Do motherboards matter?

[JZStudios]

When I first got my "gaming" PC, in terms of something worth a damn instead of just a home office PC, I did some looking around at CPU's and GPU's and what I required, but when it came around to buying the parts at a local computer store I kind of just grabbed whatever random ~$100 MB happened to be sitting on the display shelf (Gigabyte 990FX-A) that was modestly recommended. I probably picked it because it had a lot of USB ports or something.

So 5 years later I'm questioning if boards of a similar price range ~$150 makes any actual difference outside ports. I know there's some BIOS differences, but outside of first time setup I never mess around with BIOS anyways.

 

In other terms, I'm probably looking at this ASUS B450 and I'm wondering if there's any other worthwhile alternatives.

[JZStudios]

Just now, NZgamer said:

They only really have feature differences but that being said if you're spending a lot on a CPU, don't cheap out on the motherboard

I was thinking a Ryzen 5 3600 or maybe a Ryzen 7 3700X, and then ~$150 on a mobo. Haven't really kept up with PC parts for a while though since I bought mine ~5 years ago.

[Whiro]

1 minute ago, JZStudios said:

I was thinking a Ryzen 5 3600 or maybe a Ryzen 7 3700X, and then ~$150 on a mobo. Haven't really kept up with PC parts for a while though since I bought mine ~5 years ago.

If it’s only for gaming you not gonna benefits much from 3700x , I would invest this money somewhere else, like better gpu.

[Mister Woof]

Yes, they do.

 

Power delivery, and features.

[JZStudios]

Just now, Whiro said:

If it’s only for gaming you not gonna benefits much from 3700x , I would invest this money somewhere else, like better gpu.

Fair enough. Honestly, I was thinking a 1660 since the RTX cards are overpriced, and it has over double the power of my rapidly aging 2gb 960. Was kind of thinking I could maybe keep the R7 for longer and buy a new GPU later, but it might just get beyond that point by now, don't know how much longer the Ryzen system will last, I bought an 8350 right near the end of it's life.

[JZStudios]

4 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

Yes, they do.

 

Power delivery, and features.

Okay, I've read that thread, but I don't really understand. Someone mentioned SLI, which even Nvidia tells people isn't worth it at this point, and then people say a bunch of stuff about chipsets I know nothing about. I know that at some point there was an update to Ryzen and it has special features or something only available on a newer MB, but I don't remember what it was or if it really made any difference.

[Whiro]

1 minute ago, JZStudios said:

update to Ryzen and it has special features or something only available on a newer MB

Yes, this feature is support for pcie gen 4, but atm if I’m correct it only matters for storage speeds.

7 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Fair enough. Honestly, I was thinking a 1660 since the RTX cards are overpriced, and it has over double the power of my rapidly aging 2gb 960. Was kind of thinking I could maybe keep the R7 for longer and buy a new GPU later, but it might just get beyond that point by now, don't know how much longer the Ryzen system will last, I bought an 8350 right near the end of it's life.

1660 and 3700x wouldn’t be well balanced build imo. 
Like I mentioned before 3700x will only benefit you if you gonna utilise this extra core and threads , and in games you’ll not. Even r5 3600 will last you for quite some time till you gonna need to change it. And FX chips wasn’t.... great saying this softly nothing comparing to Ryzen chips

[Mister Woof]

6 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Okay, I've read that thread, but I don't really understand. Someone mentioned SLI, which even Nvidia tells people isn't worth it at this point, and then people say a bunch of stuff about chipsets I know nothing about. I know that at some point there was an update to Ryzen and it has special features or something only available on a newer MB, but I don't remember what it was or if it really made any difference.

Go to the motherboard tier list sticky and pick the board that fits the CPU you chose based on the recommendations.

 

Not every b450 is the same, nor every x570 etc etc

 

Case by case for the most part, with some feature limitations if they matter to you between chipsets.

[JZStudios]

14 minutes ago, Whiro said:

Yes, this feature is support for pcie gen 4, but atm if I’m correct it only matters for storage speeds.

1660 and 3700x wouldn’t be well balanced build imo. 
Like I mentioned before 3700x will only benefit you if you gonna utilise this extra core and threads , and in games you’ll not. Even r5 3600 will last you for quite some time till you gonna need to change it. And FX chips wasn’t.... great saying this softly nothing comparing to Ryzen chips

Hmm, I'm just running a normal SSD and 3 extra 500gb HDD's we had lying around. So it wouldn't matter much.

Yeah, I figured the price wasn't too different, but thinking about it, I'm already mostly happy with my 8350, outside of using it for renders in Blender, which I rarely do anymore, and getting a 6gb GPU would mean I'd be more reliant on GPU anyways, and Ryzen 5 blows it out of the water. At the time the 8350 was what I could afford, and in the specific metric of Blender renders and multi-threading it was beating out the similarly priced Intel chip. Also why I went with an Nvidia GPU.

14 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

Go to the motherboard tier list sticky and pick the board that fits the CPU you chose based on the recommendations.

 

Not every b450 is the same, nor every x570 etc etc

 

Case by case for the most part, with some feature limitations if they matter to you between chipsets.

I'm not... entirely sure what that means... It's mentioning amperage draw and cooling, but I don't know why. Is that the power pulled before it overloaded? Did it just shut down? The Asus B450 is Tier F, how likely is it I'm going to run into problems with it? I don't know what chipset I want, or if it's necessitated by the CPU.

[SupaKomputa]

6 hours ago, JZStudios said:

I'm not... entirely sure what that means... It's mentioning amperage draw and cooling, but I don't know why. Is that the power pulled before it overloaded? Did it just shut down? The Asus B450 is Tier F, how likely is it I'm going to run into problems with it? I don't know what chipset I want, or if it's necessitated by the CPU.

