Motherboard VRM Tier List v2 (currently AMD only)

[Haro]

8 minutes ago, genexis_x said:

MSI MAG B550M Bazooka and B550M Pro-VDH?

Both are in tier C, the bazooka is in blue meaning it's one of the better boards in that tier, both have the same vrm but the bazooka performs better due to the larger heatsink. 

[genexis_x]

2 minutes ago, Haro said:

Both are in tier C

I see. Since it doesn't mention mATX I thought it applies for ATX models only

[Mateyyy]

Just now, genexis_x said:

I see. Since it doesn't mention mATX I thought it applies for ATX models only

There are no ATX variants of the VDH and Bazooka. Both of them are mATX only.

[Haro]

1 minute ago, genexis_x said:

Since it doesn't mention mATX I thought it applies for ATX models only

that's because the B550m bazooka and pro vdh only come in mATX,  no ATX versions. 

[silverxtreme123]

Hi,

 

Can anyone recommend me a motherboard for my next build?
Ideally I'm looking for something with Wi-Fi integrated, so had my eye on the MSI B550 Gaming Edge WIFI and the MSI B550 Gaming Carbon WIFI.

(Some of the parts are re-used from my current build)
 

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600

MB - ??

GPU - Asus RTX 2070 OC

PSU - Corsair RM (2019) 750W

Storage - ADATA SX8200 Pro 1TB / Samsung 860 QVO 1TB

Case - NZXT H510 or Corsair 400D Airflow (depends on availability)

 

[Mateyyy]

21 minutes ago, silverxtreme123 said:

Hi,

 

Can anyone recommend me a motherboard for my next build?
Ideally I'm looking for something with Wi-Fi integrated, so had my eye on the MSI B550 Gaming Edge WIFI and the MSI B550 Gaming Carbon WIFI.

(Some of the parts are re-used from my current build)
 

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600

MB - ??

GPU - Asus RTX 2070 OC

PSU - Corsair RM (2019) 750W

Storage - ADATA SX8200 Pro 1TB / Samsung 860 QVO 1TB

Case - NZXT H510 or Corsair 400D Airflow (depends on availability)

The Gaming Edge WIFI is a good choice, while the Gaming Carbon isn't unless it's literally the same price.

I'd also consider the B550 Aorus Pro AC and Strix B550-F WIFI.

[mrbeanz]

I'm currently working to build a new system around these specifications and I'm looking for motherboard recommendations.

 

CPU: AMD Zen 3 5600x

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S (air cooling)

PSU: Seasonic 850w platinum

Memory: 16GB RAM - 3600Mhz

Storage: 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus (I plan to slot in another NVME drive later)

GPU: NVidia 3080 (still trying to find one, will use my current GTX 1080 in the meantime)

Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 (not the S2)

 

I haven't built an AMD system in forever, I've been on Intel for quite a long time.

 

I'm strongly considering the new ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PRO (WI-FI) motherboard. I would like to have as much newer technologies on my board as possible without needing to buy the highest end board on the market. Solid bang for the buck I guess you could say. I have a few questions though.

 

Should I be considering the B550 chipset? I read an article from Gamers Nexus that said that the X570 is still the higher end chipset. However, a different article said the B550 motherboards will in general have a better VRM than the X570's? I'm not looking to do hardcore overclocking, but I'd like to squeeze out a good amount of performance on the air cooling.

 

Should I be looking at any of the other ASUS X570 boards like the Rog Strix or Prime boards? I'm not seeing any real significant improvements over the TUF PRO.

 

Any other brands/models I should be considering? I'm not interested in purchasing MSI, bad previous experience.

 

What would be your recommendation?

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, mrbeanz said:

I'm currently in the process of building an AMD Zen 3 x570 system.

 

I'm fairly settled on the ASUS TUF Gaming x570-Pro (WiFi) motherboard, however am I missing out on something significant by not considering a Rog Strix or Prime board?  My personal preference is to go with ASUS for my motherboard, and I do not want to buy MSI. Any other brand or model I should be considering?

 

Will the Rog or Prime boards offer better capabilities to tweak my system or overclock components or is the TUF board just as capable?  I'm not going to do any hardcore overclocking, but I'd like to squeeze out a good amount of performance with solid air cooling.

 

Thoughts?

TUF Plus board does not have BIOS flashback (neither does the Prime Pro), could be a problem if you're going for a Vermeer (i.e. Zen 3) CPU. There's also the TUF Pro board coming up that should have everything the TUF Plus doesnt but the Prime Pro and X570-F have.

 

You can also go for B550 boards or Gigabyte (stay with ATX, that is) and Asrock (give them more time to fix BIOS issues, do not expect software that are not absolutely necessary like Asrock RGB Sync).

