B550 vs x570 long term?

[StoleMyOwnCar]

For long term use, what are the main drawbacks to the B550 platform vs X570?

I recently replaced my TUF GAMING X570-PRO to the TUF GAMING B550-PLUS WIFI II because of the crappy ethernet adapter found in the former. The Microcenter clerk recommended it as a replacement because it had a 2.5 gig ethernet adapter as well (but Realtek rather than that Intel one) and also had most of the other features of the TUF boards, and is a newer board. It is running fine.

It's just that I noticed it has no USB-C header so I can't use the front jack on this LianLi case. Which I don't care about that much. But it also only has 1 4.0 slot... which again is probably fine as I don't plan to ever run SLI/CF... and I can only run 4x SATA6 with the 2x M2 drives connection. That got me thinking on what other tradeoffs am I making? And what other option do I really have?

The AM4 prices seem very random, with most "better" boards that have what I'm looking for costing basically 350+ or nearly twice the price of even my old board... any recommendations? I'm running a 5950x with 64GB of DDR4 3200, just trying to not get a board with that garbage I225-V adapter...

My other thread was getting a bit aimless and hard to keep up with, so making a separate one.

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

For long term use, what are the main drawbacks to the B550 platform vs X570?

I recently replaced my TUF GAMING X570-PRO to the TUF GAMING B550-PLUS WIFI II because of the crappy ethernet adapter found in the former. The Microcenter clerk recommended it as a replacement because it had a 2.5 gig ethernet adapter as well (but Realtek rather than that Intel one) and also had most of the other features of the TUF boards, and is a newer board. It is running fine.

It's just that I noticed it has no USB-C header so I can't use the front jack on this LianLi case. Which I don't care about that much. But it also only has 1 4.0 slot... which again is probably fine as I don't plan to ever run SLI/CF... and I can only run 4x SATA6 with the 2x M2 drives connection. That got me thinking on what other tradeoffs am I making? And what other option do I really have?

The AM4 prices seem very random, with most "better" boards that have what I'm looking for costing basically 350+ or nearly twice the price of even my old board... any recommendations? I'm running a 5950x with 64GB of DDR4 3200, just trying to not get a board with that garbage I225-V adapter...

My other thread was getting a bit aimless and hard to keep up with, so making a separate one.

If you do not use or need the extras some times available on 570 boards, then b550 is the sweet spot. Cheaper, as reliable, newer, and will likely have longer term bios updates and support.

For most people b550 was a x570 killer. Sure we always want more options but most people do not use them.

 

[ochadd]

Keep in mind you can install whatever NIC you want into the other PCIe x16 slot. 2.5gb NICs are less than $40 and 10gb are around $100.

 

[OFaceSIG]

B550 has much less capability in the southbridge. PCI-E 3.0 accessories, fewer lanes, etc. Depends on what you need. If all you need is one graphics card, one NVME and maybe a SATA drive or two, you won't ever miss out on the extras of x570.

 

[pavel]

B550 has much less capability in the southbridge. PCI-E 3.0 accessories, fewer lanes, etc. Depends on what you need. If all you need is one graphics card, one NVME and maybe a SATA drive or two, you won't ever miss out on the extras of x570.

If you want to fill your m.2 and sata ports with drives - then you would have an issue because of the fewer lanes, right?

I am looking at an ADL/LGA 1700 build but I was second-guessing because of the Alder Lake retention mechanism issue - but, I already knew there were limitations with the AMD/AM4 - of those very issues. I am limiting the storage options to m.2 and sata ssds - I bought a HDD a long time ago but I don't plan on buying any more.
It sounds like a BB50 setup wouldn't work too well for me, anyway? As for the OP - I found his post confusing - I thought he replaced the board with a B550 and bought it already? No? I was going to suggest the MSI X570 Tomahawk since it is probably the best X570 board out there - or the best X570 deal, at least. I don't know if it's wifi - but, you guys already suggested how to solve any lan or wifi dilemma.

I thought the intel lan i225-v problem was fixed. It still isn't? The OP didn't say what revision of the intel lan chip it was - it was probably a 1st or 2nd revision? Supposely, the 3rd revision was fixed - although lots of people are still complaining about their ethernet troubles even though they have a newer board (presumably, the i225-v chip in those boards would be the third revision - supposedly fixed). I also don't accept the proposed fixes - like setting your ethernet speed to 1Mbps instead of the potential 2.5 Gbps, it is good for.

