Reznik

You should be fine to boot into windows. Ryzen master does not apply itself on startup, it's something you have to load each time.

I've got a Sapphire PULSE Vega 56, also have the ASUS 1080p 144hz Freesync and I'm very happy with the combo. I like the design of the card and don't find that it runs hot at all but I have adjusted the fan curve a bit to my liking. Not sure you will hit 144fps in AAA games but can get close with tweaking some settings. I don't play the two games you mentioned so I can't comment directly on that.

It's completely fine to be left on 24/7 for years. Computer components do not need to "rest", they just need to be kept cool. Just make sure to blow any dust out of the system with compressed air a few times a year and it will be fine.

I've definitely seen Windows task manager report 0% usage when my GPU is pegged at 100%. It's not reporting correctly. You can use software called HWInfo 64 and if will show you what your GPU is actually doing.

I would go with Ryzen 1600 or 2600 are as the prices are really good right now, pair that with a B450 board.

My AC was out for a bit last week and the house got to 30C for couple of days. My 2600 on stock can hit the 90s in if the room temp is that high. I think your ambient room temp is just too high.

Definitely try to get any 6 core Ryzen if it can be squeezed into budget. That will last a lot longer before needing upgrade. What about a 1600 +SSD, can that be found within budget?

Link says list is private

They can't be used in SLI so if you put a second one in your computer you won't see any benefit.

From that thread I just posted: A couple people on Reddit have the Tomahawk b450 + Ryzen 3000 and what worked for them is to first use flashback for V17, THEN do the update with V18. I'm waiting for my 3700x or else I would try it.

Just came across this: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=321288.0

Not necessarily sure if that means a bad thing. Obviously something isn't working right. My guess would be BIOS issue or wonder if it's not liking the stick of RAM. I've only heard the latest ryzen CPU'S have great memeory support so I wouldn't think so but you never know. If you know the exact model of RAM you have, you could search online to see if you can find an example of someone else successfully has it working.

For the first boot on Ryzen it might, or should power cycle a few times while it detects memory timings, at least that is my understanding of why it does this. So if it appears to reset itself or no signal initially that is normal but that only takes a minute or so.

And everything went smooth with the Flashback? The LED lit up like in this video? I'm out of ideas otherwise. Hopefully others can offer some help.

Do you have a single 8GB stick of RAM? If so, make sure it is in DIMMA2. If dual channel DIMMB2 and DIMMA2. If those don't work you could try and a single stick in each slot to see if that gets you any further ahead.