parkerface
Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 49
- 32
- 91
Got my system up and running yesterday. No real hiccups at all with the installation which was nice. The most trouble I had was reorienting the 1700's Wraith Spire fan so it was vertical. Its performance is adequate but nothing spectacular. Got the CPU running 3.7 @ 1.25v for the time being. I'm waiting on my mounting kit to arrive from Noctua before I install my new heatsink. Trident Z kit was content to run at 3200mhz C14 1T out of the gate.
I'm finding this Asus B350-F motherboard to be impressive for the price, although admittedly it's my first Asus board. I've used mostly MSI in the past. Updating the bios was painless. It has plenty of useful options although its layout is a bit convoluted. I have to set up the favorites list I guess. Most of the settings have a reasonable explanation attached--with coherent English, too. *cough MSI* Even the Realtek ALC1220 surprised me. It's not the best sounding in the world but it can adequately drive high impedance headphones like my 300 ohm HD 600's. (I use an external DAC and amp anyhow)
The only drawback to this board that I've seen is the VRM heatsinks are all show and no go. Even with the downdraft of the Wraith cooler the VRM temps come up faster than I'd like using just moderate voltages. I don't think anything above 1.3v vcore would be a good idea without direct airflow or modifying/replacing the crappy stock heatsinks.
All in all I'm happy so far. My 4670k @ 4.6 was snappy in games but the four thread pinch is real if you're not gaming in a vacuum. Excel spreadsheets, Firefox tabs galore, foobar, etc etc etc... I'm preaching to the choir here. My friend is buying my old board, CPU, ram, and cooler for $300 so I am pleased with the final tally.
I'm finding this Asus B350-F motherboard to be impressive for the price, although admittedly it's my first Asus board. I've used mostly MSI in the past. Updating the bios was painless. It has plenty of useful options although its layout is a bit convoluted. I have to set up the favorites list I guess. Most of the settings have a reasonable explanation attached--with coherent English, too. *cough MSI* Even the Realtek ALC1220 surprised me. It's not the best sounding in the world but it can adequately drive high impedance headphones like my 300 ohm HD 600's. (I use an external DAC and amp anyhow)
The only drawback to this board that I've seen is the VRM heatsinks are all show and no go. Even with the downdraft of the Wraith cooler the VRM temps come up faster than I'd like using just moderate voltages. I don't think anything above 1.3v vcore would be a good idea without direct airflow or modifying/replacing the crappy stock heatsinks.
All in all I'm happy so far. My 4670k @ 4.6 was snappy in games but the four thread pinch is real if you're not gaming in a vacuum. Excel spreadsheets, Firefox tabs galore, foobar, etc etc etc... I'm preaching to the choir here. My friend is buying my old board, CPU, ram, and cooler for $300 so I am pleased with the final tally.