Motherboard VRM Tier List v2 (currently AMD only)

[SenKa]

15 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Hotter than I expect for 3000RPM+ chipset fan to say the least

Fair enough. There is a GPU right over it, probably cutting off most of its access to air

[viceice]

is this tier list mainly about temps of vrms or quality of vrms?

 

for example, i have gigabyte gaming b450 x and have a 2700x, and vrms are usually 85-90 degrees at pr ime95 and 50 55 degrees in games

 

is the vrm quality of this board hinders the 2700x or 3600? or as long as temperatures are in control, everything ok?

 

and is 90 degrees for vrms is okay for long term rendering purposes ? (not that i will use it that way but i wondered)

 

and by airflow, do you mean the overall case airflow, or especially flow directly to the vrms? i have a usual rear fan and two intake fans at front , my gpu and cpu usually stays 60 degrees in heavy games

 

thx in advance

[Vejnemojnen]

@viceice Have you tried installing a Fan either in the top of the case, blowing air through the VRM, or, godforbid, a downdraft-topdown cooler? What CPU cooler do you have? : )

[viceice]

1 minute ago, Vejnemojnen said:

@viceice Have you tried installing a Fan either in the top of the case, blowing air through the VRM, or, godforbid, a downdraft-topdown cooler? What CPU cooler do you have? : )

i have gammax s40 cooler

 

no i dont have any fans at top even if i do, fan grillles at top doesnt align with vrms

 

i tried using a top fan exhaust but didnt effect vrm temps at all

 

actually, removing top fan improved vrm degrees. in bf5 vrms hit 60-64 degrees , but now that i removed the top fan, they are about 55 degrees

[Vejnemojnen]

@viceice what are your vcore voltages on the cpu? What about SOC voltage? Perhaps you can gain a few C-s with a little bit of undervolting, not going too generous with voltages.

[viceice]

1 minute ago, Vejnemojnen said:

@viceice what are your vcore voltages on the cpu? What about SOC voltage? Perhaps you can gain a few C-s with a little bit of undervolting, not going too generous with voltages.

i think you're missing my question here  im fine with temps gaming wise - i asked if this list is based on VRM Quality or mainly based VRM temps. for example, those that are in Tier E, cant they handle higher CPUs power delivering wise. if temps are checked and fine (for example for gaming), can they handle 3700x or higher?

 

 

[Vejnemojnen]

2 minutes ago, viceice said:

i think you're missing my question here  im fine with temps gaming wise - i asked if this list is based on VRM Quality or mainly based VRM temps. for example, those that are in Tier E, cant they handle higher CPUs power delivering wise. if temps are checked and fine (for example for gaming), can they handle 3700x or higher?

 

 

yes I do, as I'd be a bit annoyed about VRM hitting 90 and plus during synthetic loads : )I'd say, as long as you are not experiencing throttling, it's fine. I'm not sure about longevity of Mobo, but I guess, you'll change your HW sooner, than it would cause any issue.

[viceice]

Just now, Vejnemojnen said:

yes I do, as I'd be a bit annoyed about VRM hitting 90 and plus during synthetic loads : )I'd say, as long as you are not experiencing throttling, it's fine. I'm not sure about longevity of Mobo, but I guess, you'll change your HW sooner, than it would cause any issue.

i'll probably get a modification that is related to VRM heatsinks (like holding a fan over vrm) when i decide to use my cpu for more specific workloads. the hardest game i could find for cpu now was BF 5 (about 90-100w consumption) and vrm peaked out at 58 degrees. i think this temp is for now okay? i dont know if its throttling or not but im not having any performance issues so far

 

my voltage is 1.31v at locked 4.1 ghz. soc voltage is 1.025v 

 

i just wondered if this mobo's specific vrms are actually able to carry these cpus.  bcoz i know that there are also quality based differences between vrms. my curiousty was mainly about that

 

[Vejnemojnen]

@viceice that temperature is fine. I can only relate to B450 Aorus Elite and MSI B450 A-pro, the latter have much better heatsink. During synthetic loads (prime 95/ AIDA FPU)  the difference can be as great as 25°c. 

 

But as long as You don't go too harsh on your current board, I would not worry about it too much. 

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, viceice said:

is this tier list mainly about temps of vrms or quality of vrms?

 

for example, i have gigabyte gaming b450 x and have a 2700x, and vrms are usually 85-90 degrees at pr ime95 and 50 55 degrees in games

 

is the vrm quality of this board hinders the 2700x or 3600? or as long as temperatures are in control, everything ok?

