Motherboard Decisions

[Halken]

• I have no intentions on overclocking
• The primary use will be gaming
• the board size will need to be ATX or smaller to fit the custom case
• All storage will be M.2 (for now)
• and I'm set on the AM5 

So the question is, should I go the X670 AORUS ELITE AX, the Asus ProArt X670E-Creator WiFi OR is there another AM5 motherboard people recommend? 

[RONOTHAN##]

8 minutes ago, Halken said:

the board size will need to be ATX or smaller to fit the custom case

If that's the case, remove the Aorus Xtreme from the running, it's an eATX board (about an inch wider). 

 

10 minutes ago, Halken said:

All storage will be M.2 (for now)

How many M.2 devices do you actually need? You can probably get by just fine with something along the lines of a B650 Tuf or a B650E-F Strix instead, they're significantly cheaper than the two boards you listed but with nearly the same feature set, albeit without 10G LAN onboard (though you can get an expansion card for ~$100, which would more than make up for the cost difference of the boards).

 

Speaking of which, where did you get those two boards in particular from? They are not really anything alike with pretty different feature sets. What features do you actually need from a motherboard so we know what actually needs to be recommended (I.E., personally out of the boards released today on AM5 I'd be buying a B650E-E Strix if I were to go AM5, but that might be a terrible pick for you).

[Halken]

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

it's an eATX board

Good catch, I've updated the original post.

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

How many M.2 devices do you actually need?

I'm planning on accommodating roughly 3-4 M.2 slots

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Speaking of which, where did you get those two boards in particular from?

I found them online in ranking/recommended AM5 motherboard lists (yeah I know that's a pretty unreliable source of truth)

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I'd be buying a B650E-E Strix if I were to go AM5

I'm a big fan of the 'ProArt' design, however I am unsure if this motherboard is suitable for gaming.

As price is currently no obstacle (see here: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1458243-oh-baby-this-deskpc-is-coming-along-but-slowly/#comment-15586586); how do you think the 'B650E-E Strix', 'ProArt' and 'AORUS ELITE' weigh up against each other in terms of gaming capability? 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

36 minutes ago, Halken said:

I'm a big fan of the 'ProArt' design, however I am unsure if this motherboard is suitable for gaming.

I'm personally not that big a fan of the ProArt, for one reason and one reason alone: It's a $500 board and it doesn't even have a POST code readout. That is a feature that's saved me so many times for figuring out what what's wrong with my system and diagnosing what's wrong with it that I wouldn't consider a board without it, especially on a new platform where they haven't yet ironed out all the kinks. It's also a board advertised for workstation users who value reliability, which includes being able to quickly diagnose issues, why they didn't put it on there is beyond me. Realistically you can get by just fine with those 4 LEDs found on the ProArt, but at the same time it's a board that costs over $500, a POST code isn't that expensive, other boards have that feature, it should have it too. It wouldn't stop me from using the ProArt if I were given one or got it insanely cheap, I'm sure it's a fine board, it's just that there's not way I'd end up buying it over a B650E-E Strix or X670E Carbon, or realistically recommending it unless you really need 10G LAN. 

 

Don't worry about a motherboard "being suited for gaming", all that meant in the past was that it had some more overclocking optimized features, and now it just means that it has a fancy color scheme. Any motherboard is more than capable of gaming just fine, all that matters is the features of the board. 

 

36 minutes ago, Halken said:

how do you think the 'B650E-E Strix', 'ProArt' and 'AORUS ELITE' weigh up against each other in terms of gaming capability? 

They'll all be about the same for just gaming, it just depends on what features you'll end up using for which one will be the best for you. Personally, the B650E-E Strix would be the best choice for me because it's tied for the cheapest board with a POST code (as you might guess from my rant about the ProArt, I want my POST code) along side the B650E Aorus Master, and I prefer the PCIe layout on the Strix. That said, the Strix board also steals PCIe lanes from your GPU when you populate all the M.2 slots, so if you plan to use 4 M.2 slots it doesn't make sense to use the Strix board. 

 

36 minutes ago, Halken said:

I'm planning on accommodating roughly 3-4 M.2 slots

If this is all you really need, the B650 Aorus Elite AX is more than enough board for you. It's a good price, it's got basically the same feature set as the X670 variant of the board, and is just an overall solid board. 

 

I only really see ~6 boards worth looking at on AM5 so far, the B650 Aorus Elite AX/B650 Tuf (they're very similar boards, pick whichever BIOS and rear IO you like better), B650E-E Strix/B650E Master (same as with the Tuf and Aorus Elite), X670E Carbon, and X670E ProArt in the event that you need 10G LAN onboard (if you don't need that, don't get this board). The B650 Tuf and Elite are the only boards people realistically need, the Strix/Master add in a POST code and a couple other nice to haves, the X670E Carbon is more or less a maxed out IO capability on X670E (x8/x8 support for heavy expansion card use, lot of M.2 slots, as many SATA ports as you can expect form an AM5 board, solid rear IO, POST code, etc.), and the ProArt has 10G LAN (again, the only reason I see to get the ProArt is if you need the 10G LAN). 

 

Pick whichever one of those is the cheapest and meets your needs. 

[Halken]

Cheers