Intel B560 is a Disaster: Huge CPU Performance Differences and a Power Limit Mess

I've been testing a ton of Intel Z590 motherboards recently for VRM thermal performance and this has allowed me to take a expect at how each board is configured out of the box. For the well-nigh part, Z590 motherboards run Intel 11th-gen processors without whatsoever enforced power limits, which is perfectly fine and within the loosely defined Intel specification.

I've plant that Z590 motherboards from Asus, MSI and Gigabyte all run without power limits, or at least limits that will heavily restrict the performance of parts like the Core i9-11900K. Depending on the motherboard the 11900K volition boost to, and maintain, an all-core frequency of iv.7 to iv.8 GHz.

However, Asrock follows the Intel base spec, commonly referred to as the "TDP specification." What that means is the 11900K will heave up to iv.8 GHz for a period of up to 56 seconds before dropping downwardly to 4.3 GHz, where it runs at a packet power of 125 watts. In other words, for sustained core-heavy workloads, Asrock Z590 motherboards will clock 11th-gen CPUs effectually 10% lower than boards from competing brands.

Still, Asrock is operating within the Intel spec, they just happen to exist using the minimum specification, whereas Asus, MSI and Gigabyte are maxing that out. It's not great, merely at the end of the day, nosotros're simply talking almost a ~10% frequency discrepancy for sustained workloads and in real-life scenarios, that should typically account to lilliputian or nothing in today'south games.

However, the focus of today's commodity is not Z590 motherboards, but rather Intel's B560. These new B-series motherboards make a lot more sense than earlier on newspaper. They're at present enabled for memory overclocking and with K-SKU processors being somewhat pointless due to the limited overclocking headroom, locked parts similar the i5-11400 offering the most value and therefore brand the nearly sense.

In that location's little point pairing a locked Intel CPU with a Z-series motherboard, especially at a toll premium, then I decided to shift my focus towards finding the best value B560 boards... and what a frustrating journey that is proving to be.

I've found testing Intel B560 boards and so frustrating that I had to stop testing to write this article, warning readers of the possible pitfalls when ownership one such board. What I've discovered is quite alarming and something all potential Intel buyers need to be made aware of.

Depending on the B560 motherboard, performance of locked 65 watt parts similar the 11400 and 11700 can be negatively impacted past over 30%. That's right, we're not talking about parts like the Core i9-11900K, but rather processors you volition be using with a budget B560 motherboard.

Prior to this testing, the just B560 board that I had looked at was the MSI B560 Tomahawk which nosotros used to review and criterion the 11400F for our review. Performance was identical to Z590 boards I'd tested from the likes of Asus, MSI and Gigabyte. MSI even told me it was to be expected that B560 motherboards would offering the same level of performance as their Z590 counterparts, simply it turns out that's non always the instance. Far from it.

Using the MSI B560 Tomahawk, the 11400F sustained the same 4.2 GHz all-core frequency that we saw on the Z590 boards, and therefore performance remained the same. Notwithstanding, the Tomahawk is a $200 B560 motherboard, which is not inexpensive, and therefore the results were as expected. I also tried out the Gigabyte B560M Aorus Pro AX ($180) which over again mirrored the performance previously seen with the Z590 boards.

Just because we were looking for the all-time budget motherboards, we wanted to see how well the cheaper boards handled parts like the i5-11400 and i7-11700. Afterwards all, you lot tin run a Ryzen 9 5950X without whatever performance restrictions on $110 AMD B550 boards like the Gigabyte B550M DS3H and MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi, for example.

So I went out and purchased the Asrock B560 Pro4 which costs $125. I also have the MSI B560M Pro which should be priced closer to $100, and the Gigabyte B560M DS3H AC, which is another bones board but we haven't seen in retail even so.

We fully expect entry-level Intel B560 boards to exist able to run parts like the Cadre i9-11900K with ability limits in place (125 watt TDP spec), and of class, the motherboards are listed to officially support the Core i9 part. What I wasn't entirely sure about was how they would configure 65w parts like the Cadre i5-11400F, merely I did expect that it would be possible to run the half dozen-cadre locked processor without power limits to achieve maximum functioning, and technically it is.

Cadre i5-11400 Test: Cinebench and SoTR

Here's a expect at how these motherboards perform out of the box using the Core i5-11400F. The $200 Tomahawk and $180 Aorus Pro AX perform every bit expected, delivering a score of roughly 10,000 points in Cinebench R23.

