Any feedback on these x570 mobo?

[ik9000]

Hi folks, I'm trying to choose between Aorus Master, MSI ACE and MSI unify. I would also have considered Asus crosshair Hero VIII wifi but only two NVMe put me off so currently less keen on that.

The AM seems better in sense of 6 sata for more flexibility (albeit 2 of those drop out when 3 NVMe installed, but I'm years away from affording that luxury), and same no of usable PCIe4x1 (since of the two PCIe4x1 on the MSI boards only one can be used at any time). I have however heard rumours of AM not being as good with RAM variants which worries me. It's also £70+ more expensive. Ouch!

How much use is the ACE's heatpipe from chipset to VRM? Is that a good thing or bad thing?
Does the 1GB intel LAN missing from the unify really matter?
Is one of these boards proven to be better/more stable/more flexible than the others?

Most test reviews I've seen seem to put them fairly similarly in terms of performance, with slight variations between different benchmarks. No outright winnner. But to the people using them in the realworld, what feedback do you have? Any observations/nice-to-knows/watch-its?

 

[random_matt]

Aorus, Aorus and Aorus.

 

[apostolis_kt]

You also need to factor in the price. The unify can be bought roughly around £289 although OCuk doesn't have it at least I couldn't find it, the Ace had a drop in price and around 300ish, while the Master is still 370.

Of all 3 supposedly the Aorus is best but then the price is 29% higher between the unify and the master. I am in a similar situation, and I really cannot find a mobo that has everything that i want.

The CH8 now has dropped quite a bit in price and was a contender and then realised that front headers has only one usb3 and one single usbc and my c700p would need 2 headers (has 4x3.0 USbs + the USBc which the mobo has). I would have taken the 1 less nvme if it wasn't for this stupid thing with the usbs. I dont have usb2 for the front so cannot use that header.

The unify has nice looks in my mind but is missing some satas (which i probably wouldn't use anyway), doesn't have 2 bioses (but then I think only Aorus does this) so if you brick the bios then i guess you need to flashback?
I was originally concerned about the omision of the intel ethernet, but then again my pc won't be close to an ethernet port so will be using wifi anyway so again I don't miss this feature. Love where the chipset fan is placed though and I think that would help. Has aluminium heatsink I think on the VRMs so actually cools them better than the plastic one on the Ace. Again I am writing these based on my investigations, I haven't build a new pc in ages so I am rusty with the mobo features.

The ace in the past would be out of the question for me but now its almost the same price as the unify, has some extra goodies like that heatpipe which originally you would think its good but not sure if it is going to help. IE i hate noise, so would the vrms warm up the chipset through the heatpipe and then ramp up the fan? I cannot find any review that mentions anything like that.

The master is really good but is overpriced in my mind and apart from the extra 2 satas (which get disabled by the way if you use all nvme I think) and extra 2 USB2.0 in the back I don't see why its so expensive.

Not sure about the LAN as everybody said that Intel LAN was awesome in the past but not sure why using the 2.5Gb non intel one is bad maybe someone else could explain.

 

[ExRayTed]

@orbitalwalsh , @Plec or @tamzzy may be able to help here but from what I understand the Aorus range seems to be well regarded

 

[tamzzy]

If you want to spend that much money on a mobo, then aorus master would be the obvious choice.
But I'd probably question why you need 3 nvme drives in the first place, seeing that the cost-per-gb difference between a 1tb and 2 tb drive isn't too different.
My choice would be to get 2 X 2tb drives and get the Asus tuf x570 gaming wifi

 

[apostolis_kt]

Is there something wrong with the Aorus Ultra i see everyone is recomending the elite, pro or master but no one mentions the ultra. That would also be on this price range and save 70 odd from the master.

 

[RandomMonkeH]

I have a similar dilemma (Unify or Pro) and have been scouring forums and message boards to help try and make a decision - the Arous boards seem well featured, but the concerns I have are the reports of on-going issues with BIOS (some of this is an x570 issue rather than specially Gigabyte, but some it is not), and the placement of the chipset fan.

MSI (Unify/Ace) appear to have the more sorted BIOS, and well designed with better fan placement - however the lack of SATA ports is poor, really no excuse.
The only issue I have found multiple mentions of is front audio headers not working.

I find it very strange that better chipset cooling solutions aren't available on this generation. The xtreme proves it is possible.
It seems to me that manufacturers have put far too much effort in to making a tiered product stack which force you to compromise on features, rather than making fewer skus with better designs that would just dominate the market. Gigabyte seems closest to that, if they had fitted passive cooling to the entire range and made a better job of the BIOS, I think they would have totally cleaned up on x570.

 

[ik9000]

now have a 3900x and MSI ACE in their boxes waiting for a build. Still wondering if I should swap to the Master. No signs of staining on the board that I can see through the bag. Anyone with the ACE know if nahimic3 and the realtek HDA will install off the CD? MSI website says to download from MS store and I have no intention of getting an account just to do that. Are they necessary? Will things work without them?

Also heard rumours MSI softwares require user accounts to work. That would also be a no-no and might just tip my hand to gigabyte assuming their stuff isn't so stupid/snoopy.

 

[Skynet5]

now have a 3900x and MSI ACE in their boxes waiting for a build. Still wondering if I should swap to the Master. No signs of staining on the board that I can see through the bag. Anyone with the ACE know if nahimic3 and the realtek HDA will install off the CD? MSI website says to download from MS store and I have no intention of getting an account just to do that. Are they necessary? Will things work without them?

Also heard rumours MSI softwares require user accounts to work. That would also be a no-no and might just tip my hand to gigabyte assuming their stuff isn't so stupid/snoopy.

Pack it up and order the Gigabyte. Why did you do this?

 

[ik9000]

Three reasons:
At the time of order £70 (20%) cheaper

• Chipset vrm heat pipe
  
• Higher max memory speeds
• Read a detailed review implied gigabyte ram controllers worse than MSi ram stage so MSi more robust

That and lots of sites were saying they had got better clocks out of the msi

 

[tamzzy]

the msi ace has pretty decent vrms so shouldn't be an issue
(unlike the lower tier msi x570 boards lol)

 

[EsaT]

• Read a detailed review implied gigabyte ram controllers worse than MSi ram stage so MSi more robust

Then knowledge of that reviewer is questionable, because memory controller is in CPU.
Intel has had it in there for decade and AMD even longer.
And if that talk was about memory VRM, power draw of memory is peanuts and it doesn't need any excess+300% VRM.