Motherboard VRM Tier List v2 (currently AMD only)

[ParbaZ29]

Does the vrm on a Gigabyte a320m s2h v2 will be on good temps if I plug a ryzen 3 3300x (no overclocking offcourse) will the temperature be good or should I go for a b450 ds3h with small heatsink for it's vrm

[CalmOfDawn]

Can someone recommend me a high quality NAS B550 ECC passive-cooling motherboard to pair up with a 5600X? I don't mind paying premium for something super reliable.

 

I'm setting one up to archive technical knowledge of industrial production/distribution systems.

[IonFlare]

Hi, I currently ordered a 5600X (which will arrive maybe next week or so) and it's my first time using AMD CPUs so I'm asking for advice. 

 

I'm torn picking between these two motherboards:

• MSI B450M Tomahawk Max II (~$120)
• MSI MAG B550M Bazooka (~$150)

Seeing that they're both in the same tier, is the $30 price jump really worth it when comparing these two boards? I don't plan to overclock anything else except RAM, and has plans to upgrade to a 5800X in the future, so I'm currently undecided. 

[Jurrunio]

On 3/7/2021 at 3:18 AM, Mordotz said:

Does that mean if I just use Gen4 1 M.2 SSD, that a B550 will be better?

It's just probably cheaper.

 

12 hours ago, KiteGX said:

I have a 5800x and a B450 Aorus M. Is it worth upgrading the motherboard? On HWconfig it shows a max power draw of 142.28w/148.61A when running Cinebench. I don't really understand anything about this VRM stuff but I see that this motherboard doesn't max out the CPU on the tier list.

Yes if you're looking to overclock

 

12 hours ago, ParbaZ29 said:

Does the vrm on a Gigabyte a320m s2h v2 will be on good temps if I plug a ryzen 3 3300x (no overclocking offcourse) will the temperature be good or should I go for a b450 ds3h with small heatsink for it's vrm

It will be fine with the downdraft box cooler

 

6 hours ago, CalmOfDawn said:

Can someone recommend me a high quality NAS B550 ECC passive-cooling motherboard to pair up with a 5600X? I don't mind paying premium for something super reliable.

 

I'm setting one up to archive technical knowledge of industrial production/distribution systems.

ECC certified motherboard? I know Adrock Rack makes some server oriented boards for AM4, maybe Supermicro does, not sure. These arent brands I'm familiar with but these brands do stand out in availability since you typically cannot buy a single new server board. These two you actually can, from 3rd party sellers ofc.

[Jurrunio]

5 hours ago, IonFlare said:

Hi, I currently ordered a 5600X (which will arrive maybe next week or so) and it's my first time using AMD CPUs so I'm asking for advice. 

 

I'm torn picking between these two motherboards:

• MSI B450M Tomahawk Max II (~$120)
• MSI MAG B550M Bazooka (~$150)

Seeing that they're both in the same tier, is the $30 price jump really worth it when comparing these two boards? I don't plan to overclock anything else except RAM, and has plans to upgrade to a 5800X in the future, so I'm currently undecided. 

The cheaper board is a larger ATX board (so.no B450M, just B450) without PCIe 4.0. that's the main difference. You also need to.prepare for BIOS update with BIOS flashback button with 5800x since it doesnt support Zen 3 from the beginning. If you dont need PCIe 4 then just go B450.

[Nifr]

So i bought 5800x and MSI x570 tomahawk, sadly ive been having non stop problems, pwm and smart fan curve bugged out for the longesr time, and still getting random crashes to desktop in games ( no error)

 

Maybe planing to return both and get 5900x instead and was thinking i should put in a little more money on the motherboard.
 

First idea was maybe MSI x570 Unify as i like the clear CMOS feature, makes it easier if i wanna OC in the future. However i see that x570 tomahawk is listed as better. Why is that ?

 

Is it cause the price/value on the tomahawk is so great ? Seems like you almost have to double the price if you wanna go up an tier ? Is there any benefits from going all out and buying ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ?

 

(Know x570 tomahawk should work great with 5900x, problem is that its almost always out of stock and since my current motherboard seemes to be broken i was thinking of maybe replacing it with a slightly better one since i can afford it)

[Jurrunio]

33 minutes ago, Nifr said:

ve been having non stop problems, pwm and smart fan curve bugged out for the longesr time, and still getting random crashes to desktop in games ( no error)

BIOS up to date?

 

33 minutes ago, Nifr said:

However i see that x570 tomahawk is listed as better. Why is that ? 

Is it cause the price/value on the tomahawk is so great ?