 

[OFaceSIG]

If you want to fill your m.2 and sata ports with drives - then you would have an issue because of the fewer lanes, right?

I am looking at an ADL/LGA 1700 build but I was second-guessing because of the Alder Lake retention mechanism issue - but, I already knew there were limitations with the AMD/AM4 - of those very issues. I am limiting the storage options to m.2 and sata ssds - I bought a HDD a long time ago but I don't plan on buying any more.
It sounds like a BB50 setup wouldn't work too well for me, anyway? As for the OP - I found his post confusing - I thought he replaced the board with a B550 and bought it already? No? I was going to suggest the MSI X570 Tomahawk since it is probably the best X570 board out there - or the best X570 deal, at least. I don't know if it's wifi - but, you guys already suggested how to solve any lan or wifi dilemma.

I thought the intel lan i225-v problem was fixed. It still isn't? The OP didn't say what revision of the intel lan chip it was - it was probably a 1st or 2nd revision? Supposely, the 3rd revision was fixed - although lots of people are still complaining about their ethernet troubles even though they have a newer board (presumably, the i225-v chip in those boards would be the third revision - supposedly fixed). I also don't accept the proposed fixes - like setting your ethernet speed to 1Mbps instead of the potential 2.5 Gbps, it is good for.

If you have a lot of storage needs x570 is definitely the way to go.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

If you do not use or need the extras some times available on 570 boards, then b550 is the sweet spot. Cheaper, as reliable, newer, and will likely have longer term bios updates and support.

For most people b550 was a x570 killer. Sure we always want more options but most people do not use them.

B550 has much less capability in the southbridge. PCI-E 3.0 accessories, fewer lanes, etc. Depends on what you need. If all you need is one graphics card, one NVME and maybe a SATA drive or two, you won't ever miss out on the extras of x570.

Well currently this B550 board is supporting 4x SATA drives and 2x NVME drives with no issue... but that's also its limit. This case doesn't have any room for any 3.5" drives, but I could fit in some 2.5" SSD's... except with this motherboard I can't. Along with the fact that I don't have a USB-C jack for my front, it does somewhat bother me that I'm making some concessions on it despite running a high end CPU like this.

But then again, it is running quite smoothly and BIOS-wise it does seem to be a very new board. So I'm kind of mixed.

If you want to fill your m.2 and sata ports with drives - then you would have an issue because of the fewer lanes, right?

I am looking at an ADL/LGA 1700 build but I was second-guessing because of the Alder Lake retention mechanism issue - but, I already knew there were limitations with the AMD/AM4 - of those very issues. I am limiting the storage options to m.2 and sata ssds - I bought a HDD a long time ago but I don't plan on buying any more.
It sounds like a BB50 setup wouldn't work too well for me, anyway? As for the OP - I found his post confusing - I thought he replaced the board with a B550 and bought it already? No? I was going to suggest the MSI X570 Tomahawk since it is probably the best X570 board out there - or the best X570 deal, at least. I don't know if it's wifi - but, you guys already suggested how to solve any lan or wifi dilemma.

I thought the intel lan i225-v problem was fixed. It still isn't? The OP didn't say what revision of the intel lan chip it was - it was probably a 1st or 2nd revision? Supposely, the 3rd revision was fixed - although lots of people are still complaining about their ethernet troubles even though they have a newer board (presumably, the i225-v chip in those boards would be the third revision - supposedly fixed). I also don't accept the proposed fixes - like setting your ethernet speed to 1Mbps instead of the potential 2.5 Gbps, it is good for.

You would have to look at the previous topic I linked in the opening post for the details. But it's long and rambly, so I'll give you the TL;DR.

- The I225-V I had was indeed revision 3.
- No, revision 3 did not fix the issues... at least not for me. I tried multiple driver configurations and whatnot but to no avail, still got warning message in Event Viewer.
- But in most common uses, including steam streaming and torrenting, the issue did not show up. It was not until I tried running a Minecraft server for my friends that it presented (2.5-3 weeks after I got the board...).
- However the issue is quite devastating. I did not want to send 30$ more on another card that would also block some airflow to my GPU, so I wanted an MB with a working solution (plus for all I knew it was a hardware issue so even if I uninstalled the entire port and put a PCIE card in, it would STILL somehow crash my entire network)
- Went to Microcenter, got exchange, got this B550 board instead.
- I have 15 days to decide whether I should exchange for another one or not. Currently kind of leaning towards "no", because this Realtek 2.5G lan is incredibly stable (so far). No restarts running the Minecraft server for days.


