Motherboard & VRM for Ryzen 5 3600

[DexterTheBester]

Hey everyone, I am building a new PC with a Ryzen 5 3600 non-X CPU. The X570 chipset motherboards are prohibitively expensive in my country but I want to be able to upgrade to the upcoming Zen 3 in the near future. There are a few affordable options which include all the features I need, but reviews say they have a very poorly designed 4+2 VRM layout and its cooling. So the question is: how much does it matter that I get a good VRM motherboard for my PC if I don't plan on doing any extreme overclocking? I obviosly don't like the prospect of my motherboard reducing its lifespan, but I don't plan to significantly overclock my CPU, considering that it has very limited headroom as well compared to Intel or an X version.

[Haro]

B450 tomhawk max

Mortar max 

B550 pro 4 

Tomhawk mag has the best power delivery out of these mobos with 12+1+3 iirc ( maxing out at 300A of current ) 

Also b450 will support zen 3 with a beta bios 

[Mateyyy]

It's not just non-X Zen 2 CPUs that have very little overclocking headroom, it's pretty much all of them. If you want to get a little more out of it just enable PBO and let it do its thing.

 

You've a few B450 options that will handle up to a 12-core 3900X and will have support (according to MSI) for Zen 3 in the future with a beta BIOS: B450-A Pro, B450 Gaming Plus, B450 Mortar, B450 Tomahawk and B450 Gaming Pro Carbon, and their respective "Max" variants (except for the GPC) which are ready for Ryzen 3000 out of the box.

Also consider B550, as they're all guaranteed to work with Zen 3 and are quite overbuilt in terms of power delivery (except the really low-end ones), compared to prior B series boards.

[Haro]

6 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

It's not just non-X Zen 2 CPUs that have very little overclocking headroom

Pretty much 

The 3600 doesn't have much headroom while the x doesn't have any headroom really 

[DexterTheBester]

3 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

It's not just non-X Zen 2 CPUs that have very little overclocking headroom, it's pretty much all of them. If you want to get a little more out of it just enable PBO and let it do its thing.

 

You've a few B450 options that will handle up to a 12-core 3900X and will have support (according to MSI) for Zen 3 in the future with a beta BIOS: B450-A Pro, B450 Gaming Plus, B450 Mortar, B450 Tomahawk and B450 Gaming Pro Carbon, and their respective "Max" variants (except for the GPC) which are ready for Ryzen 3000 out of the box.

Also consider B550, as they're all guaranteed to work with Zen 3 and are quite overbuilt in terms of power delivery (except the really low-end ones), compared to prior B series boards.

Beta bios flash is one-sided as AMD themselves said and can cause problems on launch, and who knows what features will the 4-th gen Ryzen include (PCIe Gen 4.0 for SSDs becoming much more widespread by then, for example). Also, B550 motherboards are completely unavailable here and will be until approximately the start of August. I don't need a motherboard that would handle a 3900X, that's a CPU that I probably wouldn't even need if I was able to afford it, or an overbuilt power delivery system. I need something that would reasonably handle a 3600, offering me an upgrade option in the future.

[Haro]

Just now, DexterTheBester said:

PCIe Gen 4.0 for SSDs becoming much more widespread by then, for example).

It's useless

And a casual user will not notice a performance benifit

[Jurrunio]

X570-P from Asus isnt bad for how cheap it usually is, just no more features than you absolutely needed.

[Mateyyy]

8 minutes ago, DexterTheBester said:

Beta bios flash is one-sided as AMD themselves said and can cause problems on launch, and who knows what features will the 4-th gen Ryzen include (PCIe Gen 4.0 for SSDs becoming much more widespread by then, for example).

I never said that this'd be the optimal solution to guarantee Zen 3 support, I just said it's there, so it's better than not having support at all.

 

8 minutes ago, DexterTheBester said:

Also, B550 motherboards are completely unavailable here and will be until approximately the start of August. I don't need a motherboard that would handle a 3900X, that's a CPU that I probably wouldn't even need if I was able to afford it, or an overbuilt power delivery system. I need something that would reasonably handle a 3600, offering me an upgrade option in the future.

Well if B550 boards are unavailable and you don't want to go with B450 because they're not guaranteed to work 100% as intended with Zen 3, then logically your only option is X570, no? Or waiting for B550 boards to come in stock where you're at.

 

Pretty much any X570 board will handle a 3600, it's only a 6-core. Heck, pretty much any board that's not a junk A320 should handle one at stock speeds. 

If you're looking for the cheapest X570 boards you'd probably be looking at MSI's X570-A Pro, Gigabyte's X570 UD and ASUS' Prime X570-P. Out of those, the Prime X570-P is actually quite good (quite barebones in terms of features but its VRMs should handle even a 3950X with relative ease), whereas the A Pro is trash and UD is near trash.

[Haro]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

X570-P from Asus isnt bad for how cheap it usually is, just no more features than you absolutely needed.

Or the x570 tuf 

Which is usually Cheaper 

[Mateyyy]

9 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Or the x570 tuf 

Which is usually Cheaper 

The X570-P's normally priced at around $150-160, while the X570-Plus is priced at around $170-180.

[Haro]

Just now, Mateyyy said:

The X570-P's normally priced at around $150-160, while the X570-Plus is priced at around $170-180.

Oh my bad lol

Last time I checked it was a little different but I guess prices have gone down for it 

[Mateyyy]

1 minute ago, TofuHaroto said:

Oh my bad lol

Last time I checked it was a little different but I guess prices have gone down for it 

It's most likely just the mobo shortage

[DexterTheBester]

1 minute ago, Mateyyy said:

It's most likely just the mobo shortage

The mobo shortage is hitting me hard, I guess this is a very bad time for building a new PC. Even then, the Asus P and Tuf are exactly what I needed.

[DexterTheBester]

16 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

If you're looking for the cheapest X570 boards you'd probably be looking at MSI's X570-A Pro, Gigabyte's X570 UD and ASUS' Prime X570-P. Out of those, the Prime X570-P is actually quite good (quite barebones in terms of features but its VRMs should handle even a 3950X with relative ease), whereas the A Pro is trash and UD is near trash.

Is the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus a good board in my situation?

[Mateyyy]

1 hour ago, DexterTheBester said:

Is the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus a good board in my situation?

It's just as bad as the X570-A Pro, I'd advise you don't go for it.

[DexterTheBester]

2 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

It's just as bad as the X570-A Pro, I'd advise you don't go for it.

Well thanks for the advice everyone, I have found a relatively cheap X570 Asus TUF and will be ordering it.