discussion Biostar X370GTN ITX AM4 Motherboard Review

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Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Since fewer and fewer consumers seem to be buying discrete sound cards, the quality of a motherboard's onboard audio is now more important than ever. As such, we figured that it was worthwhile to take a closer look at the quality of the analog signal coming out of the Biostar X370GTN's onboard audio subsystem. As mentioned earlier, this model features an older Realtek ALC892 codec, a pair of "Hi-Fi Cap" capacitors that we aren't familiar with, a headphone impedance sensing amplifier, and a PCB-level isolation line that should help protect from electromagnetic interference (EMI).

Since isolated results don't really mean much, but we have also included some numbers from the plethora of motherboards that we have previously reviewed. All of the Z170 models feature onboard audio solutions that are built around the Realtek ALC1150 codec, while the X370 and Z270 motherboards all feature the newer Realtek ALC1220 codec. While they may all have similar codecs, there are vastly different hardware implementations that feature different op-amps, headphone amplifiers, filtering capacitors, secondary components and layouts.

We are going to do this using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, since sound quality isn't really something that can be adequately explained with only numbers. To do the quantitative portion, we have turned to RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA), which the standard application for this type of testing.

Since all modern motherboards support very high quality 24-bit, 192kHz audio playback we selected that as the sample mode option. Basically, what this test does is pipe the audio signal from the front-channel output to the line-in input via a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male mini plug cable, and then RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) does the audio analysis. Obviously we disabled all software enhancements since they interfere with the pure technical performance that we are trying to benchmark.

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As you can see, old doesn't necessary mean bad. The ALC892 posted some very good results, and we don't just mean the general performance rating. While the total harmonic distortion (THD), total harmonic distortion plus noise (THD + N), and intermodulation distortion plus noise (IMD + N) aren't quite up there with the latest and greatest codecs, the noise level, dynamic range, and stereo crosstalk figures were all better than expected.

We listened to a variety of music and spoken word content using a mix of Grado SR225i and Koss PortaPro headphones, Westone UM1 IEMs, and Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers, and the playback was clean and loud. As we have mentioned in the past, we aren't experts when it comes to sound quality, but at this high level we suspect that just about anyone should be satisfied.

 

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Feature Testing: M.2 PCI-E 3.0 x4

Feature Testing: M.2 PCI-E 3.0 x4

One of the more disappointing aspects of this new Ryzen + X370 combo is the limited amount of PCI-E lanes. While the processors themselves have a respectable 24 PCI-E 3.0 lanes - compared to 20 total on Kaby Lake - the AMD X370 chipset itself only has eight PCI-E 2.0 lanes. By comparison, the Intel Z270 PCH has an incredible 24 PCI-E 3.0 lanes, and thus almost 6 times the bandwidth capabilities. This disparity makes itself apparent when divvying up the lanes for high-speed storage.

Now what is interesting is that unlike Intel which leans heavily on its chipset for all storage connectivity, AMD made the decision to allocate four of those CPU-based PCI-E 3.0 lanes for storage purposes, which every motherboard manufacturer is using to add one full-speed M.2 slot to their AM4 models. While we don't have an SSD capable to testing the upper limits of a PCI-E 3.0 x4 interface (~3.5GB/s), we settled on one that can crack the 2000MB/s barrier: the Samsung SSD 950 PRO 256GB.

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Despite now being usurped by the SSD 960 PRO, this high performance NVMe PCI-E SSD combines Samsung's awesome UBX controller with its industry-leading 3D V-NAND and is capable of sequential read speeds of up to 2,200MB/second and write speeds of up to 900MB/sec.

One of the ways that we will be evaluating the performance of a motherboard's M.2 interface is by verifying that is capable of matching or exceeding these listed transfer rates. The other is by checking to see whether the slot performs as well as a ASUS Hyper M.2 x4 expansion card plugged directly into a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot. As mentioned above, on this platform the PCI-E lanes that the M.2 slot requires directly come from the processor, and we are interested to see whether there is any unusual lane splitting/switching occurring.

Without further ado, here are the results:

M.2 x4 3.0 slot vs. PCI-E x4 3.0 card​

As can see, for all extents and purposes, the M.2 slot performed on-par with the M.2 adapter in the PCI-E slot. Obviously, this is a sign that the M.2 slot has been properly implemented.

