$400 is only affordable because you compare it to the absurdity of the pricing of some of the other motherboards out there. In reality it's still $400, for a motherboard that basically contains pretty much the same bill of materials as others that cost much less from the same manufacturer. At least it's not $1200 though.
@Funkykit you have a great blend of a few accents it sounds. The Cardiff is so slight so it threw me a bit. Also seeing as I'm not from there and haven't been for many years. Btw good video, I bought this motherboard today also :)
Yes. That's unfortunately true of any 2 slot AM5 board out there where the second slot is the same generation as the first. The best you will do is x8/x8 - which should be fine, and really your only option if you need two GPU slots. If you really need x16 on the first then you'll either want a board where the second is Gen4 (then it won't bifurcate the first), or a board with 3 or more slots (where the 3rd+ slots are always x4 or lower Gen4 or Gen3). A sound card doesn't need a high lane count so this is a good option. With ASRock x870e boards that's either 5x8/5x8 on Taichi/Lite, 5x16/3x2/3x1 on the Nova, or 5x16/4x4 on the others (Riptide, Pro, Steel Legend). Also beware that the second (or third) slot in all of those non Taichi boards share lanes with one of the m.2 slots, so using one will disable the other. If you need more than 2 m.2 slots than the Nova is your only real option since it has 5 to start with - you'll be left with 4 usable. There's a great Google spreadsheet listing all the AM5 boards capabilities: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NQHkDEcgDPm34Mns3C93K6SJoBnua-x9O-y_6hv8sPs/edit?usp=drivesdk
Has anyone actually tested these boards with ALL 4 slots of DDR to see if they do in fact work at the higher speeds?
$400 is only affordable because you compare it to the absurdity of the pricing of some of the other motherboards out there. In reality it's still $400, for a motherboard that basically contains pretty much the same bill of materials as others that cost much less from the same manufacturer. At least it's not $1200 though.
You’re right, $400 is a lot but it’s packed with features and has a great build quality.
Are you from Cardiff?
Yup 👍 Haha you noticed my slight Cardiff accent 😅
@Funkykit you have a great blend of a few accents it sounds. The Cardiff is so slight so it threw me a bit. Also seeing as I'm not from there and haven't been for many years. Btw good video, I bought this motherboard today also :)
does the pcie slots run at 8x/8x mode when installing a sound card/addon card or does it only apply when installing a 2nd gpu?
Yes. That's unfortunately true of any 2 slot AM5 board out there where the second slot is the same generation as the first. The best you will do is x8/x8 - which should be fine, and really your only option if you need two GPU slots. If you really need x16 on the first then you'll either want a board where the second is Gen4 (then it won't bifurcate the first), or a board with 3 or more slots (where the 3rd+ slots are always x4 or lower Gen4 or Gen3). A sound card doesn't need a high lane count so this is a good option. With ASRock x870e boards that's either 5x8/5x8 on Taichi/Lite, 5x16/3x2/3x1 on the Nova, or 5x16/4x4 on the others (Riptide, Pro, Steel Legend).
Also beware that the second (or third) slot in all of those non Taichi boards share lanes with one of the m.2 slots, so using one will disable the other. If you need more than 2 m.2 slots than the Nova is your only real option since it has 5 to start with - you'll be left with 4 usable.
There's a great Google spreadsheet listing all the AM5 boards capabilities:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NQHkDEcgDPm34Mns3C93K6SJoBnua-x9O-y_6hv8sPs/edit?usp=drivesdk
Depends on which PCIe 5.0 slot. The main one has no lane sharing. It's always x16.