Monday, May 31st 2021

ASUS Teases Four Upcoming X570 Motherboards with Fanless Chipset Cooling

ASUS teased what is possibly its final round of Socket AM4 motherboards based on the AMD X570 chipset. The boards are based on the X570 chipset with the latest AGESA update that runs the chipset cooler, so thay can made do with fanless heatsink cooling. The teaser pic reveals at least four models—one based in the coveted ProArt line of creator motherboards; one from the TUF Gaming line of value-ended gaming motherboards; one form the ROG Strix series of premium gaming motherboards; and the last from the ROG Crosshair series of enthusiast/overclocking motherboards.

The motherboard in the bottom-right quadrant isn't the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, but very likely a next-gen Crosshair Formula product. The bottom-left board could be a successor to the ROG Strix X570-E Gaming. The top-right board could be a TUF Gaming X570 Pro successor; while the top-left could be an all new product based in the ProArt series.

Update May 31st: ASUS clarified in a Facebook post that these motherboards use the same X570 chipset, but take advantage of the latest AGESA firmware that lowers TDP of the chipset just enough for motherboard designers to use fanless heatsinks.
Source: HXL (Twitter)
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76 Comments on ASUS Teases Four Upcoming X570 Motherboards with Fanless Chipset Cooling

#1
Oricon2017
I think the motherboard in the bottom-right quadrant is Strix X570-XE, the bottom-left board is Crosshair VIII EXTREME.
Posted on Reply
#2
Legacy-ZA
Finally, got the memo? Anyone old enough will tell you, a chipset fan, is one of the worst things to have on a motherboard.
Posted on Reply
#3
dj-electric
We could have had passive X570 motherboards on the get go, but we decided to stick to that stupid trend of putting fans on the chipset heatsink.
All a standard X570 board needs is a semi decent heatsink and it will be completely fine.

I'm not liking this trend of finding a reason to refresh the whole platform because of that...
And am i bit disappointed that besides the X570 Xtreme, no one really bothered making any kind of reasonably priced boards with one.
Posted on Reply
#4
TumbleGeorge
USB4? Better resizable bar? Other new goods? Or only coolest chipset?
Posted on Reply
#5
8BitZ80
Legacy-ZAFinally, got the memo? Anyone old enough will tell you, a chipset fan, is one of the worst things to have on a motherboard.
They're a bit behind the curve, but it can't be as bad as the motor industry. GDI engines have been choking themselves with valve carbon deposits for over ten years and we're finally starting to see some workarounds implemented for that. It's not like manufacturers weren't aware of valve deposit issues all those years ago, they KNEW but simply didn't care.
Posted on Reply
#6
TheinsanegamerN
Legacy-ZAFinally, got the memo? Anyone old enough will tell you, a chipset fan, is one of the worst things to have on a motherboard.
But pundits on sites like this will wax poetic about how THEIR chipset fan is just fine after 6 months, what's the big deal?!?

People who forget history are doomed to repeat it, those that do are doomed to watch it.
PooPipeBoyThey're a bit behind the curve, but it can't be as bad as the motor industry. GDI engines have been choking themselves with valve carbon deposits for over ten years and we're finally starting to see some workarounds implemented for that. It's not like manufacturers weren't aware of valve deposit issues all those years ago, they KNEW but simply didn't care.
Especially given how quickly companies like ford implemented twin injection when they saw the problem in the F-150, it really makes you think. What's so wrong with port injection anyway?
Posted on Reply
#7
TechLurker
One benefit to the chipset fans were on a few high-end boards that included an airflow path to the NVMe drive(s), so it not only cooled the chipset, but the NVMe drives some too. Given that NVMe drives only getting hotter, we'll either see integrated fans return, or slot covers with some basic aluminum finning that eats up a partial slot, or the return of copper heatsink cities and roads (from the NVMe drives to the chipset heatsink tower).
Posted on Reply
#8
Houd.ini
Fanless chipsets sure are better than chinless fapsets.
Posted on Reply
#9
Beertintedgoggles
PooPipeBoyThey're a bit behind the curve, but it can't be as bad as the motor industry. GDI engines have been choking themselves with valve carbon deposits for over ten years and we're finally starting to see some workarounds implemented for that. It's not like manufacturers weren't aware of valve deposit issues all those years ago, they KNEW but simply didn't care.
That's what I love about the Toyota 2GR-FSE engine, port and direct fuel injection. They've had that tech in production since 2005.
Posted on Reply
#10
Makaveli
TheinsanegamerNBut pundits on sites like this will wax poetic about how THEIR chipset fan is just fine after 6 months, what's the big deal?!?

People who forget history are doomed to repeat it, those that do are doomed to watch it.


