BIOS update needed for A320M to use R5-2600?

[Casual Cube]

I live in asia and my friend is helping me assemble a PC with parts from canada. I am wondering if I buy an MSI A320M Gaming Pro motherboard and a Ryzen 5 2600, Will I have trouble with the motherboard's original bios? I'm not that tech savvy with these areas so if someone could help out I would be very grateful.

 

Motherboard specifications website:
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/A320M-GAMING-PRO/Specification

CPU specifications website: 

https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-5-2600

[Earnist_]

3 minutes ago, Casual Cube said:

I live in asia and my friend is helping me assemble a PC with parts from canada. I am wondering if I buy an MSI A320M Gaming Pro motherboard and a Ryzen 5 2600, Will I have trouble with the motherboard's original bios? I'm not that tech savvy with these areas so if someone could help out I would be very grateful.

 

Motherboard specifications website:
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/A320M-GAMING-PRO/Specification

CPU specifications website: 

https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-5-2600

well first of all why would you buy a a320m board for that cpu

[Brooksie359]

I wouldn't run a r5 2600 on a a320 tbh. They aren't really for anything other than the quad core r3 cpus. 

[Casual Cube]

I'm extremely new to AMD. Could you guys recommend a motherboard model for this chip?

[Earnist_]

5 minutes ago, Casual Cube said:

I'm extremely new to AMD. Could you guys recommend a motherboard model for this chip?

go for a b450 mother board i believe their is one for a very good price of 77 usd and it will give you all the features you will need

[Casual Cube]

Just now, Earnist_ said:

go for a b450 mother board i believe their is one for a very good price of 77 usd and it will give you all the features you will need

Can I assume they all wont require a bios update before installation? this is the most important bit for my situation.

[Earnist_]

Just now, Casual Cube said:

Can I assume they all wont require a bios update before installation? this is the most important bit for my situation.

yes a b450 board will not require a bios update with a 2600 its just plug and play

[Giganizer300PRO]

The most ideal would probably be a B450 chipset. X470 would also work, but I can't think of a reason to have it in a R5 PC. B350 or X370 would also work, but they're older and they're made for the Ryzen 1000 series, not Ryzen 2000, so not ideal. With any 300 series chipset you would probably need to update the BIOS to use a Ryzen 2000 series CPU. 

[Casual Cube]

Just now, Earnist_ said:

yes a b450 board will not require a bios update with a 2600 its just plug and play

Thank you! 

[Casual Cube]

1 minute ago, Giganizer300PRO said:

The most ideal would probably be a B450 chipset. X470 would also work, but I can't think of a reason to have it in a R5 PC. B350 or X370 would also work, but they're older and they're made for the Ryzen 1000 series, not Ryzen 2000, so not ideal. With any 300 series chipset you would probably need to update the BIOS to use a Ryzen 2000 series CPU. 

Thank you!

[Earnist_]

Just now, Casual Cube said:

Thank you! 

no problem, ill link you to the mother board if you would like?

[paddy-stone]

Do yourself a favour, go to the mobos website and download at least the LAN and latest bios, if not all of the drivers etc and put them on a usb, so then if you have any probs with installation you don't start tearing your hair out.

[Casual Cube]

1 minute ago, Earnist_ said:

no problem, ill link you to the mother board if you would like?

My friend leaves canada tomorrow so deliveries are out of the question and I just checked the retail store stocks. Im very sad about this that their 400 series motherboards are all out of the budget I allocated for this. If possible he will pick up a Ryzen5-2600 with an Asus Strix B450 where originally I had him picking me up an i5-8500 with an MSI B360M PRO-VD. Overall I havent checked but it will be more expensive for the Ryzen combo.  Thank you for your help though, I'm happy to see how helpful and responsive this community is!

[Earnist_]

Just now, Casual Cube said:

My friend leaves canada tomorrow so deliveries are out of the question and I just checked the retail store stocks. Im very sad about this that their 400 series motherboards are all out of the budget I allocated for this. If possible he will pick up a Ryzen5-2600 with an Asus Strix B450 where originally I had him picking me up an i5-8500 with an MSI B360M PRO-VD. Overall I havent checked but it will be more expensive for the Ryzen combo.  Thank you for your help though, I'm happy to see how helpful and responsive this community is!

