At first we would like to thank BIOSTAR for offering their Z790 VALKYRIE LGA1700 Motherboard for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About BIOSTAR:

 

“In 1980, the IT industry was growing at a phenomenal rate. With wide experience in buying and selling electronic parts as well as researching on future demands for mainboards and add-on cards , the founder of BIOSTAR GROUP, established BIOSTAR MICROTECH INTERNATIONAL CORP in 1986.

 

In the early years, BIOSTAR concentrated on the manufacture of mainboards built for XT form factor. To maintain steady business growth, BIOSTAR managed to keep a large portion of its capital and manpower invested on the design and development of new products, which at the same time has enabled it to stay competitive in the rapid evolution of the computer industry.

 

BIOSTAR has enriched its competence in the design and manufacture of products such as add-on cards, multi-media and system products to develop the market and meet the demands of customers for more integrated solutions. In order to expand its capacity to meet customer demand globally, BIOSTAR was the first to establish a manufacturing facility in China in 1990. In 1998, its sales revenues exceeded US$130 million and it ranked 227th among the top 1000 enterprises in Taiwan. Furthermore, BIOSTAR obtained an ISO 9001 certification in 1999 and became a publicly listed company in the same year. BIOSTAR’s future has limitless possibilities.”

 

DDR5

Compared with DDR4, the bandwidth is increased by 50%.

Capacity on a single module whopping 32GBs.

Support dual channels and lower power consumption.

 

PCIe 5.0

A New-Generation transmission technology.

Data transfer rate from 64GB/s PCIe 4.0 to 128GB/s PCIe 5.0 (2 times faster)

PCIe 5.0 can be backward compatible with PCIe 4.0 and previous versions.

 

PCIe 5.0 M.2

PCIe 5.0 M.2 is the latest storage interface, it delivers the highest bandwidth and lower latency.

It's 2 times faster compared with PCIe 4.0 M.2.

 

Digital PWM

Increases system efficiency

Has faster transient performance

Delivers stable power and reliability

 

105A Dr. MOS

Makes you overclock smoothly

Improves thermal performance

Delivers superior efficiency and performance

Combining 3 into a small package, Dr. MOS can reduce switching losses that enables superior efficiency and performance at higher switching frequencies.

 

8-Layer Low-loss PCB Design

Providing stable power and higher energy efficiency, it's able to offer the best overclocking experience.

 

SMART BIOS UPDATE

The easiest way to update the BIOS is provided.

 

LED ROCK ZONE

Offers more colorful lighting options

Supports to a wide array of peripherals

Comes with the RGB 12V LED header and ARGB 5V LED header

 

AURORA Utility

Adjusting the color of LED and changing system colors by VIVID LED DJ will make you fully enjoy the process of PC modding, developing your personal style.

A.I FAN utility smartly allows users to have more customizability of fan operating modes and automatically detects different temperatures.

H/W Monitor tab allows you to monitor hardware voltage, fan speed, and temperature.

 

Smart Update

Biostar Smart Update is a utility that can help users run online update. It can download the drivers for your motherboard from Biostar official website and install them automatically.

 

CPU SUPPORT

Support for 12th/13th Generation Intel Core™ i9/ i7/ i5/ i3 processors and Intel® Pentium processors/ Intel® Celeron processors in the LGA1700 package

MEMORY

Supports Dual Channel DDR5 7200+(OC)/ 7000(OC)/ 6800(OC)/ 6600(OC) / 6400(OC)/ 6200(OC)/ 6000(OC)/ 5800(OC)/ 5600(OC)/ 5400(OC)/ 5200(OC)/ 5000(OC)/ 4800

4 x DDR5 DIMM Memory Slot, Max. Supports up to 128 GB Memory

Each DIMM supports non-ECC 8/ 16/ 32GB DDR5 module

Support for Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

INTEGRATED VIDEO

Supports DX12

Supports HDCP

STORAGE

Total support of 5 x M.2 socket and 8 x SATA III (6Gb/s) ports

8 x SATA III Connector (6Gb/s): supports AHCI, RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 & Intel Rapid Storage Technology

1 x M.2 (M Key) Socket (M2M_CPU1):