Especially given how quickly companies like ford implemented twin injection when they saw the problem in the F-150, it really makes you think. What's so wrong with port injection anyway?
lol Its been a year and a half on x570 since Dec 2019 still don't hear it :)
Posted on Reply
#11
Solid State Soul ( SSS )
Cant believe it took them that long, meanwhile intel comes out with its first PCIe 4 chipset fan less from the beginning
Posted on Reply
#12
Mescalamba
Legacy-ZAFinally, got the memo? Anyone old enough will tell you, a chipset fan, is one of the worst things to have on a motherboard.
No.

Worst thing on motherboard is overheating components.

I have 40x40 Noctua on chipset. It runs on some rather insane speed, yet its whisper quiet.
Posted on Reply
#13
thegnome
Solid State Soul ( SSS )Cant believe it took them that long, meanwhile intel comes out with its first PCIe 4 chipset fan less from the beginning
Intel doesn't have a PCIe 4 capable chipset though, the only PCIe 4 lanes on Rocket Lake come directly from the CPU while the Z590 chipset only uses 3.0 lanes. Z590 is basically an upgraded Z490 while still only supporting 3.0.
dj-electricWe could have had passive X570 motherboards on the get go, but we decided to stick to that stupid trend of putting fans on the chipset heatsink.
All a standard X570 board needs is a semi decent heatsink and it will be completely fine.

I'm not liking this trend of finding a reason to refresh the whole platform because of that...
And am i bit disappointed that besides the X570 Xtreme, no one really bothered making any kind of reasonably priced boards with one.
This, exactly this. Any decent heatsink that fits will do even with full 4.0 ssd's blasting.
Posted on Reply
#14
TheinsanegamerN
MescalambaNo.

Worst thing on motherboard is overheating components.

I have 40x40 Noctua on chipset. It runs on some rather insane speed, yet its whisper quiet.
The issue is these chipsets dont use 40x40mm fans that can be replaced with a nice noctua. They use some proprietary design coupled with an abysmally tiny fin array, so tiny that many boards can use a generic fanless heatsink from frozenCPU and get better temps, a properly designed fanless heatsink from the mobo maker would have been just fine even with all lanes in operation.

They have no issue hsipping boards with insufficient VRM cooling, but god forbid the chipset goes without its unnecessary fan for 99% of use cases... Hell a lot of these designs will throw errors at bootup at you if the original fan isnt plugged in.
Makavelilol Its been a year and a half on x570 since Dec 2019 still don't hear it :)
I have a dell D630 with an nvidia GPU that stilll works.
Posted on Reply
#15
WhitetailAni
Perhaps the X570-E will go down in price with the release of the X570-XE?
I'm hoping so. The X570-E has been around $350-400 for awhile, though it dropped down to $330. Still not MSRP though - $300, I believe.
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#16
Ferrum Master
I can not hear my chipset fan at all...

Got my X570-E for 280Euros....
Posted on Reply
#17
Unregistered
Any idea how they managed to make them fanless? New node?
Posted on Edit | Reply
#18
Tomorrow
dj-electricWe could have had passive X570 motherboards on the get go, but we decided to stick to that stupid trend of putting fans on the chipset heatsink.
All a standard X570 board needs is a semi decent heatsink and it will be completely fine.

I'm not liking this trend of finding a reason to refresh the whole platform because of that...
And am i bit disappointed that besides the X570 Xtreme, no one really bothered making any kind of reasonably priced boards with one.
Indeed. Putting the fans on was overcompensation. In reality they do not get that hot on their own. Xtreme is not the only one without a fan tho. The ASUS Crosshair Dark Hero is also passive (and cheaper than Xtreme). Or some people like me bought the Aorus Master model that retains most features from Xtreme and simply decoupled the fan connector. A bit of DIY. Not to mention that replacing the stock black thick pad with thermal paste improved chipset temperatures on its own. There are also two AsRock Rack X570 boards without a fan for servers.
TumbleGeorgeUSB4? Better resizable bar? Other new goods? Or only coolest chipset?
No USB4 until next year with X670. Better rebar how?
Solid State Soul ( SSS )Cant believe it took them that long, meanwhile intel comes out with its first PCIe 4 chipset fan less from the beginning
Benefit of time and hindsight. Plus current Z590 does not even support 4.0 from the chipset. Z690 should but that comes ~2 years after X570.
TheinsanegamerNThey have no issue hsipping boards with insufficient VRM cooling, but god forbid the chipset goes without its unnecessary fan for 99% of use cases... Hell a lot of these designs will throw errors at bootup at you if the original fan isnt plugged in.
Not true. I have not heard this to be the case with any X570 board. I have mine disconnected and there are no errors.
Xex360Any idea how they managed to make them fanless? New node?
Im guessing better heatsink design like with Xtreme and Dark Hero. I doubt they shrinked the chipset node.
Posted on Reply
#19
MxPhenom 216
ASIC Engineer
I may make a late jump to a 5800x with the deal Microcenter has going right now. $399 for one and another $20 off of with a motherboard. But I want to wait for these new X570S strix boards
TomorrowIndeed. Putting the fans on was overcompensation. In reality they do not get that hot on their own. Xtreme is not the only one without a fan tho. The ASUS Crosshair Dark Hero is also passive (and cheaper than Xtreme). Or some people like me bought the Aorus Master model that retains most features from Xtreme and simply decoupled the fan connector. A bit of DIY. Not to mention that replacing the stock black thick pad with thermal paste improved chipset temperatures on its own. There are also two AsRock Rack X570 boards without a fan for servers.

