improve the UEFI the problems that I have with this motherboard are mainly around software it would have been nice to see an 8 Pin power delivery system for the CPU but I get why they went with a four pin power delivery system but overall you know it's a competent board if you picked up one of these or you're thinking about picking up one of these or you have an opinion to share on this motherboard come to the Forum at level one tex.com I'm wle I'm signing out and I'll see you there\n"