Intel's 12th generation Core debuted 6 K-series processors that can be overclocked, with the flagship Z690 motherboard, and its powerful performance has been praised by players. However, for mainstream players, in fact, more attention is paid to the B660 known for its super cost performance, after all, every "6" must be sweet from the Intel 300 series motherboard has been maintained the fine tradition, especially in the B560 generation also open memory overclocking, it seems more valuable. Finally, Intel officially unbanned the non-K series of 12th generation Core processors and B660 motherboard chips on January 5, and GIGABYTE, as the core partner of Intel, also released its B660 product line at the first time, of which the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER and the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4, the design and materials are the benchmark in the commercially available B660 motherboard, this test we received is the support for 5600 MHz high frequency DDR4 memory super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4.
Click on the video to learn about the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER
B660 Top Flagship! Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 material design double first-class
B660 as a motherboard chip for mainstream users, compared to the flagship Z690 to remove the processor overclocking function, but retain the memory overclocking function, in addition, in the most concerned PCIe 4.0, PCIe 3.0 and USB 3.2 Gen2×2 channels, the B660 is exactly the opposite Z690 halved (but plus the processor straight out of the PCIe 4.0 channels, but also enough onboard 3 or more M.2 slots, such as two PCIe 4.0 × 4 Plus a PCIe 3.0×4 is guaranteed, and some motherboards can also have an additional PCIe 4.0 ×2 M.2 slot). Overall, the B660's specifications are completely adequate for mainstream users who do not play processor overclocking, and the cost performance is very prominent.
As the top flagship in the B660, the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 can be said to spare no effort in terms of stacking. The motherboard is equipped with 16+1+1 phase digital power supply, of which the CPU power supply part uses 60A Dr.MOS chip (with NCP81530 PWM chip), the total output can reach 960A, even if it is to cope with the full core full load of Core i9 12900K there is no problem, and there will be no overheating and frequency reduction for a long time. At the same time, the motherboard also uses a 2-ounce copper PCB board, which has better electrical performance and anti-interference ability.
Of course, the powerful power supply circuit will also be paired with a powerful heat dissipation system, the VRM part of the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is equipped with a one-piece molded ultra-thick heat sink, and the composite trenching design provides a larger heat dissipation area, coupled with high-quality thermal conductivity pads to provide higher heat dissipation efficiency. Of course, the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is not only a VRM part of the heat dissipation strong, it also provides a large area of extended thermal armor for the M.2 mounting position, considering that the 3 M.2 slots on the motherboard support high-performance SSDs with considerable performance and heat generation (two PCIe 4.0×4, a PCIe 3.0×4), so such a powerful thermal design is indeed necessary. In addition, the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is also equipped with a Smart Fan 6 cooling system (8 hybrid fan sockets + 7 built-in temperature sensors + 2 external temperature sensors), which supports intelligent fan control and facilitates players to create a powerful chassis cooling system.
The biggest selling point of B660 is of course to support memory overclocking, Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 from the model point of view is the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 memory version, in the exquisite trace and daisy chain architecture design, it can easily support DDR4 5600+ frequency, considering that the current price of DDR5 is still high, Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 motherboard with AORUS DDR4 High-frequency DDR4 memory like the 4800 also offers performance on par with the DDR5 4800 platform (latency performance is even better), making it a cost-effective solution.
Peripheral and interface parts, Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 onboard Intel 2.5 Gigabit network card and WIFI 6 AX201 wireless network card, ALC1220-VB audio chip (with high-quality audio dedicated capacitors to provide audiophile audio experience), Type-C USB 3.2 Gen2×2 20Gbps high-speed interface, is completely the standard configuration of high-end flagships.
On the whole, the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is a super flagship that has reached the top level in materials and design, plus a price of 1699 yuan, which can be called a super cost-effective choice for enjoying the flagship in one step. Next, let's take a look at its actual performance.