 

and is 90 degrees for vrms is okay for long term rendering purposes ? (not that i will use it that way but i wondered)

 

and by airflow, do you mean the overall case airflow, or especially flow directly to the vrms? i have a usual rear fan and two intake fans at front , my gpu and cpu usually stays 60 degrees in heavy games

 

thx in advance

Based on temperature mainly, which a more capable VRM under a better heatsink will run cooler. Of course more airflow helps the heatsink.

[viceice]

12 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Based on temperature mainly, which a more capable VRM under a better heatsink will run cooler. Of course more airflow helps the heatsink.

hello, now i found the original comment that made me wonder, it was actually made by you,

 

"Ultra Gaming has nothing ultra in it, the VRM made of cheap crappy 4C10N and 4C06N mosfets found on Gigabyte A320, B350 and B450 boards and are similar to 4C09B and 4C06B mosfets on Asus B chipset boards. It might be appealing in feature set, but handling say, an 8 core is not its strength. 6 core could be fine, but I dont like recommending stuff that's only good enough for now."

 

Did you call them crappy because they get hot? You specifically seem to said they are not fit for 8 core, which I clearly asked  Or they are not simply enough for these CPUs? If not, why Gigabyte uses them even for X570 Gaming X? Are they scamming people?

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, viceice said:

Did you call them crappy because they get hot? You specifically seem to said they are not fit for 8 core, which I clearly asked  Or they are not simply enough for these CPUs? If not, why Gigabyte uses them even for X570 Gaming X? Are they scamming people?

yes

 

not fit for 2700/x at all, could maybe scrap by with the 3700x

 

8 pairs of them on the older boards while Gaming X has 10 pairs. After all you could trycompensate for running inefficient mosfets over their peak efficiency by using more of them to spread the load. At the end of the day its supposed to be Gigabyte's budget board until B550 comes out, not surprised that it's bad in contrast to others

[viceice]

10 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

yes

 

not fit for 2700/x at all, could maybe scrap by with the 3700x

 

8 pairs of them on the older boards while Gaming X has 10 pairs. After all you could trycompensate for running inefficient mosfets over their peak efficiency by using more of them to spread the load. At the end of the day its supposed to be Gigabyte's budget board until B550 comes out, not surprised that it's bad in contrast to others

so, as long as i do normal gaming and not blender/prime95 or render things, i should be fine, no? 

 

im at 1.32v and 4.1 ghz with a 2700x and this gaming x motherboard, and vrms seem to circulate around 50-60 degrees. i assume as in this state i have nothing to worry about, no? sorry for asking, but this mobo came really as a good deal so i would like to keep if its okay to game with it. are VRM sensors of these mobos reliable? are they somewhat accurate, can i trust them to a certain extent?

 

if you think it may bring trouble to the mobo in long term, should i dial back the 4.1 ghz to 4 or 3.9 ghz? 

 

i dont seem to have any issues, no throttling, clock speeds seems stable and not stutters and such (i tried bf5 ac odyssey as cpu heavy games). but since im not an expert on it i cant say if its at a safe state or not for mobo wise, so i felt the need of asking here

 

 

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, viceice said:

are VRM sensors of these mobos reliable? are they somewhat accurate, can i trust them to a certain extent?

that's the problem, the thermistors can be placed in weird places and even in the best scenario, next to the mosfet rather than being inside (hence why powerstages have better temperature monitoring)

 

In this case, just assume the VRM temperature is 20C higher than what the sensor reports. Just make sure you dont run anything that pegs the CPU at 90+% usage.

 

and also, for gaming the 3600 is already enough and that reduced power draw will help the board a lot

[viceice]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

that's the problem, the thermistors can be placed in weird places and even in the best scenario, next to the mosfet rather than being inside (hence why powerstages have better temperature monitoring)

 

In this case, just assume the VRM temperature is 20C higher than what the sensor reports. Just make sure you dont run anything that pegs the CPU at 90+% usage.

 

and also, for gaming the 3600 is already enough and that reduced power draw will help the board a lot

thx you. sadly 3600 is around 1300 tl here (about 203 dollars sadly), and i found this 2700x for 900 tl (about 140 dollars). i had a limited budget so i figured i would be okay with 2700x. same for mobo (paid 550 tl for this board but didnt sadly think the consequences, silly me) which is rougly 85 dollars, while a msi b450 tomahawk costs about 150 dollars. all the prices are inflated bcoz of shipping and taxes (we also have some special extra taxes for hardware sadly)

 

all in all, this is what I got and gotta make it due. these are my temps after 40 mins of bf5. i think even if we offset +20 to vrms, 80 should be okay for them long term i guess? not like i will be gaming 7/24 as well but still

 

https://prnt.sc/rnh2ls 

 

(btw these temps are with a little bit boosted fans compared to old. they did affect cpu and gpu temps [gpu used to hit 63-64 but stayed at 60-61 this time. cpu same, 61-62 now 59-60). but no effect on vrm. i also tried %100 fans but again, they stabilized at 60 degrees. i concurred that my airflow doesnt effect vrm heatsink at all for some reason...)