Both sustain an all-core frequency of four.two GHz out of the box. It'southward likewise worth noting that this frequency is sustained indefinitely as long as there's sufficient CPU cooling, and nosotros see that after 30 minutes of looping the multi-core examination the score remained much the same.

The more affordable Asrock B560 Pro4, Gigabyte B560M DS3H AC and MSI B560M Pro all enforce the 65 watt TDP limit by default, merely that doesn't mean the same matter for all boards. Due to slight variations in voltage tuning and efficiency of the lath's VRM, the all-core frequency varies within that 65w envelope.

The Asrock B560 Pro4, for instance, ran the 11400F at 3380 MHz. That ways the Tomahawk and other B560 boards that don't enforce power limits are clocking the processor 24% higher out of the box. Only the Pro4 wasn't the worst of the agglomeration. The MSI B560M Pro clocked even lower at just 3100 MHz, more than than 1 GHz lower than the Tomahawk which clocked 35% college. And so we have the Gigabyte B560M DS3H AC which maintained an all-cadre frequency of 3500 MHz, or 13% college than the MSI B560M Pro.

Put differently, in all-cadre workloads the B560 Tomahawk is 27% faster than the B560M Pro, or worse. The clock frequencies just mentioned were recorded at the stop of the xxx minute stress exam. Then if we ignore the first run where the B560 boards aren't running the entire test at the PL1 ability land and look at the outcome recorded after 30 mins of looping the examination, we see that the B560 Tomahawk is actually 35% faster than the B560M Pro.

That's a huge performance difference. We're talking about a dissimilar tier of CPU performance, the kind of departure yous'd normally expect when upgrading from a six to an 8-core CPU of the same architecture, for instance.

For those of yous focused purely on gaming, the deviation isn't as significant, at least in most games that don't max out the 11400F. Testing with Shadow of the Tomb Raider nosotros see a 12% performance uplift from the B560M Pro to the Tomahawk. That'south still a reasonable difference, but not close to the 35% margin we saw in Cinebench.

Information technology is possible to remove the power limits and unleash the 11400F on these entry-level B560 boards. How yous go about doing this depends on the motherboard, some are easier than others. In the instance of the MSI B560M Pro you lot but change the cooler choice in the BIOS from 'box cooler' to 'water-cooling' and provided you have a sufficient libation, the CPU will boost up to 4.2 GHz for all-cadre workloads.

You might be thinking, if that's the example, what'south the big deal then? With the Cadre i5-11400F it'southward more of a nuisance than anything, and information technology will catch out inexperienced users who will struggle to work out why their system isn't performing equally claimed by reviewers and other users running better boards.

Information technology's a bit messy, but it'll get much worse should it come fourth dimension to upgrade. The next logical step for those seeking a little actress processing power would exist a locked version of the Core i7-11700, and this is where things go very wrong...

Core i7-11700 Test: Cinebench and SoTR

The Tomahawk and Aorus Pro run the 11th-gen processor without power limits, clocking the 11700 to iv.4 GHz, which allowed for a score of but over fourteen,000 pts.

The cheaper B560 boards weren't nearly as impressive though. The Gigabyte B560M DS3H AC dropped the clock frequency in this test to 3180 MHz, then the Asrock B560 Pro4 sustained just 3155 MHz, and the MSI B560M Pro was the worst at but 2890 MHz.

Incredibly, that ways that for a sustained workload which sees Cinebench loop for 30 minutes, the Tomahawk was 43% faster than the B560M DS3H AC and 44% faster than the Asrock B560 Pro4, that's nuts. If you were to buy the MSI B560 Tomahawk with the Core i7-11700, rather than the MSI B560M Pro, y'all'd accept done well, gaining 53% more performance out of the box.

Testing gaming functioning proves less demanding simply this volition vary on the championship. In this example, the Tomahawk is 14% faster than the MSI B560M Pro, 9% faster than the Asrock B560 Pro4, and eight% faster than the Gigabyte B560M DS3H AC.

If we remove the power limits and permit the Core i7-11700 to run at full speed, simply as nosotros did with the Core i5-11400F, things don't go to plan and this time we run into a testify stopper, motherboard VRM performance, the very matter I set out to test...

The MSI B560M Pro can handle a package power of 125 watts fairly well, but going beyond that sees the board run across trouble, forcing it to throttle the CPU to avert catastrophe. Without power limits, the i7-11700 pushes package power to around 140 watts, depending on the level of voltage used by the lath.

