Is X570 “future proof” so it makes it worth the money

[Achilles519]

Hello,
I am looking to “upgrade” my desktop and for now by following recommendations from your channel I am thinking of buying: 

Ryzen 5 3600

GTX 1660 super

G.Skill RipjawsV 2x8GB DDR4 3200MHz

 

I am really confused on the motherboard though. At first I was aiming for the B450 Tomahawk, but I found the X570 Gaming X which is 50€ more but it has pcie 4.0. 
As I am going to keep this build for at least 5 years and upgrade the gpu or RAM if I have to, does this make the X570 the better choice? I am thinking that if I upgrade my gpu it probably play better with pcie 4.0 which makes the X570 “future proof”.

 

Excuse me for my English :)

[Achilles519]

First of all thank you for your question

You are saying that GPUs won’t use PCIe 4.0 in the future? I am not quite sure that I understood what you said. 
 

Also the X570 will support only the next ryzen gen correct?

[mariushm]

That particular board (and x570 UD) is not worth the extra 50 euro

The cheapest that I'd be willing to recommend is Asus x570-P

 

The great value and performance for the money are the Asus x570-Plus TUF Gaming and Gigabyte x570 Aorus Elite.

 

Check the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d9_E3h8bLp-TXr-0zTJFqqVxdCR9daIVNyMatydkpFA/htmlview#gid=639584818

DO NOT buy any x570 board that doesn't have at least 3 green checkmarks in the middle columns

 

Ryzen 4xxx will still be on socket AM4.

After that, AMD will probably want to add DDR5 support and maybe USB 4 support (which includes thunderbolt stuff), and these two will probably require changing the cpu socket to AM5 or whatever they'll call it.

 

It's possible AMD may make some Ryzen 5xxx work with DDR4 and so on ... but it's not guaranteed.

 

B450 boards will probably support Ryzen 4xxx  but it depends on how fast people adopt B550 chipset ... if it's available in volume and there's interest, AMD may recommend companies to not add support for those cpus in the old motherboards, to encourage people to upgrade and have pci-e 4.0 compatibility across the board

[CommanderAlex]

1 minute ago, Achilles519 said:

First of all thank you for your question

You are saying that GPUs won’t use PCIe 4.0 in the future? I am not quite sure that I understood what you said. 
 

Also the X570 will support only the next ryzen gen correct?

Current graphics cards on the market do not have the capability of utilizing PCIe Gen4.0 specs at this time.. In the future, hopefully we will get them.

[Achilles519]

12 minutes ago, mariushm said:

That particular board (and x570 UD) is not worth the extra 50 euro

The cheapest that I'd be willing to recommend is Asus x570-P

 

The great value and performance for the money are the Asus x570-Plus TUF Gaming and Gigabyte x570 Aorus Elite.

 

Check the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d9_E3h8bLp-TXr-0zTJFqqVxdCR9daIVNyMatydkpFA/htmlview#gid=639584818

DO NOT buy any x570 board that doesn't have at least 3 green checkmarks in the middle columns

 

This spreadsheet shows that Gigabyte X570 Gaming X has 5*2 phases, but Gigabyte says that it has 10+2. 

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570-GAMING-X-rev-10#kf

 

Is that correct or I am comparing completely different things?

[Demonic Donut]

11 minutes ago, mariushm said:

That particular board (and x570 UD) is not worth the extra 50 euro

The cheapest that I'd be willing to recommend is Asus x570-P

 

The great value and performance for the money are the Asus x570-Plus TUF Gaming and Gigabyte x570 Aorus Elite.

 

Check the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d9_E3h8bLp-TXr-0zTJFqqVxdCR9daIVNyMatydkpFA/htmlview#gid=639584818

DO NOT buy any x570 board that doesn't have at least 3 green checkmarks in the middle columns

 

Ryzen 4xxx will still be on socket AM4.