Supports M.2 Type 2280 SSD module

Supports PCI-E 5.0 x4 (128Gb/s) - NVMe SSD

1 x M.2 (M Key) Socket (M2M_CPU2):

Supports M.2 Type 2280/ 22110 SSD module

Supports PCI-E 4.0 x4 (64Gb/s) - NVMe SSD

1 x M.2 (M Key) Socket (M2M_SB1):

Supports M.2 Type 2280/ 22110 SSD module

Supports PCI-E 4.0 x4 (64Gb/s) - NVMe SSD

1 x M.2 (M Key) Socket (M2M_SB2):

Supports M.2 Type 2280 SSD module

Supports PCI-E 4.0 x4 (64Gb/s) - NVMe SSD

1 x M.2 (M Key) Socket (M2M_SB3):

Supports M.2 Type 2242/ 2260/ 2280 SSD module

Supports PCI-E 3.0 x4 (32Gb/s) - NVMe/ AHCI SSD & SATA lll (6Gb/s)SSD

* When using SATA SSD module on M.2 slot(M2M_SB3), the SATA_8 connector will be disabled.

* When using PCI-E module on M.2 slot(M2M_CPU1), the PCI-E slot(PCIEx16_2) will be disabled.

* When using PCI-E module on M.2 slot(M2M_CPU1), the PCI-E slot(PCIEx16_1) will become x8.

LAN

Intel I226-V

10/ 100/ 1000/ 2500 Mb/s auto negotiation, Half / Full duplex capability

AUDIO CODEC

Realtek ALC1220

7.1 Channels, High-Definition Audio, Hi-Fi(front/rear)

USB

2 x USB 3.2 (Gen2x2) Type-C port (1 on rear I/O and 1 via internal header)

1 x USB 3.2 (Gen2) Type-C port (1 on rear I/O) with DP 1.2

8 x USB 3.2 (Gen2) port (6 on rear I/O and 2 via internal header)

4 x USB 2.0 port (4 via internal header)

EXPANSION SLOT

1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 Slot (x16 mode / x8 mode)

1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 Slot (x8 mode)

1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 Slot (x4 mode)

REAR I/O

2 x WIFI Antenna Port

1 x HDMI Port (HDMI2.1)

1 x DP Port (DP1.4)

1 x USB 3.2 (Gen2x2) Type-C Port

1 x USB 3.2 (Gen2) Type-C Port with DP

6 x USB 3.2 (Gen2) Port

1 x 2.5 Gigabit LAN port

5 x Audio Jack

1 x SPDIF_Out

1 x SMART BIOS UPDATE Button

1 x SMART BIOS USB Port

INTERNAL I/O

8 x SATA III Connector (6Gb/s)

1 x M.2 (E Key) Socket: Supports 2230 type Wi-Fi & Bluetooth module and IntelGEN2 CNVi

2 x USB 2.0 Header (each header supports 2 USB 2.0 ports)

1 x USB 3.2 (Gen2) Header (each header supports 2 USB 3.2 (Gen2) ports)

1 x USB 3.2 (Gen2x2) Type C Header.

2 x 8-Pin Power Connector

1 x 24-Pin Power Connector

1 x CPU Fan Connector

1 x CPU water cooling connector (CPU_OPT)

4 x System Fan Connector

1 x Front Panel Header

1 x Front Audio Header

1 x Internal Stereo Speaker Header

1 x Clear CMOS Header

1 x COM Port Header

1 x TPM Header

1 x Thunderbolt Header

2 x LED Header (5V)

1 x LED Header (12V)

1 x IO_LED Header

1 x SB_LED Header

* M.2 (E key) Wi-Fi card is not provided

H/W MONITORING

CPU / System Temperature Monitoring

Smart / Manual CPU Fan Control

CPU/DDR Voltage Monitoring

DIMENSION

ATX Form Factor Dimension: 30.5cm x 24.4cm ( W x L )

OS SUPPORT

Supports Windows Windows 10(64bit) / Windows 11(64bit)

ACCESSORIES

4 x SATA Cable

1 x DVD Driver

1 x User Manual

1 x Smart Connector

 

Along with Intel’s 13rd generation of processors (Raptor Lake), a refined chipset version was also launched so now we do have the Z790 available with a lot of motherboards. There are a quite a bit of similarities with the Z690 such as support for DDR4 and DDR5 RAM, memory and CPU overclocking, a maximum of 128GB installable memory, and more! The main differences are the number of PCIe 4.0 lanes which are now 20 instead of 12, the number of PCIe 3.0 lanes which came down from 16 to just 8, while the official memory support went up from about 4800MHz in case of DDR5 memory to 5600MHz, which is great!