Removing the ability limits on the B560M Pro with the i7-11700 installed resulted in VRM thermal throttling, and while this all the same saw the average clock speed raised to 3.eight GHz -- a 900 MHz boost at that place -- frequent dips to 800 MHz when throttling makes for a horrible feel. Information technology as well means, fifty-fifty if we ignore the VRM throttling issue, the 11700 still clocks sixteen% higher on boards like the Tomahawk.

The Gigabyte B560M DS3H Air-conditioning didn't avoid throttling either, though information technology only periodically dropped down to around 2 GHz, which is out of spec, and that meant the average frequency achieved was 4.1 GHz, or 300 MHz shy of the target. Interestingly, the Asrock B560 Pro4 didn't VRM throttle, but only managed 4.three GHz with the power limits removed, though that's but a 100 MHz arrears.

The crazy function is that these boards all worked significantly better out of the box with the 125 watt Core i5-11600K, clocking no lower than 250 MHz beneath the four.six GHz all-core frequency. The reason is the higher TDP, 125w up from 65w, so there'south little need to remove the power limits with a function like the 11600K, every bit y'all're only gaining around 200 MHz for heavy all-cadre workloads, less than a 4% drib in frequency.

Locking these boards to 125w seems like the way to go when using parts similar the i7-11700, you won't get max performance, but you'll get very close while fugitive VRM throttling.

Bottom Line

Nosotros found out that if you lot're willing to practise a piddling tinkering with the power limits, y'all can manually dial in virtually of these budget boards pretty well, but the point is that without some adequately knowledgeable user intervention, the platform is a total mess for builders.

The fact that out of the box performance can vary by upwardly to 50% betwixt B560 motherboards when using the aforementioned processor is insane. Permit's clarify this is not a unmarried motherboard manufacturer or a specific model screw upwards, this one'south squarely on Intel.

We could bash MSI for making the B560M Pro, and if we did nosotros'd take to go after Asrock for the B560M-HDV, or Gigabyte for the B560M Power, or Asus for the B560M-P, all of those boards will suffer from the aforementioned issues and there'south likely more. Simply technically all of these boards meet the Intel spec, the base spec or TDP spec equally it'southward often referred to.

For their entry-level boards, each maker has ensured the VRM can handle the ability requirements of the base of operations spec, and that's nigh it. Substantially they're OEM motherboards, or rather should exist OEM motherboards.

Intel 11th-gen Cadre i7 series

Even the MSI B560M Pro which clocks the i7-11700 as low equally 2.9 GHz is inside Intel's incredibly loosely defined spec. That's because the 11700 has an official base of operations clock frequency of just ii.5 GHz, so as long as clocks don't drib below that, information technology'southward within spec. We only went out of spec with the ability limits removed every bit this reduced the base clock under load to 800 MHz, with VRM throttling boot in to salve the lath from thermal runaway.

In the instance of the Core i7-11700, we had boards that sustained load frequencies of 2.nine GHz right up to four.four GHz, and Intel will tell yous all are running within spec. This has been caused past Intel's struggles to move on from their 14nm procedure. The loosely defined TDP spec wasn't an issue back in the Kaby Lake days when all Intel offered was a 4C/8T processor in their mainstream desktop lineup. Simply as they started to add more cores without major corrections to the TDP, we saw a gap between the base and boost clocks continue to widen.

For example, the 65w Core i7-7700 saw merely a 17% disparity betwixt its base of operations and boost clocks, and so with the 65w Core i7-8700 that effigy increased to 44%, and now we're at a ludicrous 96% with the Cadre i7-11700.

Intel Core i7 series

This is the situation we're faced with when recommending locked Intel CPUs on budget B560 motherboards. Moving frontward, my job will be to piece of work out just how little you can spend on a B560 motherboard and still achieve proper functioning with parts like the Core i7-11700, ideally without having to manually fine-melody power limits.

Out of the box experience should exist like the one offered by motherboards similar the MSI B560 Tomahawk and Gigabyte B560M Aorus Pro, but without having to pay $200 for the privilege. Whether or not that'south possible remains to be seen, but nosotros plan to have some answers for you in an upcoming B560 VRM benchmark feature, which will embrace many more than boards. Until then, it's safer to avoid any sub-$140 Intel B560 motherboards.