Eagle Family flagship B660 performance combat! Worthy of the king of desserts
Test platform
Processor: Core i5 12400(ES)
Core i9 12900K
Motherboard: Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4
Memory: AORUS DDR4 3600 8GB×2
AORUS DDR4 4800 8GB×2
Graphics: Gigabyte Eagle RTX 3090 GAMING OC 24G
Hard disk: GIGABYTE Gold Eagle Gen4 1TB
Power supply: GIGABYTE Battle Saint II. 1000W
Operating system: Windows 11 Pro
In this test, we first chose the "Golden Dessert Combination" of Core i5 12400 and Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4, which is believed to be the most concerned board U collocation by mainstream players. Secondly, we also selected the Core i9 12900K to test the power supply and heat dissipation capabilities of the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4. In addition, the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is a B660 motherboard that supports DDR4, so in addition to using DDR4 3600 memory in standard tests, we have also added compatibility and stability tests for high-frequency memory such as DDR4 4800, which is also a rigorous test for the electrical performance of flagship B660 motherboards.
Let's take a look at this Core i5 12400 processor, although it is recognized as the ES version (actually the QS version), but there is no difference between the specifications and the retail version. It has 6 cores and 12 threads, 6 cores are performance cores, the base frequency is 2.5GHz, the highest turbo frequency is 4.4 GHz, the full core turbo frequency is 4 GHz, the L2 cache is 1.25MB×6, the shared 18MB L3 cache, the TDP is 65W, and the maximum acceleration power is 117W. Compared with the K series Core i5 12600K, 4 energy efficiency cores have been removed, some frequencies have been reduced, overclocking functions have been removed, and the price is more affordable, suitable for mainstream users who do not play overclocking. Next, let's enter the practical test section, we chose the same 6 core 12 threads of the Ryzen™ 5600X for comparison (in the test, the multi-core enhancement of the motherboard is turned on by default to unlock the TDP, so the Core i5 12400 full core maximum turbo frequency is 4GHz, while the Ryzen™ 5600X is 4.6GHz).
Benchmark performance tests
Even if the highest turbo frequency is only 4.4GHz, most of the single-core basic test scores of the Core i5 12400 are significantly higher than those of the Ryzen 5600X, and the advantages are still obvious, only in the 3DMark CPU single-threaded test, the two are basically drawn. In the multi-threaded part, the two win and lose, the Core i5 12400 is more dominant in the Cinebench R20/R23 multi-threaded test, and the other tests are Ryzen 5600X leading.
Productivity performance testing
From the productivity test, in the WebXPRT web browsing performance test that eats single-core performance, the Core i5 12400 and the Ryzen 5 5600X are almost equal, only about 1% difference, considering that the maximum acceleration frequency of the Ryzen 5 5600X is 4.6GHz, which is 200MHz higher than the Core i5 12400, which shows that the performance kernel efficiency of the Golden Cove architecture is indeed very competitive. In the rendering test of multi-core performance, the Core i5 12400 is generally slightly lower than the Ryzen 5600X, but considering that its full core frequency is only 4GHz, which is much lower than the 4.6GHz of the Ryzen 5600X, its core efficiency is still very high.
Game performance testing
In terms of gaming, the Core i5 12400 and the Ryzen™ 5600X have a significant difference in frame rates in their respective games. We know that the Golden Cove architecture has greatly increased the L2 cache, while the ZEN3 architecture has focused on adding the L3 cache, so the frame rate performance will vary greatly in games with different cache requirements. Among the mainstream games we tested, the Core i5 12400 led by Far Cry 6, Galactic Rupturers, Horizon 4, and Red Dead Redemption 2, with Far Cry 6 and Galactic Rupture having a very large advantage, up to 28%. The Ryzen 5 5600X also has a larger advantage in World of Warcraft: Shadowland, reaching 21%. It can be seen that when players choose, they can see what kind of games they play most often and then make a decision.
In general, the Core i5 12400, as Intel's new product against the Ryzen 5600X, is indeed very advantageous in terms of single-core performance, while the multi-core performance is on the same level in general, the game performance is also mutually winning and losing, and the overall strength is basically drawn. If you take into account the price of the processor, then the advantages of the Core i5 12400 are more prominent, if you match the B660 or the lower price of the H610 (from its full load of about 85W power consumption, the ordinary H610 can also hold, with the power supply of the extremely luxurious super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 and its partner is a bit oversized), but also to the Ryzen 5 5600X with B550 or A520 combination of a lot of pressure.