No problem! if you have any other questions just ask away this community is the best there is 

[Casual Cube]

399 for Intel combo, 466 for Ryzen combo. (CA$)

[Casual Cube]

for the extra 70CA$, do you think this is worth the change? _______________________________________________________________________________

[Fasauceome]

13 minutes ago, Casual Cube said:

for the extra 70$, do you think this is worth the change? _______________________________________________________________________________

That's a very expensive AM4 motherboard you've picked. ITX motherboards are always the most expensive, so maybe get a micro ATX board instead, like you have selected for Intel.

[Giganizer300PRO]

26 minutes ago, Casual Cube said:

for the extra 70CA$, do you think this is worth the change? _______________________________________________________________________________

Do you need an ITX board? If not, I would recommend a standard ATX or microATX board, because it will make things a lot cheaper. Like @fasauceome said, that is quite expensive for an AM4 board, at least for B450.

 

Here's a list of B450 boards, sorted by price.

Don't just go for the cheapest ones, go thru a few of them that fit your budget and find something you like. Then make sure it's compatible and has everything you need. There are Biostar boards in there, so maybe don't pick one of those unless you really have to (not that there's anything wrong with them, I just feel safer when picking one of the other consumer manufacturers, because Biostar is mostly server gear).

[Fasauceome]

3 minutes ago, Giganizer300PRO said:

There are Biostar boards in there, so maybe don't pick one of those unless you really have to (not that there's anything wrong with them, I just feel safer when picking one of the other consumer manufacturers, because Biostar is mostly server gear).

I've started using Biostar because I was curious about how good they would be as consumer boards, and you'd be surprised. They're cheap, but you certainly get what you pay for, nothing less, except on their X370 and X470 boards, which over deliver in my opinion.

[Casual Cube]

I would love to pick something cheaper than this CA$ 215 motherboard. But there are three reasons why I'm not against it as much as I should be. 

1) The vendor where my friend will pick up these parts from do not have any other good choices.

2) I had always planned on an mAtx/mItx build due to the portability I personally require.

3) Since I'm having it brought here internationally, I have to prioritize the quality of the products I order a tad more than prices since if its DOA I will be in a bigger pickle than someone local.

 

Considering all this for the past half hour, I made my choice to ask my friend to led me the extra 70 bucks to go with the Ryzen 52600+ Asus B450 rog stRIX-I combo as I think this would benefit me the most. Now I know AMD means my memory hoice should be double checked. What my friend already has picked up previously are a pair of 8GB Ripjaws with CL15 at 2400Mhz. I understand 2666 is the recommended frequency for Ryzen but unfortunately its  tad too late and I have to hope that the 15 latency can carry me home. I'm only working light loads and gaming under 60hz at 1080p with a GTX 1080 anyway. 

 

I urge you all to point out any warnings or issues you might see with this.

[Casual Cube]

To add to this, this is also my first time using an nvme and my choice (WD Black 1TB) is expected to run a little too hot for my comfort. The Asus also has a heatsink for a front M.2.

[Giganizer300PRO]

27 minutes ago, Casual Cube said:

I would love to pick something cheaper than this CA$ 215 motherboard. But there are three reasons why I'm not against it as much as I should be. 

1) The vendor where my friend will pick up these parts from do not have any other good choices.

2) I had always planned on an mAtx/mItx build due to the portability I personally require.

3) Since I'm having it brought here internationally, I have to prioritize the quality of the products I order a tad more than prices since if its DOA I will be in a bigger pickle than someone local.

 

Considering all this for the past half hour, I made my choice to ask my friend to led me the extra 70 bucks to go with the Ryzen 52600+ Asus B450 rog stRIX-I combo as I think this would benefit me the most. Now I know AMD means my memory hoice should be double checked. What my friend already has picked up previously are a pair of 8GB Ripjaws with CL15 at 2400Mhz. I understand 2666 is the recommended frequency for Ryzen but unfortunately its  tad too late and I have to hope that the 15 latency can carry me home. I'm only working light loads and gaming under 60hz at 1080p with a GTX 1080 anyway. 

 

I urge you all to point out any warnings or issues you might see with this.

The platform you have picked here is totally fine. The only thing was the price. If you need a small form factor that's ok. If your case supports micro ATX boards, you'd probably be better with one of those. I can see why you're concerned with quality control. If you still want to save some of the money, you can get a bit more expensive mATX board, maybe something with good reviews or from a quality product line. In an ideal scenario, you'd want your RAM to be at least 3000MHz. With a value build you can definitely go lower. Since you already have the 2400MHz RAM purchased you shouldn't worry too much about it now and just stick with that (if you want more than 8 GB get another identical kit). 