While transfer rates are obviously an important metric, we figured that it was also worthwhile to take a peak at instructions per second (IOPS) to ensure that there wasn't any variance there either:

M.2 x4 3.0 slot vs. PCI-E x4 3.0 card​

Once again, the differences are essentially non-existent and well within the margin of error for this benchmark. As a result, it is clear that the M.2 interface on the X370GTN has been very well implemented and should ensure that you get optimal performance from any current or future M.2 x4 solid state drive.

 

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Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

Much like the ASRock X370 Taichi, the Biostar X370GTN has no automatic overclocking feature. This is fine by us, since as mentioned in the Closer Look section we don't really recommend overclocking on this motherboard anyways. Nevertheless, we did still have to see if it would survive our attempts to squeeze that extra bit of performance of out our Ryzen 7 1800X processor. The process is easy, simply set the CPU voltage to 1.35V-1.40V and start increasing the CPU multiplier until it crashes in your preferred stress test, then back off a little bit. Next is the memory speed, if you have a good memory kit that are rated at/under DDR4-3200, you can probably just try to enable the XMP or A-XMP profile. If XMP doesn't work, set the SOC voltage to between 1.05V and 1.20V and the memory voltage to 1.35V. If you aren't familiar with your RAM's capabilities, you might as well start off with loose 19-19-19-19-39 timings, and start manually increasing the memory speed from DDR4-2400 to DDR4-3200. Once you have found your the highest memory speed, it's time to start tightening the timings. A simple HyperPI 32M run on all available threads should be sufficient to give you a good indication of whether that memory configuration is stable or not.

With all that out of the way, let's see what we were able to hit.

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As mentioned on page 8, the Racing GT utility that comes included with this motherboard does have an overclocking and overvolting section. However, we did not find it all that functional, and ultimately gave up on it in favor of the clearly superior AMD Ryzen Master utility.

Assuming you decide to ignore our warnings and overclock on this motherboard, you will want to use Ryzen Master instead of the meager BIOS-based overclocking settings. While Biostar has made custom P-State overclocking - the only overclocking method on this model - as simple as possible by allowing overclockers to use the +/- keys to increase/decrease the CPU core frequency or CPU core voltage, it is still not our preferred method. Furthermore, we discovered that it appears to limit the Vcore to 1.35V, which may just be Biostar's wise attempt at stopping people from blowing up their MOSFETs.

Having said that, you can still enable your memory kit's XMP profile from within the BIOS, and this was the end result in our case:

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Close, but not quite. Our G.Skill F4-3200C14Q-32GTZSW is indeed rated for DDR4-3200, but the memory timings are wrong. Instead of the correct 14-14-14-14-53 timings, the motherboard set 14-14-14-22-53, so the tRP timing is incorrect. We have notified Biostar of this issue, and it should be an easy fix.

Nevertheless, it is still pretty impressive that we had no issues achieving DDR4-3200, which is a feat that is still eluding a lot of angst-ridden Ryzen owners at the moment.

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Throwing caution to the wind, and without adding any additional airflow, we set out to achieve our usual overclock. Much to our surprise, the little Biostar had no immediate problem pushing our 1800X to 4.1GHz at 1.40V. We also had the SOC voltage to 1.20V and the RAM voltage to 1.35V.

We were able to run our usual array of benchmarks at this frequency, and it even passed an AIDA64 stress test that last almost 90 minutes. We say "almost 90 minutes" because when we measured the VRM temperatures, either the MOSFET heatsink or one of the power chokes was running at 93°C / 200°F and we immediately called it quits. All the electrical components can handle over 100°C, but running that hot is obviously not ideal, and it is outside of our personal comfort range for any long-term build. We also inspected the 4-pin CPU power connector for any heat-related issues, and although it was warm, that was likely due to its proximity to the VRM area.

We will say it once again, we don't recommend that eight-core Ryzen owners overclock on this motherboard, at least not without taking aggressive steps when it comes to directing cool air towards the VRM area. Ryzen 5 owners will obviously have a little more overclocking leeway, but how much we cannot say.

