OUR VERDICT
What looks on paper to be a half-priced version of the X570 Aqua is really a completely different product. But the X570 Creator’s impressive feature set still makes it worth its price to those in the market for integrated Thunderbolt 3 and 10GbE.
FOR
Integrated Thunderbolt 3 with DisplayPort passthrough
10GbE, Gigabit Ethernet & 802.11ax Wi-Fi
Excellent CPU overclocking at moderate voltage levels
AGAINST
Half the SATA ports are on PCIe 2.0 controllers
All three PCIe x1 slots are 2.0 version
All PCIe 2.0 devices share bandwidth on a single-lane hub
As much as bells and whistles are impressive, ASRock’s recently released X570 Aqua is extremely expensive at $1,000. But the $500 X570 Creator ($480, with a $20 rebate as of this writing) is in many ways a similar board that’s half the price. It doesn’t have the exclusivity or open-loop cooling of the flagship Aqua, but it still has a full-fledged feature set.
Specifications
Nothing in our features table differentiates this board from the X570 Aqua that went before it, but we still need to dig deeper, as those identical features have been placed on completely different circuit boards.
The lack of a monoblock and color-matched cladding gives the less-costly X570 Creator a completely different look from its feature-matched predecessor. But it does have all the same ports and slots. In fact, the lack of the Aqua’s integrated I/O shield is the only thing that differentiates the Creator’s I/O panel.
The BIOS flash mode button, dual antenna connections for factory-installed 802.11ax module, six USB3 Gen1 and two Thunderbolt 3 ports, Gigabit and 10GbE ports, audio jacks with digital optical output, DisplayPort input and HDMI output are still present. The video input is for Thunderbolt passthrough via external graphics card linking, and the digital audio output supports DTS Connect to encode 5.1-channel streams from live audio sources. The biggest disappointment is that the two Type-A ports that appear color-coded for 10Gbps but are only wired for 5Gbps.
Unlike the X570 Aqua, the Creator fits completely within the confines of standard ATX. We looked around for crowded components and found nothing unusual, though the voltage regulator and socket are both closer to the I/O shield and the chipset is closer to the PCIe slots. The same onboard controllers are in similar positions relative to each other, but with less spacing between them. We even see the same internal DisplayPort pass-through connector, which is used for connecting specific ASRock graphics cards internally to the board’s Thunderbolt 3 outputs, located forward of the I/O audio connections.
Internal power and reset buttons are moved slightly rearward to make room for the X570 Creator’s shortened front edge by moving its legacy PC Speaker/3-pin spaced redundant power LED combo header, compared to the X570 Aqua. Farther up the board we see that the ALC1220 audio codec is moved further down than on the X570 Aqua, and that the ASM1187e PCIe 2.0 x1 to x7 smart switch is now closer to the battery. Builders are welcome to use up to eight SATA devices, but the fact that four of these ports share bandwidth with three x1 slots through that switch’s single-lane 5Gb/s interface might give them pause.
The X570 Creator’s installation kit adds an I/O shield compared to the X570 Aqua, since that one came pre-installed on the motherboard. The same four SATA cables, Wi-Fi antenna, legacy high-bandwidth SLI bridge, and link cable for DisplayPort-to-Thunderbolt passthrough are included.
Software
We played around with ASRock’s A-Tuning long enough to determine that it at least controls our CPU clocks, though its System Info page shows Ryzen Master’s CPU temperature reading as “SB TSI CPU”.
The X570 Creator has no onboard lighting, so its Polychrome Sync app only works for RGB headers and compatible DRAM. Though changes were laggy with our memory, it did eventually work.
Firmware
The tested version of X570 Creator firmware doesn’t have an easy-mode GUI, but its advanced mode is simple to navigate. Its OC Tweaker menu is of particular interest to us, since it includes everything we need to push our low-risk overclocks.
Attempting an all-core overclock means living with the maximum frequency of the worst core, which in our case isn’t very high. As with most boards, attempts to go beyond 4.2 GHz were unsuccessful even at far-higher voltage levels, so we reverted to safe settings.
