Help Choosing Motherboard for Ryzen 5950x

Castor Troy · July 24, 2021

Budget (including currency): $500

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Adobe CC and Gaming

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc):

I'm having major problems deciding on a motherboard to get. My budget initially was around $200 for a motherboard but at this point I will pay up to $500 just to get something reliable. I've been doing a ton of research and it seems like all of the popular boards have some type of issue. I'm not sure how this is possible since a lot of these boards have been out for many months. I would like to build a system for the Ryzen 5950x. I initially looked at the b550 boards, as one pcie 4.0 m.2 and one pcie graphics card seems fine to me. I don't necessarily need to be able to run two pcie 4.0 m.2 drives at the same time.

I've researched the ASUS Rog Strix B550-E, but it looks like this board still has lan port issues. I researched the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite V2 and the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro, but both of these appear to have intermittent USB issues.

I had looked into x570 boards, but I do not want active cooling. I don't want to deal with the fan noise and the possibility that the fan could die. I would be ok with a passive cooled x570.

Can someone please give me some recommendations on reliable boards with passive cooling? In terms of requirements, I'd like to have 4-5 usb 3.0 connection on the back of the pc and 4 usb 2.0s on the front, at least one PCI 4.0 for one m.2 and one PCI 4.0 for the graphics card. It was also announced that ASUS is going to release some passively cooled x570 boards in the 3rd quarter of this year. I do not need to upgrade at this time and I can wait a little longer if the wait for those boards will be worth it.

Thanks

Chris Pratt · July 24, 2021

If you sprung for the 5950X, spring for the Asus Crosshair VIII X570 Dark Hero. No point in having a chip like that and pairing it with anything less than the best board.

The X570 active chipset cooling is the most overblown faux controversy ever. The fan doesn't even come on, unless the board is about to melt anyways.

Vulkan HeStan · July 24, 2021

If you're buying a 5950x, an x570 board is the best (and probably only) choice. The chipset fan isn't that much of a worry, the boards have been out for over a year and there isn't a common fault with them failing.