On an interesting side note, despite not having an BCLK chip/external clock generator, this motherboard does support BCLK adjustments. In the BIOS, there are 15 options ranging from AUTO to 107.3MHz. We suspect that the AGESA 1.0.0.4a microcode update must have unlocked that functionality.

 

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System Benchmarks

System Benchmarks

In the System and Gaming Benchmarks sections, we reveal the results from a number of benchmarks run with a Ryzen 7 1800X and Biostar X370GTN at default clocks (with the three different memory speeds) and using own our manual overclock. This will illustrate how much performance can be achieved with this motherboard in stock and overclocked form. For a thorough comparison of the Ryzen 7 1800X versus a number of different CPUs have a look at our "AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Performance Review" article.

SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP

When running the SuperPI 32MB benchmark, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. We are running one instance of SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP. This is therefore a single-thread workload.

wPRIME 2.10

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. This is a highly multi-threaded workload.

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 64-bit
Test1: CPU Image Render
Comparison: Generated Score

The latest benchmark from MAXON, Cinebench R15 makes use of all your system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene using various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. This particular benchmarking can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

WinRAR x64

WinRAR x64 5.40
Test: Built-in benchmark, processing 1000MB of data.
Comparison: Time to Finish

One of the most popular file archival and compression utilities, WinRAR's built-in benchmark is a great way of measuring a processor's compression and decompression performance. Since it is a memory bandwidth intensive workload it is also useful in evaluating the efficiency of a system's memory subsystem.

FAHBench

FAHBench 1.2.0
Test: OpenCL on CPU
Comparison: Generated Score

FAHBench is the official Folding@home benchmark that measures the compute performance of CPUs and GPUs. It can test both OpenCL and CUDA code, using either single or double precision, and implicit or explicit modeling. The single precision implicit model most closely relates to current folding performance.

HEVC Decode Benchmark v1.61

HEVC Decode Benchmark (Cobra) v1.61
Test: Frame rates at various resolution, focusing on the top quality 25Mbps bitrate results.
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

The HEVC Decode Benchmark measures a system's HEVC video decoding performance at various bitrates and resolutions. HEVC, also known as H.265, is the successor to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) standard and it is very computationally intensive if not hardware accelerated. This decode test is done entirely on the CPU.

LuxMark v3.1

Test: OpenCL CPU Mode benchmark of the LuxBall HDR scene.
Comparison: Generated Score

LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmarking tool that utilizes the LuxRender 3D rendering engine. Since it OpenCL based, this benchmark can be used to test OpenCL rendering performance on both CPUs and GPUs, and it can put a significant load on the system due to its highly parallelized code.

PCMark 8

PCMark 8 is the latest iteration of Futuremark’s system benchmark franchise. It generates an overall score based upon system performance with all components being stressed in one way or another. The result is posted as a generalized score. In this case, we tested with both the standard Conventional benchmark and the Accelerated benchmark, which automatically chooses the optimal device on which to perform OpenCL acceleration.

AIDA64 Memory Benchmark

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a diagnostic and benchmarking software suite for home users that provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives.

The benchmarks used in this review are the memory bandwidth and latency benchmarks. Memory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, Memory Copy) measure the maximum achievable memory data transfer bandwidth. The code behind these benchmark methods are written in Assembly and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86/x64, x87, MMX, MMX+, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE4.1, AVX, and AVX2 instruction set extension.
The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.

 

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Gaming Benchmarks

Gaming Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark (2013)

3DMark v1.1.0
Graphic Settings: Fire Strike Preset
Rendered Resolution: 1920x1080
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark is the brand new cross-platform benchmark from the gurus over at Futuremark. Designed to test a full range of hardware from smartphones to high-end PCs, it includes three tests for DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 hardware, and allows users to compare 3DMark scores with other Windows, Android and iOS devices. Most important to us is the new Fire Strike preset, a DirectX 11 showcase that tests tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Like every new 3DMark version, this test is extremely GPU-bound, but it does contain a heavy physics test that can show off the potential of modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark 11

3DMark 11 v1.0.5
Graphic Settings: Extreme Preset
Resolution: 1920x1080
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark 11 is Futuremark's very latest benchmark, designed to tests all of the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. At the moment, it is lot more GPU-bound than past versions are now, but it does contain a terrific physics test which really taxes modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage v1.1.2
Graphic Settings: Performance Preset
Resolution: 1280x1024

Test: Specific CPU Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score

3DMark Vantage is the follow-up to the highly successful 3DMark06. It uses DirectX 10 exclusively so if you are running Windows XP, you can forget about this benchmark. Along with being a very capable graphics card testing application, it also has very heavily multi-threaded CPU tests, such Physics Simulation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which makes it a good all-around gaming benchmark.

