Doubts about what motherboard get for a 12400f.

[Oswolrf]

Hi guys my brother just gifted me a i5 12400f and he want to gift me a motherboard for that cpu and i have big doubts about which one should i get. My options are these:

 

https://www.pccomponentes.com/msi-pro-z690-a-ddr4

 

https://www.pccomponentes.com/asus-prime-z690-p-d4

 

https://www.pccomponentes.com/asus-prime-b660-plus-d4

 

I will pair it with 16gb 3600mhz CL18 memory. I have an gtx 970 right now waiting for rtx 4000 series to upgrade. I have a soundblaster AEx soundcard. I know the z690 its more overclock oriented (for K processors) but i am not sure  about de b660 chipset limitations and if worth it to pay like 50€ more for the MSI one. I am using a sata sdd and a hdd and i want to buy 2 nvme ssds in the future. Another doubt i have with these motherboards is that z690 suports pcie 5.0 while b660 doesnt so i am not sure if that can affect future gpu upgrade.

 

Thank you guys.

 

EDIT: MSI one has more usb ports that is an interesting thing.

[Valentin17]

Consider buying a z690 board because of good VRM build so you would not have VRM thermal throttling CPU performanse degradation. MSI board is a good option even for running i9 12900k.  Good B660 board is this: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/TUF-Gaming/TUF-Gaming-B660-PLUS-WIFI-D4/.

[Chris Pratt]

From what I've seen and heard, H670 seems to be the chipset to go for. B660 seems to have more serious limitations than other previous B-series chipsets. You're correct about not needing Z690. That would be a complete waste for that chip.

[Oswolrf]

 

5 minutes ago, Valentin17 said:

Consider buying a z690 board because of good VRM build so you would not have VRM thermal throttling CPU performanse degradation. MSI board is a good option even for running i9 12900k.  Good B660 board is this: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/TUF-Gaming/TUF-Gaming-B660-PLUS-WIFI-D4/.

That asus B660 cost the same that the Z690 cost on my country 199€ both.

 

5 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

From what I've seen and heard, H670 seems to be the chipset to go for. B660 seems to have more serious limitations than other previous B-series chipsets. You're correct about not needing Z690. That would be a complete waste for that chip.

I looked for a H670 but i couldnt find any of these on my country. I can wait a a week or two but no months to buy the new motherboard so idk.

[Chris Pratt]

2 minutes ago, Oswolrf said:

 

That asus B660 cost the same that the Z690 cost on my country 199€ both.

 

I looked for a H670 but i couldnt find any of these on my country. I can wait a a week or two but no months to buy the new motherboard so idk.

The new chipsets were just announced this week. It's hardly surprising availability isn't great yet. It's not going to hurt anything to just grab a Z690, but be prepared to have literally everyone ask you why you got a Z690 chipset for a 12400F over the years to come.

[Oswolrf]

4 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

The new chipsets were just announced this week. It's hardly surprising availability isn't great yet. It's not going to hurt anything to just grab a Z690, but be prepared to have literally everyone ask you why you got a Z690 chipset for a 12400F over the years to come.

I am looking for H670 and i only can see Asus H670 announced. 

[Dogzilla07]

Actually the Asus Prime B660-Plus is a better option then the Prime H670-plus. (it has higher speed/more internal USB, I/O), and same VRM. the B660 has the almost identical triple M.2 PCI-E 4.0 support. The only things H670 has going over the B660 is more actual PCI-E slots/lanes, but overall the B660 board is a better value, and has more I/O

 

https://geizhals.eu/?cmp=2660681&cmp=2661021

 

Additionally these B660 boards are the completely opposite of previous generation, at least for Asus Prime, the B660 has less limitation than H670, it's the other way around, the B660 beats the H670, and the H670 has more limitation (in one way, and less in other).

 

And on top of that the Asus Prime H610 VRM is on paper better than all B660 and H670 VRMs < TUF models. and comes with heatsinks, and supports 3200MHz memory.

 

Check my 12400F+H610/B660 post for detailed comparison and explanation, why nobody who has modest I/O M.2 NVMe needs and is using 12100/12400F needs anything more than the cheapest H610M boards (provided that MCE and unlocked TDP are present).

[Valentin17]

28 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

but be prepared to have literally everyone ask you why you got a Z690 chipset for a 12400F over the years to come.

That is called a good upgrade path, improved stability/reliability, good set of features/ports for him to use.

[Dogzilla07]

15 minutes ago, Valentin17 said:

That is called a good upgrade path, improved stability/reliability, good set of features/ports for him to use.

In practice for this generation, it seems to be the opposite compared to previous generations. H610/B660 has been lifted up so much towards the more expensive boards. As long as you choose how much I/O, Lanes you need, there is not reason to get more expensive boards.

 

Heck cheapest Prime H610 has better VRM on paper (64A Mosfets), than all Prime B660/H670 < TUF range (if not all B660/H670 boards period below 160 eur range).  And almost all the boards seem to be 4 layers, so yeah.

 

ASUS Prime B660-Plus D4 for 145eur has everything anyone will need feature/port wise until a whole platform switch years down the road. (It has 3x M.2 slots, it has 20Gb/s USB-C 3.2 !!! And any comparable board, like the Asrock DDR5/PCI-E 5.0 + 5.0 NVme boards offer more stuff for probably the same 150 eur range.

 

It's the perfect storm, 12400F is more power efficient than 5600x, H610 boards have beefy heatsinked VRMs (of which comparable ones ran 12/16 core AMD cpus, without over-heating). more than 3200MHz does not give enough benefits, for Alder lake (due to IMC). 12100 beats ryzen 3600, ...