Power supply and heat dissipation performance
Even with the Core i9 12900K test machine, the VRM MOS temperature of the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is only 67 °C
The Core i9 12900K delivers performance on the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 without losing the DDR5 edition of the flagship Z690
Let's take a look at our Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 motherboard. Although mainstream players generally think that core i5 plus B660 is a golden partner, but in fact, the positioning of B660 is originally a "sub-flagship" motherboard, in addition to not supporting overclocking, in theory, it and any 12th generation Core processor with is no problem, of course, the premise is that the power supply and heat dissipation to pass. Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 Since it is the "stacking king" in B660, we naturally have higher requirements for it, so we chose the Core i9 12900K to examine its power supply and heat dissipation.
From the perspective of the test machine, when the processor is fully loaded with power consumption remains at about 220W, after half an hour of continuous testing, the temperature of the VRM MOS is only 67 ° C, which shows that the 16+1+1 phase digital power supply of the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 and the thick VRM heat dissipation armor are indeed quite powerful. In addition, we also examined the performance release of the processor, from the short-term burst of CPU-Z and the long-term performance release of the Cinebench R23 test, the Core i9 12900K on the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 has no problem at all, and the difference in test scores with Z690 DDR5 motherboards is extremely small.
Since even top flagships such as the Core i9 12900K can easily hold, the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is more comfortable with other 12th-generation Cores (the Core i5 12400 Runs Cinebench R23 test machine has a full load of about 85W of power consumption, and it also runs less than 117W of PL2). In short, if you don't need to overclock the processor, the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is the ultimate solution that can be perfectly paired with any 12th generation Core processor.
High-frequency memory testing
Because the current DDR5 memory price is still relatively high, mainstream players prefer the 12th generation Core with DDR4 version of the 600 series motherboard, for which AORUS launched the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4, and thanks to the excellent tradition of excellent electrical performance of the MASTER series motherboard, the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 support for high-frequency memory is also very outstanding, the official claim can support the highest DDR4 5600 + high-frequency memory. Of course, too high-end DDR4 memory is not easy to buy, so we used a pair of DDR4 4800 8GB×2 memory sets from AORUS for experience, which is also a flagship DDR4 high-frequency memory that is relatively easy to buy in the market. Judging from the measured results, due to the advantages of DDR4 memory in terms of timing, the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 with DDR4 4800 memory, whether it is read, write or delay, the performance is significantly better than the same frequency of DDR5 4800 memory, especially the delay, which is about 27% lower, which is more helpful for improving game performance.
Summary: The 12th generation of Core "gold installing board" is coming, choose the eagle B660 pile material king performance is strong and reliable!
Here's a quick summary. Everyone is looking forward to the Core i5 12400 + B660 value dessert combination finally officially debuted, from the actual measurement point of view, Core i5 12400 comprehensive performance basically equal the competitor Ryzen 5 5600X, and it only has about 85W of the actual combat full load power consumption for the motherboard Requirements are also relatively broad, for players with limited budgets is more friendly, the future become the mainstream dessert installation star is inevitable.
In terms of B660 motherboard, in fact, it is not only for the Core i5 12400, after all, from the specification point of view, it only removes the overclocking function and reduces the number of high-speed interfaces relative to the Z690, and the player who does not overclock use it with the high-end flagship processor is also a very reasonable combination (but this has higher requirements for the power supply, heat dissipation, high-frequency memory compatibility, etc. of the motherboard).
At the same time, we can see that the B660 product line of major manufacturers spans a large range, from the mainstream to the flagship, and the super eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is one of the flagship benchmarks, 16 +1 +1 phase digital power supply plus a strong heat dissipation design, so that it can stably support Core i9 12900K full load operation, while the measured with DDR4 4800 memory is also no pressure, the performance is not lost at all Z690 flagship platform. Therefore, for players who want to build a top performance platform, but do not need to play processor overclocking, the flagship B660 motherboard such as the Super Eagle B660 AORUS MASTER DDR4 is indeed worth prioritizing.
In addition, it can be seen from the table that GIGABYTE has launched 14 B660 motherboards, and the level of power supply and cooling stacking is among the best in the same level of products, of which 6 support DDR5 memory, and the others are DDR4 memory versions. For enthusiast players, the 16+1+1 powered Super Eagle (MASTER) with Core i9 and Core i7 can be preferred, performance level players can choose 12+1+1 powered Eagle PRO with Core i7 and Core i5, and mainstream players can consider the 8+1+1 powered Magic Eagle series (GAMING X) with Core i7 and Core i5. Of course, most of these motherboards are divided into versions with or without WIFI and ATX and micro-ATX, and everyone can choose according to their actual needs.