Motherboard VRM Tier List v2 (currently AMD only)

[Jurrunio]

6 hours ago, DrDre said:

Thanks I was about to order the prime p but managed to get a gigabyte gaming x for under £100! So went with that. 

X570 gaming x? That's eeally cheap

 

1 hour ago, Cozzolino92 said:

Hey there, I'm building a single GPU PC based on R5 2600, and I'm not going to overclock. I'm asking here for an ambiguity that I might be seeing because of my lack of knowledge so here it is: can I pick the Micro ATX version of any mobo (unless form factor is specified ofc)? Is there a huge discrepancy in VRM quality between the same model over different form factors (unless explicitly stated)? Can I, let's say, pick the Micro version of the Asrock B450 Pro4 without second thoughts? Is there any due consideration about GPUs in picking a Micro ATX over a Standard ATX (keeping in mind I would definitely go with a mid tier model <200€)?

 

Thanks for your guide

Among cheap boards there's usually no difference, higher end ones (e.g. B450 Tomahawk vs B450M Mortar) you may see some ports missing on the mATX board.

[DrDre]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

X570 gaming x? That's eeally cheap

Yeah I know, that's why I switched it up! It is a ex-display item from a local store but they keep their display items in glass displays so not been messed with. Plus full warranty with it still too. Coming tomorrow as they are not allowed to do collections!

[Cozzolino92]

2 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

 

Among cheap boards there's usually no difference, higher end ones (e.g. B450 Tomahawk vs B450M Mortar) you may see some ports missing on the mATX board.

Thanks for your answer! One more question if you allow me: I want a very barebone Mobo so i'm looking at B450m S2H, the price is right and the features are all fine except the (OC) beside ram 3200mhz support. I dread that sign and I'm not sure I can make it work at all at the stock speed (OC illiterate here). Besides I could only find the single 8gb in the supported ram sheet, yet pcpartpicker lists the B450m S2H as compatible. These are the rams, for reference: (2x8gb) Cmk16gx4m2b3200c16. Is this fine? Sorry for botherinf you, these are nuances I'm simply not used to and I can't find a straight answer. 

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, Cozzolino92 said:

Thanks for your answer! One more question if you allow me: I want a very barebone Mobo so i'm looking at B450m S2H, the price is right and the features are all fine except the (OC) beside ram 3200mhz support. I dread that sign and I'm not sure I can make it work at all at the stock speed (OC illiterate here). Besides I could only find the single 8gb in the supported ram sheet, yet pcpartpicker lists the B450m S2H as compatible. These are the rams, for reference: Cmk16gx4m2b3200c16. Is this fine 

OC means that's considered an overclock and it's not guaranteed to work, it depends on the CPU and memory kit.

 

Gigabyte's cheap boards arent known for good memory speeds, so you could end up with 2933 at worst

[Cozzolino92]

Many thanks, I will dig up a little more info and consider the extra buck for my Mobo. Thanks for this awesome guide! 

 

EDIT: So I settled for a B450 Mortar which I understand is a tad overkill for R5 2600, which also means I'm going to overclock afterall.

[revhellyon]

I was thinking about MSI MEG X570 UNIFY for my 3900x, I don't plan to overclock it. Is there any other suggestion for a mobo with wifi and usb c front header? 

[UBatcha]

Just wondering, B550 releases mid-june so when can we expect the chart to be updated? I like to make motherboard purchasing decisions based on this and some extra research so thanks for all the work put into it so far!

[Jurrunio]

22 minutes ago, UBatcha said:

Just wondering, B550 releases mid-june so when can we expect the chart to be updated? I like to make motherboard purchasing decisions based on this and some extra research so thanks for all the work put into it so far!

about that time, I need to wait for reviews and those wont come until NDAs expire.

 

23 minutes ago, revhellyon said:

I was thinking about MSI MEG X570 UNIFY for my 3900x, I don't plan to overclock it. Is there any other suggestion for a mobo with wifi and usb c front header? 

There is the MSI X570 Tomahawk coming (date unknown) but it only has Realtek LAN (Wifi card is Intel)

On Gigabyte the X570 Aorus Elite WiFi and Pro Wifi (the ATX one) there is also front panel Type C, but the Wifi itself is only WiFi 5 at most, no WiFi 6 support

[GenLoggy]

Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro ATX has been performing far better in VRM temperatures in BIOS F50 which is also thankfully a stable version for Ryzen 3000.  I have 2 boards and they both improved.  Techspot had similar results in their "Ryzen 9 3950X on Good and Bad B450 Motherboards" article.

[Jurrunio]

2 minutes ago, GenLoggy said:

Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro ATX has been performing far better in VRM temperatures in BIOS F50 which is also thankfully a stable version for Ryzen 3000.  I have 2 boards and they both improved.  Techspot had similar results in their "Ryzen 9 3950X on Good and Bad B450 Motherboards" article.