 

Again as i mentioned, the only uncertainty atm is whether MCE and unlocked TDP is supported on H610 boards (specifically the incredible Prime H610M-K, as that will make or break the best-buy option being cheapest H610 or cheapest B660.

[Oswolrf]

9 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

In practice for this generation, it seems to be the opposite compared to previous generations. H610/B660 has been lifted up so much towards the more expensive boards. As long as you choose how much I/O, Lanes you need, there is not reason to get more expensive boards.

 

Heck cheapest Prime H610 has better VRM on paper (64A Mosfets), than all B660/H670 < TUF range. And almost all the boards seem to be 4 layers, so yeah.

 

ASUS Prime B660-Plus D4 for 145eur has everything anyone will need feature/port wise until a whole platform switch years down the road. (It has 3x M.2 slots, it has 20Gb/s USB-C 3.2 !!! And any comparable board, like the Asrock DDR5/PCI-E 5.0 + 5.0 NVme boards offer more stuff for probably the same 150 eur range.

 

It's the perfect storm, 12400F is more power efficient than 5600x, H610 boards have beefy heatsinked VRMs (of which comparable ones ran 12/16 core AMD cpus, with over-heating). more than 3200MHz does not give enough benefits, for Alder lake.

The thing i dont like about B660-Plus D4 is this:

 

https://dlcdnwebimgs.asus.com/gain/a7bfd5f9-31a9-4761-97bd-7f75c5bf87e4//fwebp

 

While H670 gives me access to extra ports on the back of the PC:

 

https://dlcdnwebimgs.asus.com/gain/fb8823d5-5119-4e6a-a11a-66dba8b97e9f//fwebp

 

Right now i am using 2 usb for keyboard, 1 usb por mouse, 1 usb for microphone, 1 usb for xbox wireless, 1 usb for charching devices. I dont like to use the front usbs on my case because i cant pull out usbs without noticing it if i move with my chair.

 

Another thing idk about is the PCIe thing. I am not and expert in that so thats why i am asking. Will be the pcie on the  b660 enough for a future nvidia 4000 series + soundcard + 2 nvme? I am not sure about how pcie lanes works.

[Valentin17]

24 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

H610/B660 has been lifted up so much towards the more expensive boards.

Not all board manufacturer can say that, look at the Asrock B660M-HDV (https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/B660M-HDV/index.asp), this model is crap in my opinion and i would use it only for something like Pentium or i3 CPU build, not something like i5. Also, good B660 board has six to even ten layers PCB, 4 layers MBO in 2022 is a no in my book. 

 

EDIT: This model also: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/Expedition/EX-B660M-V5-D4/, would not recommend using this for something like 12400f build.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Valentin17

[Dogzilla07]

@OswolrfHey if you need more I/O quantity compared to I/O quality, yeah, go for it, the H670 is the better choice, and not much more expensive, as I said, Asus segmentation is godlike, and one of the most consume-oriented if not the most.

 

B660-Plus has 20Gb/s USB-C compared to 10Gb/s USB-C on the H670-Plus.

B660-Plus has USB-C header internally for front case use, H670-Plus doesn't.

 

14 minutes ago, Oswolrf said:

Another thing idk about is the PCIe thing. I am not and expert in that so thats why i am asking. Will be the pcie on the  b660 enough for a future nvidia 4000 series + soundcard + 2 nvme? I am not sure about how pcie lanes works.

Very much so, the only difference is the 3rd NVMe on B660 is x2 instead of x4 on H670, and it's gonna take more than 3 years if not a bit more for monster MCM chips on gpus < $1000 that will use the bandwidth. Soundcard doesn't newest lanes, and the trend is towards soundcards outside the computer. 

[Oswolrf]

2 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

@OswolrfHey if you need more I/O quantity compared to I/O quality, yeah the H670 is the better choice, and not much more expensive, as I said, Asus segmentation is godlike, and one of the most consume-oriented if not the most.

 

B660-Plus has 20Gb/s USB-C compared to 10Gb/s USB-C on the H670.

Thanks so i think both B660 and H670 will be good for the use i want to do. 

[Dogzilla07]

10 minutes ago, Valentin17 said:

Not all board manufacturer can say that, look at the Asrock B660M-HDV (https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/B660M-HDV/index.asp), this model is crap in my opinion and i would use it only for something like Pentium or i3 CPU build, not something like i5. Also, good B660 board has six to even ten layers PCB, 4 layers MBO in 2022 is a no in my book.

True true, I only meant the Asus prime series, the segmentation they did doesn't punish the end-user, it's just amount/speed of I/O, it's like a work of art (compared to atrocities Asus committed in previous years). Their cheapest stuff is so above the line now, for others like Asrock, yeah, a step up to Steel Legend/ PRO RS is needed. 4 Layers is more than enough for what goes on these boards.

 

6 minutes ago, Oswolrf said:

Thanks so i think both B660 and H670 will be good for the use i want to do. 

Yeah, but just feel free to go for the H670, because you have tons of USB connected stuff

[Oswolrf]

3 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

True true, I only meant the Asus prime series, the segmentation they did doesn't punish the end-user, it's just amount/speed of I/O, it's beautiful (compared to atrocities Asus committed in previous years). Their cheapest stuff is so above the line now, for others like Asrock, yeah, a step up to Steel Legend/ PRO RS is needed. 4 Layers is more than enough for what goes on these boards.

 

Yeah, but just feel free to go for the H670, because you have tons of USB connected stuff

Yeah and in my country looks like is only 10€ diference or something like that. H670 is listed with price but not stock yet.