Is there anything wrong with cheap motherboards?

[treeroy]

Hello, I need to buy a motherboard. Obviously there is a huge range of motherboards you can buy from £50 to £250 even tho they all perform the same function.

 

I have a Ryzen 5600x and I am trying to find the differences between the different boards and the different chipsets like b350 b450 x470 x570 etc

 

My instinct is just to get the most basic motherboard that gives the best value, as I am not going to be using the PC for anything extreme. No serious overclocking, no SLI graphics cards, etc

Just gaming.

 

Is there any real reason I should buy a higher end motherboard rather than a low end one? All motherboards sold in retail are from big name brands and as long as they are the right socket, it should be fine... right?

 

The PC setup is:

 

- [Motherboard undetermined]

- Ryzen 5 5600x

- GTX 1080 

- some RAM. 3600MHz

I can see that the B450 chipset only supports 2x SATA connections, so I need to exclude these. But I have been looking at spec lists and this is the only thing I can see that I know will affect me. I have no idea what most of the tech specs mean though to be fair.

 

Im also aware that the graphics card might get an upgrade in a few years time, does the "PCIe 4.0" have importance to this?

I don't envisage anything else being upgraded in the PC. 

 

Thanks  

 

 

 

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

Well, it's a bit like asking "what's wrong with cheap wine"?

 

Well, it tastes nasty (usually).

 

Or, "what's wrong with cheap power tools"?

 

It is usually a case of when, not if, they break. 

 

The point I'm making is cheap can often (though, I admit, not always) mean poor quality...and if a motherboard is poorly made it can cause you hassle down the line...hassle that may cost you far more than the extra money you should have spent on a better motherboard. 

 

So, and it's what I've come to see as the general consensus on here, a motherboard is something that is worth spending that bit extra on.

 

You won't regret it.

 

P.S I'm aware money doesn't grow on trees and it's easy to just say spend more.

But, if you can, it's advisable. 

[jaslion]

Euhm the b450 boards support much more than 2 sata connectors where did you read that? It does very much so matter what board you get. Why? Power delivery. Crappy power delivery can easily mean the board has to slow down the system due to heat or overloading issues thus lowering performance. You of course don't need something like a msi godlike board but a decent board like their tomahawk or mortar series is plenty. A crappy board also severely limits your upgrade potential as for example a a320 s2h supports a 3950x but it's most likely gonna crash or run so bad it's not usable due to low end vrms.

[treeroy]

  

4 minutes ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

Well, it's a bit like asking "what's wrong with cheap wine"?

 

Well, it tastes nasty (usually).

 

Or, "what's wrong with cheap power tools"?

 

It is usually a case of when, not if, the break. 

 

The point I'm making is cheap can often (though, I admit, not always) mean poor quality...and if a motherboard is poorly made it can cause you hassle down the line.

 

So, and it's what I've come to see as the general consensus on here, a motherboard is something that is worth spending that bit extra on.

 

You won't regret it.

Are there many known widespread issues with cheap Gigabyte or MSI boards? (or other brands which have low end boards)

They are reliable manufacturers, no? My current entry level Gigabyte board has lasted 7 years and never caused any issues to my knowledge.

 

 

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Euhm the b450 boards support much more than 2 sata connectors where did you read that? It does very much so matter what board you get. Why? Power delivery. Crappy power delivery can easily mean the board has to slow down the system due to heat or overloading issues thus lowering performance. You of course don't need something like a msi godlike board but a decent board like their tomahawk or mortar series is plenty. A crappy board also severely limits your upgrade potential as for example a a320 s2h supports a 3950x but it's most likely gonna crash or run so bad it's not usable due to low end vrms.

I googled "x470 b450 differences" and top result was this article: https://www.wepc.com/tips/b450-vs-x470/

It says the b450 only has 2x Sata III which from memory is what my hard drives use. Or is Sata Express and Sata III the same physical connector? Can I connect my hard drives to/with Sata Express?

 

An MSI Tomahawk is around the level I was looking at, the low end of the range. 

 

[jones177]

Every time I buy a beget motherboard it has some kind of issue.

 

At worse they make some video cards stutter. This is easy for me to test since I usually have 5 or 6 computers in the house. The last motherboard I had like this stuttered with a GTX 970 but not a 980 and stuttered again with a GTX 1080.

 

The next is CPUs running too hot. I thought my i7 6700k was the hottest CPU I have ever owned. It was originally on a ASUS Pro. When I put the CPU on a Hero VIII it became one of the coolest CPU I ever owned.

 

The next is ram slots not working. Half of the budget boards I have owned did not post after going from 2 to 4 sticks. I had 3 of the same board with different revisions and 2 had the issue.

 

I will go with less features but never less quality.

[jaslion]

10 minutes ago, treeroy said:

  

Are there many known widespread issues with cheap Gigabyte or MSI boards? (or other brands which have low end boards)

They are reliable manufacturers, no? My current entry level Gigabyte board has lasted 7 years and never caused any issues to my knowledge.