I only judge the VRM temperatures here.

 

34 minutes ago, Nifr said:

Is there any benefits from going all out and buying ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ?

things other than the VRM are better for higher tier boards. In case of the Hero it's also from a different brand, so if there's something MSI screwed up then there's a good chance Asus did not. If it's an AMD problem though it won't help.

[Nifr]

@jurrunio

 

BIOS up to date, but havent tried the latest beta bios

 

Ok so this list is purely about VRM temperatures, is there corelation about vrm quallity and temperature ?

- And exactly what is VRM needed for ?

 

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, Nifr said:

is there corelation about vrm quallity and temperature ?

yes, a VRM that runs hot under certain load wont be good for that load (degradation. At the same time there are also other factors like voltage regulation, but much fewer people will need to care about this because most do not care about extra 50-100MHz of core clock. That's why those other factors are not covered.

 

1 hour ago, Nifr said:

And exactly what is VRM needed for ?

It's the thing powering your CPU. Too much of it will lie useless, not enough will make it run hot.

[CoBrA2168]

@Jurrunio Thanks for all of the advice/tips you've given people in this thread.  The first post, along with all of your other answers, have been a huge help.

 

Anyways, I'm debating between 2 B550 boards (ATX) for use with a 5600X.  Here's the boards I'm considering:

• MSI B550 Gaming Edge WiFi (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-B550-GAMING-EDGE-WIFI/Overview)
• ASUS TUF Gaming B550-Plus (Wi-Fi) (https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/All-series/TUF-GAMING-B550-PLUS-WI-FI/)

Both are relatively the same price, with the ASUS being about $10 cheaper.  It looks like the MSI scores higher on the VRM list, but I really don't plan to overclock, at least not at first.  I'm more concerned about BIOS updates / stability.

 

I went back and skimmed the last 10 pages or so to try fo find my answer, but it doesn't seem like anyone has compared these boards yet.  Hopefully you can help point me in the right direction!

[Jurrunio]

16 hours ago, CoBrA2168 said:

more concerned about BIOS updates / stability.

Then get the Asus board. Bigger VRM is the only advantage of the MSI here.

[CoBrA2168]

3 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Then get the Asus board. Bigger VRM is the only advantage of the MSI here.

Thank you so much for the reply.  Is that due to just ASUS being the better manufacturer?  Also I guess it's nice that the ASUS does happen to be $10 cheaper, but honestly that isn't much of a factor here.  If the MSI board is indeed better, I wouldn't mind spending the extra money.

 

Thanks again!

[Jurrunio]

11 minutes ago, CoBrA2168 said:

 Is that due to just ASUS being the better manufacturer?

the Edge is a bit behind in USB config, that's what caught my eye when comparing them. Though MSI's code of eithics either doesn't exist or is not enforced strictly, so it's technically true Asus is a better company.

 

 

[CoBrA2168]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

the Edge is a bit behind in USB config, that's what caught my eye when comparing them. Though MSI's code of eithics either doesn't exist or is not enforced strictly, so it's technically true Asus is a better company.

 

 

Thanks for that information! I'll be sure to check out that video too.

 

One last question: if I do decide to overclock at some point, would I actually see a tangible difference with the better VRMs on the MSI board?

[Jurrunio]

48 minutes ago, CoBrA2168 said:

One last question: if I do decide to overclock at some point, would I actually see a tangible difference with the better VRMs on the MSI board?

Below a Ryzen 9 there will be no difference.

[CoBrA2168]

15 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Below a Ryzen 9 there will be no difference.

That's kinda what I was assuming too.  Thanks again for the help!!

[Tbp4cfym]

Hi! The most confusing thing when looking at building a new gen pc for me has been the motherboard. Choosing between b550 or x570 and then all the different variations of those boards, and every YouTuber has a differing opinion on which one you should buy. So after looking at this list I settled on the rog strix E series. But should I go b550 or x570? Is the difference between the 2 boards with the extra $50? 

 

Edit: As I went back to looking at the motherboards, apparently there is also an asus rog strix b550-xe.... 

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, Tbp4cfym said:

Hi! The most confusing thing when looking at building a new gen pc for me has been the motherboard. Choosing between b550 or x570 and then all the different variations of those boards, and every YouTuber has a differing opinion on which one you should buy. So after looking at this list I settled on the rog strix E series. But should I go b550 or x570? Is the difference between the 2 boards with the extra $50? 

 

Edit: As I went back to looking at the motherboards, apparently there is also an asus rog strix b550-xe.... 

