Aorus vs Tomahawk (Z390 vs B450 vs x470)

[Supersonicwolfe]

I am running a Gigabyte P45 Q9550 DDR2 dinosaur, which is seriously bottle-necking my GTX970 (Yeah I know it is old but I didn't feel the need to upgrade until I played Ace Combat 7 and saw how bad the CPU is bottle-necking the GTX 970 in Windows 10... (70% GPU vs 100% pinned CPU... strangely I remember getting 80-90% in Windows 7)

 

Anyway, I am in the market for a new Motherboard+CPU+RAM, but I am conflicted about whether to go with a Z390 board with cheap i5 CPU, or OC the Q9550 wait for intel 10nm or 7nm CPU (since they are switching the socket... again) or just go with AMD (then the question is about B450 vs X470 vs X570)...

 

For now the only high demanding game I play is Ace Combat 7, maybe picking Stellaris back up.

Otherwise, the Q9550 is perfectly fine with my day-to-day task (lots of Chrome tabs...), so if I OC it might be just enough to carry me though to next year

(the EP45-UD3R board and CPU are actually lightly used, since they spent most of the last 7-8 years sitting in boxes)

 

If going for a new board,

I am looking for a ATX or mATX board, similar to LTT's LAN Center's spec

(60 fps 1440p for now, since that is what my 1440p monitor can do, with room to upgrade to 4k 120hz)

But I don't foresee myself steaming while gaming.

 

*I won't mind start with a good board with cheaper CPU/RAM, then upgrading the CPU to 9900k or newer gen AMD if I abdomen the Intel ship.

I might OC the CPU if needed in future to prolong upgrade (they is why I am going for a Z390 board), but I don't see myself upgrading the motherboard for at least next 3-5 years.

Originally, I wanted to go with I5-9400 with Z390 AORUS Pro Wifi, but then I realized how cheap/good the R5 3600 really are...

MSI's Tomahawk quite competitive but with less RGB on the left side of the board

(that said I have a huge RGB Graphics card rack that will likey block any RGB below the Graphics card)

ASUS's ROG STRIX series is mostly out of question due to styling(Not a big fan of "GAMER" style on B390/Z390/B450/X470-F), but I will consider a ROG X570 STRIX or any or Prime/TUF series board.

 

If I go with AMD,I am wondering if B450 is good enough for future-gen Ryzen or I should seriously consider X470 and X570 options...

(It is hard to find a R5 combo with X470/570 board, likely I will have to go with a 2600/2700)

Another consideration is I heard AMD demands more memory speed so I might need to get 3200 Mhz Memory kits for R5 options, instead of $20 cheaper 3000Mhz DDR4 16G if I went with Intel CPUs...

 

Brand wise I would only towards Gigabyte / Aorus, MSI, with Asus come in third (even if MSI got some bad rep recently...Lucky's magic is still quite powerful to me...)

RAM Brand would be Corsair/HyperX/G.skill, RGB 8GB or 2x8GB kit.

 

********************************************************************If you want to skip the BS start here*******************************************************************************

My budget is below $425 that is 3000 RMB here.

 

So essentially I wanted to know

1. If MSI Tomahawk is a good value vs Aorus, or is MSI still have QC issues even at mid-high range model such as the Tomahawk

2. Is Comet lake/Intel 2021 worth the wait?

3. Is X470/570 really something one will need to run 4th/5th/6th gen Ryzen (In other words, will we get DDR5 in just a few years?)

 

Here are a few options I found so far...

I5-9400 with Z390 AORUS Pro Wifi $357   

**This one have the most RGB of all the ones I listed and still ranked as my top choice... But the tomahawk and AMD choice are quite attractive, plus and the 9400 is the worst CPU in the line up)

I5-9600 with Z390 MSI Tomahawk  $348.5

R5 3600 with B450 AORUS Pro Wifi $321.3

**My best choice for AMD so far...

R5 3600 with B450 MSI Tomahawk $284.2

R5 3600 with X470 MSI Gaming Pro Carbon $357.2 (if I must...)

R5 2600 wtith X470 AORUS GAMING5 WiFI $371.3

R5 2600 wtith X470 AORUS Ultra Gaming $278.5

**My second best choice for AMD, and if getting a X470 now out weighs getting a better CPU now...

R5 3600 X570  MSI Gaming Plus 421..... yeah no I don't have money for Ram now...

I also found a X470 AORUS Ultra Gaming at $157 but haven't found a R5 Combo with it.

And There is a X570 Ultra Durable at $157. Not Sure if X570 are worth it though, since almost nothing aside from NVMe can benefit from PCIe 4.0, plus no fancy X570 would stay in my budget...