After that, AMD will probably want to add DDR5 support and maybe USB 4 support (which includes thunderbolt stuff), and these two will probably require changing the cpu socket to AM5 or whatever they'll call it.

 

It's possible AMD may make some Ryzen 5xxx work with DDR4 and so on ... but it's not guaranteed.

 

B450 boards will probably support Ryzen 4xxx  but it depends on how fast people adopt B550 chipset ... if it's available in volume and there's interest, AMD may recommend companies to not add support for those cpus in the old motherboards, to encourage people to upgrade and have pci-e 4.0 compatibility across the board

Agree here.

 

I have the aorus elite, but I feel a bit silly about it now. If/when my wife decides she wants more performance I'm planning to use a tomahawk for that upgrade.

 

The aorus has been great for me so far, but the extra money was a waste for me personally.

[Achilles519]

15 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

there are GPU's which support and utilise PCIE Gen4 now. PCIe is forwards and backwards compatible so they work on basically anything. What i'm saying is that even the most powerful GPU on the market today will not use all the bandwidth that a Gen3 slot will provide - so Gen4's only appeal is in storage drives, but for most consumers PCIE Gen3 storage is plenty fast enough and PCIE Gen4 storage is so far in excess of what they'll use it just doesn't make sense to buy

X570 will only support the next upcoming 4000 gen yes, after that they are moving to a different socket

Yes I think I get it on what now is happening in GPUs and thank you about that. 
 

But I am trying to plan as much as I can regarding the next 5 years and there is my dilemma

[Achilles519]

3 minutes ago, Demonic Donut said:

Agree here.

 

I have the aorus elite, but I feel a bit silly about it now. If/when my wife decides she wants more performance I'm planning to use a tomahawk for that upgrade.

 

The aorus has been great for me so far, but the extra money was a waste for me personally.

So you recommend the B450 tomahawk?

[mariushm]

3 minutes ago, Achilles519 said:

This spreadsheet shows that Gigabyte X570 Gaming X has 5*2 phases, but Gigabyte says that it has 10+2. 

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570-GAMING-X-rev-10#kf

 

Is that correct or I am comparing completely different things?

The board uses 5 phases for the main cpu power delivery, and uses doubler chips to control 10 power stages using those 5 signals from the vrm controller... so 5*2 or 10 is more or less the same thing ... you have 10 "cylinders" (if you want to compare with a car engine) which work together to produce clean power.

The +2 part goes to the SoC part of the processor (the included usb 3 controller, integrated graphics etc) and is less important so people don't focus much on it

[mariushm]

1 minute ago, Achilles519 said:

So you recommend the B450 tomahawk?

He's saying that on his wife's computer he doesn't see the need to upgrade to x570, and he'll be satisfied to use what is considered a high end B450 motherboard. At least that's how I read it.

 

If you're fine with B450 boards and want to save some money, MSI has some very good models compared to the other brands.

Tomohawk is often a bit expensive because that's what everybody recommends but B450M Mortar (which is also mATX) has more or less the same VRM and the same performance/quality and have better features (better mix of connectors on io shield, 2 m.2 connectors etc)

There's also B450 Gaming Plus and B450-A Pro which are solid boards and a bit cheaper.

[Demonic Donut]

16 minutes ago, Achilles519 said:

So you recommend the B450 tomahawk?

Yes. There's really nothing the aorus elite does for me that the tomahawk wouldn't. Silicone lottery affects me more. It's hard to justify more than a $100 Mobo for a 3600. Unless there are features you really want/need, decent vrms are all you should look for. The 3600 doesn't pull enough juice to justify expensive mobos.

11 minutes ago, mariushm said:

He's saying that on his wife's computer he doesn't see the need to upgrade to x570, and he'll be satisfied to use what is considered a high end B450 motherboard. At least that's how I read it.

 

If you're fine with B450 boards and want to save some money, MSI has some very good models compared to the other brands.