No USB4 until next year with X670. Better rebar how?

Benefit of time and hindsight. Plus current Z590 does not even support 4.0 from the chipset. Z690 should but that comes ~2 years after X570.

Not true. I have not heard this to be the case with any X570 board. I have mine disconnected and there are no errors.

Im guessing better heatsink design like with Xtreme and Dark Hero. I doubt they shrinked the chipset node.
I read somewhere that there was changes to chipset silicon. Now sure to what extent that is though.

The S denotes the word silent, meaning that these updated chipsets are capable of working with passive cooling and possibly having a lower TDP compared to 11 and 15 Watts of the X570 chipsets for consumer and enterprise motherboards, respectively.

Don't think silicon node changed at all, but indeed probably software/firmware changes to reduce TDP a bit. There is a lot they could have done to reduce TDP without a die shrink, that would still require spinning the silicon again. Better clock gating, boundary optimization (removing unused cells, etc.), constraint changes, PnR optimizations

PCIe 4.0 coming from CPU matters more than it coming from Chipset though for majority of use cases

Xex360Any idea how they managed to make them fanless? New node?
Software optimizations more or less. Dont think they shrunk it, but could also see optimizations done to the chip that require new silicon, on the same node. ^^^
Posted on Reply
#20
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
Agesa update that keeps the chipset cooler?


Well hello, backdate that one plz
Posted on Reply
#21
Tom Yum
Xex360Any idea how they managed to make them fanless? New node?
Unlikely but possible. X570 is basically the Matisse IO die (normally 12nm) fabbed on the cheaper 14nm process. It could be possible that AMD is now releasing the 12nm Matisse IO dies as slightly more energy efficient X570S chipsets, or it could just be updated firmware that drops power consumption enough to safely passively cool.
Posted on Reply
#23
ypsylon
Chipset fan is terrible thing to have. However with Gen4 it was often a necessity. Sucking up to 20W at full load you cannot leave something like this without any active airflow. Especially on TRX40.

You have to understand the manufacturers too. They don't want users to simply fry the motherboard if there is obstructed airflow around that area.

On my own example. I had 3 1080Tis (LC) for rendering and there was very little airflow coming over the chipset so fan was constantly in motion. Such annoying noise. Even low speed and chipset was around 70C it was extremely unpleasant. Now after I ditched 3 cards for 1 3090 fan never ever turn on with plenty of airflow.

I get it that consumer boards are not designed to held multiple GPUs, but still it is a safety measure. All boards can turn off chipset fan in UEFI or you can manually pull the plug from the motherboard. It's that simple and complaining about chipset fan is redundant.
Posted on Reply
#24
Chaitanya
ypsylonChipset fan is terrible thing to have. However with Gen4 it was often a necessity. Sucking up to 20W at full load you cannot leave something like this without any active airflow. Especially on TRX40.

You have to understand the manufacturers too. They don't want users to simply fry the motherboard if there is obstructed airflow around that area.

On my own example. I had 3 1080Tis (LC) for rendering and there was very little airflow coming over the chipset so fan was constantly in motion. Such annoying noise. Even low speed and chipset was around 70C it was extremely unpleasant. Now after I ditched 3 cards for 1 3090 fan never ever turn on with plenty of airflow.

I get it that consumer boards are not designed to held multiple GPUs, but still it is a safety measure. All boards can turn off chipset fan in UEFI or you can manually pull the plug from the motherboard. It's that simple and complaining about chipset fan is redundant.
It was motherboard manufacturers getting lazy and slapping fan on chipset instead of designing proper heatsinks(X570 Aorus xtreme was fanless from day 1) to cool chipsets. In days of AMD's own 990(~20W)/890 series of chipsets and Intel X58(~25W) all these motherboard makers had proper(to overkill) fanless cooling solutions out of the gate.
Posted on Reply
#25
Aretak
The chipset fan on my MSI X570 Ace has never turned on even once with the 'Silent' profile set in the BIOS, and I have all three M.2 slots populated. The idea that it was ever an issue is just scaremongering from people who've never owned an X570 board.
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