With the Z790, Intel Optane Memory support is now gone since Intel has decided to shut down their Optane and 3DXpoint storage division.

 

BIOSTAR does currently have two motherboards sporting the Z790 chipset, the mainstream Z790A-SILVER but also the high-end Z790 VALKYRIE. We will take a closer look at the VALKYRIE model, a series which we have checked out before in its Z690 format, but with DDR4 memory support. The motherboard is shipped inside a rather medium sized but quite heavy cardboard box, sporting the brand color scheme; right from the front, we will note small icons of supported technologies/processors:

 

 

 

On the back side, we will note the main product features, the technical specifications but also the I/O interfaces list, paired with a drawing:

 

 

 

By lifting the top cover, we will note that the mainboard is stored on the top layer, fully wrapped inside an anti-static bag:

 

 

 

Underneath, we will locate the board bundle:

 

 

 

Speaking of the physical bundle, we will note the User’s Manual, a F_PANEL adapter, four SATA cables but also a sticker set:

 

 

 

We get multiple stickers we can attach to our gaming system:

 

 

 

The supplied F_PANEL adapter does help with mounting the necessary cables easier:

 

 

 

 

Along with the manual, we will also receive a disk with the necessary drivers and utilities, but we always recommend using the latest versions from the website:

 

 

 

The manual does explain in-depth the installation procedure, along with the UEFI options we should set:

 

 

 

The Z790 VALKYRIE does come with an impressive number of slots for storage purposes, integrated heatsinks, reinforced slots everywhere, well-placed headers, dedicated buttons for Power/Reset, a LED display for diagnostic purposes, two RGB zones (chipset/VRM area) but also antenna ports for the optional WiFi LAN adapter:

 

 

 

The VRM heatsink in the I/O area is covered by a plastic shroud which also integrates RGB lighting:

 

 

 

The top VRM heatsink comes with a similar design:

 

 

 

The VALKYRIE wings are present on the chipset heatsink, also RGB enabled:

 

 

 

In the top left corner, we do have dual ATX 12V 8-pin headers:

 

 

 

Nearby, we will note the NB7N621M HDMI Control Driver Retimer IC Chip:

 

 

 

The audio interface and LAN controller are covered by a small shield; we are dealing with an ALC1220 7.1 channel hi-def audio CODEC and an Intel I226-V LAN controller with 2.5Gbit capabilities:

 

 

 

A lot of headers are found on the lower area of the board:

 

 

 

From left to right, we will note the F_AUDIO header, two PWM fan headers, a Thunderbolt header, a COM header but also an USB 2.0 header:

 

 

 

Moving on, we will note a secondary USB 2.0 header, the F_PANEL header, the two-digit diagnostic display, a third system fan PWM header, but also a TPM_SPI header:

 

 

 

No less than eight SATA ports are available:

 

 

 

This board is equipped with two BIOSes and a switch to navigate between it; a LED will signal the currently active BIOS and nearby we will also find a Speaker header but also a JSPI header:

 

 

 

An USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C port is available via the internal header, which is joined by the USB 3.2 Gen2 header for two additional ports:

 

 

 

Moving on, we do have the 24-pin ATX power header:

 

 

 

In the top right corner, we will find the fourth system fan PWM header, along with the Power/Reset physical buttons:

 

 

 

Nearby, we do have the two 5V and one 12V RGB headers:

 

 

 

The CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT headers are located between the top VRM area and the memory slots:

 

 

 

The memory slots are reinforced, for more durability:

 

 

 

Near the LGA1700 socket, we will note that BIOSTAR has wrote instructions on how to connect the memory modules, but we will also get to see a serial number sticker:

 

 

 

The Z790 VALKYRIE is equipped with one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot which can function in both x16 and x8 modes, the middle slot is PCIe 5.0 and will run at x8, while the bottom slot is PCIe 4.0 and will run in x4 mode:

