The ASRock X570 Aqua: A $1000 Ryzen Halo Motherboard Reviewed

Overclocking Ryzen 3000

Experience with the ASRock X570 Aqua

Ryzen 3000 runs very warmly, even at idle temperatures in comparison due to higher density packaged cores on its 7nm chiplets, and with the Aqua, a custom loop liquid setup with the integrated full cover monoblock should do the trick. In terms of our motherboard testing, it makes our Ryzen 7 3700X testbed processor slightly harder to cool than a processor such as the Ryzen 7 3900X. The reason for this is the cores are evenly split between two CCDs on the 3900X, whereas the 3700X has all its eight cores on a single CCD. This means that in our overclock testing, the Ryzen 7 3700X performs similarly on a custom loop when compared with a closed-loop liquid cooler.

Overclocking our Ryzen 7 3700X using the ASRock X570 Aqua is the quintessential typical mid-range motherboard we come to expect from ASRock, with the firmware laid out into easy to navigate sections. All of the overclocking settings users need can be found under the OC Tweaker section, with some of the more advanced Precision Boost Overdrive settings found under the advanced menu. Typically users will overclock the CPU and memory, and the ASRock X570 Aqua has two modes to select from, stable and OC mode. The only notable difference is the level of voltage for the CPU. The stable overclock mode allows users to use up to 1.500 V of CPU VCore, while the OC mode extends this to a whopping 2.500 V. Users can fine-tune memory latencies in the DRAM Timing Configuration menu, while changes to memory frequency can be made by altering the DRAM Frequency setting.

Compared with other ASRock models we have tested recently, the ASRock X570 Aqua ticks the right boxes for users looking to overclock and squeeze all of that unlocked performance. The key variable to consider with the Aqua is that it's designed for enthusiasts looking to benefit from the reduced operating temperatures with water cooling, and potentially eke out any extra performance available from the silicon. ASRock did inform us that its most beneficial testing was performed with a Ryzen 9 3950X processor which at the time of writing, isn't released yet. The ASRock X570 Aqua does include a small overclockers toolkit at the bottom right-hand side of the board with a two-digit LED debugger, a power button, and a reset button.

Overclocking Methodology

Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.

For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (105ºC+). Our testbed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.

Overclocking Results

In our overclocking results with the ASRock X570 Aqua, the board at the default load-line calibration profile displayed good levels of VDroop throughout our testing. Going from 3.6 GHz to 4.2 GHz with 1.250 V on the CPU VCore, the X570 Aqua under full load consistently undervolted by 0.031 V. Fewer volts at load than a system needs can reduce temperatures, and with the design of the Aqua, means marginally less heat when considering the monoblock cools the VRM and X570 chipset too. Going up to 4.3 GHz at 1.350 V on the CPU VCore, our Ryzen 7 3700X consistently remained at 1.331 V under load. This equates to 0.019 V which when compared directly to the same results as the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 model with the same settings meant 3 W less of power consumption at full load.

In our POV-Ray benchmark, the scores, along with power consumption and CPU core temperature gradually increased as we went up in each of our 100 MHz increments. Like the X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 model, the ASRock X570 Aqua also includes its own Eco mode which when combined with our Ryzen 7 3700X processor, drops the TDP from 65 W to just 35 W. This is designed for low powered systems such as HTPCs that still require grunt on demand. Unfortunately, the Eco mode proved highly unstable when we applied a load, and we hope this is either an anomaly or if it can be rectified in a later firmware revision. Enabling Precision Boost Overdrive yielded no benefit when compared with the default settings, which leads us to believe the auto setting means PBO is enabled by default.