Tomohawk is often a bit expensive because that's what everybody recommends but B450M Mortar (which is also mATX) has more or less the same VRM and the same performance/quality and have better features (better mix of connectors on io shield, 2 m.2 connectors etc)

There's also B450 Gaming Plus and B450-A Pro which are solid boards and a bit cheaper.

Pretty much this. I default to recommending the tomahawk, as most people do, because it's a solid and well known board. I'll do more research before I purchase.

 

I was just looking at micro atx boards this morning, thinking about going smaller in the future. I've been at full atx forever, but rarely run more than a gpu these days. Don't even need WiFi.

 

[Achilles519]

Thank you guys for all the tips and information. You really helped me 

[Lfc]

3 hours ago, Achilles519 said:

Thank you guys for all the tips and information. You really helped me 

I am sure you go with msi mortar

 

If you have already choose 3600 matisse cpu zen 2 and GPU who support Pcle4 you must go with X570 motherboard. 

Go with cheapest msi X570 

 

 

 

[Achilles519]

11 hours ago, Lfc said:

I am sure you go with msi mortar

 

If you have already choose 3600 matisse cpu zen 2 and GPU who support Pcle4 you must go with X570 motherboard. 

Go with cheapest msi X570 

 

 

 

Wait..you are trolling me now or not?

The cheapest X570??

Oh man if you have some more information about this please share, because I am almost ready to make the purchase... :)

[Lfc]

You can buy Asus X570 prime-p

 Or if you want full power 

Aorus x570 l pro mini atx Superior

Iam not trolling you of course. 

Now in 2020 you can go with "feature proof"X570 and believe me worth the money

 

[Achilles519]

3 minutes ago, Lfc said:

You can buy Asus X570 prime-p

 Or if you want full power 

Aorus x570 l pro mini atx Superior

Iam not trolling you of course. 

Now in 2020 you can go with "feature proof"X570 and believe me worth the money

 

Thank you! You showed just before I make my purchase! If it's not too much asking, what "scared" me is the docs.google spreadsheet that Demonic Donut shared.

I am not going to overclock not now and not in 5 years because I am not that kind of user, and I don't have that kind of knowledge. So should I be considering this spreadsheet or not?

Are Gigabyte Aorus X570 Gaming X (rev. 1.0) and MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus that worse compating to Asus Prime X570-P?

[toasty99]

X570 boards are almost entirely useless for the average consumer. 

 

DO NOT buy one to pair with a Ryzen 3600 and GTX 1660 Super. 

 

Here's what X570 boards offer generally speaking:

PCI-E 4.0 support

Better VRMs (not all do though, some are junk)

More PCI-E lanes in general

Support for Ryzen 4000 almost for sure

 

All of those are mostly useless in your case for these reasons:

PCI-E 4.0- This is marketing fluff mostly. Basically how it works is PCI-E 3.0x16 lanes is equal to 4.0x8. Anyways, it took until the GTX 1080ti to start saturating a PCI-3.0x8 slot (which is equivalent to PCI-2.0, which came out in 2007). A 3.0x16 slot has double that bandwidth. It'll pretty much never be an issue in the useful life of your computer. It could be for PCI-E SSDs in the future but those won't be common for years. So unless you plan on 10 years without upgrading your motherboard... Doesn't matter. 

 

VRMs- A decent quality B450 board (like an ASRock ab450pro4) has good enough VRMs for anything up to a 8 core CPU overclocked to the max. Most can handle a 3900x just fine as well but might not overclock it to the max. The Tomahawk can handle even the 3950x if you wanted. Again, with a 3600 it doesn't matter and by the time it does you'll need a new socket motherboard anyways. 

 

Ryzen 4000- May even be supported on b450 we don't know. Honestly, it's not a big deal either way. You aren't gonna want to jump only one generation... And Ryzen 5000 will be a new socket most likely. 