[WarpigsSabbath]

Hello! I have a budget for around $400 USD for a motherboard and I was planning to pair it with either a 5900x or 5950x.  Stability, Aesthetics. and future proof would be my main priority (RGB).  I was eyeing on a X570 Gigabyte Auros Master but are there any options that are better?  I will not overclock but might do it only for fun in the future. I will be pairing it with a RTX 3080 and Lian Li O11 Dynamic.  I also might use a NZXT z73.

 

Thanks! 

[mrbeanz]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

TUF Plus board does not have BIOS flashback (neither does the Prime Pro), could be a problem if you're going for a Vermeer (i.e. Zen 3) CPU. There's also the TUF Pro board coming up that should have everything the TUF Plus doesnt but the Prime Pro and X570-F have.

 

You can also go for B550 boards or Gigabyte (stay with ATX, that is) and Asrock (give them more time to fix BIOS issues, do not expect software that are not absolutely necessary like Asrock RGB Sync).

Yeah, I'm talking about the TUF Pro board as my strong consideration which does have BIOS flashback.

 

I'll take a peek at Gigabyte and see what they have on offer.  What are the big things to look for in a B550 board over an X570 board?

[stanleylelnats]

When looking at the $350 offerings of X570 motherboards would you recommend the MSI Meg Ace or the Gigabyte Aorus Master? I am currently stuck between the two as they seem to have similar features at a glance and am not sure which one would be better.

[Jurrunio]

6 hours ago, stanleylelnats said:

When looking at the $350 offerings of X570 motherboards would you recommend the MSI Meg Ace or the Gigabyte Aorus Master? I am currently stuck between the two as they seem to have similar features at a glance and am not sure which one would be better.

Ace only has 4 SATA ports while Master has 6, if 4 is too little you can skip MSI. You can get the MSI Unify however if RGB does not matter at all. As you've figured out, the one-step below flagship boards are not that different from one another.

[stanleylelnats]

6 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Ace only has 4 SATA ports while Master has 6, if 4 is too little you can skip MSI. You can get the MSI Unify however if RGB does not matter at all. As you've figured out, the one-step below flagship boards are not that different from one another.

Ok cool. I saw the Aorus Master was highlighted blue to say it was a better option than the others in that tier. Are the VRMs better on that than the ace/unify? 
 

also, not sure if a typo but the Ace/unify are listed both in Tier S- and A

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, stanleylelnats said:

Ok cool. I saw the Aorus Master was highlighted blue to say it was a better option than the others in that tier. Are the VRMs better on that than the ace/unify? 
 

also, not sure if a typo but the Ace/unify are listed both in Tier S- and A

Ace and Unify are in Tier S-. It's not that they make much difference though, your CPU will blow up before the boards do

[Ambitious_Basket]

Not sure if I'm understanding correctly, but are Tier S- and Tier S are only useful for Extreme Overclocking with LN2? Does that mean with Air cooling or AIO, there is no reason to go above Tier A even with 5950x?

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, Ambitious_Basket said:

Not sure if I'm understanding correctly, but are Tier S- and Tier S are only useful for Extreme Overclocking with LN2? Does that mean with Air cooling or AIO, there is no reason to go above Tier A?

yes and not really. apart from bigger VRM they also offer better networking, more USB ports, stronger memory OC capability and so on.

[SavageNeo]

Just now, Ambitious_Basket said:

Not sure if I'm understanding correctly, but are Tier S- and Tier S are only useful for Extreme Overclocking with LN2? Does that mean with Air cooling or AIO, there is no reason to go above Tier A?

Basically. They also should have more features etc.

But tier A is also little overkill for even 5950x overclocked. You could run 5950x with B tier board easily and with tier C board, with decent case airflow.

[Gigakv]

Just dropped a 5600X in my B450 PRO4, with PBO + AutoOC CPU EDC goes up to 125A and all core boost during Cinebench is around 4500MHZ with single core boosting to 4850.

It seems be be maxing out at 125A even with P95, I think that's the motherboard absolute max limit.

 

[Stylia]

Hi there!

I am in a little confusion regarding chosing my motherboard for my new rig and owuld love to get help from you lovely people!

 

Currently what my rig is planned to look like is:
CPU: Ryzen 3600X (Until 5600X becomes available in my country)
GPU: Nvidia 1660TI (Open for suggestions if there is anything better in this price range)
Ram: 16gb Kingston DDR4 3600MHz HyperX Fury Black CL16
M4: Samsung EVO Plus 970 3600hz 500gb

Now for the motherboard, sadly I'm only at around $200~ price range to get a proper motherboard.
I was thinking to go for B550 Tomahawk or some X570 in that range.
Would love to get some suggestions on this matter. Thank you in advance!

[Jurrunio]

On 11/22/2020 at 8:03 AM, Gigakv said:

Just dropped a 5600X in my B450 PRO4, with PBO + AutoOC CPU EDC goes up to 125A and all core boost during Cinebench is around 4500MHZ with single core boosting to 4850.