That article is from Nov 2019, if it has improved then it would have been taken into consideration already

[QuantumSingularity]

Hey guys, I'm about to finally make an upgrade from my Dozer to Ryzen. Went for Ryzen5 3600 (without X), 32GB of Kinsgston HyperF 3200MHz and RX5700. Now here's the part where i hit the dilemma. What mobo to chose. Budget already went through the roof so best bang for buck has to do it, but i don't wanna sacrifice too much performance by crippling the system with a weak or old mobo. So i thought AsRocks B450 Steel Legend (the full ATX one) could do it. What do you think? Is there a better mobo for that config at that or even lower price? If there is any OC at all it won't be byond the factory settings. Will be used 90% of the time for gaming at 1080p and the other 10% occasionally streaming UHD movies (something i'm currently somehow having trouble with my current config) and normal internet stuff. Not planning on doing streaming so far. Some of you may ask why so much ram, well i'd run 6 VMs and each needs 4 Gigs, so that's why. Will order the things in the 1st 3 days of june when the quarantine here will be finally over, so considering the load, is it justified to wait and go for some low-mid range B550? And last which config with the RAM is better for performance 4x8GB or 2x16GB? Thx in advance.

 

P.S

Sorry if i placed this in the wrong thread. Wasn't sure if to post here or make a whole new thread just to ask this,

[Jurrunio]

34 minutes ago, QuantumSingularity said:

If there is any OC at all it won't be byond the factory settings.

The definition of overclocking is to exceed factory settings, so not sure what you're talking about

 

Steel Legend has enough hardware capability for R5 3600 but its BIOS isnt the most functional.

 

Consider B550 if they are available at that time

 

2x16gb gives you better chances that XMP profile works, 4x8GB is slightly faster (only measutable woth benchmarks) if they both work but you cant upgrade easily.

[GCS2000]

Hello everyone.  I am about to build my son (with him of course) a gaming PC. I have been out of the "staying current with everything" game for a long time, built 100s of PCs though so no issue there.

 

Just would like a little guidance on what motherboard and ram to get please.  Naturally I would imagine he will want blinged out RGB stuff but that is not 100% required just preferred.

 

CPU - Ryzen 3700x air cooled 

GPU - 2070S

500gb NVME drive - additional mechanical HDD installed as needed

1440P UW monitor

 

He may or may not get into o/c in the future right now want rock solid build for him to game with is friends who all left him behind on Xbox and went PC.

TIA for your advice.

 

 

[Yaerox]

I'm not too much into AMD Motherboards. I probably won't overclock (don't know anything about it). Any recommendations which Tier should be fine for:

• Ryzen 7 3700X

• Ryzen 7 3800X

• Ryzen 9 3900X

• Ryzen 9 3950X

My personal wishes are mostly: as much USB 3 as possible, preferred 1 USB C and 2 M.2 PCIe Slots.

[Jurrunio]

6 hours ago, Yaerox said:

I'm not too much into AMD Motherboards. I probably won't overclock (don't know anything about it). Any recommendations which Tier should be fine for:

• Ryzen 7 3700X

• Ryzen 7 3800X

• Ryzen 9 3900X

• Ryzen 9 3950X

My personal wishes are mostly: as much USB 3 as possible, preferred 1 USB C and 2 M.2 PCIe Slots.

It's mentioned in the list itself if you just want to know what tier you should look, if you dont overclock then you can take 1 tier lower than the "maxed out" rating for such CPU. 

 

You'll end up looking at X570 chipset tho for 2 M.2 slots and R9.

[Fasauceome]

Is there a plan to add some Intel boards? I kinda feel like now is the time, Z490 is the only LGA 1200 offering available so you don't have to dive into a fully fleshed out product stack worth of info.

[Jurrunio]

46 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Is there a plan to add some Intel boards? I kinda feel like now is the time, Z490 is the only LGA 1200 offering available so you don't have to dive into a fully fleshed out product stack worth of info.

I know what they're made of now, but still lack reviews to base the tier list of. After all board vendors could totally ruin the heatsinks because designers rule over engineer's decision

[AshRiver]

5 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

I know what they're made of now, but still lack reviews to base the tier list of. After all board vendors could totally ruin the heatsinks because designers rule over engineer's decision

[GnarsAttack]

Greeting from Malaysia. I need inputs from the veterans. Recently ive bought Ryzen 3 2300x for a steal (MYR200 used). My budget are tight, so, do B450m S2H good enough to OC the CPU on stock cooler? I wont go crazy, as it will be my first time OCing. The price is around MYR250. Most of the forum iasked, urged me to go for asrock pro4, which is MYR100 over my budget. 

The reason im eyeing the S2H is the price and the expansion slot. I dont plan to crossfire or SLi. I have a 2 slot GPU, which means all the pcie are available. 

This PC is for occasional Warband, Civ V, my kids Lego Games, and youtube.

Sorry for the english, and thanks in advance

 

[Jurrunio]

15 minutes ago, GnarsAttack said:

Greeting from Malaysia. I need inputs from the veterans. Recently ive bought Ryzen 3 2300x for a steal (MYR200 used). My budget are tight, so, do B450m S2H good enough to OC the CPU on stock cooler? I wont go crazy, as it will be my first time OCing. The price is around MYR250. Most of the forum iasked, urged me to go for asrock pro4, which is MYR100 over my budget. 