 

X570 boards are meant for mid level enthusiasts. People with 12 core Ryzen 3900x or 16 core Ryzen 3950x CPUs paired with a a RX 5700xt or better. Until you get to that level of spending, the extra cost of a X570 board can go to somewhere else where it is far better spent to improve performance in a meaningful way such as getting a RTX 2060 instead of a 1660 Super. 

[SavageNeo]

As you can see in this picture. The asus prime-p is doing great job for the cheapest x570 board.

[Achilles519]

1 hour ago, toasty99 said:

X570 boards are almost entirely useless for the average consumer. 

 

DO NOT buy one to pair with a Ryzen 3600 and GTX 1660 Super. 

 

Here's what X570 boards offer generally speaking:

PCI-E 4.0 support

Better VRMs (not all do though, some are junk)

More PCI-E lanes in general

Support for Ryzen 4000 almost for sure

 

All of those are mostly useless in your case for these reasons:

PCI-E 4.0- This is marketing fluff mostly. Basically how it works is PCI-E 3.0x16 lanes is equal to 4.0x8. Anyways, it took until the GTX 1080ti to start saturating a PCI-3.0x8 slot (which is equivalent to PCI-2.0, which came out in 2007). A 3.0x16 slot has double that bandwidth. It'll pretty much never be an issue in the useful life of your computer. It could be for PCI-E SSDs in the future but those won't be common for years. So unless you plan on 10 years without upgrading your motherboard... Doesn't matter. 

 

VRMs- A decent quality B450 board (like an ASRock ab450pro4) has good enough VRMs for anything up to a 8 core CPU overclocked to the max. Most can handle a 3900x just fine as well but might not overclock it to the max. The Tomahawk can handle even the 3950x if you wanted. Again, with a 3600 it doesn't matter and by the time it does you'll need a new socket motherboard anyways. 

 

Ryzen 4000- May even be supported on b450 we don't know. Honestly, it's not a big deal either way. You aren't gonna want to jump only one generation... And Ryzen 5000 will be a new socket most likely. 

 

X570 boards are meant for mid level enthusiasts. People with 12 core Ryzen 3900x or 16 core Ryzen 3950x CPUs paired with a a RX 5700xt or better. Until you get to that level of spending, the extra cost of a X570 board can go to somewhere else where it is far better spent to improve performance in a meaningful way such as getting a RTX 2060 instead of a 1660 Super. 

Thank you for the detailed information. My original thought is that I will only upgrade my GPU in 5 years or so, so that's why I am considering the PCI E 4.0. Because probably in 5 years GPUs will use PCI E 4.0.

I am hoping on keeping this motheboard and CPU for the next 8-10 years and tha's why I am trying to figure out if X570 is furure proof.

 

Do you agree with that thought?

[Achilles519]

1 hour ago, SavageNeo said:

As you can see in this picture. The asus prime-p is doing great job for the cheapest x570 board.

1 picture worth 1000 words! Thank you!

[toasty99]

17 minutes ago, Achilles519 said:

Thank you for the detailed information. My original thought is that I will only upgrade my GPU in 5 years or so, so that's why I am considering the PCI E 4.0. Because probably in 5 years GPUs will use PCI E 4.0.

I am hoping on keeping this motheboard and CPU for the next 8-10 years and tha's why I am trying to figure out if X570 is furure proof.

 

Do you agree with that thought?

Not exactly. For one, in 5 years you'll be able to buy a CPU for less than $100 that outperforms a Ryzen 3600. There's no such thing as "future proof" really. I suggest buying PCs with an upgrade cycle of 2-3 years in mind right now. Core counts and IPC are improving every year right now and Intel and AMD are in a decent competition. Things aren't stagnant right now like they were the first 3/4 of last decade. 