 

 

I googled "x470 b450 differences" and top result was this article: https://www.wepc.com/tips/b450-vs-x470/

It says the b450 only has 2x Sata III which from memory is what my hard drives use. Or is Sata Express and Sata III the same physical connector? Can I connect my hard drives to/with Sata Express?

 

An MSI Tomahawk is around the level I was looking at, the low end of the range. 

 

Well that article is just plain wrong. What you do need to know is that a 5600x is NOT natively supported on b450 without a bios update and thus you need to make sure you get a board that can do a cpu less bios update if going with that. Same for a b550 board as there are plenty that have not been updated yet.

 

Never shop by brand shop by the quality of the product. Msi has garbage boards and very good boards just like everyone.

[Sakkura]

15 minutes ago, treeroy said:

  I googled "x470 b450 differences" and top result was this article: https://www.wepc.com/tips/b450-vs-x470/

It says the b450 only has 2x Sata III which from memory is what my hard drives use. Or is Sata Express and Sata III the same physical connector? Can I connect my hard drives to/with Sata Express?

 

One SATA Express port consists of two SATA ports plus a little extra port next to them.

 

So yeah, B450 supports more than 2 SATA drives. Also bear in mind these figures are just what the chipset itself can offer, it is possible for a manufacturer to add more ports with extra controllers (but uncommon with budget boards).

[treeroy]

17 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Well that article is just plain wrong. What you do need to know is that a 5600x is NOT natively supported on b450 without a bios update and thus you need to make sure you get a board that can do a cpu less bios update if going with that. Same for a b550 board as there are plenty that have not been updated yet.

 

Never shop by brand shop by the quality of the product. Msi has garbage boards and very good boards just like everyone.

Thank you very much for that heads up. How do I tell whether a motherboard has this feature? Is there a name for this feature?

 

 

All the motherboards I can find for sale advertise them as compatible with 3rd gen - not 4th gen. Regardless of the chipset.

[jaslion]

15 minutes ago, treeroy said:

Thank you very much for that heads up. How do I tell whether a motherboard has this feature? Is there a name for this feature?

 

 

All the motherboards I can find for sale advertise them as compatible with 3rd gen - not 4th gen. Regardless of the chipset.

They list is as bios flashback, cpu less bios update,... really just random names so the only way to know is the manually look it all up I do have a incomplete list tho.

 

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/threads/list-of-boards-with-bios-flash-without-cpu.18902181/

[Mister Woof]

All tools and parts have an estimated MTBF and this will depend on use, load, application.

 

Cheap motherboards are fine when used appropriately, and will fail just as much as a super high end board will fail if used in a manner beyond their design.

 

Cheap motherboard for a non-overclocked economical build? Will be fine.

 

I've been running my daughter's PC on the cheapest H310 for a year now with an i3 and it's perfectly fine for what it's intended purpose is.

 

But stick an i9-10900k on the cheapest motherboard? That's asking for trouble.

[glennhl]

Wrong place to ask your question.  People that post on Computer forums normally do not buy cheap motherboards.  I'd recommend just going to Amazon or Newegg, select the cheap MB you want and read the reviews. 

[xg32]

the latest common problems i'm seeing:

 

putting a 5900x or 5950x into a x470 or cheap b550/x570....and get bsods, then spend hours troubleshooting and blame it on the cpu just because a "zen 2 chip works fine on it" (i highly doubt it's the cpu)

 

putting a 3080/3090 with a "750-1000w" and tripping OVP because the psu is subpar

 

in your case, the cheapest mobo i'd get is the x570 tomahawk at 200usd (or at least it was over thanksgiving, and some flare x b-die at 105usd, as for psu, the  good ones are all kinda out of stock and overpriced atm, so gotta wait.

 

Let say u wanna cheap out on mobo and ram and save 100bucks, assuming you are gonna use the pc for 3-5 years, it's not worth it imho.

 

My recent experiences with chipping out on parts, psu: fried my whole 7700k build, ram, doesn't even run at stock, mobo, just...died. I'm just never buying corsair ram or psu again.

[-iSynthesis]

It always depends on what you want. Oftentimes you pay for features.

The power delivery on the cheapest of boards nowadays is significantly better than what you powered 130+w CPUs with a few years ago and those worked (running hot), but worked. Pretty much any motherboard will handle lower to mid end CPUs, especially without overclocking.

 

However, they may have: Less USB outputs, less SATA ports, worse BIOS, worse audio, worse RAM support (may not boot stable at higher XMP speeds f.e.).

They may die sooner, though that really really depends on mostly luck. Some of the more expensive motherboards may have caps that are rated for more hours but that's in the details.

 

As for chipsets, I don't think B450 supports the 5600x natively. I'd stick to B550.

[treeroy]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

 

I think - *think* - I've settled on buying a B550 Gigabyte Aorus Elite - it has everything I need and should have native 5600x support, and it is reasonably priced.