 

These are the things I won't be upgrading yet:

Gigabyte GTX 970, 

EVGA 600W,

Cool Master T4 CPU Cooler (I assume it is better than AMD and Intel's box cooler? It appears supports AM4 socket)

EVO 860 SATA (and yes the P45 only have SATA 2.0... another bottleneck I want to get rid of...)

I have a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle and I don't really need WiFi since I got my desktop cabled to a abridged AC1200 router.

[Stormseeker9]

R3600 with a B450 tomahawk, MAX version it’s possible and fitting within your budget. Works out of the box with zen 2 cpu’s and full bios support instead of skimmed down one (click). 
 

currently I find that the tomahawk is a very good price/performance board for the zen 2 Cou’s instead of going for a X570. 

[Blatcher2]

I agree with @Stormseeker9 the B450 tomahawk or Max version are excellent choices for the mid range. Would DEFINITELY recommend AMD for your use case due to the budget and ability to upgrade. However if you want the x470 platform for the extra I/O the Asus Prime gives you the best value.

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($117.58 @ OutletPC) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition 42 CFM CPU Cooler  ($36.89 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Asus Prime X470-Pro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($142.89 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $397.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

[goto10]

to be pretty much 100% sure that a next gen ryzen will work on a current motherboard, x570

 

b450 is the previous generation that came for second gen ryzens, some manufacturers had problems with it and removed support for some cpus from the first gen that came with ryzens, many b450 motherboard comes with limited capabilities in terms of vrm and power delivery so many of them will not handle properly a 12 cores cpu, a 16 cores might not even work or throtle alot, i am unsure if this will happen or not again, to avoid bad surprises i would go with a x570

 

for some reason, microatx and mini itx motherboard with x570 are really expensive, so i would go with a normal size atx motherboard, i personally like more asus and gigabyte products right now

[Blatcher2]

1 minute ago, goto10 said:

to be pretty much 100% sure that a next gen ryzen will work on a current motherboard, x570

 

b450 is the previous generation that came for second gen ryzens, some manufacturers had problems with it and removed support for some cpus from the first gen that came with ryzens, many b450 motherboard comes with limited capabilities in terms of vrm and power delivery so many of them will not handle properly a 12 cores cpu, a 16 cores might not even work or throtle alot, i am unsure if this will happen or not again, to avoid bad surprises i would go with a x570

 

for some reason, microatx and mini itx motherboard with x570 are really expensive, so i would go with a normal size atx motherboard, i personally like more asus and gigabyte products right now

First of all, You don't need x570 for next gen Ryzen. While there is a small possibility there could be an incompatibility, the 3950x will run fine on a 6 + 2 phase VRM like the high end b450 and x470 boards and even most mainstream x570 boards. While it would be nice to be on the safe side, at this budget it simply doesn't make sense.  

 

If you would like to learn more about Ryzen 3000 series VRM and power delivery please read up on it here.

[dizmo]

I'd never go with MSI, so Gigabyte wins for me.

I've had nothing but problems with their boards.

[goto10]

my point is, no one guarantees you that all b450 will work with a r7 4700 or something bigger, x570 is the most likely chipset to support it with as less problems as possible

 

we don't need to learn vrm at the moment, thanks for the link, we are replying to the original poster, who wants to have some peace of mind when buying motherboards for a possible future cpu next year, and only that chipset can guarantee that

 

many x470 surely will support any 4000 resies ryzens, some b450 will also, few a320 will support it, and the limitation is not only vrm, is also bios size, manufacturer support, there are alot of things to consider

 

so to make it simple to the op, i would go with x570 to avoid considering any of that

[Supersonicwolfe]

1 hour ago, Stormseeker9 said:

R3600 with a B450 tomahawk, MAX version it’s possible and fitting within your budget. Works out of the box with zen 2 cpu’s and full bios support instead of skimmed down one (click). 
 

currently I find that the tomahawk is a very good price/performance board for the zen 2 Cou’s instead of going for a X570. 

Thanks for the input, I guess I can ditch Intel from now. (hopefully I won't face palm in 2 years time)

 

Didn't know there is a MAX version (and appears the only difference is MAX version support slightly higher ram speed OC with Ryzen?)

 

However I might still go find a B450 Aorus PRO (without WiFi) instead, mostly because that way I can achieve true RGB (Ryzen CPU, Nvidia GPU, Intel...Network card). Also that I can have 1 extra M.2, and from Linus's "Watch this BEFORE buying an AMD CPU“ video there is not much point go over 3600 (max supported by Aorus, Tomahawk MAX can go up to 4133 on Ryzen Gen3)

And yes I am a Gigabyte fan boy more than a Lucky (MSI dragon) fanboy...

 

*Might go find a B450 Gaming Pro Carbon as well.