 

PCI-E slots are backwards compatible. You can use a new GPU with an old slot. A RTX 2080 will work with a PCI-E 2.0x16 slot with an i7 920 CPU from way back in 2009. Not ideally because performance is lost from the GPU using more bandwidth than 2.0 provides but that's 11 years ago! A PCI-E 4.0 GPU in 5 years will work just fine in a 3.0 slot. 

 

 

 

[Sophia_Borjia]

Pcie 5.0 is about a year out.  Things like 2080 ti or titan are only thing needing more then pcie 3.0 x8 at moment, and 2080 ti works pretty well at 4x

So, by the time we have a under $1000 gpu that needs 16x 4.0 slot we will be on pcie 5.0, and probably more then 5 years.

Something twice performance of 2080ti should only lose couple fps going from 16x 4.0 to 3.0.  

 

So, a future geforce 5060 or so might be price of 1660 and be slowed by 3.0...  this is probably more then 5 years out when in market for new motherboard anyway.

 

Biggest benefit now for pcie 4 is link to chipset, when chipset uses 4 lanes to connect multiple slots, sata, m.2 usb 3.0, ect... it has more bandwidth to cpu.  It will be a while 4.0 ssd or gpu are needed outside of datacenter or edge cases for certain workstations.

[Lfc]

1 hour ago, SavageNeo said:

As you can see in this picture. The asus prime-p is doing great job for the cheapest x570 board.

Agree.! And a hundred dollars more you can buy better GPU from 1660...

So with 150 more $ you can buy Asus Prime X570-P  & Radeon sapphire pulse Rx5700xt and you are GREAT

 

you can easy cut this money from other parts

 

 

[Achilles519]

13 minutes ago, toasty99 said:

Not exactly. For one, in 5 years you'll be able to buy a CPU for less than $100 that outperforms a Ryzen 3600. There's no such thing as "future proof" really. I suggest buying PCs with an upgrade cycle of 2-3 years in mind right now. Core counts and IPC are improving every year right now and Intel and AMD are in a decent competition. Things aren't stagnant right now like they were the first 3/4 of last decade. 

 

PCI-E slots are backwards compatible. You can use a new GPU with an old slot. A RTX 2080 will work with a PCI-E 2.0x16 slot with an i7 920 CPU from way back in 2009. Not ideally because performance is lost from the GPU using more bandwidth than 2.0 provides but that's 11 years ago! A PCI-E 4.0 GPU in 5 years will work just fine in a 3.0 slot. 

 

 

 

I hear what you say, right now though I am not thinking of giving 700euros every 2-3 years. I get that "future proof" isn't something you could easily say, but I am trying to find the "smartest" purchase for a motherboard that I am thinking of keeping for plenty of years.

 

And one more thing, if I go for the B450 do I have to update the bios for the Ryzen 5 3600?

[Achilles519]

13 minutes ago, Sophia_Borjia said:

Pcie 5.0 is about a year out.  Things like 2080 ti or titan are only thing needing more then pcie 3.0 x8 at moment, and 2080 ti works pretty well at 4x

So, by the time we have a under $1000 gpu that needs 16x 4.0 slot we will be on pcie 5.0, and probably more then 5 years.

Something twice performance of 2080ti should only lose couple fps going from 16x 4.0 to 3.0.  

 

So, a future geforce 5060 or so might be price of 1660 and be slowed by 3.0...  this is probably more then 5 years out when in market for new motherboard anyway.

 

Biggest benefit now for pcie 4 is link to chipset, when chipset uses 4 lanes to connect multiple slots, sata, m.2 usb 3.0, ect... it has more bandwidth to cpu.  It will be a while 4.0 ssd or gpu are needed outside of datacenter or edge cases for certain workstations.

So you are telling me that going for the x570 would "stupid" right now, or let's just say a waste of money, according to my mindset?

I am trying to get as more as I can get from you guys, but to be honest a friend of mine talked me into the x570 and that B450 would be a bad choice if I am planning on keeping this build and maybe upgrading my GPU in 5 years.