I guess at this point it comes down to whether or not having a few additional SATA ports is worth 180$ higher pricetag to me, because I don't care about any of the other features....

 

[pavel]

Well currently this B550 board is supporting 4x SATA drives and 2x NVME drives with no issue... but that's also its limit. This case doesn't have any room for any 3.5" drives, but I could fit in some 2.5" SSD's... except with this motherboard I can't. Along with the fact that I don't have a USB-C jack for my front, it does somewhat bother me that I'm making some concessions on it despite running a high end CPU like this.

But then again, it is running quite smoothly and BIOS-wise it does seem to be a very new board. So I'm kind of mixed.

You would have to look at the previous topic I linked in the opening post for the details. But it's long and rambly, so I'll give you the TL;DR.

- The I225-V I had was indeed revision 3.
- No, revision 3 did not fix the issues... at least not for me. I tried multiple driver configurations and whatnot but to no avail, still got warning message in Event Viewer.
- But in most common uses, including steam streaming and torrenting, the issue did not show up. It was not until I tried running a Minecraft server for my friends that it presented (2.5-3 weeks after I got the board...).
- However the issue is quite devastating. I did not want to send 30$ more on another card that would also block some airflow to my GPU, so I wanted an MB with a working solution (plus for all I knew it was a hardware issue so even if I uninstalled the entire port and put a PCIE card in, it would STILL somehow crash my entire network)
- Went to Microcenter, got exchange, got this B550 board instead.
- I have 15 days to decide whether I should exchange for another one or not. Currently kind of leaning towards "no", because this Realtek 2.5G lan is incredibly stable (so far). No restarts running the Minecraft server for days.


I guess at this point it comes down to whether or not having a few additional SATA ports is worth 180$ higher pricetag to me, because I don't care about any of the other features....

Are you still in the return window? If it's working for you, why wouldn't you just keep it? Alternatively, I am not sure why you didn't pick the MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi? It's usually a decent price and has all the features anyone would want, wifi, M.2 slots (albeit only 2 like most AM4 B550 boards) and it has Realtek lan so you don't have to worry about whether the intel one will work or not. The Tuf board is still good - don't get me wrong but the MSI board has more features and arguably, better vrm. When I looked at AMD (before Alder Lake came out), this is the board I am sure I would have picked.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1568694-REG/msi_b550gedgewifi_mpg_b550_gaming_edge.html

However, for me - I want to do video editing and I might want extra storage - 3 M.2 slots that don't take up pcie lanes and 4-6 SATA slots for SSDs - should be enough storage for my needs - at least, I hope so. I should be able to get this with Alder Lake - except the boards are so expensive for what you get! Damn you, Intel.

I recall watching videos on B550 board comparisions and the MSI Gaming Edge Wifi always performed well - so Realtek Lan, BIOS Flashback, wifi - it usually had a decent price even here. The X570 Tomahawk, if X570 chipset - because many of the X570 boards released before B550 were subpar and if B550, I'd get the Gaming Edge Wifi. The Tuf is a good board, though. It sucks it doesn't have the usb-c slot but it appears solid, otherwise. It'd be my 2nd choice but the prices between the two are usually really close.

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

It sounds like you’ve answered your own question OP. Also having more sata ports makes no difference for me personally. By the time i am using all my ports, I’ll likely consolidate to larger ssd’s and use less ports as time goes on. Just been my experience but everyone has different storage needs.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

Are you still in the return window? If it's working for you, why wouldn't you just keep it? Alternatively, I am not sure why you didn't pick the MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi? It's usually a decent price and has all the features anyone would want, wifi, M.2 slots (albeit only 2 like most AM4 B550 boards) and it has Realtek lan so you don't have to worry about whether the intel one will work or not. The Tuf board is still good - don't get me wrong but the MSI board has more features and arguably, better vrm. When I looked at AMD (before Alder Lake came out), this is the board I am sure I would have picked.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1568694-REG/msi_b550gedgewifi_mpg_b550_gaming_edge.html

However, for me - I want to do video editing and I might want extra storage - 3 M.2 slots that don't take up pcie lanes and 4-6 SATA slots for SSDs - should be enough storage for my needs - at least, I hope so. I should be able to get this with Alder Lake - except the boards are so expensive for what you get! Damn you, Intel.

