AM5 Motherboard selection and PSU wattage

[Smartlink]

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming (Cod, Rb6, Warzone, Cyberpunk), Streaming and Video Editing. 

Other details: Will be running a 7600x and upgrade later on in the AM5 socket life cycle. I wish to run at least 2 M.2 (1 for os and programs, 1 for games) with 2 sata SSD's for data and footage. 

 

CPU: 7600x

GPU: PowerColor 7700xt Hellhound or ASRock Steel Legend 7700xt

Ram: 32GB (16x2) ram form mobo QVL

Storage: WD Black 1TB SN850X NVMe x2 and Samsung 870 EVO SATA III SSD 1TB x2 

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120

Case Lian: lian li 011 dynamic Evo 

 

 

The following boards are all at the same price currently (give or take 10$)

• ASRock B650E Taichi lite
• Gigabyte B650E Aorus Elite X AX
• ASRock X670E Steel Legend
• Gigabyte X670e Aorus Pro X

I listed below what at first glance the pro's and con's I see, don't think any mistakes crawled up in there, what do you think is the better option here.  And what PSU wattage do I need ?

 

B650E:

- ASRock B650E Taichi lite

Pros:

• Pro's Incredible audio solution ALC4082 + ESS9218

• DUAL Lan Killer E3100 networking

• 2nd PCIe slot is 4x4

• 24+2+1 Power Phase (Best power delivery option of the bunch)

Cons:

• Using the 3rd M.2 disables the 2nd PCIe slot.

• Only 2 PCIe slots x16 (5x16 and 4x4

- Gigabyte B650E Aorus Elite X AX

Pros:

• 3 PCIe Slots (5x16, 3x1 and 3x1)

•  16+2+1 Power Phase

Cons:

• PCIe 2 and 3 and only 3x1

• Lower Quality audio solution ALC897 (worst of the bunch)

X670E:

- ASRock X670E Steel Legend

Pros:

• 4 M.2 (1 From the CPU PCIe 5x4 and 3 from the Chipset Gen4x4)

• 3 PCIe Slots (5x16, 3x4, 3x1)

• Realtek ALC1220

• Dual Lan (Dragon RTL8125BG and Realtek RTL8111)

•  16+2+1 Power Phase

Cons:

• Lower grade audio solution then Taichi lite

 

- Gigabyte X670e Aorus Pro X

Pros:

• 4 M.2 (2 From the CPU PCIe 5 and 2 from the Chipset PCIe 4)

• 3 PCIe Slots ( 1 From the CPU 5x16 and 2 from the Chipset 3x4 and 3x2)

•  16+2+1 Power Phase

Cons:

• Lower Quality audio solution ALC897 (worst of the bunch)

• Intel I225-V Networking

[Likwid]

If audio quality is a big concern you should get usb amp/dac, there's good options from fiio for about 60$.

Budget am5 boards (from Asrock) could satisfy your requirements and pairing it with 7800x3d would mean you really wouldn't need to upgrade for couple of years.

 

Or just wait for ryzen 9000 in winter, than throwing 200 $ cpu away

[RONOTHAN##]

1 hour ago, Smartlink said:

24+2+1 Power Phase (Best power delivery option of the bunch)

Does not matter at all, all of these boards are plenty to power a 7950X. VRM size only matters to a point, and all these boards are fine. Heck, even the B650M-HDV/M.2 is fine, and that's a $170 CAD motherboard. 

 

1 hour ago, Smartlink said:

Lower Quality audio solution ALC897 (worst of the bunch)

You can still listen to music just fine with it, and IMO if your really care about audio quality, you'd buy an external DAC, and in which case the built in audio solution is irrelevant. 

 

I don't really see any reason to go for one of those boards over another, they're all ridiculously overkill for what you're trying to do. The only thing that would make any difference is if you're trying to add more expansion cards in the future, and at that point a B650 Live Mixer or PG Lightning is half the price and offers a better PCIe layout IMO than all of these boards. Not to mention that you're only pairing this with a 7600X, that chip and no other chip on AM5 actually needs a high end motherboard. Again, a B650M-HDV/M.2 has most of the features that you need from a motherboard, why spend more than that? Get a ~$200 motherboard instead and spend that ~$200 you're saving on the board on a 7800X3D so you won't have to upgrade in the next few years. 

[podkall]

1 hour ago, Smartlink said:

Cons:

• Using the 3rd M.2 disables the 2nd PCIe slot.

I mean do you care about 2nd PCIe slot?

