Best motherboard for 150-200

[AmpedUpDad]

Here's the deal. I've got a 3700x coming once it's back in stock later this month. It's a gift. I've got 32gb of trident z royal silver RAM @ 3200mhz sitting in my desk drawer to run with it. 

 

Now I need the best motherboard I can get for 150-200 dollars with decent power delivery and can do some decent overclocking. 

 

What're y'all's suggestions? Thanks!

[Jurrunio]

Any plans to get Ryzen 9? Any use for PCIe 4.0 SSD? Do you have a ton of stuff to hook onto?

[Mister Woof]

Consensus is tomahawk Max for b450 and Asus TUF for x570

 

I think

[mariushm]

Gigabyte Aorus x570 Elite is also very good.

[AmpedUpDad]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Any plans to get Ryzen 9? Any use for PCIe 4.0 SSD? Do you have a ton of stuff to hook onto?

I'll probably stick with the 3700x for a good while. I've had my 3570k for about 6 years, so I make things last... lol. 

 

I've got an ssd and a HDD. An aio and a fan controller... I'd like at least one m.2 slot for a future upgrade...

2 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

Consensus is tomahawk Max for b450 and Asus TUF for x570

 

I think

I'm not confident in your confidence lol

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, AmpedUpDad said:

I'll probably stick with the 3700x for a good while. I've had my 3570k for about 6 years, so I make things last... lol. 

 

I've got an ssd and a HDD. An aio and a fan controller... I'd like at least one m.2 slot for a future upgrade...

Then it comes to the M.2 slot. SATA SSDs are enough in my book, but if you want to run NVMe SSDs or 1 SATA 1 NVMe you'll need better boards.

[AmpedUpDad]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Then it comes to the M.2 slot. SATA SSDs are enough in my book, but if you want to run NVMe SSDs or 1 SATA 1 NVMe you'll need better boards.

Better than... there aren't any boards in that range that can handle what I'm looking to do? 

 

I'd also be willing to skip the m.2, I just didn't want the hassle of more wires... lol

[BigRom]

1 minute ago, AmpedUpDad said:

Better than... there aren't any boards in that range that can handle what I'm looking to do? 

 

I'd also be willing to skip the m.2, I just didn't want the hassle of more wires... lol

M.2 has no wires, you just screw the drive onto the motherboard like this

 

A lot of people are just going for M.2 as there are options for NVMe drives that are faster than the conventional SATA SSD while also not having to deal with any cable management

 

[Otto_iii]

Most of the better b450s that can handle OCing a 3900 or 3950x, that are still easily found in stock, cost about the same as the Asus Prime x570-P, about 150$, so imo i'd say just go cheap ASUS X570, or if you can't find it in stock, or price is way better then ASRock x570 Pro4 is good budget x570 as well. 

 

26 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

Consensus is tomahawk Max for b450

ASRock b450m pro4 and MSI Tomahawk i believe both have very similar quality VRMs, siding slightly with Pro4 theoretically (test would be more useful), enough to OC 8 cores to the moon, both are shipping these days with "Ready for Ryzen 3000" bios update pre-installed, but i don't believe either are recommended for safely OCing with 12 or 16 cores.  MSI Tomahawk mainly gets praise because the bios and support for it is way nicer between those two, but it doesn't have amazing "WOW" insanely good VRMs, just pretty alright ones.  

If one just wants a 8 core part, or thinks overclocking is for nerds either of those are great b450 budget option.

[AmpedUpDad]

19 minutes ago, BigRom said:

M.2 has no wires, you just screw the drive onto the motherboard like this

 

A lot of people are just going for M.2 as there are options for NVMe drives that are faster than the conventional SATA SSD while also not having to deal with any cable management

 

I knew all of that...

[BigRom]

21 minutes ago, Otto_iii said:

ASRock b450m pro4 and MSI Tomahawk i believe both have very similar quality VRMs, siding slightly with Pro4

No chance, I have the Pro4 and the MSI Tomahawk is another tier up in terms of VRMs. Honestly MSI's B450 range as a whole has some really impressive VRMs, but the Pro4 is likely to be much cheaper.

[Mister Woof]

2 minutes ago, BigRom said:

No chance, I have the Pro4 and the MSI Tomahawk is another tier up in terms of VRMs. Honestly MSI's B450 range as a whole has some really impressive VRMs, but the Pro4 is likely to be much cheaper.

I chose the Gigabyte B450 Aorus M because it was cheaper and in the same tier as the others when I bought it at $89.

 

Little did I know the list would change. Shoulda got the tomahawk.

 

Yes, I am bitter still.

