Motherboard suggestions for Ryzen 5900x & 3080 Ti build

[RooTs57]

Budget (including currency): USD up to $300

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming, mainly sim racing

Other details I have pretty much finished my sim racing rig and pc build for pushing this giant Samsung Odyssey G9 monitor, hence the 3080 Ti and 5900x.  Other PC hardware includes Corsair Crystal Series 570X case, 32GB Corsair Dominator 3200MHz ram, 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD, 360mm AIO, and Corsair RM850x PSU. Now I just need help with picking an AM4 motherboard that can provide some level futureproof-ness if possible.  The only other catch is that I am trying really hard to maintain my all white theme as much as possible.  MoBos with white covers and heatsinks are kind of limited.  Any suggestions?  I have done a lot of research on PC hardware lately after getting back into PCs this year, but motherboards are what I understand the least.  There's just a lot to consider and could use a bit of help at this point.  Would the NZXT N7 B550 be a decent choice, or should I opt for X570 instead, like the ASUS Prime X570-Pro?  Or maybe there are better choices to consider?  I'd like to play around with some overlocking as well.  Thank you for any help with this!

 

[SomeRandomNerd]

41 minutes ago, RooTs57 said:

Would the NZXT N7 B550 be a decent choice, or should I opt for X570 instead, like the ASUS Prime X570-Pro?  Or maybe there are better choices to consider?  I'd like to play around with some overlocking as well.  Thank you for any help with this!

 

I would have suggested an Asus ROG Strix x570-E Gaming or an Asus TUF Gaming x570 Pro (Wifi). But seeing that you would like an all white build, then yes, the NZXT N7 B550 or the Asus PRIME x570-PRO would suffice. Apparently the x570 boards have better overclocking potential and better VRM cooling with that built in fan. But the NZXT board, even though it has less expansions slots (for 4.0 x1 and 4.0 x16) it has onboard WiFi and bluetooth. Not to mention the extra USB 3.0 ports, 266MHz more compatible memory speed (4666MHz vs 4400MHz). Either way, I do not think there will be a massive performance impact whether you go one way or the other, so if you would like a perfect white you should just go with the NZXT N7 B550.

[RooTs57]

2 minutes ago, SomeRandomNerd said:

I would have suggested an Asus ROG Strix x570-E Gaming or an Asus TUF Gaming x570 Pro (Wifi). But seeing that you would like an all white build, then yes, the NZXT N7 B550 or the Asus PRIME x570-PRO would suffice. Apparently the x570 boards have better overclocking potential and better VRM cooling with that built in fan. But the NZXT board, even though it has less expansions slots (for 4.0 x1 and 4.0 x16) it has onboard WiFi and bluetooth. Not to mention the extra USB 3.0 ports, 266MHz more compatible memory speed (4666MHz vs 4400MHz). Either way, I do not think there will be a massive performance impact whether you go one way or the other, so if you would like a perfect white you should just go with the NZXT N7 B550.

Appreciate the feedback!  Color themed builds, especially white, always seem to require some compromise, especially with the motherboard.  I have no intention of running dual GPUs or any other PCIe expansion hardware, so one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot is fine.

[RONOTHAN##]

1 hour ago, RooTs57 said:

Budget (including currency): USD up to $300

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming, mainly sim racing

Other details I have pretty much finished my sim racing rig and pc build for pushing this giant Samsung Odyssey G9 monitor, hence the 3080 Ti and 5900x.  Other PC hardware includes Corsair Crystal Series 570X case, 32GB Corsair Dominator 3200MHz ram, 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD, 360mm AIO, and Corsair RM850x PSU. Now I just need help with picking an AM4 motherboard that can provide some level futureproof-ness if possible.  The only other catch is that I am trying really hard to maintain my all white theme as much as possible.  MoBos with white covers and heatsinks are kind of limited.  Any suggestions?  I have done a lot of research on PC hardware lately after getting back into PCs this year, but motherboards are what I understand the least.  There's just a lot to consider and could use a bit of help at this point.  Would the NZXT N7 B550 be a decent choice, or should I opt for X570 instead, like the ASUS Prime X570-Pro?  Or maybe there are better choices to consider?  I'd like to play around with some overlocking as well.  Thank you for any help with this!

 

If you weren't trying to go for an all white rig, I would recommend looking into the ASRock X570 Taichi, a very reliable and great overclocking motherboard. Unfortunately, it's a silver and black motherboard, not white, so unless you want to do some painting, you need to go with something else. Your best bet would probably be that NZXT N7 B550, since it's a very feature packed board for the money.

[RooTs57]

22 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

If you weren't trying to go for an all white rig, I would recommend looking into the ASRock X570 Taichi, a very reliable and great overclocking motherboard. Unfortunately, it's a silver and black motherboard, not white, so unless you want to do some painting, you need to go with something else. Your best bet would probably be that NZXT N7 B550, since it's a very feature packed board for the money.

Thanks for the info!  I have a quick question that someone can probably answer very easily here.  My new 3080 Ti will be the first time installing a GPU myself, when I boot for the first time, will windows automatically boot in safe mode, or do I need to do that myself?