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark
Resolution: 1920x1080
Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Anisotropic Filtering: 8X
Graphic Settings: High

Comparison: Particle Performance Metric

Originally intended to demonstrate new processing effects added to Half Life 2: Episode 2 and future projects, the particle benchmark condenses what can be found throughout HL2:EP2 and combines it all into one small but deadly package. This test does not symbolize the performance scale for just Episode Two exclusively, but also for many other games and applications that utilize multi-core processing and particle effects. This benchmark might be a little old, but is still very highly-threaded and thus will keep scaling nicely as processors gain more and more threads. As you will see the benchmark does not score in FPS but rather in its own "Particle Performance Metric", which is useful for direct CPU comparisons.

X3: Terran Conflict

X3: Terran Conflict 1.2.0.0
Resolution: 1920x1080
Texture & Shader Quality: High
Antialiasing 4X
Anisotropic Mode: 8X
Glow Enabled

Game Benchmark
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

X3: Terran Conflict (X3TC) is the culmination of the X-series of space trading and combat simulator computer games from German developer Egosoft. With its vast space worlds, intricately detailed ships, and excellent effects, it remains a great test of modern CPU performance. While the X3 Reality engine is single-threaded, it provides us with an interesting look at performance in an old school game environment.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Benchmark

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
Resolution: 1920x1080
Texture & Shader Quality: Maximum IQ
DirectX 11
Fullscreen

Game Benchmark
Comparison: Generated Score

Square Enix released this benchmarking tool to rate how your system will perform in Heavensward, the expansion to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. This official benchmark software uses actual maps and playable characters to benchmark gaming performance and assign a score to your PC.

Grand Theft Auto V

DirectX Version: DirectX 11
Resolution: 1920x1080
FXAA: On
MSAA: X4
NVIDIA TXAA: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: X16
All advanced graphics settings off.

In GTA V, we utilize the handy in-game benchmarking tool. We do ten full runs of the benchmark and average the results of pass 3 since they are the least erratic. We do additional runs if some of the results are clearly anomalous. The Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) is ostensibly multi-threaded, but it definitely places the bulk of the CPU load on only one or two threads.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Resolution: 1920x1080
Graphical Quality: Custom
Mesh/Shadow/Texture Filtering/Vegetation Range: Ultra
Lighting/Texture Quality/Ambient Occlusion: High
Depth of Field/Order Independent Transparency/Tesselation: Enabled

With its high resolution textures and several other visual tweaks, Shadow of Mordor’s open world is also one of the most detailed around. This means it puts massive load on graphics cards and should help point towards which GPUs will excel at next generation titles. We do three full runs of the benchmark and average the results.

 

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Voltage Regulation / Power Consumption

Voltage Regulation

Needless to say that X370GTN does not have any onboard voltage measurement points, which is what we usually rely on in order to accurately measure the various system voltages. As a result, in this abbreviated overview, we utilized the AIDA64 System Stability Test to put a very substantial load on the system while also monitoring the stability of the all-important CPU vCore line. This was achieved with a 90 minute stress test, and in order to further increase the strain on the motherboard's voltage regulation components, we overclocked our Ryzen 7 1800X to 3.9Ghz with the CPU voltage as close as possible to 1.35V. We also utilized the Load-Line Calibration (LLC) settings in order to see if this motherboard is able to maintain a rock steady vCore line.

Click on image to enlarge​

While the above the Vcore line looks correct and pretty darn good overall, it is inaccurate since AIDA64 doesn't properly read the CPU core voltage on this motherboard. Since we still wanted some insight, we loaded HWiNFO64 and let it record the minimum, maximum and average Vcore during a 90 minute AIDA64 stress test. The end result was a 1.334V minimum, 1.367V maximum, and 1.352V average CPU core voltage. With HWiNFO64 we don't know how bad the ripple is, but at least the results that we were able to record are pretty decent.