Yes, In fact the S2H is very much gigabyte's attempt to copy over Pro4's advantage (i.e. better heatsinks).

[yohanesek]

I have questions that someone would have answers for me. So, I'm going to build a new rig based on Ryzen 9 3900X. I've settled on everything else except for the motherboard. I come down to either use Asus or MSI motherboard. For a couple of days, I decided to use ROG Strix E-gaming or Crosshair VIII Hero wifi. However finding the motherboard in my area is not easy. The price for strix E is around 450 $ (inc. tax) and crosshair VIII hero wifi for 540 $ (inc. tax). Now based on the internet it seems the MSRP for these boards is 330 $ and 380 $. Now that's a price hike. 

 

Then I ventured to MSI mother board and I can find a Creation for 433 $ (inc.tax) and Godlike for 567 $ (inc. tax). Internet said the price should be 500 and 700$ respectively. If this information is correct then it's a great value right? But both of them have e-ATX form factor and I'm a bit cautious if the board and cables could fit in nicely into Phanteks Evolv X (since I'm not used to building a rig by myself). So what do you guys think? which one performs better and have more value over the others (performance to money ratio)? Thanks!

 

PS: for graphic card, I plan to use ROG strix OC. But I find MSI gaming trio with similar price and I'm find with both. 

[knightslugger]

@Jurrunio I dropped a 3900x into my Asus X370-Pro and it is running just fine, however I'm a tad concerned that since it's in the "C Tier" (125A) that if a guy were to modify TDC & EDC to 230 in PBO that i may end up popping some MosFETs. CB20 tops out at 103A so I think i'm fine there, but i hit it with a SmallFFT P95 and it spiked to 139A. now i realize P95 is an absolute worst case senario for a CPU, and likely it would never EVER see that sort of workload (I use this machine to transcode videos) but if i were to consider overclocking and I was approaching those current values (125A) would you recommend a different board with a better heatsinks (possible B or A Tier) or could a guy just snake a fan in there and blow air on that heatsink to keep things from exploding?

 

I really struggle at finding good info about the x370-Pro board and 3900x combos. maybe you have some guidence for a guy just looking to keep his HW chugging along...

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, knightslugger said:

however I'm a tad concerned that since it's in the "C Tier" (125A) that if a guy were to modify TDC & EDC to 230 in PBO that i may end up popping some MosFETs.

Then just don't do that

 

2 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

if i were to consider overclocking and I was approaching those current values (125A) would you recommend a different board with a better heatsinks (possible B or A Tier) or could a guy just snake a fan in there and blow air on that heatsink to keep things from exploding?

if you already have the board and dont have problems with adding a fan, just add the fan. Cheap solution and will improve temperatures a lot since the heatsink actually cares about bringing as much surface area as possible with what little aluminum it's made of.

 

Sadly no exact data with 3900x on X370 Prime Pro, this board came way before this CPU so sources are scarce

[knightslugger]

22 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Then just don't do that

 

if you already have the board and dont have problems with adding a fan, just add the fan. Cheap solution and will improve temperatures a lot since the heatsink actually cares about bringing as much surface area as possible with what little aluminum it's made of.

 

Sadly no exact data with 3900x on X370 Prime Pro, this board came way before this CPU so sources are scarce

yeah, kinda sucks. oh well wears out it wears out. i'll just buy a new one. when i'm CB20 Benchmarking, it's not hitting over 93A  4.2 All core 1.25v and VRM temps are pretty good at about 60c so there must be a halfway decent airflow across the fins. There is no workload I perform that would stress it to the point that P95 does (beside P95, what would?) so I think it's fine.

[takedadshiro]

On 12/24/2019 at 11:10 AM, Jurrunio said:

Tier D 100A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 1700 and 3700X, a tad more than maxed out 2600/1600AF, maxed out 2700 in ambient cooling (Cinebench R15)

Asus: X470 Prime Pro, X470-I, B450 TUF Pro, B450-E, B450-I, X370 X370-I, B350 B350-I

Asrock: X470 Master SLI, K4, ITX, B450 Pro4, K4, M/AC, Steel Legend, ITX, B350 Pro4, K4

Gigabyte: X470 Gaming 5, Ultra Gaming, B450 Aorus Elite (mATX)

MSI: X570 X570-A Pro, Gaming Plus, Edge, X470 Gaming Pro, B450 Pro-VDH (& Max & V2), Bazooka (& V2), X370 Gaming Pro Carbon, Krait Gaming, SLI Plus, Gaming Plus, Gaming Pro, B350 Gaming Pro Carbon, Krait Gaming

I'm planning to build a PC for my friend for as cheap as possible and I just want to ask is the M-ATX version of ASUS's B450 TUF Pro and Asrock's B450 Pro4 the same as the ones that listed here? Thanks.