I recall watching videos on B550 board comparisions and the MSI Gaming Edge Wifi always performed well - so Realtek Lan, BIOS Flashback, wifi - it usually had a decent price even here. The X570 Tomahawk, if X570 chipset - because many of the X570 boards released before B550 were subpar and if B550, I'd get the Gaming Edge Wifi. The Tuf is a good board, though. It sucks it doesn't have the usb-c slot but it appears solid, otherwise. It'd be my 2nd choice but the prices between the two are usually really close.

Since I just exchanged for this one two or three days ago, yes I should be well within the exchange window. But good call on bringing up MSI. I picked the TUF series boards because I noticed the TUF PLUS just had a lot of good reviews on Newegg (this is the 570, not 550 plus)... I think that's why when I did an exchange, he recommended another TUF board (and I was with a friend and didn't want to waste his time so I just went with it). However looking at MSI offerings now, you're quite right... they do tend to have the Realtek lans.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/640444/msi-x570s-mag-tomahawk-max-wifi-amd-am4-atx-motherboard

This one is about the same price as the original ASUS 570 TUF that I had (the PRO), and it's got the Realtek LAN card as well as the Intel wifi (as opposed to that weird Mediatek brand)... the only real issue is that these can be DOA, but I think that happens with every board, just slightly more likely with MSI. I'll go head down and do an exchange I think. This MSI board has everything I want at the price that I bought my original ASUS TUF for.

 

[LukeTbk]

and I can only run 4x SATA6 with the 2x M2 drives connection. That got me thinking on what other tradeoffs am I making? And what other option do I really have?

If you are already all setuped and the only thing missing is sata6 port, a pci-express to 4xsata card could be one and one you can transfer upgrade after upgrade and have one less thing to worry about on the motherboard option list. I fully get that is can be nice to have stuff on the motherboard including ethernet/wifi/bluethooth connection/cable wise too.

8 sata port for $70, 4 for $40 on newegg right now

 

[pavel]

Since I just exchanged for this one two or three days ago, yes I should be well within the exchange window. But good call on bringing up MSI. I picked the TUF series boards because I noticed the TUF PLUS just had a lot of good reviews on Newegg (this is the 570, not 550 plus)... I think that's why when I did an exchange, he recommended another TUF board (and I was with a friend and didn't want to waste his time so I just went with it). However looking at MSI offerings now, you're quite right... they do tend to have the Realtek lans.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/640444/msi-x570s-mag-tomahawk-max-wifi-amd-am4-atx-motherboard

This one is about the same price as the original ASUS 570 TUF that I had (the PRO), and it's got the Realtek LAN card as well as the Intel wifi (as opposed to that weird Mediatek brand)... the only real issue is that these can be DOA, but I think that happens with every board, just slightly more likely with MSI. I'll go head down and do an exchange I think. This MSI board has everything I want at the price that I bought my original ASUS TUF for.

I read that the Intel lan issues - if you have B3 or revision 3 - is to turn off the power saving setting for the ethernet adapter. I haven't had to look at Windows settings for a lan in a long time so I am not sure what to instruct - but, I read on another site - of people doing that with the Intel i225-v and it solves their problem.
I hope so - I am tempted to get the MSI Pro Z690-A and it has that same Intel lan.

I hope you like the MSI motherboard. The X570 one is pretty popular and well received from what I recall.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

I read that the Intel lan issues - if you have B3 or revision 3 - is to turn off the power saving setting for the ethernet adapter. I haven't had to look at Windows settings for a lan in a long time so I am not sure what to instruct - but, I read on another site - of people doing that with the Intel i225-v and it solves their problem.
I hope so - I am tempted to get the MSI Pro Z690-A and it has that same Intel lan.

I hope you like the MSI motherboard. The X570 one is pretty popular and well received from what I recall.

You can do what you like, but I personally would not touch that thing with a yard stick. The I225-V adapter worked in my ASUS TUF PRO (X570) for basically almost a month before it finally started conking out on me. It's a ticking time bomb. And its failure is disastrous. It doesn't just take out its own internet. Nope, you can't even fall back onto the WIFI... because somehow it kills the wifi, too! You literally have to restart the system to get it working again. I don't know what kind of fixes are needed to make it stable, but I want no part in them lol.

Anyway I got the MSI Tomahawk I linked earlier working in this computer at the moment and everything is quite smooth. System is prime 95 stable, and it has:

(#2 because my computer technically still has #1 from the last board installed XD)
Which feature set wise is pretty much the best pairing possible, I guess. The ASUS B550 had some weird Mediatek stuff which I'd almost never heard of. Granted, I don't know how much I trust Intel now.