[BigRom]

4 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

I chose the Gigabyte B450 Aorus M because it was cheaper and in the same tier as the others when I bought it at $89.

 

Little did I know the list would change. Shoulda got the tomahawk.

 

Yes, I am bitter still.

At least you didn't get the B350 Gigabyte, 2 of my friends have it and they both hate it with passion (one thinks the BIOS is gibberish, the other can't OC his 2400G properly)

[Mister Woof]

3 minutes ago, BigRom said:

At least you didn't get the B350 Gigabyte, 2 of my friends have it and they both hate it with passion (one thinks the BIOS is gibberish, the other can't OC his 2400G properly)

The first board I got was a Gigabyte X370 Gaming as a combo deal with my Ryzen 5 1600 from newegg last BF for $149.

 

That motherboard was horrible, and died. Which is why I got a B450. 

 

I have mostly Gigabyte motherboards that I like in my current systems.

 

The X370 had no LLC, no fixed voltage, no nothing.

 

That said, even the B450 Aorus M bios is pitiful compared to my gaming 5.

[Otto_iii]

4 hours ago, BigRom said:

No chance, I have the Pro4 and the MSI Tomahawk is another tier up in terms of VRMs. Honestly MSI's B450 range as a whole has some really impressive VRMs, but the Pro4 is likely to be much cheaper.

If that can be proven i'd be happty to accept it, as Tomahawk demands a bit of a premium and i'd hope it actually is superior. Theorycrafting means nothing, real world is what matters, wouldn't be surprised if Tomahawk has more then just a slight edge there. 

[Jurrunio]

4 hours ago, AmpedUpDad said:

Better than... there aren't any boards in that range that can handle what I'm looking to do? 

 

I'd also be willing to skip the m.2, I just didn't want the hassle of more wires... lol

because if you're not upgrading the CPU until it's a better idea to get on a newer platform anyways, B450 and X470 boards will do the job. Only problem with B450 is that there's only the Carbon from MSI that's somewhat capable, and its second M.2 slot runs PCIe 2.0 x4. Currently not seeing any X470 board at a good price with BIOS flashback either, but maybe your local microcenter can sell you say, a Gigabyte Gaming 7 or Asus Crosshair VII Hero for a good price.

 

For X570, if you dont mind the lacking rear I/O get the X570-P from Asus, otherwise choose between the Asus TUF and Gigabyte Aorus Elite.

[BigRom]

9 minutes ago, Otto_iii said:

If that can be proven i'd be happty to accept it, as Tomahawk demands a bit of a premium and i'd hope it actually is superior. Theorycrafting means nothing, real world is what matters, wouldn't be surprised if Tomahawk has more then just a slight edge there. 

There is limited OC headroom for the Pro4, and IIRC higher memory speed support isn't great either as I tried running 3200Mhz RAM on it with very mixed results. The Asrock VRM aren't terrible, its just that MSI's cooling for their B450 boards are so good that it even outperforms some of their lower X470 boards.

 

If OP isn't planning on OC and just wants to run the system as is, the Pro4 would be perfectly fine tbh

[Otto_iii]

it run unqualified 3600 speed C16 dram with Ryzen 3000 fine , id be happy to know what 3200 it had issues with though. 

i don't doubt overall it has serious bios, and also ram compatability support compared to the Tomahawk though, us ASRock dudes still sitting and waiting for a actual 1.0.0.4B patch when thats been out for other b450s for ages now.  It definitely feels like a 2nd-tier board, but i suppose because of issues like that its crazy cheap for what it is, hard to argue with 50$ at Microcenter with a CPU, or 70-80$ elsewhere.  Tomahawks are still usually 110-120+, which for me is enough i'd be tempted to just jump to a good budget x570 with way better vrm

[BigRom]

7 minutes ago, Otto_iii said:

it run unqualified 3600 speed C16 dram with Ryzen 3000 fine , id be happy to know what 3200 it had issues with though. 

i don't doubt overall it has serious bios, and also ram compatability support compared to the Tomahawk though, us ASRock dudes still sitting and waiting for a actual 1.0.0.4B patch when thats been out for other b450s for ages now.  It definitely feels like a 2nd-tier board, but i suppose because of issues like that its crazy cheap for what it is, hard to argue with 50$ at Microcenter with a CPU, or 70-80$ elsewhere.  Tomahawks are still usually 110-120+, which for me is enough i'd be tempted to just jump to a good budget x570 with way better vrm

Yes Asrock hasn't really given it a proper BIOS update since the one to support 3000 series Ryzen. A shame really as its a great budget board. Too busy putting RGB bling on the Steel Legend (especially the X570 one, that lasted my friend all of 1 month) to care about the Pro4