Power Consumption

For this section, every energy saving feature was enabled in the BIOS and the Windows power plan was changed from High Performance to Balanced. For our idle test, we let the system idle for 15 minutes and measured the peak wattage through our UPM EM100 power meter. For our CPU load test, we ran Prime 95 In-place large FFTs on all available threads, measuring the peak wattage via the UPM EM100 power meter. For our overall system load test, we ran Prime 95 on all available threads while simultaneously loading the GPU with 3DMark Vantage - Test 6 Perlin Noise.

When compared with the GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5, the Biostar X370GTN's power consumption numbers are quite similar in many respects. While the stock and XMP numbers are essentially identical, the Mini ITX Biostar proved to be a fair bit more efficient when we set our manual overclock. Since the GIGABYTE was more efficient than the ASRock X370 Taichi, and the Biostar is more efficient than GIGABYTE, we have nothing to complain about here.

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

The Biostar X370GTN is a perfectly suitable motherboard for a specific consumer. Do you want to a build a Mini ITX AM4-based system immediately? If yes, the X370GTN is the choice for you since it is literally the only option three months after Ryzen's launch. This is assuming you can find it in-stock, which has been a bit of an issue. Even when competitors do show up, they are very likely to carry a heavy price premium over this rather basic model.

At $110 USD, this is a simple Mini ITX motherboard that will provide you with two DDR4 memory slots, four SATA 6Gb/s ports, one M.2 slot, one PCI-E x16 slot, one gigabit LAN port, and a gaggle of USB ports. That is about the extent of what most people need for a simple, compact computer. The BIOS might not be as feature-filled as the competition, and the software utilities might not be as polished, but most people never enter the BIOS and even fewer ever install manufacturer-provided software.

As we noted in the review, the MOSFET heatsink can get quite toasty when under the load of an eight-core Ryzen 7 procesor, even in stock form. That is why we recommend that some attention be paid towards blowing cool air towards the VRM area, and we really don't recommend that owners of octa-core processors attempt to overclock on this petite motherboard. With this disclaimer in mind, the 4-pin CPU power connector and the lack of easy BIOS-based CPU overclocking can be viewed as less serious shortcomings, and perhaps even as well-intentioned safety obstacles.

Having said all of that, bound by duty, we did attempt our usual manual overclock. Since the BIOS-based Custom P-State overclocking method did not allow us to set a Vcore above 1.35V, we used the Ryzen Master utility, which is easier to use than Biostar's own software. Surprisingly, we were able to achieve the very same overclock on this motherboard as we did on the overbuilt ASRock X370 Taichi, which is to say 4.1GHz at 1.40V. While stress test stability seemed fine, the side effect was obviously that the VRM components were all extremely hot, way past what we would consider safe for a 24/7 system. On the plus side, the X370GTN had little problem applying our G.Skill memory kit's DDR4-3200 XMP profile, aside from a little hiccup with one of the timings. Despite our relative success, we still think that overclocking on this motherboard should be restricted to memory only. Ryzen 5 owners probably have a little additional headroom to play with, but definitely be cautious.

The onboard audio codec is a few generations behind the times, but it should still be more than satisfactory for your average consumer. It actually posted some numbers that were better than some other motherboards that we have reviewed with the newest Realtek codec. The RGB LED lighting feature is pretty basic in its native form - a glowing strip on top of the MOSFET heatsink - but the addition of two light strip headers means that those who desire a flashy build will be able to easily accomplish that feat. The Vivid LED DJ tab in the Racing GT utility might not offer all of the effects that the competition does, but it is still easy to set your desired colour and choose among the four effects.

In the end, the Biostar X370GTN is an interesting motherboard for the non-enthusiast crowd, but it does have limitations that you need to be aware of. Whether its low price and exclusive position at the moment overshadow those limitations is ultimately up to you. While there are certainly other Mini ITX X370 motherboards around the corner, expect to pay an additional $40-50 USD for easy and reliable overclocking and perhaps a bit of extra functionality.