Best of all I paid only about 50-60 more for this board all things considered (actually less since I got them to rehonor the CPU bundle price this time, my price diff at checkout was 40 bucks, 10 of that being the slightly higher extended warranty price). If it was the 160-170+ dollars more for that other ASUS board, that's definitely not worth it. But this feels like a much higher quality piece of hardware for the price.

Two caveats:
1. The default fan curve on this motherboard is garbage compared to ASUS... it runs much louder. Then again, I think I didn't quite do the thermal paste application properly, maybe used too much. Notice it runs a bit hotter. But it's still prime 95 stable, just runs hotter for sure. I'll redo it sometime and see if I can adjust stuff in the BIOS (which is worse on this as well, kind of laid out much worse than ASUS... but at least it still has the stuff).
2. MSI's software is kind of garbage. I got this MSI center and asked myself... uh... what's the point of this thing...? Guess I'm not getting any management from within Windows going...

Overall though for $240 I'm very satisfied with this Tomahawk X570S, I'm glad you got me to look at MSI. This seems to be the motherboard I was looking for. I just hope it doesn't die on me at some point, but I did at least get the 2 year warranty from Microcenter for it, and within 30 days it's pretty much an exchange anyway (though I'm kind of getting sick of rebuilding this lol).

If you are already all setuped and the only thing missing is sata6 port, a pci-express to 4xsata card could be one and one you can transfer upgrade after upgrade and have one less thing to worry about on the motherboard option list. I fully get that is can be nice to have stuff on the motherboard including ethernet/wifi/bluethooth connection/cable wise too.

8 sata port for $70, 4 for $40 on newegg right now

The thing is, if you have to start making additions like that to the motherboard, not only are you taking up additional slots on the PCIE (so marginally worse cooling for the GPU), but you might as well have gotten a motherboard that had the features to begin with. The ASUS that was like 370$ was definitely not worth the jump because like you said I could get its features for less with expansion, but this X570S Tomahawk definitely was because it gave me all the things the B550 was missing for basically less than they would cost to put on there, by probably less than half.

 

[pavel]

You can do what you like, but I personally would not touch that thing with a yard stick. The I225-V adapter worked in my ASUS TUF PRO (X570) for basically almost a month before it finally started conking out on me. It's a ticking time bomb. And its failure is disastrous. It doesn't just take out its own internet. Nope, you can't even fall back onto the WIFI... because somehow it kills the wifi, too! You literally have to restart the system to get it working again. I don't know what kind of fixes are needed to make it stable, but I want no part in them lol.

Anyway I got the MSI Tomahawk I linked earlier working in this computer at the moment and everything is quite smooth. System is prime 95 stable, and it has:
View attachment 463598
(#2 because my computer technically still has #1 from the last board installed XD)
Which feature set wise is pretty much the best pairing possible, I guess. The ASUS B550 had some weird Mediatek stuff which I'd almost never heard of. Granted, I don't know how much I trust Intel now.

Best of all I paid only about 50-60 more for this board all things considered (actually less since I got them to rehonor the CPU bundle price this time, my price diff at checkout was 40 bucks, 10 of that being the slightly higher extended warranty price). If it was the 160-170+ dollars more for that other ASUS board, that's definitely not worth it. But this feels like a much higher quality piece of hardware for the price.

Two caveats:
1. The default fan curve on this motherboard is garbage compared to ASUS... it runs much louder. Then again, I think I didn't quite do the thermal paste application properly, maybe used too much. Notice it runs a bit hotter. But it's still prime 95 stable, just runs hotter for sure. I'll redo it sometime and see if I can adjust stuff in the BIOS (which is worse on this as well, kind of laid out much worse than ASUS... but at least it still has the stuff).
2. MSI's software is kind of garbage. I got this MSI center and asked myself... uh... what's the point of this thing...? Guess I'm not getting any management from within Windows going...

Overall though for $240 I'm very satisfied with this Tomahawk X570S, I'm glad you got me to look at MSI. This seems to be the motherboard I was looking for. I just hope it doesn't die on me at some point, but I did at least get the 2 year warranty from Microcenter for it, and within 30 days it's pretty much an exchange anyway (though I'm kind of getting sick of rebuilding this lol).



