Ideas and suggestions for new Ryzen board...

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Elf_Boy

2[H]4U
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Nov 16, 2007
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Looking for a x370 mobo

I like Asus, have had decent luck with them.

I would like more than one m.2 sockets on board... I dont think Asus is doing that.

I play more MMO's than anything, ESO all by it's lonesome is taking 106gb. I can take 50 ish off by not having the Public test realm, it does kinda sneak back when I want to check out new game features early.

Wildstar, which I have not played much but would like to explore a bit more only 12 gb.

If I get the WOW itch again another 50+ gb.

Path of exile 12 gb (and they are adding 6 more acts soon)

The Secret World I dont know how they do it under 2 GB

All of the above really really appreciate a fast load time. And that is only a partial list.

After adding windows my poor 500gb m.2 will be so very full. Which is why I want to be able to do at least 2. Prob save for a 960gb+

How do the PCIE drives compare? Either the m.2 adapter or the full on NVME drives?

Any PCIE cards with multiple m.2 sockets?

Anyone else in a similar situation? How are you going with fast gamer space plus bulk data storage?

Lets not get me started on my steam folders.... Not that all the Steam Crap needs fast storage to play well.
 
Welll, I may have some disappointing news for you. However, there is hope; if the ASUS Republic of Gamers has more powerful sorceror designers than Gigabyte.


Download the Gigabyte GA-AX370-GAMING 5 manual. The Gaming 5 is Gigabyte's competition for ASUS' RoG Crosshair VI Hero. Its' manual is available for download, ASUS' is not. Go to page 29. Analyze the table titled "PCIe bandwidth table For RYZEN series processors".


Ryzen is a big improvement over anything else AMD is selling. The AMD table that follows the Ryzen table says the other AMD AM4 chips do NOT even have one group of PCIe lanes available to support one Gen 3.0 PCIe x16 video card.


So, enough avoiding the facts. The table says Ryzen (even the 1800X) has 20 Gen 3.0 PCIe lanes and seven Gen 2.0 PCIe lanes.

That's enough for one totally awesome video card in x16 mode; OR, two in SLI, or Crossfire, x8/x8 mode. Plus, one extreme M.2 SSD, or a U.2 SSD. Those components would populate all 20 Gen 3.0 PCIe lanes. Note, I just said that two, or three, parts can occupy ALL 20 of the current best available PCIe data lines on a Ryzen CPU.

Four of the seven Gen 2.0 PCIe lanes can support Gen 2.0 x4 operation of a Gen 2.0 (or newer) device fitted into the third x16 card slot. (I think that I would choose a physics card); OR, an M.2 device operating at upto Gen 2.0 x4. And, there are three Gen 2.0 PCIe x1 clots.


So there it is. The F-20 Tigershark of PCs. Possibilities of greatness with a limited options sheet.


I don't think an X370/Ryzen system can beat down a well thought out Intel LGA2011-v3 system's potential benchmarks.


But; if you think of Intel LGA2011-v.3 systems as Bentleys and Ryzen X370 systems as Lotuses, then your cheaper Lotus might be a lot more fun to drive when comparing total cost of operation vs the possibility of "ABSOLUTE WORLD DOMINATION".



Back to your original question about Ryzen based storage.

One Ryzen can support upto eight SATA drives. Gigabyte put six connectors on their board. I have seen eight on others; BUT, read the fine print.


There are only so many PCIe lanes and your hardware choices will determine whether they are going to work, or not. As an example, the Gigabyte board offers one configuration that enables the board's U.2 port, both M.2 ports, the PCIe Gen 2.0 x4/x16 slot and four of the six SATA ports. The other two SATA ports would be dead.

Oh! And the M.2 ports would both be operating in SATA 6 gb/s mode. I leave you with a message from an old guy in an old movie.


"But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you."
 
I'm a little bit disappointed in the lack of options myself, I had wrongly assumed a while ago that the 8 cores would bring similar amounts of extra inputs like the 2011's. I don't like to be limited in future options, but in saying that I haven't used what I already have. I guess that's how they reduce the cost, put more into IPC and reduce power overall. I think AMD had a look at the gamers and enthusiast markets, and found a spot to fit right in and compete with both ends of Intels market. Genius really. Looking at my 3960X now and seeing what I have in it, everything will fit in perfectly to the Ryzen rig without having to do x8 modes etc, but had I been a SLi user, I might have been persuaded to wait for SkyLake X.
 
