B450 or X470 Mobo recommendations for new build

Retsam

Retsam

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So... I have finally decided to upgrade my old trusty i5-2500k I have had since 2011. I guess I am going to the dark side and going ryzen 3600 since they seem to be the best bang 4 buck. I have not been in the computer geek world for a while. I am looking for some help with all the different motherboards out now.

I am debating between B450 or X470 motherboards. Which are best and stable? Is X470 better than B450? Any particular brands? I am usually in the Asus or MSI camp, but maybe Asrock. I want stable though.

I do game a little but not much anymore.

I may overclock but havnt decided yet. I do not need a billion features but I do want the basics. I do not run any m.2 drives but I do run SATA SSD.

I just want some proven motherboard recommendations for a stable and fast 3600 build. I am also looking to stay under $180 or so for a motherboard.
 
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Asus midrange X470 boards are decent. Try the X470 PRIME Pro

MSI boards were good till they screwed over the BIOS trying to get the older boards Ryzen 3rd gen compatible. If/When the issues are worked out then there should be no problem.

For older, non X570 boards, you'll need to have the shop flash the board though to the latest BIOS version to be compatible with the 3rd gens though.
 
Whats wrong with MSI boards bios? I was actually looking at MSI.
 
DrLobotomy said:
New chip deserves new chipset.
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Straight outta Intel marketing. My 2 cents would be that the 40mm fan isn't worth PCI-E 4.0 at this point in time.
Retsam said:
Whats wrong with MSI boards bios? I was actually looking at MSI.
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B450 Tomahawk is/was having lots of issues with Ryzen, last I checked. Might not be a problem with all boards. Google.

Retsam said:
I am debating between B450 or X470 motherboards. Which are best and stable? Is X470 better than B450? Any particular brands? I am usually in the Asus or MSI camp, but maybe Asrock. I want stable though.

I do game a little but not much anymore.

I may overclock but havnt decided yet. I do not need a billion features but I do want the basics. I do not run any m.2 drives but I do run SATA SSD.

I just want some proven motherboard recommendations for a stable and fast 3600 build. I am also looking to stay under $180 or so for a motherboard.
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I just upgraded from 2500k also. Best overclocking performance is automatic now, and you'll want a decent aftermarket CPU HSF, because CPUs are boosting like GPUs now and temps are one of the limiting factors. Also adjust the fan speed curve in BIOS if possible to manage the very frequent speed (read: noise pitch) fluctuations.

I suggest getting an NVME SSD - the 1tb inland premium from the hot deals forum would be my suggestion.

As for mobos, Main issue might be BIOS flashback capability to get the 3600 working. You can have AMD send you a loaner CPU to flash, or, maybe wait and see what MSI does with the B450 Tomahawk BIOS; that really is a nice board.

Apart from that, literally anything should work for you. At sub $180, I like the Gigabyte X470 Ultra Gaming or Gaming 5, or Asus Prime X470-Pro. B450 will work also (and overclock); Strix B450 ([H] review of mATX version) and Aorus pro wifi, etc.

If you have to choose between X470 or B450 plus NVME, I'd take B450 plus NVME.
 
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Yeah thanks for your input. Well, from doing research there are more than just the single B450 Tomahawk out now even from MSI. And from what I understand the MSI boards allow you to flash the bios without a cpu, which I might need. Or of course a loner cpu however that works. I believe only MSI has this capability.

I guess part of all this is, I do not run any M.2 drives as of yet and I dont need wifi or any of that crap. I do want quality parts and if I did decide to OC maybe I want the ability to do so. So quality VRM and cooling is a consideration. I also want to make sure the onboard sound and network card are good and I dont know which much about that atm. I was trying to pick a board with a PCI slot for my Sound blaster audigy zs platinum sound card I have had for a while, but I dont think that is a going to happen since they all seemed to drop PCI slots.

I do not think X570 is worth it right now, so I wont be going that route. I tend to stay away from Gigabyte so they are out. Its going to have to be MSI, Asus or Asrock.

I just bought a 1TB Samsung Evo SATA SSD not that long ago, so I will probably be sticking with that for the moment.

I guess part of my issue deciding is what features I want now and what features I might need for the future, which makes picking B450 vs X470 more difficult. I do only need a single GPU and I would love to save money if possible but I also want to make sure I am not losing performance aspects going to B450 vs X470. I do game some and I might considering OCing a bit. The price difference is not that great necessarily between B450 and X470.
 