The thing is, if you have to start making additions like that to the motherboard, not only are you taking up additional slots on the PCIE (so marginally worse cooling for the GPU), but you might as well have gotten a motherboard that had the features to begin with. The ASUS that was like 370$ was definitely not worth the jump because like you said I could get its features for less with expansion, but this X570S Tomahawk definitely was because it gave me all the things the B550 was missing for basically less than they would cost to put on there, by probably less than half.

The X570S is even better, imho. I didn't like the idea of active fans on the X570 boards and I don't know if anything changed - but, the ones on Asus didn't have built-in control via the BIOS - MSI's and Gigabyte's supposedly could - I dunno about Asrock's. But, if the fan ever dies - good luck trying to find one to replace it. It also means more noise - but, its purpose was to cool the vrms, apparently.
I don't know if the absence of the fan is making a difference with making it louder - but, it will be interesting if you can improve thermals and still make it quieter.

I'm glad you're content with it as there's always a concern when you recommend a component to someone else - you want them to have a good experience and be glad about their purchase.

Edit: Almost forgot....re: the Intel i225-v - that really sucks. Posters in the MSI Z690-A thread also mentioned having some issues. I thought I found some 'solutions' on another site - and some things to try. I am a bit hesitant to buy a board with Intel i225-v lan, myself. But, the realtek boards - are pretty meh - imho. I am looking at Z690 boards and the Realtek lan boards include the Asus Prime Z690-P (lacking features, less M.2 slots, average I/O) and Gigabyte Z690 boards (Gaming X, UD AX). They're not exactly impressive. The prices are good for those, though.

 

[vegeta535]

The X570S is even better, imho. I didn't like the idea of active fans on the X570 boards and I don't know if anything changed - but, the ones on Asus didn't have built-in control via the BIOS - MSI's and Gigabyte's supposedly could - I dunno about Asrock's. But, if the fan ever dies - good luck trying to find one to replace it. It also means more noise - but, its purpose was to cool the vrms, apparently.
I don't know if the absence of the fan is making a difference with making it louder - but, it will be interesting if you can improve thermals and still make it quieter.

I'm glad you're content with it as there's always a concern when you recommend a component to someone else - you want them to have a good experience and be glad about their purchase.

Edit: Almost forgot....re: the Intel i225-v - that really sucks. Posters in the MSI Z690-A thread also mentioned having some issues. I thought I found some 'solutions' on another site - and some things to try. I am a bit hesitant to buy a board with Intel i225-v lan, myself. But, the realtek boards - are pretty meh - imho. I am looking at Z690 boards and the Realtek lan boards include the Asus Prime Z690-P (lacking features, less M.2 slots, average I/O) and Gigabyte Z690 boards (Gaming X, UD AX). They're not exactly impressive. The prices are good for those, though.

The fan will more then likely out live the usefulness of the board. My system is whisper quite. Only time I can hear the fan if I manually set it to full speed. I never hear it otherwise.

 

[pavel]

The fan will more then likely out live the usefulness of the board. My system is whisper quite. Only time I can hear the fan if I manually set it to full speed. I never hear it otherwise.

That's interesting, thanks. I wasn't able to buy back then - but, I was keen on a Ryzen build - and I was going to pick B550 because of the fan - but, it sounds like my concerns were for nothing. 'Glad it's working well for you.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

I'm glad you're content with it as there's always a concern when you recommend a component to someone else - you want them to have a good experience and be glad about their purchase.

I mean to be fair, you didn't recommend what I actually ended up buying. You just got me to look at MSI in general. So you wouldn't have to feel much responsibility.

The fan will more then likely out live the usefulness of the board. My system is whisper quite. Only time I can hear the fan if I manually set it to full speed. I never hear it otherwise.

I agree with this, the fan on the ASUS motherboard I had before was pretty much literally silent... that being said, it still kind of did give it a mechanical part to fail. While unlikely, can't deny that a heatsink is much less likely to break than a fan.

Edit: Almost forgot....re: the Intel i225-v - that really sucks. Posters in the MSI Z690-A thread also mentioned having some issues. I thought I found some 'solutions' on another site - and some things to try. I am a bit hesitant to buy a board with Intel i225-v lan, myself. But, the realtek boards - are pretty meh - imho. I am looking at Z690 boards and the Realtek lan boards include the Asus Prime Z690-P (lacking features, less M.2 slots, average I/O) and Gigabyte Z690 boards (Gaming X, UD AX). They're not exactly impressive. The prices are good for those, though.