 

 

 

After removing all integrated heatsinks, we will expose the M.2 expansion slots:

 

 

 

The top M.2 slot is linked to the CPU, can take 2280 drives and does support PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe SSDs:

 

 

 

On the same line, we will find a M.2 (E Key) slot which supports 2230 formats of WiFi and Bluetooth modules, but also Intel GEN2 CNVi:

 

 

 

The antenna ports are also available here:

 

 

 

The secondary M.2 is linked to the CPU, while the third is linked to the chipset. M2M_CPU2 does support 2280/22110 PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs, same can be said about M2M_SB1:

 

 

 

The fourth M2M_SB2 does come with the same support for 2280 drives, while the last M2M_SB3 does incorporate 2242/2260/2280 support, it comes with PCIe 3.0 x4 support in terms of standards and here we can install both NVMe and SATA drives. When using a SATA SSD on the M2M_SB3 slot, the SATA_8 connector will be disabled, while when using a NVMe drive on the M2M_CPU1 slot, the secondary PCIe 5.0 x16 slot will be disabled:

 

 

 

 

The SuperIO chip on this board is IT8625E:

 

 

 

On the I/O, we will find a Smart BIOS Update button, a HDMI 2.1 port, a DisplayPort 1.4, a Smart BIOS USB port (USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A), a secondary USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port, another USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A pair of ports, an USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C with compatibility for DP 1.2, an USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C port, two more USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports, the audio jacks including Optical S/PDIF port, two WiFi antenna ports but also a 2.5Gbit LAN port:

 

 

 

On the back side of the PCB, we did note a large backplate, to enforce the board even further:

 

 

 

The UEFI interface of the Z790 VALKYRIE board does sport a familiar look, with some monitoring details on the left column, but also various menus in the top area. F5 key will activate the options to modify the fan curves, while F6 will allow configuration of the RGB setup. EZ Mode is also available for fast configuration and on the Main area we will learn more about the current UEFI release, the installed RAM but also can adjust the system language/date/time:

 

 

 

The Advanced menu covers multiple sub-sections:

 

 

Connectivity Options

CPU Configuration

SATA Configuration

WMD Configuration

Thunderbolt Configuration

Trusted Computing

ACPI Settings

 

IT8625 SuperIO Configuration

Hardware Monitor

PCI Subsystem Settings

USB Configuration

Network Stack Configuration

NVMe Configuration

Offboard PCIe SATA Controller

 

Chipset menu holds multiple sections as well:

 

 

System Agent Configuration

PCH-IO Configuration

Onboard Device

 

The Boot menu stores the usual options:

 

 

Security-related options can be found in the next menu:

 

 

Tweaker is the area to go to for modifying the system performance; we do have the ability to alter the CPU speed, choose a memory XMP profile or go straight to custom settings or access more options via the sub-sections:

 

 

Here are the memory timings we can alter right away:

 

 

The voltages for the CPU/memory can be adjusted in more detail:

 

 

Finally, we do have the Save & Exit menu with multiple profile save slots:

 

 

The test system did incorporate the following:

 

CPU: Intel i7-13700K @ Stock

CPU Cooler: be quiet! Silent Loop 2 360mm AIO

Motherboard: BIOSTAR Z790 Valkyrie

RAM: Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-4800 / Sabrent Rocket 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 4800 (6000)

Video: XFX Radeon RX 5700XT Ultra THICC III

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: Sabrent Rocket Q4 NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 2TB

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

With the help of the AIDA64 system reporting/benchmarking utility, we have extracted some more information regarding the system:

 

Motherboard

North Bridge

South Bridge

Network adapters

Audio CODEC

 

 

While the first part of the test was conducted with a Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-4800 memory kit, in the second stage we did use a Sabrent Rocket 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 kit which we did overclock to 6000MHz and note if it holds up in terms of stability:

 

 

BIOSTAR relies again on their Aurora Utility for modifying system settings within Windows OS. Starting with the System Information tab, we will learn about the installed components such as the CPU and memory:

 

 

Smart Ear section does allow the user to adjust the audio volume levels but also the gain level:

 

 

GT Touch menu does make available three different power profiles:

 

 

We will be able to adjust the RGB lighting via the dedicated Vivid LED DJ function:

 

 

We can modify the fan curves for the available headers by using A.I. FAN function:

 

 

System monitoring can be accessed from the H/W Monitor area:

 

 

Certain tweaking options can be modified via the OC/OV section:

 

 

We will be able to check out the software version via the About tab:

 

 

AIDA64

 

Memory

 

CPU Queen

 

CPU PhotoW

CPU Zlib

CPU AES

CPU SHA3

FPU Julia

FPU Mandel

FPU SinJulia

FP32 Ray-Trace

FP64 Ray-Trace

CineBench R15

 

CineBench R20

 

CineBench R23

 

Blender Ryzen Render

 

PCMark 7

 

 

PCMark 10

 

 

Geekbench 5

 

 

 

SuperPI XS

 

X265 Benchmark 1080P 64-bit Normal

 

3DMark Vantage

 

3DMark 11

 

3DMark 2013

 

Unigine Valley Ultra AA Off DX11 FHD

 

Ashes of the Singularity DX12 CPU Focused

 

 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Highest

 

 

The ALC1220 CODEC implementation on the Z790 VALKYRIE is of decent quality, as it can be seen from the following RMAA results, very close to the X670A model from the same manufacturer:

 

 

BIOSTAR Racing X470GT8 16/44

MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC 16/44

ASRock X570 Taichi AM4 16/44

BIOSTAR RACING X570GTA AM4 16/44

BIOSTAR RACING B550GTQ AM4 16/44

BIOSTAR RACING B550GTA AM4 16/44

BIOSTAR RACING B550M-Silver AM4 16/44

BIOSTAR RACING Z690GTA LGA1700 16/44

BIOSTAR Z690A VALKYRIE LGA1700 16/44

EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED LGA1700 16/44

BIOSTAR X670E VALKYRIE AM5 16/44

BIOSTAR Z790 VALKYRIE LGA1700 16/44

 

 

 

 

 

BIOSTAR Racing X470GT8 24/96

MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC 24/96

ASRock X570 Taichi AM4 24/96

BIOSTAR RACING X570GTA AM4 24/96

BIOSTAR RACING B550GTQ AM4 24/96

BIOSTAR RACING B550GTA AM4 24/96

BIOSTAR RACING B550M-Silver AM4 24/96

BIOSTAR RACING Z690GTA LGA1700 24/96

BIOSTAR Z690 VALKYRIE LGA1700 24/96

EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED LGA1700 24/96

BIOSTAR X670E VALKYRIE AM5 24/96

BIOSTAR Z790 VALKYRIE LGA1700 24/96

 

 

While the Z790 VALKYRIE motherboard from BIOSTAR gets sometimes lower scores in benchmarks versus the EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED which has a more mature UEFI, it compensates by having better expansion options (3 full-sized PCIe slots, no less than five M.2 for storage, individually detachable heatsinks, but also quite a bit of headers). It incorporates a 20-phase design, shielded slots, a lot of headers for fans and USB ports but also a debug LED display for signaling errors.

 

In our tests, 6000MHz RAM was fully doable, even when working with a non-XMP kit and adjusting the necessary settings via UEFI interface. The RGB setup and fan curves can be configured from both UEFI and the Windows Aurora application, while the whole PCB assembly is protected from bending via the massive backplate in the back.

 

While testing the board, we noted a big performance difference in performance while running the X265 encoding workload, but this one requires HPET to be used in Windows OS and noted that some boards do not work well in this mode (felt an additional slowness in Windows animations as well). Reverting to non-HPET mode got everything back to normal in terms of performance.

 

The UEFI interface is easy to use, and we do have plenty of configuration options to adjust the system performance. While the last BIOS from the website was pumping too much voltage to the processor causing it to shutdown, we received right away an updated version which was built on 30.11.2022 and brought the VCore back to about 1.357V, while obtaining much safer temperatures in full load such as Cinebench rendering. Around the same time, we noted that the EVGA board we have tested it against was having a similar bug, which was also fixed with the 2.05 UEFI update.

 

The BIOSTAR Z790 VALKYRIE could be found online for about 487 Euros at the moment of the review.

BIOSTAR Z790 VALKYRIE LGA1700 Motherboard is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank BIOSTAR for making this review possible!