Vortex Gaming

Today we're taking a look at the ASRock B650M PG Lightning AM5 motherboard sold by Daewon CTS. Considering recent motherboard prices that are said to be expensive, it's a practical motherboard that's quite affordable, and it can be said to be a board for those who want to assemble a high-performance computer economically.

The B650M PG Lightning released by ASRock is a motherboard that focuses on cost-effectiveness and is equipped with a perfect power supply function with a 6+2+1 power phase design. It also provides extreme overclocking performance with the Blazing OC tuner, which helps improve multi-threaded performance.

Currently, this board supports all AMD 7000 series Raphael processors, making it an excellent cost-effective board that can be a good choice for those who want to assemble the latest AMD PCs.

The B650M PG Lightning board, distributed by reliable Daewon CTS, is fully compatible with AMD Ryzen 5th generation processors and can build the most powerful workloads for extreme high performance. It is equipped with AMD EXPO technology, a one-click DDR5 overclocking for Ryzen, and provides a blazing-fast Blazing M.2 socket that supports PCIe Gen5 x4 as standard, so you can use the corresponding version of SSDs that will be released in the future.

The board is packaged in a vinyl bag to prevent static electricity, and the components include an I/O shield, 2 SATA data cables, 4 screws for the M.2 socket, and a user manual.

The ASRock B650M PG Lightning board is an M-ATX form factor with a size of 24.4cm x 24.4cm (width and length), and its advantage is its minimalist design with a shorter length than the ATX standard. It is compatible with 5th generation Ryzen™ 7000 series processors with the Ryzen AM5 socket type.

The 6+2+1 VRM design and 6-layer PCB design provide low temperature and high energy efficiency for overclocking. It is a cost-effective mainstream-level among Ryzen 5th generation motherboards, making it easy to build a gaming system with a reasonable price and practical configuration.

This is the AM5 CPU socket. It looks completely different from the existing socket AM4, with small pins densely arranged inside the socket, so there is no need to worry about the CPU pins breaking.

You can easily install the AMD Ryzen 5-5th generation 7600 CPU by aligning it with the grooves above and below.

The power supply provides more stable and improved performance. Dr.MOS is an integrated power stage solution optimized for synchronous Buck-Set Down voltage applications, delivering higher current compared to conventional MOSFETs, providing improved heat dissipation and excellent performance.

The memory provides a total of 4 slots to enable dual-channel configuration.

The 4x DDR4 DIMM sockets can be equipped with a maximum of 48GB per slot, up to 192GB of memory distributed across 4 slots. It also supports memory with XMP and EXPO functions, allowing you to maximize memory performance for those who are burdened by complex overclocking, and DDR5 memory supports EXPO 7200MHz+ overclocking.

The 12V RGB / +5V ARGB headers support a sufficient number of 1 and 3, and the CPU fan connector and water-cooling pump fan connector are placed at the top and bottom. It supports a total of 12V/3A, 36W LED strips.

It supports the Thunderbolt™ AIC connector, so you can add Thunderbolt 4 to improve performance by installing an ASRock Thunderbolt™ 4 AIC card.

Although CPU overclocking is not supported, it is solidly configured with a 6+2+1 phase power supply to enable memory overclocking, and an aluminum heat sink is applied for stable power supply and cooling performance.

A total of 4 SATA3 ports with a speed of 6Gb/s are provided, and 2 ports are distributed on the right side of the motherboard, supporting NCQ, AHCI, and Hot Plug functions. RAID supports 0, 1, and 10 modes, allowing you to group multiple storage devices into one.

It provides a front USB 3.2 pin header and a header for the USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, and the speed is 10Gb/s, which is faster than a regular USB 3.0.

It supports one PCI Express 4.0 x16 standard-supported reinforced steel slot. It ensures signal safety through additional anchor points and stronger latches, and can firmly support high-performance, heavy graphics cards.

The three M.2 slots not only provide fast performance but also minimize cables to keep the inside of the case clean. The top Blazing M.2 socket controlled by the CPU supports PCIe Gen5 x4 (128 Gb/s), allowing you to use next-generation NVMe SSDs, and you can install 2260/2280 types.

The Hyper M.2 slot controlled by the chipset supports PCIe Gen4 x4 (64Gb/s) speed, and you can install NVMe SSDs of 2260/2280 specifications. The remaining M.2 socket supports 2260/2280 SSDs, and the speed is relatively low at 32Gb/s.

In addition to the onboard LAN port, you can build a wireless LAN through the M.2 (Key E) slot (sold separately).

The sound chipset is equipped with a Realtek ALC897 7.1 channel HD audio codec and supports Nahimic Audio.

It supports music, video, communication (chat), and realistic game sounds. In particular, virtual surround settings are possible in games, creating sound that echoes from all directions to increase immersion. When voice chatting with game users, you can set microphone sensitivity, noise removal, voice fluctuation adjustment, and echo cancellation.

If you are using a gaming headset, be sure to use a product with a microphone to be recognized.

This is the configuration of input/output ports that can connect various external devices such as monitors, headphones, and external hard drives.

It consists of a BIOS flashback button, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port, 2 USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports, and 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port.