Well I gave you my take... I wouldn't buy that thing if someone paid me... well maybe if they paid me 100$ so I can disable it and replace it with a 10gb card lol. It is really annoying though, I agree, that you have boards full of all of these features that you like and then they choose to screw up on one area that completely blindsides you: the ethernet adapter of all things... age old tech, and Intel of all people can't get it right (after 3 revisions no less). It's downright frustrating.

I don't know if the absence of the fan is making a difference with making it louder - but, it will be interesting if you can improve thermals and still make it quieter.

Highly doubt it, it's purely the CPU temps. I need to just go in and probably redo my craptacular thermal paste job. Most CPU coolers I've gotten have had it preapplied so I'm incredibly rusty on actually doing my own thermal paste applications. Just I figured with how many times I've had to reseat this thing, it would benefit from it... but I shouldn't have because my prime95 temps are definitely worse (though it's still rock solid, just underclocks).

 

[TheSlySyl]

If you don't need all the PCI-E lanes, B550 is more than fine.

I'm running 8 SATA HDD and 4 NVME (both Gen 3 and Gen4) SSDs on my computer, so I use every single one of my 24 PCI-E lanes available. I haven't heard the fan on my X570 boards in years, not since I set it to have a slower default speed and i've never had any trouble. Latter firmware updates made this silent mode the default.

 

[pavel]

If you don't need all the PCI-E lanes, B550 is more than fine.

I'm running 8 SATA HDD and 4 NVME (both Gen 3 and Gen4) SSDs on my computer, so I use every single one of my 24 PCI-E lanes available. I haven't heard the fan on my X570 boards in years, not since I set it to have a slower default speed and i've never had any trouble. Latter firmware updates made this silent mode the default.

I don't like the idea of being regarding limited pcie lanes - that's why I chose Z690 over B660. It sounds like, if I went with AM4/AMD, I would want X570. I originally/initially 'supported/recommended' B550 - but, I think I'll change that perspective now.
Storage - is necessary today. Whether you are a gamer or involved in productivity/content creation - you need storage capacity. You'd want it for backups, too. It's not good if your hardware tech restricts you. X570 isn't much more than a good B550 board - Z690 IS way more expensive than most B660 boards - although, the good B660 boards aren't much cheaper than Z690 - I investigated, researched it and compared boards - so, I made those conclusions.

I was originally concerned about X570 fans - but, it sounds like most have fan control by now? There's also X570S boards, too - so, you have a choice and options.

 

[LukeTbk]

Storage - is necessary today. Whether you are a gamer or involved in productivity/content creation - you need storage capacity. You'd want it for backups, too.

I feel that made some strange loop if that the case.

Back in the day, necessary, went down to 1-2 ssd in the computer and storage on a external NAS (to the point many case did not offer any special place for regular drive), did it made a comeback ?

Does a gamer benefit that much from having a second pci4 m2 slot instead of a pci3 one (say picking 970 evo type) ?

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

Edit: How did this end up as a wall of text again...

I feel that made some strange loop if that the case.

Back in the day, necessary, went down to 1-2 ssd in the computer and storage on a external NAS (to the point many case did not offer any special place for regular drive), did it made a comeback ?

Does a gamer benefit that much from having a second pci4 m2 slot instead of a pci3 one (say picking 970 evo type) ?

My main computer serves as an NAS for the rest of my PCs. I just use the default Windows Samba to share it out to the rest of the network, and it works fairly well. I considered having another full box whose purpose is nothing but NAS, but I feel like I would need a better router to take advantage of it (and nice routers are expensive). Not sure OS to put onto it (guess some Linux solution) nor where physically. Well and finally in my experience NAS was just slow but maybe Samba just sucks.

You've also seen how big games are getting these days. You could be using 100+ GB on one game. You want to keep a lot of them around for convenience, it's easier to just have more slots. With 2 M2 drives, I'm limited to just 4x SATA slots on B550. For more slots, time to shell out on a $70 SATA PCIE card. Of course that's a bit of an edge case anyway, most people don't mind redownloading games while deleting ones they don't use. I like keeping a stockpile of choices around.

But my main logic was this: I made a 5950x build. A top of the line processor for this socket. Which ends with this year. The processor will remain capable for several years to come. There's no question of that. 3-4+ years down the line, say something nice comes around that I could upgrade to if I chose X570... do I want to sit there and go, "Welp, sucks that I'm on a B550 though" or "Good thing that I got this X570"? If the price point is reasonable, to me the choice is clear. I knew I was not comfortable staying on B550, but I couldn't figure out what to go to for a reasonable price until I saw this MSI Tomahawk (and thank you pavel for recommending MSI). I'm glad I did see it. For <55$ more than a "nice" B550... imo this is a no brainer.