What do you want from a motherboard? Here the B550-E (XE is not too different from it) is better for overclocking, but X570-E has better connectivity potential thanks to PCIe 4.0 capable chipset.

[Tbp4cfym]

22 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

What do you want from a motherboard? Here the B550-E (XE is not too different from it) is better for overclocking, but X570-E has better connectivity potential thanks to PCIe 4.0 capable chipset.

It will be for gaming. I just don't want to look back and wish I would have spent the extra $50 for a better motherboard. I'm thinking at this point these boards are probably overkill for me, but the price point of these three boards are within my budget. It's just motherboard overload and there's no easy way for someone like me to tell the difference. 

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, Tbp4cfym said:

It will be for gaming. I just don't want to look back and wish I would have spent the extra $50 for a better motherboard. I'm thinking at this point these boards are probably overkill for me, but the price point of these three boards are within my budget. It's just motherboard overload and there's no easy way for someone like me to tell the difference. 

For gaming you could get away with much less on a motherboard. These expensive boards beef up already overkill VRM, extra memory optimizations that you need to buy aa high end memory kit and overclock it to feel any difference, maybe an extra M.2 slot and USB ports.

 

Unless you go to media production side for example there's no benefit to spend over $150 on a board. Gaming just isnt a very I/O intensive task, it cares about raw performance only as far as buyers go (since things like software optimization are largely out of your control).

[Hotseff]

Has anyone tried the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi? I'm going to be using a 5800X and was wondering if the VRMs on it are any good? Also does anyone know if any of the SATA ports get disabled if you connect M.2s to it? I was going to have 2 M.2 SSDs and then end up with a total of 5 SATA Devices(2 SSDs, 2 HDDs, and a 4K Blu Ray Drive) so I need all 6 of the SATA ports this board has plus the WiFi though if you have a different Motherboard suggestion I'm all ears.

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, Hotseff said:

Has anyone tried the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi? I'm going to be using a 5800X and was wondering if the VRMs on it are any good? Also does anyone know if any of the SATA ports get disabled if you connect M.2s to it? I was going to have 2 M.2 SSDs and then end up with a total of 5 SATA Devices(2 SSDs, 2 HDDs, and a 4K Blu Ray Drive) so I need all 6 of the SATA ports this board has plus the WiFi though if you have a different Motherboard suggestion I'm all ears.

Not good. It wont overheat but anything more.powerful will push it.over the edge. I hope the price you get is low enough for it to have an edge over its competitors, i.e. the similar Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Wifi and much better Asus X570 TUF Plus Wifi and TUF Pro.

 

SATA ports wont be disabled, the user manual did not mention it. It will if it does.

[RapidDevil]

First of all, thanks so much for taking the time to put this together. I'm a novice and this was so helpful in understanding some of the basics. So many questions have been answered already!

 

I was wondering, do all identical boards perform the same or can there by differences in performance as there can be with RAM lottery etc? What got me wondering this is Gigabyte B450M S2H vs DS3H. I think they use the same VRMs(?) but despite the latter being the slightly newer and more equipped board, the S2H is ranked slightly better in your testing. Is there a simple explanation for why that is? and therefore if faced with the choice should one go for the S2H? 

 

disclaimer - I realise I could probably get a better board for the same price as both the above 2 but I'm trying to understand how this works. 

 

Also, I'm looking at budget options for my 3600x at stock speeds, would the above 2 be ok? Or do I need to look at higher tiers. 95% of what I do is very basic office type work but 5% will be using my rx 470 8gb sapphire nitro oc for some light gaming. 

 

Thanks for your time!

 

edit: also is the ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming on the list? I can see something similar in Tier E but it doesn't mention gaming and surely this board comes higher than Tier E?? Thanks.

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, RapidDevil said:

I was wondering, do all identical boards perform the same or can there by differences in performance as there can be with RAM lottery etc? What got me wondering this is Gigabyte B450M S2H vs DS3H. I think they use the same VRMs(?) but despite the latter being the slightly newer and more equipped board, the S2H is ranked slightly better in your testing. Is there a simple explanation for why that is? and therefore if faced with the choice should one go for the S2H? 

S2H gets better heatsink. DS3H will perform just as well with a heatsink swap.

 

2 hours ago, RapidDevil said:

Also, I'm looking at budget options for my 3600x at stock speeds, would the above 2 be ok? Or do I need to look at higher tiers. 95% of what I do is very basic office type work but 5% will be using my rx 470 8gb sapphire nitro oc for some light gaming. 

They will be okay but that's pretty much it.

[Bhushan Misal]

What would be a good motherboard for the duet of R5 5600X and 3060Ti ?