B560 Motherboards with a configurable power limit (PL1) of 200w?

g67575 · 8 Jun 2021 at 06:14

I brought a cheap ASRock board for about £70, it's been fine but the max 'CPU Core current limit' is 150w.

I recently noticed while playing WD:Legions that the multipliers on a couple of the cores sometimes drop to 45, which drops the frequency for a short time to 4500mhz. It's a very CPU intensive game and seems to utilize CPU cache heavily.

I found a B560 motherboard, which allows the power limit to be set to 200w, I'm fairly sure that would be enough to reach 4.7ghz on all cores constantly, but maybe not 5.1ghz on all cores. It's called the B560 Steel Legend, here is a video of someone setting this option in the BIOS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COgajYMobck&t=401s

There also seems to be an option to set the 'CPU Core current limit' to ~250w.

Are there any motherboards that are cheaper the B560 Steel Legend, and can supply 200-250w to CPUs?

There's also the AS-Rock B560M-ITX/ac, which has a 6 phase design. It also has 60 Amp chokes, like the Steel Legend. It costs about £100. Link here:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/B560M-ITXac/index.asp

Does anyone know how to calculate the max CPU power draw in watts that the board can support, based on the 60 amp chokes?

Joxeon · 8 Jun 2021 at 10:10

With the CPU you have I'd be tempted just to pick up a Z490 to make full use of it's overclocking.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte Z490 UD (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £139.99
1 x MSI Z490-A Pro (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £149.99
1 x **B Grade** MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £120.00

Total: £421.08 (includes shipping: £11.10)

g67575 · 8 Jun 2021 at 10:28

Thanks I think the Z490 based boards seem like a good option on Comet Lake or Rocket Lake CPUs, as the prices are coming down.

The Gigabyte Z490M looks like a good option, at ~£110. According to a Tomshardware review, this board can handle a i7 10900K overclocked to 5.2ghz (running hot). It also seems to support RAM speeds upto DDR4400 Mhz.

Link here:
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/features/budget-micro-atx-z490-motherboards-tested/3

I don't know if I'll be upgrading anytime soon, probably take another look at Z490s near the end of the year. It really depends how much better the next gen CPUs will be.

lee32uk · 24 Jun 2021 at 14:46

g67575 said:
Thanks I think the Z490 based boards seem like a good option on Comet Lake or Rocket Lake CPUs, as the prices are coming down.

The Gigabyte Z490M looks like a good option, at ~£110. According to a Tomshardware review, this board can handle a i7 10900K overclocked to 5.2ghz (running hot). It also seems to support RAM speeds upto DDR4400 Mhz.

Link here:
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/features/budget-micro-atx-z490-motherboards-tested/3

I don't know if I'll be upgrading anytime soon, probably take another look at Z490s near the end of the year. It really depends how much better the next gen CPUs will be.

This MSI Z490-A PRO is only £80 if you are ok with b grade.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x **B Grade** MSI Z490-A Pro (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £80.00

Total: £89.90 (includes shipping: £9.90)

It had no issue running a 10900K at 5.1GHz.

g67575 · 24 Jun 2021 at 21:32

Awesome, good find! It looks like good value for a Comet Lake board with high speed RAM support and decent power delivery (the prices certainly have come down for Z490 boards since I brought my B560).

It's been interesting to learn a bit about the power restrictions on many Intel motherboards, but it looks like most Z490 mobos tend to be good.

I think it's a bit of a minefield buying a motherboard, and I will have to be more careful when buying them in the future, assuming the power consumption for future 5/10nm CPUs doesn't improve (as they will probably just crank up the clocks, increase core count and increase cache amounts).

I think I will wait for Alder Lake to come out now, probably will know how they perform by Q4 2021. If it's not a big improvement, I might sell my current motherboard and buy a Z490. Current rumours suggest the power requirements are similar to CPUs like the 10700K, with a PL1 limit of 125w and a PL2 limit of 228w. Source:
https://wccftech.com/intel-alder-la...sktop-cpu-leak-up-to-4-6-ghz-clocks-228w-tdp/

Intel has put so much time and effort into 10nm / Alder Lake CPUs, but I've heard they are struggling to reach 5ghz clocks. I would've thought that it's possible though, as they've managed upto 5ghz on Tiger Lake CPUs. I wonder if the extra 'small' cores might hold them back from high clocks?