There are X570 boards with more M2 slots or SATA slots, but iirc they share bandwidth with each other so it's kind of pointless. This Tomahawk board imo is very minmaxed features vs price wise, as what it supports is pretty close to what most modern cases can support anyway, and it's 6x SATA + 2 M2. I know it used to be much more expensive (~20-30% more?).

 

[TheSlySyl]

Edit: How did this end up as a wall of text again...


My main computer serves as an NAS for the rest of my PCs. I just use the default Windows Samba to share it out to the rest of the network, and it works fairly well. I considered having another full box whose purpose is nothing but NAS, but I feel like I would need a better router to take advantage of it (and nice routers are expensive). Not sure OS to put onto it (guess some Linux solution) nor where physically. Well and finally in my experience NAS was just slow but maybe Samba just sucks.

You've also seen how big games are getting these days. You could be using 100+ GB on one game. You want to keep a lot of them around for convenience, it's easier to just have more slots. With 2 M2 drives, I'm limited to just 4x SATA slots on B550. For more slots, time to shell out on a $70 SATA PCIE card. Of course that's a bit of an edge case anyway, most people don't mind redownloading games while deleting ones they don't use. I like keeping a stockpile of choices around.

But my main logic was this: I made a 5950x build. A top of the line processor for this socket. Which ends with this year. The processor will remain capable for several years to come. There's no question of that. 3-4+ years down the line, say something nice comes around that I could upgrade to if I chose X570... do I want to sit there and go, "Welp, sucks that I'm on a B550 though" or "Good thing that I got this X570"? If the price point is reasonable, to me the choice is clear. I knew I was not comfortable staying on B550, but I couldn't figure out what to go to for a reasonable price until I saw this MSI Tomahawk (and thank you pavel for recommending MSI). I'm glad I did see it. For <55$ more than a "nice" B550... imo this is a no brainer.

There are X570 boards with more M2 slots or SATA slots, but iirc they share bandwidth with each other so it's kind of pointless. This Tomahawk board imo is very minmaxed features vs price wise, as what it supports is pretty close to what most modern cases can support anyway, and it's 6x SATA + 2 M2. I know it used to be much more expensive (~20-30% more?).

My motherboard (x570 taichi) doesn't share any bandwidth between its built in 3x PCI gen 4 NVME drives or its 8 SATA cables, I know because I have all of them being used simultaneously. As well as a 4th nvme drives through a PCI-E to m.2 adapter (only 3rd gen.)
That's 16 of my 24 PCI-E lanes

Then my GPU uses an 8x connection, bringing my total PCI-E lanes to 24.
I also have a whole bunch of stuff connected through USB 3.2, including a 4k60 game capture device. So I'm not sure what kinda chips are being used for all of that.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

My motherboard (x570 taichi) doesn't share any bandwidth between its built in 3x PCI gen 4 NVME drives or its 8 SATA cables, I know because I have all of them being used simultaneously. As well as a 4th nvme drives through a PCI-E to m.2 adapter (only 3rd gen.)
That's 16 of my 24 PCI-E lanes

Then my GPU uses an 8x connection, bringing my total PCI-E lanes to 24.
I also have a whole bunch of stuff connected through USB 3.2, including a 4k60 game capture device. So I'm not sure what kinda chips are being used for all of that.

That extra PCIE slot on yours is the answer. Having 8 SATA ports + 3 M2 slots is nice though, and it does look like a great board. Just pity its wifi and ethernet are a bit outdated vs competitors. I don't think I've ever used all 8 of my SATA slots, so I think 6 is enough, but that does look good to have the capability to expand up to that.

As far as the trickery involved... hmm... if I had to guess, it's because the Tomahawk has 4x USB gen 2 3.2 slots whereas yours has 2 gen 2 and more gen 1? Your front 3.2 header is also gen 1 whereas the one on this one is gen 2 nvm I think this is wrong re-reading it. I think gen 2 is 10 gbps while gen 1 is 5. Then again my board has less gen 1 3.2's and cheaps out with a set of USB 2.0 jacks (which is fine for my mouse and keyboard so that's what I use them for). I'm not sure how this all works tbh. I think I might have chosen your board if everything else was more up to date, because it's priced pretty well right now.