B850M-X [WiFi] quick review.

Yeah, it's a tricky thing to navigate. I chose to remove the link rather than ban
and delete, just in case, but I am pretty sure it's just a spam bot.

Generally I check the IP and account details, if it's posted with any of the
VPNs I have blacklisted or has a bunch of website links in the info I just delete
the account.

Where did this "unofficial 160W limit" thing come from?

ASRock lists 170W TDP / 230W PPT processors in their official "CPU Support List:"
https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/B850M-X%20WiFi/index.asp#CPU

Now, the board does have fairly minimal VRM setup, but it should be adequate. You just wouldn't want to run this in all liquid cooling setup with inadequate airflow over the VRM heatsinks.

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ASRock does provide "Software/BIOS Setup Guide" here:
https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/B850M-X%20WiFi/index.asp#Manual

But it's probably not all that meaningful. You'd get way more info from watch a video like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C7P-V05SgQ

Except for 20-series chipset boards (A520, etc.) that disable overclocking, I imagine most boards have similar features, even if organized a bit differently.

So it is possible that putting 170W TDP CPUs on these things will get you lower performance than can be obtained on a more premium motherboard.

That is good to know.

It's not useful to me, because even if I had a 9950X3D or something, I'd run it with all BOOST disabled and TDP set to 105W or at most 120W.

I'm just weird that way. I mean, how many people do you know who runs their 9800X3D at 65W TDP (88W PPT) mode? In fact, after experimenting with DRAM settings, I settled on 5200MT/s, even though I have 5600MT/s DIMMs.

The IOD's voltage (and therefore its power consumption) is closely tied to UCLK (memory controller clock). Running it as 2800MHz (1:1 for 5600MT/s) requires close to 1.2V for SOC, at least for the chip I have. Running it at 1:2 (1400MHz) dropped that to under 0.9V. SOC power consumption dropped by like half! For someone running it at 65W TDP, that's a lot of power that can be given to the Cores instead.

But I didn't want to run 1:2 mode, so settled on 2600MHz UCLK (1:1 for 5200MT/s), which set the VSOC at just over 1.1V.