 

i dont know how good or bad my airflow is but i have a spec 01 case and two intake fans at front and one exhaust at rear. sadly i tried putting some fans at top but they didnt help at all (grille positioning is awkward, air doesn't go over any components for top fans). 

 

do you think capacitors will be roughly about same temps? or can they overheat more than the vrms due to bad airflow? (no idea if i have bad or good airflow as well xd) but things seem to run mediocre cool but again, these are mainly cpu and gpu temps which they are enclosed but i have no idea about how motherboard itself is doing. but judging by my inability to effect vrm temp reading by fan speeding, i deducted that my mobo is not getting any airflow at all)

 

--

 

finally, as i said, i didnt buy this mobo by the intention of OC'ing. my friend suggested i can get 4.1 ghz fine but if its okay i can dial it back  

 

but again, stock is giving me 4050 mhz usually and same voltages and same usages...so maybe i will have to downclock to 3.9 ghz

[Jurrunio]

16 minutes ago, viceice said:

do you think capacitors will be roughly about same temps? or can they overheat more than the vrms due to bad airflow? (no idea if i have bad or good airflow as well xd) but things seem to run mediocre cool but again, these are mainly cpu and gpu temps which they are enclosed but i have no idea about how motherboard itself is doing

shouldnt get hotter than VRM, but could be at similar temps depending on the CPU cooler.

[viceice]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

shouldnt get hotter than VRM, but could be at similar temps depending on the CPU cooler.

thank you for your insights, i hope i didnt bother you alot, have a good day  

[MrIronGolem27]

Is that the literal name of the motherboard? Asrock B450?

[Jurrunio]

12 minutes ago, MrIronGolem27 said:

Is that the literal name of the motherboard? Asrock B450?

No, just extra stuff I forgot to delete (i.e. something was there, no longer is)

[JADF]

Hi, I wanted to ask: why  ASRock b350 pro 4 and b450 pro 4 are on differnet tiers, despite using the same VRM design? Am I missing something?
THX

[Jurrunio]

23 minutes ago, JADF said:

Hi, I wanted to ask: why  ASRock b350 pro 4 and b450 pro 4 are on differnet tiers, despite using the same VRM design? Am I missing something?
THX

I missed the older boards, fixed

[silverera99]

why is there such a big difference VRM wise between some mATX and ATX boards? like for e.g msi b450-a pro and b450m-a pro 

also, there is a simple asrock b450 board in tier C,i was curious about the model as well

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, silverera99 said:

why is there such a big difference VRM wise between some mATX and ATX boards? like for e.g msi b450-a pro and b450m-a pro 

also, there is a simple asrock b450 board in tier C,i was curious about the model as well

because other than the name, these are really different boards.

 

Nope, no board there. Will remove that tag

[keavlar]

On 12/24/2019 at 4:10 AM, Jurrunio said:

Credit to:@VegetableStu @GoldenLag @LukeSavenije

 

The following list is based on facts, ranked on power delivery and known problems. The list will include boards that support CPU overclocking available at retail from different brands. Currently only AMD boards are done because I don't have much interest on currently available Intel CPUs, also because there are a lot more Intel Z370/Z390 boards than B350/X370/B450/X470/X570 boards combined.

 

There are still differences in performance among boards of the same tier. As a result, those that barely made it into that tier will be in orange while those that are better than others in the same tier are in blue

 

For advanced users: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Smj5dh97n32wJqm5dkdDcQt8ID7vH52-lKzaaXUUQx8/edit?usp=sharing

 

AMD

 

All current draw figures are based on Prime95 small FFT with AVX unless otherwise specified, in other words the worst case scenario. Only the top end SKU of CPUs in the same generation and core/thread count configuration is named, others share the same rating. Zen scales down frequency and voltage according to EDC (current limit) and TDC (thermal limit) settings of the motherboard so in theory you won’t cook the VRM of any board at stock, you just lose frequency.