[brob]

The white covered Nzxt N7 B550 has decent vrm and its lack of lighting will make things easier syncing all the lighting using iCUE.

[RONOTHAN##]

1 hour ago, RooTs57 said:

Thanks for the info!  I have a quick question that someone can probably answer very easily here.  My new 3080 Ti will be the first time installing a GPU myself, when I boot for the first time, will windows automatically boot in safe mode, or do I need to do that myself?

It will boot up normally, and if you had another Nvidia GPU on that Windows install, it will autodetect the 3080 Ti and you won't have to reinstall the driver. However, since you're getting a new motherboard and everything, I'd recommend you just reinstall Windows so you don't have to worry about any driver issues coming from the last motherboard or GPU. 

[RooTs57]

On 6/12/2021 at 1:40 PM, brob said:

The white covered Nzxt N7 B550 has decent vrm and its lack of lighting will make things easier syncing all the lighting using iCUE.

Thanks, looks-wise, its very similar to the Gigabyte B550 Vision D (it also matches my 3080 Ti Vision OC), I know this board is aimed at the productivity peeps, but apart from that, will it still be good for gaming performance, I've read good things about it, but that overclocking options may be limited.  Thanks again!

 

On 6/12/2021 at 2:19 PM, RONOTHAN## said:

It will boot up normally, and if you had another Nvidia GPU on that Windows install, it will autodetect the 3080 Ti and you won't have to reinstall the driver. However, since you're getting a new motherboard and everything, I'd recommend you just reinstall Windows so you don't have to worry about any driver issues coming from the last motherboard or GPU. 

Ok thanks, I have a 2070 Super in there now and I'm not replacing the board and CPU for another couple of weeks (currently running a i7-10700K on a Aorus Z490) but switching to AMD.  So at 1st boot, I just run DDU, install the 3080 Ti drivers, then restart and I'm good to go?  Sorry for the simpleton questions, my first go at doing a GPU myself.

[brob]

Performance differences between motherboards around the same price point are quite small. 

 

Manufacturer differention of gamer, creator, etc. refer to feature sets, not performance differences.

[RONOTHAN##]

3 hours ago, RooTs57 said:

Ok thanks, I have a 2070 Super in there now and I'm not replacing the board and CPU for another couple of weeks (currently running a i7-10700K on a Aorus Z490) but switching to AMD.  So at 1st boot, I just run DDU, install the 3080 Ti drivers, then restart and I'm good to go?  Sorry for the simpleton questions, my first go at doing a GPU myself.

I'd run DDU before you remove the 2070 Super, as there's an option to have DDU shutdown the PC once it's complete so you can install a new GPU. Might as well save you a shutdown. If it were me, I wouldn't bother running DDU, as you're only gonna have the card in a couple weeks before a full windows reinstall (hopefully), and the odds of any driver issues during that time are pretty minimal. 

[RooTs57]

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I'd run DDU before you remove the 2070 Super, as there's an option to have DDU shutdown the PC once it's complete so you can install a new GPU. Might as well save you a shutdown. If it were me, I wouldn't bother running DDU, as you're only gonna have the card in a couple weeks before a full windows reinstall (hopefully), and the odds of any driver issues during that time are pretty minimal. 

Ok thanks for the tips! Do all GeForce RTX GPUs use one common driver?  It looks like the most recent version for both the 2070 Super and the 3080 Ti is 466.77

[RONOTHAN##]

8 hours ago, RooTs57 said:

Ok thanks for the tips! Do all GeForce RTX GPUs use one common driver?  It looks like the most recent version for both the 2070 Super and the 3080 Ti is 466.77

The driver between all GTX/RTX cards is the same, with only a few differences between each card being set at install. When the driver sees the newer card, it still have the remaining data that will allow it to unpack that data and change it over. While it is preferred that you do use DDU to make sure you have the best possible results, the performance differences will be within margin of error, and any odds of driver issues are very low. If you do see issues like that, that's when I'd say run DDU, but given that you should probably wipe all drivers and everything when you swap your motherboard anyway, doing it now just seems like a waste of time. 

[RooTs57]

6 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The driver between all GTX/RTX cards is the same, with only a few differences between each card being set at install. When the driver sees the newer card, it still have the remaining data that will allow it to unpack that data and change it over. While it is preferred that you do use DDU to make sure you have the best possible results, the performance differences will be within margin of error, and any odds of driver issues are very low. If you do see issues like that, that's when I'd say run DDU, but given that you should probably wipe all drivers and everything when you swap your motherboard anyway, doing it now just seems like a waste of time. 

That was fairly easy after an initial SCARE.  At first boot, I got no video output whatsoever, I immediately began to sweat profusely.  Then I tried an HDMI output instead of DP and it was booting in safe mode with HDMI output only.  Is that normal?  I was able to update the drivers from there, DP output is all good now at 240Hz.  I got this 3080 Ti from StockX and the first thing I did before installing it was take an eye loupe and look at the PCIe x16 PCB contacts and the plastic PCIe power connector latches to check for scratches or any signs that it was installed before, its definitely brand new as advertised, thanks for the help!  So far so good!