Confused by motherboard choices, please help!

[Darren Palmer]

Hi, so im going with a 3300x and a 1660 super OC GPU. Now the confusion starts - the motherboard! It needs to be mATX and have 4 RAM sockets (so i can expand in the future).

 

There are a selection of boards within budget, but i do not know which one to buy. Whats the most important item? All of them support different max RAM speeds from 3200 upto 4400. Should i base my decision on max ram speed? (I was going to buy 2x8gb 3600). Some have a USB C port, that maybe handy. Audio - some have ALC887 or 892 - ?)

 

So at the end of the day, im not sure what to base my decision on - its so much harder than i expected!

 

Here are the mATX b450 boards ive picked out so far:

 

Board

Asus Prime B450M-A, max ram speed 4400 OC, alc887

Asrock B450M Steel Legend, max ram speed 3466+ OC, alc892, usb-c

MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX, max ram speed 3866, alc892

Gigabyte B450M DS3H , max ram speed 3600 OC, alc887

Asrock B450M PRO4-F, max ram speed 3200+ OC, alc892, usb-c

 

So what should i go for and why please (or another board ive missed!) ?

Additionally, why do some of them say, max ram speed 3466+ OC for example?

 

With all of your help, hopefully Ill be able to decide - thankyou

[Haro]

4 minutes ago, Darren Palmer said:

Asus Prime B450M-A,

Please avoid it.

 

4 minutes ago, Darren Palmer said:

Asrock B450M Steel Legend

Decent board and will easily handle an 8 core even.

 

4 minutes ago, Darren Palmer said:

Gigabyte B450M DS3H

Not the best board and I wouldn't recommend it if you have other options available.

 

5 minutes ago, Darren Palmer said:

Asrock B450M PRO4-F

Vrm solution is the same as the steel legend its just less blingy really.

 

5 minutes ago, Darren Palmer said:

 

Consider the mortar max as well .

 

[boggy77]

the ram speed isn't that relevant, it's usually limited by the cpu, not the board. out of those, the best are steel legend, pro-vdh max and pro4-f.

the most important components of motherboards are the vrms, that power the cpu. the asus and gigabyte models you're considering have worse vrms. they are still fine for a ryzen 3 or 5, but if you ever want to upgrade to a ryzen 7, those 2 boards won't be sufficient. none of these boards are sufficient for a ryzen 9

[Mateyyy]

Out of those I'd personally go for the Pro-VDH Max, which is also guaranteed to work with the 3300X (or other Ryzen 3000 chips) out of the box. Have you also checked out the B450-A Pro Max?

 

If you're asking about the "+" in memory specs, it's mostly Asrock just being Asrock with their bullshit memory compatibility marketing. That being said, 3600MHz should probably be doable on two memory sticks with a Zen 2 chip like the 3300X because of the better memory controller compared to one found on prior Ryzen CPUs (Zen and Zen+).

[Darren Palmer]

Wow thanks for the super quick replies!

 

So if the 3300x supports 3600Mhz RAM, the Asrock B450M Pro4-F should also be able to run the RAM at this speed? Im not bother by lights etc, infact id prefer not to have them so the Pro4-F ticks all the box's esp with USBC.

 

 

[Haro]

2 minutes ago, Darren Palmer said:

So if the 3300x supports 3600Mhz RAM, the Asrock B450M Pro4-F should also be able to run the RAM at this speed

Yes 

It's more dependant on the imc and not the motherboard.

[Darren Palmer]

1 minute ago, TofuHaroto said:

Yes 

It's more dependant on the imc and not the motherboard.

Perfect - i wonder why they dont list 3600 as compatible? Very very confusing. Thanks - I tihnk ill buy this one, any better for less than 100 you'd recommend?

[Haro]

Just now, Darren Palmer said:

any better for less than 100 you'd recommend

Not really 

The vdh max and the pro 4 are the best boards that you can get for this price point.

[xg32]

depending on your availability i'd narrow it down to 2 boards for matx, mortar and steel legend, avoid the gigabyte and asus b450s

[Darren Palmer]

Thanks for all the advice, im going to go for the Arock, however there is a B450M Pro4 and a B450M Pro4-F ?!?! Why do they do this?! Are they the same or is one better? I cannot see any obvious differences on their site!