 

AM4 (Athlon 2xx, Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7, Ryzen 9)

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Tier S: 300A current draw on little ambient airflow (i.e below a big air cooler in a well-ventilated case), maxed out 3950X on liquid nitrogen (LN2) overclocking

Asus: X570 Crosshair VIII Hero

Gigabyte: X570 Aorus Xtreme

MSI: X570 Godlike

 

Tier S-: 250A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 3900X on liquid nitrogen (LN2) overclocking

Asus: X570 X570-E, Pro WS Ace

Asrock: X570 Taichi, Phantom Gaming X, Creator

Gigabyte: X570 Aorus Master

MSI: X570 Creation, Ace, Unify, Tomahawk

 

Tier A: 200A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 3950X on ambient cooling, 2700x on LN2

Asus: X570 X570-F, TUF Plus, Prime Pro, Crosshair VIII Impact, X570-I, X570-P, X470 Crosshair VII Hero, X370 Crosshair VI Extreme

Asrock: X570 ITX/TB3, X470 Taichi (Ultimate), X370 Taichi, Professional Gaming

Gigabyte: X570 Aorus Ultra, Pro (ATX), X470 Gaming 7

MSI: X470 M7 AC

 

Tier B: 160A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 3900X, 3950x at 1.25V on ambient cooling, maxed out 1800X on LN2

Asus: X470 X470-F, X370 Crosshair VI Hero, X370-F

Asrock: X570 Extreme4, Steel Legend, Pro4 (ATX & mATX), Phantom 4

Biostar: X570 GT8, X470 GT8, X370 GT7

Gigabyte: X570 Aorus Elite, ITX

 

Tier C 125A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 2700X, 3900x at 1.25V on ambient cooling (P95)

Asus: X370 Prime Pro

Asrock: B450 

Gigabyte: X570 UD, Gaming X, X370 Gaming K7, Gaming 5

MSI: X570 Gaming Pro Carbon, X470 Gaming Pro Carbon, Gaming Plus, B450 Gaming Pro Carbon, Tomahawk (& Max), Gaming Plus ATX (& Max), B450-A Pro (& Max) (ATX), Mortar (& Max), Gaming Plus mATX, Bazooka Plus, Gaming Plus ITX, X370 M7 ACK, XPower Titanium

 

Tier D 100A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 1800X and 3800X, a tad more than maxed out 2600X, maxed out 2700X 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

 

Tier E: 75A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 1600X and 3600X, a bit more than maxed out 2500X

Asus: X470 TUF Plus, B450 B450-F, TUF Plus, Prime Plus, X370 X370-A, B350 B350-F, Prime Plus, TUF Plus

Asrock: B450 HDV, X370 Gaming X, Killer SLI, mITX, K4, Pro4, B350 ITX, HDV, AB350M

Biostar: X470 GTA, GTQ, GTN, X370 GT5, GT3, B350 GT5, GT3, GTN

Gigabyte: B450 Aorus Pro (ATX), Aorus Elite (ATX), Aorus M, Gaming X, DS3H, ITX, X370 Gaming K5, K3, 3, Gaming, DS3H, B350 Gaming 3, Gaming, DASH, DS3H, AB350N Gaming-WiFi

MSI: B450 Pro-M2 (& Max), B350 Gaming Plus, Tomahawk, PC Mate, Bazooka, Mortar, Pro-VDH, Pro-VH Plus, Pro-VD Plus

 

Tier F: 50A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 1300X

Asus: B450 B450M-K, B450M-A, B350 B350M-A, B350M-E, B350M-K

Asrock: B450 HDV R4.0, B350 HDV R3.0, HDV R4.0

Biostar: X570GT, B350 B45M2, HiFi B350S1, ET2

Gigabyte: B350 D3H, D3V, HD3, DS2

MSI: B450 Pro-M2 V2, B450M-A Pro, B350 Gaming Pro

 

Tier H2O: Liquid cooled only VRM, quite bad if cooled only with air, tier S if liquid cooled

Asus: X570 Crosshair VIII Formula

Asrock: X570 Aqua

 

Tier W: Workstation features, can appear here and above tiers

Asus: X570 Pro WS Ace (ECC certification) 

Asrock rack: X570 D2I, D4U-2L2T, D4I-2T, X470 D4U (ECC cert + KVM switch), D4U2-2T (ECC cert + KVM switch)

 

TR4 (Ryzen Threadripper 1xxx and 2xxx) X399

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Tier LN2: 700A current draw under mist of liquid nitrogen and high RPM fan (ambient air? unrealistic), maxed out 2990WX under an awful lot of liquid nitrogen

Asus: Zenith Extreme Alpha

MSI: Creation

 

Tier S: 500A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out (1.35v) 2990WX on ambient cooling (P95), 2970WX on liquid nitrogen