Those list constructed by looking at the max power delivery output from each motherboard. each motherboard has it's own power delivery design, cheaper motherboard usually have cheaper chip, no heatsink and reduced configuration to cut cost. High end board should deliver high current with lower stable temperature, this is a desirable feature if you plan to use high end cpu or if you want to overclock. 

 

Higher end CPU should use more power than the lesser one, especially if you overclock it. Each CPU has a power rating (TDP), low end motherboard should accomodate the TDP requirements at stock speed. A low tier motherboard (B450) should be coupled with a low-mid tier CPU with max 65w tdp which is 3700x max. For 3800x (105w) and up you should consider Tied D or better motherboard.

 

If the power load is over than capacity, there are 3 possibilities:

- It would shut down

- It would throttle down the cpu, as in you cannot reach the max clock.

- Or in the long run the lifetime would be less.

[toasty99]

Motherboards matter but only because manufacturers release needlessly s***ty ones at prices they shouldn't be at. 

 

There's plenty of $80 quality B450 boards that are awesome. You don't need more than that for a 3600 or 3700x. Just need to avoid the horrible ones at the same price. 

 

Getting an X570 board will not be any better performance wise necessarily. There's some awful x570 boards too. The best X470/X570 boards are nice to have for the really high end stuff like a 3900x or 3950x but not exactly needed unless you are going for major overclocking. 

 

If you find a cheap b350 or x370 board don't be afraid of those either if the bios is updated and reviews are good. Many of them are actually pretty good quality. 

 

I'm still not a fan of x570 boards. Price is way too high and having a fan on most boards isn't good. Noise isn't the issue.... The problem is that stupid fan can fail without you noticing and cause some serious issues. You don't really need PCI-E 4.0 for anything so the only reason I see to justify a X570 board is if it's the same price or less than high end x470 boards which they aren't typically. 

[JZStudios]

7 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Those list constructed by looking at the max power delivery output from each motherboard. each motherboard has it's own power delivery design, cheaper motherboard usually have cheaper chip, no heatsink and reduced configuration to cut cost. High end board should deliver high current with lower stable temperature, this is a desirable feature if you plan to use high end cpu or if you want to overclock. 

 

Higher end CPU should use more power than the lesser one, especially if you overclock it. Each CPU has a power rating (TDP), low end motherboard should accomodate the TDP requirements at stock speed. A low tier motherboard (B450) should be coupled with a low-mid tier CPU with max 65w tdp which is 3700x max. For 3800x (105w) and up you should consider Tied D or better motherboard.

 

If the power load is over than capacity, there are 3 possibilities:

- It would shut down

- It would throttle down the cpu, as in you cannot reach the max clock.

- Or in the long run the lifetime would be less.

Okay, so for a R5 3600 a "low tier" B450 should be fine?

 

7 hours ago, toasty99 said:

There's plenty of $80 quality B450 boards that are awesome. You don't need more than that for a 3600 or 3700x. Just need to avoid the horrible ones at the same price. 

 

Getting an X570 board will not be any better performance wise necessarily. There's some awful x570 boards too. The best X470/X570 boards are nice to have for the really high end stuff like a 3900x or 3950x but not exactly needed unless you are going for major overclocking. 

 

If you find a cheap b350 or x370 board don't be afraid of those either if the bios is updated and reviews are good. Many of them are actually pretty good quality. 

 

I'm still not a fan of x570 boards. Price is way too high and having a fan on most boards isn't good. Noise isn't the issue.... The problem is that stupid fan can fail without you noticing and cause some serious issues. You don't really need PCI-E 4.0 for anything so the only reason I see to justify a X570 board is if it's the same price or less than high end x470 boards which they aren't typically. 

Okay... I don't know what any of these chipsets are aimed at doing though.

[SupaKomputa]

Yes, 3600 is a low tier.

[maizenblue]

On 4/9/2020 at 1:42 AM, JZStudios said:

I was thinking a Ryzen 5 3600 or maybe a Ryzen 7 3700X, and then ~$150 on a mobo. Haven't really kept up with PC parts for a while though since I bought mine ~5 years ago.

Unless youre on a strict budget Id go another 50 and get an asus tuf X570 mobo if u go 3700x. Its a big step up for not much more.

[Zberg]

Biggest thing is the ability to safely and consistently deliver power to the CPU; cheapies will likely not be as good here, more expensive ones may be better and therefore be better overclockers.

 

For a ryzen lower end CPU I would (and did) grab a basic b450 mobo, does just fine.  I dont OC, just let it do its thing.

For a ryzen higher end (thinking 3900, 3950) a "better board" would be needed IMO.  You need the better VRM/power delivery for that many cores to get your moneys worth for the pricey CPU bought

For intel higher end (9700k/9900k) would also go better mobo, as the best thing about intel is the overhead to OC (for the tinkerers out there), and you want a good board for this.  You would find more instability if the board cant deliver the power needed to maintain the OC

 

Other features you tend to get are more/better heatsinks, I/O differences (for example more M.2 slots, or even ones that come with heatsinks), newer features (x570 boards with new PCIE gen 4, etc).  

 

I would be happy grabbing a b450 for a 3600 personally

[JZStudios]

5 hours ago, Zberg said:

I would be happy grabbing a b450 for a 3600 personally

Seems like the most likely route. I don't do anything exceptionally CPU intensive on a regular basis, and when I do I'm still fairly happy with my 8350, so even a 1600 would be a massive boost. Otherwise it seems like anything higher than a 3600 isn't really worth it for games which is really all I'll be doing.

 

As far as M.2 slots, I might eventually get one, but I've read that it shuts off 2 Sata ports, which is pretty crap. I'm already using 5 ports and most Mobos come with 6 tops... and for some reason MS explorer is showing a CD drive that doesn't exist... interesting..