Overclocking Ryzen 3000 series processors is a waste of time and often leads to lower performance. Their boost algorithm already takes full advantage of what the CPU can do. About the only place you might be able to squeeze a tiny bit of extra performance is with memory and fclk tweaking but even that is largely only beneficial for synthetic benchmarks.

I would checkout some of Buildzoids X470 reviews before making a final decision, he goes pretty in-depth when it comes to VRMs but keep in mind he often talks from the perspective of LN2 overclocking so if he harps in a particular VRM design, just keep it in perspective and don’t automatically dismiss the board. For example, BZ is less than thrilled with the VRM layout in the Gigabyte X470 Gaming 5 board, my cousin is running one mated to a 2700x with no issues at all, and that CPU uses quite a bit more power than a 3600.
 
If you don't mind waiting a bit, MSI is going to release MAX versions of some of their X470 and B450 boards, including the Tomahawk. The MAX versions are updated for out of the box Ryzen 3000 support. (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-TOMAHAWK-MAX)

I agree with others who don't want an X570 board for Ryzen 2 because of the additional onboard fan required, and the possible addition of noise.
 
waderunner said:
If you don't mind waiting a bit, MSI is going to release MAX versions of some of their X470 and B450 boards, including the Tomahawk. The MAX versions are updated for out of the box Ryzen 3000 support. (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-TOMAHAWK-MAX)

I agree with others who don't want an X570 board for Ryzen 2 because of the additional onboard fan required, and the possible addition of noise.
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That sounds great. When are those max boards coming out? What are the additions of the "max" boards? Hopefully not just the 3000 support. MSI boards seem to already allow you to bios flash without a cpu so that isnt a huge issue for me.


RamonGTP said:
Overclocking Ryzen 3000 series processors is a waste of time and often leads to lower performance. Their boost algorithm already takes full advantage of what the CPU can do. About the only place you might be able to squeeze a tiny bit of extra performance is with memory and fclk tweaking but even that is largely only beneficial for synthetic benchmarks.

I would checkout some of Buildzoids X470 reviews before making a final decision, he goes pretty in-depth when it comes to VRMs but keep in mind he often talks from the perspective of LN2 overclocking so if he harps in a particular VRM design, just keep it in perspective and don’t automatically dismiss the board. For example, BZ is less than thrilled with the VRM layout in the Gigabyte X470 Gaming 5 board, my cousin is running one mated to a 2700x with no issues at all, and that CPU uses quite a bit more power than a 3600.
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Yeah. I did check out one of buildzoids reviews already, but it will check out some more. I havnt like definitely decided on ocing for the reasons you just listed so... I may not bother.
 
I believe some of the MAX boards have already shipped in the UK. http://reddit.com/r/msi_gaming would be a place to check for updates on availability. or just camp on newegg.

I believe the MAX boards are identical to the predecessors, just with an updated BIOS. I don't know if they went with a larger BIOS chip or not, which was an issue for some of the x470 / b450 boards out there.

I also wonder whether they'll be some price gouging on these at the beginning. MSRP is supposed to be the same. Or whether they'll be a price drop on the pre-MAX versions of the boards.

Unfortunately, no MAX version of their B450 itx, which is the board I recently bought, and hope to run a 3400g on.
 
waderunner said:
I believe some of the MAX boards have already shipped in the UK. http://reddit.com/r/msi_gaming would be a place to check for updates on availability. or just camp on newegg.

I believe the MAX boards are identical to the predecessors, just with an updated BIOS. I don't know if they went with a larger BIOS chip or not, which was an issue for some of the x470 / b450 boards out there.

I also wonder whether they'll be some price gouging on these at the beginning. MSRP is supposed to be the same. Or whether they'll be a price drop on the pre-MAX versions of the boards.

Unfortunately, no MAX version of their B450 itx, which is the board I recently bought, and hope to run a 3400g on.
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Yeah I did a little reading on it. It looks like they have a bigger bios to accommodate some of the other issues I guess, as well as faster ram speeds and of course out of box compatibility for ryzen 3 series.


Thanks for the input. I was in no rush to upgrade anyways, and with this new MAX board news I am going to hold up upgrading until later this year. I will wait for Q4 I think.
 
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