Best Brand These Days?

ZzBloopzZ

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 18, 2004
Messages
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Hello [H]!

I have been contemplating about finally upgrading my i7 2700k rig, honestly it has been perfect for my needs up until now due to the fact of jumping into gaming again after a decade. After much research, I have settled on the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 for the CPU which was a pretty easy choice for price/performance. i would like to upgrade to a 4000 series CPU if there is a big jump in a year which hopefully newer boards will support (but I understand no one knows for sure yet.)

However, motherboards seems to be an entire different story. My head is spinning. I used to build numerous computers in the early 2000's to 2012 and in that time, depending on the chipset the best would be between Asus or Gigabyte. I'm sure things have changed since then. One thing that I found interesting is that Asus and Gigabyte pushed occasional BIOS updates 2-3 years after MSI stopped. I like to keep my computers for a very long time, as you can tell.

What do you think is the best brand overall right now? I am not really a huge overclocker, but do want reliability, stability and hopefully continual updates of the BIOS where needed. On reddit it seems everyone and their mother swears by the MSI Tomahawk. I have never been a fan of MSI but perhaps things have changed? Looking at the X570 boards it seems that MSI was the worst for VRM. I'm sure everyone has different opinions but love to hear them.

Thanks!
 
The lower-end X570 boards mostly suck. Early MPG-series MSI X570 boards used to have the worst VRMs out of all X570 boards. That is beginning to change with the MPG Tomahawk, which replaces the craptacular Gaming Edge. The MPG X570 Tomahawk is MSI's redemption after a series of lousy low-end models. The X570 Tomahawk should sell for $200-ish, which is very reasonable given its performance.
 
There is no best brand. You buy in your budget and needs. Most manufacturers make good boards and then low end not so good ones. Like you mentioned MSI had some low end X570 boards that had were pretty poor in terms of VRM performance and thermals, but the upcoming X570 Tomahawk is going to be awesome! Hardware Unboxed did a good video on it and it is a huge upgrade.

Keep in mind B550 boards should be out in a few weeks or something like that so they'll be some new boards to look at. I'm personally not a big fan (pun intended?) of the chipset fan on X570 so we'll see if B550 has that. I think a solid B550 board + Zen 2 would be a good setup.



Edit: here is video
 
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Keep in mind B550 boards should be out in a few weeks or something like that so they'll be some new boards to look at. I'm personally not a big fan (pun intended?) of the chipset fan on X570 so we'll see if B550 has that. I think a solid B550 board + Zen 2 would be a good setup.

Oh wow, did not know B550 is around the corner. I will wait a bit then. Maybe pick up some RAM if there is a good deal on the low CL stuff. Yeah, seems everyone swears by MSI for AMD.
 
Like mentioned if you like the MSI brand the new X570 Tomahawk is supposed to be awesome. Has the same VRM's as their mid range boards, the Unify and the ACE, which are both over $300. I personally have an Ace and it is great and has been with my 3900X. I also own a B450 Tomahawk and previously had a Gaming Plus. I did not have issues with either and the B450 is in my mothers PC with a 2600 in it.
 
Oh wow, did not know B550 is around the corner. I will wait a bit then. Maybe pick up some RAM if there is a good deal on the low CL stuff. Yeah, seems everyone swears by MSI for AMD.
Yeah, they should be dropping soon and it would be a great fit for a 3600. Then again, a B450 works well too. The 4xxx series CPUs are supposed to be a nice increase over 3xxx series, but benchmarks will be my deciding factor. There isn't as much difference between manufacturers like there used to be.
 
Regarding the chipset fan on X570, I think most manufacturers learned from past mistakes and implemented a good cooling solution. I thought my Gigabyte X570 ITX chipset fan was being noisy, so I replaced it with a Noctua. Turned out it was not the fan at all but coil whine. BIOS updates since release have added fan curves for the chipset fan. In builds with good cooling the chipset fan likely won't run much at all.

All that said, no fan would obviously be preferable. Hopefully B550 accomplishes that.
 
I thought my Gigabyte X570 ITX chipset fan was being noisy, so I replaced it with a Noctua. Turned out it was not the fan at all but coil whine.

All that said, no fan would obviously be preferable. Hopefully B550 accomplishes that.

I've heard about coil wine, which can be an issue on another item I have been eyeing which is the, Lenovo Y27q-20, the top 27" 1440P 144Hz screen. Going to hold off for a sale maybe towards the holidays but until then hope I don't run into it. Is it a high pitched whine or more subtle? i want a quiet computer as I want to do some certs starting this fall.
 
I've heard about coil wine, which can be an issue on another item I have been eyeing which is the, Lenovo Y27q-20, the top 27" 1440P 144Hz screen. Going to hold off for a sale maybe towards the holidays but until then hope I don't run into it. Is it a high pitched whine or more subtle? i want a quiet computer as I want to do some certs starting this fall.
Mine sounds a bit like a rattle or a mechanical hard drive. It's typically either nonexistent or fairly subtle, but it can get loud during load. Games aren't affected too much though.
 
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