And the RTL8125BG chipset's Phantom Gaming 2.5GbE LAN port, and HDMI and DP 1.4 port support as video terminals, so you can output the screen without a separate graphics card on CPUs with built-in graphics. It consists of a line-in / front speaker / microphone with an HD audio jack.

The BIOS flashback button, which allows you to update the BIOS without installing the CPU and memory, is located on the left corner.

The AMD 7600 CPU and 2 16GB DDR5 memory modules were configured in dual channels. Since we plan to use overclocked (XMP) memory, we installed a custom cooler rather than the basic cooler to ensure stable performance at full load in the future.

When you boot the board for the first time, you will be prompted to install a program called Auto Driver Installer. If you install this program, the drivers will be installed with the latest version, making it easy to set up the system. To install the latest version of the utility, you can install a separate program called ASRock Shop or search for the utility on the ASRock website.

[ 테스트 사양 ]

- CPU : AMD 라이젠5 5세대 7600

- MB : ASRock B650M PG Lightning 대원씨티에스

- RAM : CORSAIR VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 6400 CL36

- VGA : ASUS RTX 3060

- SSD : 삼성전자 980 PRO 히트싱크 M.2 NVMe (1TB)

- Power : 마이크로닉스 Classic II 풀체인지 800W 80PLUS BRONZE 230V EU

When benchmarking the AMD Ryzen 5-5th generation 7600 CPU in CPU-Z, it is lower than the Intel Core i7-10700 processor, so you can get an idea of ​​how much performance the CPU has.

The ASRock B650M PG Lightning board supports DDR5 memory overclocking. You can increase the performance of DDR5 memory configured in dual channels up to 6,400(OC) MHz, and both XMP and EXPO are supported for DRAM profiles, so you can select and use a convenient profile.

You can see that all items of memory read, write, copy, and latency have increased when the clock is increased from the basic 4800MHz to 6400MHz with EXPO applied. Even the latency item has become faster from 85.8ns to 83.5ns, and the remaining 3 items also show meaningful numerical changes, with the performance improvement of the write item being the most noticeable.

When a PCIe 4.0-supported SSD such as the Samsung 980 PRO heatsink NVMe SSD 1TB is installed in the PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot, the read speed is 6886MB/s or higher, and the write speed is 5017MB/s or higher, enabling fast work in program loading, games, and editing.

The overall system performance measured with PCMARK 10 shows a high score that is sufficient as a high-performance gaming PC. The score is 7680 points, so the overall system performance is quite good, and you can expect sufficient performance even when configured as a gaming or multimedia PC.

The single and multi-core performance of the AMD Ryzen 5-5th generation 7600 CPU tested with Cinebench is shown in the rankings.

I checked the temperature during multi-tasking with Cinebench. Based on Tctl/Tdie, the minimum temperature was measured at 44.9 degrees, and the maximum temperature was 60.1 degrees, indicating good heat dissipation.

Here are the 7-ZIP benchmark results. It records an evaluation score of 86.829GIPS in compression and shows an evaluation score of 93.992GIPS in decompression.

When running 3DMARK, Time Spy scored 8972 points and Fire Strike scored 20835 points.

LIVE UPDATE & APP SHOP is a representative app provided by ASRock. You can search for BIOS and drivers on the Internet and update them to the latest version, which helps you maintain a stable system with the latest drivers.

If you install A-Tuning, an ASRock motherboard utility, you can easily set the operating mode (performance mode / standard mode / power saving mode) based on graphics.

It also supports the Blazing OC tuner function to improve multi-threaded performance. The Blazing OC tuner allows you to easily switch between AM5 CPU and PBO mode when the CPU current reaches a threshold. Furthermore, if the threshold is exceeded, manual OC mode is activated, and if it is lower than the current threshold, PBO mode is activated. This flow can be done in the Blazing OC tuner installed in the OS without having to enter the BIOS.

The Phantom Gaming 2.5 Gb/s LAN platform is designed for home networking, content creators, online gamers, and high-quality streaming media, and provides a stable environment for games, file transfers, and backups with up to 2.5 times the bandwidth compared to standard Gigabit Ethernet.

The BIOS supports UEFI BIOS that supports both advanced mode and EZ mode. OC Tweaker, a menu for overclocking, is a menu where you can set CPU, memory, voltage, etc. in more detail. In particular, there are many setting items closely related to system overclocking, and you can easily select the desired setting value using the mouse for each item.

If you go to the DRAM timing sub-menu, you can set more detailed items, and since all items are professional, you need more information for detailed settings. The OC Tweaker has a separate menu for setting CPU and RAM voltage, so you can set it in detail.

In particular, it supports XMP and EXPO profiles for memory overclocking, so you can easily set it without going through a complicated setting process.

The ASRock ASRock B650M PG Lightning board is an attractive board in terms of cost-effectiveness among AM5 motherboards, and I think it is a decent combination because it supports the AMD 7000 series Raphael processor. It has a perfect power supply function with a 6+2+1 power phase design, and anyone can easily set it up to experience extreme overclocking performance through the Blazing OC tuner installed in the OS without having to enter the BIOS.

It is a product that combines only the necessary and easy-to-use functions compared to higher-end motherboards based on the B650 chipset, so I can recommend it to those who need a cost-effective Ryzen motherboard that is faithful to basic functions.

IT 인벤 유저리뷰사용기라이크팡
2023-12-31