Ok, so I think I'm a bit salty on preordering the Titanium. From what I can gather, it doesn't have same high quality VRM as Intel counterparts, doesn't include the backplate, costs more than Intel counterpart and has less overall than the Intel counterpart. Phases are 6+4 apparently for the final model, while it will still be premium, I'm guessing they are going with cheaper R22 inductors than the Ti ones, even the board on their main page has this (why would you market it with them if you were changing to Ti ones?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the way it seems. Maybe this is part of Intel dirty tricks, gimp the AMD boards lol.
 
I see that board supports 2 M.2 and 1 U.2.

Have not read much on M/U.2. I was just see that some U.2 drives are stackable. That seems like a pretty nifty way to eliminate cables.

2 x m.2 drives along with whatever u.2 and a lone 4tb sata drive sounds good to me.
 
I was going to go with the Asus Crosshair, but in hindsight, I think the Asrock Taichi, or even the Fatality Professional would be better. Same or better power delivery, better LAN, and more M2 sockets. Asus does have way more USB ports tho. Pick your poison I think but I'm leaning towards the Asrock boards just due to feature sets. Also saw some video on youtube, Australian reviewer stating he was having issues with the Asus board. I've rode the bleeding edge with Asus and it's been painful in the past with crappy release bios's. I suppose any maker can have that, just my experiences.
 
Officially converted my preorder to the ASRock Taichi. MSI is too ambiguous about the X370. Gonna start a thread
 
Elf_Boy said:
I see that board supports 2 M.2 and 1 U.2.

Have not read much on M/U.2. I was just see that some U.2 drives are stackable. That seems like a pretty nifty way to eliminate cables.

2 x m.2 drives along with whatever u.2 and a lone 4tb sata drive sounds good to me.
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One of the m.2 sockets is tied to the u.2 and a PCIe slot. So you can't stack those. Still nice to have options.
 
Trimlock said:
One of the m.2 sockets is tied to the u.2 and a PCIe slot. So you can't stack those. Still nice to have options.
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How very old school.

I was expecting that.

Like the good 'ol IRQ conflicts between slots.
 
SsmB_92 said:
Officially converted my preorder to the ASRock Taichi. MSI is too ambiguous about the X370. Gonna start a thread
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Will check that out.

-Edit-

Have checked it out.

Nice feature set.
 
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Elf_Boy said:
How very old school.

I was expecting that.

Like the good 'ol IRQ conflicts between slots.
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Can't have too many options, they only have 8 PCIe lanes going to the chipset and these are tied to the USB, sound card, NIC, SATA and other ports.
 
SsmB_92 said:
Officially converted my preorder to the ASRock Taichi. MSI is too ambiguous about the X370. Gonna start a thread
Click to expand...

Was about to get that one myself, but ended up ordering the fatal1ty as its pretty similar but that black and red theme its perfect match to my Red Devil 480 ;)
 
Elf_Boy said:
I am curious. Why? Have a faulty board?

I see this one sold out everywhere I have looked.
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I've been tempted before by their advertisement of VRM's and other support but it's usually coming in at a price from either under rated parts, super thin board or buggy solftware/unreliable software.

The Taichi is tempting but I'd rather buy the over priced Titanium.
 
Trimlock said:
I've been tempted before by their advertisement of VRM's and other support but it's usually coming in at a price from either under rated parts, super thin board or buggy solftware/unreliable software.

The Taichi is tempting but I'd rather buy the over priced Titanium.
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The feature list is hard to ignore.

I usually go with Asus.

They are not perfect. They do get Bios fixes out fast though.
 
Elf_Boy said:
On my non negotiable list is two m.2 ports.

I dont care that the second one is only a mere 20gb/s instead of 32.
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Well on x370 one has to be PCIe 2.0. I'd like to get the option for a u.2 and m.2, right now the MSI titanium is it.
 