Asus: Zenith Extreme Alpha

MSI: Creation

 

Tier A: 400A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 2990WX on ambient cooling (Cinebench R20) or 1.2V in Prime95

Someone occupy here plz

 

Tier B: 350A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 2970WX on ambient cooling (P95), 2990WX limited to 1.175v (P95)

Gigabyte: Aorus Xtreme

 

Tier C 300A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 2970WX on ambient cooling (Cinebench R20) or 1.2V in Prime95

Asus: Zenith Extreme with cooling kit

 

Tier D 250A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 2950X on ambient cooling, 2970WX limited to 1.15v (P95)

Asus: Zenith Extreme

MSI: Gaming Pro Carbon AC, SLI Plus

 

Tier E: 200A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 2920X and 1950X on ambient cooling

Asus: X399-E, X399-A

Asrock: Taichi (mATX & ATX), Professional Gaming

Gigabyte: Gaming 7, Designare EX, Aorus Pro

 

Tier F: 150A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 1920X on ambient cooling

Asrock: Phantom 6

 

Tier G: 100A current draw on little ambient airflow, maxed out 1900X on ambient cooling

Thank god nothing is here

 

sTRX4 (Ryzen Threadripper 3xxx) TRX40

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Tier S: 3990X 1.3V maxed out clock speed, in low airflow condition (i.e. no case fan blowing over the VRM)

Asus: Zenith II Extreme Alpha

 

Tier S-: 3990X 1.15V maxed out clock speed in low airflow condition

Asus: Zenith II Extreme

MSI: Creator

Gigbayte: Aorus Xtreme

 

Tier A: 3990X 1.0V maxed out clock speed in low airflow condition

Asrock: Taichi, Creator

Gigabyte: Aorus Master

 

 

Sources:

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Hardwareluxx.de: VRM parts table (AM4 B350/X370/B450/X470)

 

Hardware Unboxed: MSI X570 Unify; Flagship X570 VRM thermal test; Affordable X570 VRM Thermals; Budget X570 VRM Thermals; 3950X on B450 boards; TRX40 boards with overclocked 3990X

 

/u/CR1318 on reddit: Motherboard Tier List

 

Tweaktown: biostar x370gt7; biostar x370gtn gaming; biostar a320mh pro gaming

 

Buildzoid: Gigabyte's Z390 lineup; Asrock X470 Master SLI; Asrock AB350M Pro 4, AB350 Pro 4 and AB350 Gaming K4; ASUS Prime X470-Pro; Asrock X370 Taichi; MSI X470 Gaming Plus; MSI B450M Mortar Titanium; Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme; ASUS Maximus XI Apex; Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra; MSI MEG X399 Creation; Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro Wifi; ASUS TUF B450M-Pro Gaming; ASUS TUF B450M-Pro Gaming; Asrock X470 Master SLI / Gaming K4; "Asrock X470 Master SLI VRM temperature sensing is broken"; EVGA Z370 Micro; Gigabyte B450M Gaming; EVGA Z390 FTW; Gigabyte X370 Gaming K5; Asrock X570 Pro4; Asus X570 Strix-E; Gigabyte x570; MSI x570; Asrock x570; Asus x570; Asus X570 Prime-P; Asus X570 Strix-F; Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra; Gigabyte X570 Gaming X;

 

GN (Buidzoid): Best Motherboards for AMD Ryzen 2018 - AM4 X470 & B450; Best Z390 Motherboards for VRMs, 10Gb LAN, Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX (2018); Best AM4 Motherboards for Overclocking (X370 & B350); EVGA X299 DARK; MSI Z390 Godlike; ASUS Maximus XI Hero; ASUS Crosshair VI Hero X370; ASUS X399 Zenith Extreme; EVGA X299 DARK

 

Bitwit: Biostar Racing X370 GTN

 

Kitguru: MSI TRX40 Creator

 

Sebelas Hardware: Biostar Racing X370 GT3

 

hardwareinside.de: biostar-racing x370gt5

 

play3r.net: biostar racing x370gt5

 

back2gaming.com: biostar racing b350gt5

 

Proclockers: biostar h310mhd pro

 

de8auer: MSI X570 Tomahawk

 

 

Legacy list thread: Those looking to dive into Intel's outdated process node and recycled (for many times) architecture please refer to the old list

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When do you think the Intel option will come out ?

[Fasauceome]

The B450M S2H from Gigabyte seems to have hit the market, preliminary looks online seem to show that it has the same VRM as the DS3H, 4x4C10N 2x4C06N, with a more substantial heat sink. Would it be eligible for tier E?