Mobo pairing for CPU upgrade

[kavorka19]

Looking at upgrading my AMD FX-8350 to a Ryzen 5-3600x and wanted suggestions for a motherboard to pair it with. I was looking at the ASUS X570-P Prime but wanted to poll the community. Thanks in advance.

I mainly use my rig for gaming and working from home.
- Windows 10
- GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070
- I'd likely be getting new RAM and M.2 as well

 

[Puterguru]

It would certainly depend on what features you are looking for...
USB-C
WIFI
Overclocking
PCI-E 3.0 or 4.0
The Tomahawk series from MSI gets great reviews but again, depending on what features you are looking for.

 

[E4g1e]

It would certainly depend on what features you are looking for...
USB-C
WIFI
Overclocking
PCI-E 3.0 or 4.0
The Tomahawk series from MSI gets great reviews but again, depending on what features you are looking for.

MSI had completely restructured the nomenclature of its motherboard line, beginning with the X570 chipset series. The Tomahawk line has been discontinued with the advent of the X570 series, which is now divided into three distinct classes: "plain," MPG and MEG. The two lower classes, the plain and the MPG, are crappy. Only the MEG series is worthy of consideration - but that series starts at $300-ish.

As for the Asus PRIME X570-P, it does not have USB-C or built-in WiFi. It, however, does have some overclocking features, as well as all of its PCI-E slots conforming to the full PCI-E 4.0 spec (as well as many of its existing USB-A ports supporting the full USB 3.2 Gen 2 spec). MSI, on its two lower-class lines, artificially restricts their chipset-based PCI-E controller to only PCI-E 3.0 spec, leaving only the CPU-based PCI-e controller supporting the full PCI-E 4.0 spec. That effectively makes the cheaper MSI X570 boards no better than a motherboard that's based on an older 400-series chipset.

 

[kavorka19]

MSI had completely restructured the nomenclature of its motherboard line, beginning with the X570 chipset series. The Tomahawk line has been discontinued with the advent of the X570 series, which is now divided into three distinct classes: "plain," MPG and MEG. The two lower classes, the plain and the MPG, are crappy. Only the MEG series is worthy of consideration - but that series starts at $300-ish.

As for the Asus PRIME X570-P, it does not have USB-C or built-in WiFi. It, however, does have some overclocking features, as well as all of its PCI-E slots conforming to the full PCI-E 4.0 spec (as well as many of its existing USB-A ports supporting the full USB 3.2 Gen 2 spec). MSI, on its two lower-class lines, artificially restricts their chipset-based PCI-E controller to only PCI-E 3.0 spec, leaving only the CPU-based PCI-e controller supporting the full PCI-E 4.0 spec. That effectively makes the cheaper MSI X570 boards no better than a motherboard that's based on an older 400-series chipset.

Thank you for this rundown. Very informative.

 

[kirbyrj]

Personally, I would just buy the X570-P if it has everything you're looking for. It's usually sub-$150. Pretty much any X570 board is going to have beefier power delivery as they were designed with the 3900/3950x in mind. Older B450/X470 boards are hit and miss in that capacity, so I wouldn't anticipate too many issues with the X570-P.

The only real downside to it is the Realtek NIC.