When I first looked at the Asus boards, some info was prerelease, they all lsited one m.2.

Now they are listing 2.

Other boards are listing one at PCIE 3.0 the other 2.0.

Asus is listing 1 PCIE 3.0 x4 the other PCIE 3.0 X2.

Oh well thats BS and confusing.

One listing is for Ryzen the other is for if you use the APU.
 
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Elf_Boy said:
When I first looked at the Asus boards, some info was prerelease, they all lsited one m.2.

Now they are listing 2.

Other boards are listing one at PCIE 3.0 the other 2.0.

Asus is listing 1 PCIE 3.0 x4 the other PCIE 3.0 X2.

Oh well thats BS and confusing.

One listing is for Ryzen the other is for if you use the APU.
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Yea that's the Pro Prime board. The APU apparently has limited PCIe unlike RyZen which has 4 lanes dedicated to the m.2.

That listing was super confusing, got me excited though lol was about to buy it and buy a dual gig NIC so I can use teaming.
 
That M.2 drive looks nice.

Trying to order my MOBO the last few days and any of the 1/2 way decent boards are sold out.

What can anyone tell me about this?

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboard-Accessory/Hyper_Express/

Looks like it supports 2 * M.2 slots, only at 10MB/S though. Better then Reg sata. Not so good as even the PCIE 2.0 X4 M.2 slots which are 20 MB/S.

Supports raid 0 I think. Really all that would be good for is consolidating two ssd into one volume.

I didnt know Sata express went that fast, if it was using two ports I would expect 12 MB/S though.

Didnt see a price either.
 
SATAe really goes as fast as the bus it's connected to, those drives are good but ultimately wasted. You are spending a lot of money on a rather exotic set of NAND only to handicap it.
 
Trimlock said:
SATAe really goes as fast as the bus it's connected to, those drives are good but ultimately wasted. You are spending a lot of money on a rather exotic set of NAND only to handicap it.
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Looking at the specs, it supports M.2 SATA not m.2 nvme

the m.2 sata is cheaper.
 
Trimlock said:
I wouldn't purchase refurbished SSD's, especially that cheap. Just asking for trouple. :)



Cheaper, yes but are they cheaper than traditional SATA SSD?
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I get what your saying about refurbished equipment.

In many cases the items were simply returned, unopened and just cant be sold as new legally.

I have had some good luck with them over the years. Refurbished items in general, that is. I've had more issues with items purchased as new.

With the Asus drive bay thing, standard SSD's may well be cheaper. I havnt looked. This does allow for sticking two SSDs into 1 external drive bay and use one cable. The space savings and not needing internal 2.5/3.5 bays is, I think, the big point.

Really have to look up the price though.
 
Trimlock said:
I have a hard time recommending any ASrock product, but based on features it's pretty rock solid.
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Not sure about their low end, but their premium lines, fatal1ty, extreme, taichi are pretty solid boards amd reliable..
 
This is even better then the Asus drive bay thing.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...gclid=CICSyJ-GytICFRCZfgodtAcLnw&gclsrc=aw.ds

I was kinda wanting to go ROG this time around. Seem like a pretty nice feature list with the sole exception of a second m.2 for storage.

After looking at the boards again I take that back.

The card is still nice, it is just to use it in any of the new Ryzen boards you need to put it in the PCIE 2.0 and lose speed or the second Pcie 3.0 and cut you GPU down to X8 (and forever swear off SLI) because every other slot in any of these boards is X1 2.0. Suppose that still works for a sound card.

Nice product that is not really useable in current gen AMD systems.

Do Intel boards have enough PCIE 3.0 x4+ slots?
 
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It's not, it even has lacking OC features when compared to the gigabyte boards. Lots of fluff, if you want to spend get the Crosshair.
 
Shame Taichi cannot be found in stock, thats my choice. Good balance of features and good price.
 
SliceT said:
Shame Taichi cannot be found in stock, thats my choice. Good balance of features and good price.
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Ya!

I am holding out for either the Taichi or the equivalent Fatal1ty.

I was ok with the MSI boards features. Not the price though. Prob why I keep finding it in stock. I wonder if the claims of better memory compatibility are factual.
 
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