It seems be be maxing out at 125A even with P95, I think that's the motherboard absolute max limit.

 

Or is it the CPU's limit? EDC is the peak current.

 

23 minutes ago, Stylia said:

GPU: Nvidia 1660TI (Open for suggestions if there is anything better in this price range)

1660 Super?

 

24 minutes ago, Stylia said:

M4: Samsung EVO Plus 970 3600hz 500gb

It's M.2. What is 3600Hz?

If you need to save money, dont get Samsung. Really heavy premium.

 

26 minutes ago, Stylia said:

Now for the motherboard, sadly I'm only at around $200~ price range to get a proper motherboard.
I was thinking to go for B550 Tomahawk or some X570 in that range.
Would love to get some suggestions on this matter. Thank you in advance!

As the list shows, you dont really need to go above tier D just for gaming (since games dont scale to core counts that high). After that just pick a board that you can get for cheap and has everything you want (RGB LEDs, ports etc).

[chimimoryo]

I was waiting to see what the asrock razer boards brought to the table before I made my decision for my new motherboard, then I found out it's strictly just a rebranding with a $100 premium added on top. No thank you. 

 

So I think I've decided on the asrock x570 pg velocita. I didn't see it on the list and after perusing this thread for a bit, I couldn't find mention of it (my ad/hd might have prevented me from seeing it though). Does anyone have any idea about its vrms? 

[Jurrunio]

27 minutes ago, chimimoryo said:

So I think I've decided on the asrock x570 pg velocita. I didn't see it on the list and after perusing this thread for a bit, I couldn't find mention of it (my ad/hd might have prevented me from seeing it though). Does anyone have any idea about its vrms? 

It's a new release, the capacitor bank and VRM layout looks like the B550 Velocita which itself shares the same base design on the X570 Taichi only price optimized over time (i.e. stuff they consider not important removed). 12 powerstages in other words, if it is 50A each just like the B550 Taichi and Velocita then it will get the same rating as the B550 Velocita. Not clarified however.

[chimimoryo]

15 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

It's a new release, the capacitor bank and VRM layout looks like the B550 Velocita which itself shares the same base design on the X570 Taichi only price optimized over time (i.e. stuff they consider not important removed). 12 powerstages in other words, if it is 50A each just like the B550 Taichi and Velocita then it will get the same rating as the B550 Velocita. Not clarified however.

The literature about the board says 14 phase and 50amps. But this is the part of computer magic I don't fully comprehend. So that's the same as the taichi and pg 550s vrm? 

[Stylia]

Thank you so much for your fast answer Jurrunio! Much appreciated!

Now that you point it out, I just noticed that I've made some mistakes in my post..

The GPU Is MSI GeForce GTX 1660TI Ventus XS 6G OC 192bit 6GB DDR6.
I am open for advices if there is a better one, my current budget for a GPU is around 300-330eur.

I made a mistake with the SSD as I was copy-pasting..
The SSD I planned to get was Samsung Evo-Plus. I am not very well informed about M.2 and this Samsung Evo-Plus looked quite decent for its price of 100eur.
But for this also, I am always open for good advice!

I have definitely seen some great motherboards from your list!
Since I was so fixed on getting some X570 I can't decide for days now..
I must ask, in your opinion, if I get B550 Tomahawk will I be fine with my setup?
B550 Tomahawk is kinda on discount at my stores and I was thinking if that would be a better option than a budget X570 at the same price.
But I also thought about going for X570 Steel legend or Pro4.. But their price is same as B550 Tomahawk..

Thank you again for your kindness!

 

[Jurrunio]

36 minutes ago, chimimoryo said:

The literature about the board says 14 phase and 50amps. But this is the part of computer magic I don't fully comprehend. So that's the same as the taichi and pg 550s vrm? 

Then treat the VRM as if it's a B550 Velocita. They add up 12+2 for that 14, so it's 12 for CPU and 2 for SOC.

 

B550 Taichi has 16 phase if you do math in their way so it's different, but yes it's the same as X570 Taichi and B550 Velocita (and more similar boards)

 

28 minutes ago, Stylia said:

The GPU Is MSI GeForce GTX 1660TI Ventus XS 6G OC 192bit 6GB DDR6.
I am open for advices if there is a better one, my current budget for a GPU is around 300-330eur.

1660S with two fans that isnt the MSI Ventus XS? XS literally means extra shit from what reviews tell, runs hot and loud.

 

28 minutes ago, Stylia said:

I am not very well informed about M.2 and this Samsung Evo-Plus looked quite decent for its price of 100eur.

I dont know what European country this is but you can compare to other similar performing models, like the WD SN750, Crucial P5, Kingston KC2500 and Corsair MP510

 

and just get the Tomahawk