If you have a GTX 1080 and a R5 2600, you might want to invest in a better monitor as well. You could say a GPU is only as good as the monitor it outputs to and with a 1080p 60Hz you are very limited. I would recommend higher resolution or refresh rate, maybe both - depending on the budget. 

 

24 minutes ago, Casual Cube said:

To add to this, this is also my first time using an nvme and my choice (WD Black 1TB) is expected to run a little too hot for my comfort. The Asus also has a heatsink for a front M.2.

If I understand correctly, you're getting a 1TB WD Black NVMe drive? Where did you find it run hot? Putting heatsinks on M.2 drives is generally a bad idea, as it will cool the drive's controllers, which prefer to get a bit hot thus degrading them (see this for more info).

Also, is there a particular reason why you need a 1TB NVMe drive? In most consumer systems it's better to go for SATA SSDs over NVMe to save money, because NVMe doesn't offer much of a performance increase in real world scenarios (for example you will boot faster, but the difference in loading most games will be minimal or non existent).

 

If you have any other questions, please link the entire build if possible.

[Casual Cube]

9 minutes ago, Giganizer300PRO said:

If you have a GTX 1080 and a R5 2600, you might want to invest in a better monitor as well. You could say a GPU is only as good as the monitor it outputs to and with a 1080p 60Hz you are very limited. I would recommend higher resolution or refresh rate, maybe both - depending on the budget. 

---

Also, is there a particular reason why you need a 1TB NVMe drive? In most consumer systems it's better to go for SATA SSDs over NVMe to save money, because NVMe doesn't offer much of a performance increase in real world scenarios

Unfortunately, I dont think throwing an expensive monitor in airline luggage is a good idea so I have to wait for upgrading to a better monitor. Regarding RAM, I meant I am using a pair of 8gb sticks so I will be having 16GB at 2400Mhz and 15CL. What do you think of it?
 

Now the 1TB nvme was just a recommendation from a friend. I did wonder if I shouldve went with a 256gb nvme + 1tb SSD. I saw the part in your video link and am beginning to think this would be the better choice. Also the Strix mobo has 2 M.2 slots so I can make use of the one without the heatsink to let it run warm. My source was jsut reviews from verified purchasers.

[Casual Cube]

Build List - https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/Casual_Cube/saved/jmNHhM

 

 

Note: The case is mATX and would be a shame for the ITX mobo but the endgoal here is to have a small form factor build by swapping out the case. Down the line I mean.

[Giganizer300PRO]

4 minutes ago, Casual Cube said:

Unfortunately, I dont think throwing an expensive monitor in airline luggage is a good idea so I have to wait for upgrading to a better monitor. Regarding RAM, I meant I am using a pair of 8gb sticks so I will be having 16GB at 2400Mhz and 15CL. What do you think of it?
 

Now the 1TB nvme was just a recommendation from a friend. I did wonder if I shouldve went with a 256gb nvme + 1tb SSD. I saw the part in your video link and am beginning to think this would be the better choice. Also the Strix mobo has 2 M.2 slots so I can make use of the one without the heatsink to let it run warm. My source was jsut reviews from verified purchasers.

If I understand correctly, you have the RAM already purchased. If so don't worry too much about it. If you're still choosing, go for something faster. 2400 is quite slow even for a budget build. If you can, get faster, if you already have it it's fine.

 

Unless there's a specific reason for the NVMe drive, I would recommend dropping it out of the build completely. Go SATA and HDD for extra storage (if you need it). With the money you save you can double down on SATA SSD(s) or put it towards a monitor or just keep it, whatever you want. Most everyday users don't need NVMe, but it's a personal preference thing. As far as the M.2 heatsink goes there isn't really a reason to worry unless the PC is in an abnormally warm environment or there's something in the computer that's causing it to heat up more than usual (but still, it should be pretty much fine unless there's a heat gun aimed at it). If you want to know more or make sure, I'd suggest looking up the recommended and maximum operating temperatures.

 

As far as the monitor goes, I wouldn't recommend shipping it form a different country. You should buy it locally and eat up the added costs. There's just too much risk of it breaking in transport or arriving with something not working properly. And if there's a problem with the panel, the repairs  are usually almost equal to buying a new one. You don't want to be shipping it back if it's DOA either. I'm not sure how things are  over there, but where I live monitors do have an added cost, sometimes quite extreme. Unfortunately that's just how it is and gambling with shipping such a big product from somewhere else is not worth it, especially since with the shipping and import fees paid, you'll in most cases pay about as much as you would if you bought locally.