Ryzen 3000 processors are famed for their memory overclocks but also known for needing sub-optimal memory controller and Infinity Fabric ratios to reach these. Users who don’t want to exceed AMD’s default DDR4-3600 limit for those ratios may instead choose to chase memory performance via optimized timings, for which the X570 Creator includes the full set of controls.
The X570 Creator doesn’t have onboard RGB lighting, and anyone who doesn’t want to install ASRock’s RGB application for Windows can control compatible RGB accessories via the board’s external RGB headers via firmware.
ASRock left the fan mapping graphic out of X570 Creator firmware, but the corresponding numeric values are still there for those who’d rather not use the included software. The default map for the southbridge fan kept it running at 3700 to 5000 RPM, its noise minimized only by its small size.
Overclocking
We’re using the hardware from our first X570 review to compare the X570 Creator to our first four boards, including Fractal Design’s Celsius S24, Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 2070 Gaming OC 8G and Toshiba’s OCZ RD400 512GB NVMe SSD. Because the previously-reviewed X570 Aqua required a different cooling system, we’ve left it out of our charts.
The X570 Aqua reached DDR4-4000 with all four DIMMs installed, while the X570 Creator only reached DDR4-3800. The Creator still beat the X570-E Gaming and X570 Taichi, but that’s probably due to its newer firmware. It also beats those two boards, and only those two boards, in CPU overclocking, if by a scant 25 MHz.
We overclock to gain performance, but the X570 Creator had the third-worst overclocked memory bandwidth. The slower (data rate) boards were faster (more bandwidth), but we should note that settings over DDR4-3600 can hurt performance due to firmware automatically decoupling the CPU’s Infinity Fabric clock at higher frequencies. This can be overcome via manual overclocking, but typically not at data rates this high.
3DMark and PCMark
We credit the X570 Creator’s newer firmware for higher CPU scores in 3DMark, but that gain barely made an impact in PCMark Essentials, with a less-than-1% advantage in web browsing. It made a clean sweep of PCMark Digital Content Creation, but came out roughly tied in MS Office.
3D Gaming
The X570 Creator swaps positions at various Ashes settings to take third place overall, but somehow gets a big enough jump in just one of our F1 2017 tests to emerge victorious by a mere 1%.
Mixed Applications
The X570 Creator also showed higher scores on Cinebench, as well as our complete set of timed workloads. If this is what AMD’s new microcode does, our congratulations should go there.
Power, Heat and Efficiency
The X570 Creator throttles our CPU back to 3950 MHz under a fully multithreaded load of Prime95, while the Taichi from the same brand ran up to 4.1 GHz and the Strix X570-E Gaming ran 3950 to 3975 MHz.
Since the CPU power settings of both boards are so similar, it’s important to discuss how the X570 Creator compares to the X570-E Gaming. Both boards have similar CPU thermal readings, though the ROG Strix model has a slightly warmer voltage regulator.
Gigabyte and MSI samples skewed our efficiency results by clocking our CPU down to 3.8 GHz. Even if we adjusted our chart to account for the approximately 4% difference in clock speed, the MEG X570 Ace would still win the efficiency crown.
Final Analysis
One thing to note in our performance-per-dollar chart: The Creator has more features than its competitors. If all you care about is performance and price, that makes the Creator tough to argue for. But you do get more for you money in other ways with this board.
None of the comparison boards have Thunderbolt 3 or 10GbE, though the copper cabling of 2.5GbE give the second network interface of Asus, Gigabyte and MSI broader compatibility.
The cheapest of the comparison boards, ASRock’s own X570 Taichi doesn’t even have a second wired network interface. The X570 Creator’s extra features are probably worth an extra $200 at most, and it costs exactly $200 more.
Competing samples from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI cost $30 to $60 more, and our previous reviews pointed out how each of these was worth the upgrade. That just makes this a tie from a value perspective, so our best advice is to pick from these the board that best fits your compatibility, efficiency, and overclockability needs.