 

1 hour ago, Smartlink said:

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming (Cod, Rb6, Warzone, Cyberpunk), Streaming and Video Editing. 

here,

 

cheapest MB that can drive 7800x3D 7900x no problem, for Canada's selection on pcpartpicker,

 

Motherboard: ASRock B650 PG LIGHTNING ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($177.36 @ Vuugo)

[podkall]

I mean, why buy this 380 CAD MB,

 

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte B650E AORUS ELITE X AX ICE ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($379.99 @ Amazon Canada)
 

when you can buy this 180 CAD MB that has the power to drive the fastest current AM5 CPU?

 

Motherboard: ASRock B650 PG LIGHTNING ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($177.36 @ Vuugo)

[Smartlink]

28 minutes ago, Likwid said:

If audio quality is a big concern you should get usb amp/dac, there's good options from fiio for about 60$.

Budget am5 boards (from Asrock) could satisfy your requirements and pairing it with 7800x3d would mean you really wouldn't need to upgrade for couple of years.

 

Or just wait for ryzen 9000 in winter, than throwing 200 $ cpu away

Wouldn't the x3d hurt me in video editing ? I was under the impression that the x3d have a tendency to park the wrong cores or miss use the cores in multithreaded task or multitasking. 

[Smartlink]

25 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Does not matter at all, all of these boards are plenty to power a 7950X. VRM size only matters to a point, and all these boards are fine. Heck, even the B650M-HDV/M.2 is fine, and that's a $170 CAD motherboard. 

 

You can still listen to music just fine with it, and IMO if your really care about audio quality, you'd buy an external DAC, and in which case the built in audio solution is irrelevant. 

 

I don't really see any reason to go for one of those boards over another, they're all ridiculously overkill for what you're trying to do. The only thing that would make any difference is if you're trying to add more expansion cards in the future, and at that point a B650 Live Mixer or PG Lightning is half the price and offers a better PCIe layout IMO than all of these boards. Not to mention that you're only pairing this with a 7600X, that chip and no other chip on AM5 actually needs a high end motherboard. Again, a B650M-HDV/M.2 has most of the features that you need from a motherboard, why spend more than that? Get a ~$200 motherboard instead and spend that ~$200 you're saving on the board on a 7800X3D so you won't have to upgrade in the next few years. 

So there is no advantages selecting X670E over B650 or B650E aside from the M.2's  ? 

[Smartlink]

9 minutes ago, podkall said:

I mean, why buy this 380 CAD MB,

 

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte B650E AORUS ELITE X AX ICE ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($379.99 @ Amazon Canada)
 

when you can buy this 180 CAD MB that has the power to drive the fastest current AM5 CPU?

 

Motherboard: ASRock B650 PG LIGHTNING ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($177.36 @ Vuugo)

Must have had a wrong filter somewhere, the Riptide or Lightning where not showing up ! Crap, need to look them up in further depth. 

[RONOTHAN##]

12 minutes ago, Smartlink said:

So there is no advantages selecting X670E over B650 or B650E aside from the M.2's  ? 

No. X670 and B650 are even the same exact chipset, X670 just has two of them. There's a reason Gigabyte's top overclocking board is a B650E board, X670 just gives extra IO features that most people will not use. 

 

13 minutes ago, Smartlink said:

Wouldn't the x3d hurt me in video editing ? I was under the impression that the x3d have a tendency to park the wrong cores or miss use the cores in multithreaded task or multitasking. 

Not the 7800X3D, that doesn't do any core parking stuff. It's still slower in video editing than a 7700X due to the lower clock speeds, but it's much faster than the 7600X so I wouldn't consider that much of a loss anyway. 

[podkall]

34 minutes ago, Smartlink said:

Must have had a wrong filter somewhere, the Riptide or Lightning where not showing up ! Crap, need to look them up in further depth. 

you don't need filters, I only look at chipset and VRMs that have heatsink that isn't just a 1$ metal plate

[podkall]

25 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Not the 7800X3D, that doesn't do any core parking stuff. It's still slower in video editing than a 7700X due to the lower clock speeds, but it's much faster than the 7600X so I wouldn't consider that much of a loss anyway.

among fastest in gaming, faster overall than 7600x outside gaming

[Doobeedoo]

I have Aorus Elite AX and it's very good. I got it last year. The network and audio are fine on boards these days, wouldn't worry too much unless you need like 10Gbit or very high end audio gear. 

So basically depends how much M.2's you need and PCIe slots you will use, if you need. I wanted USB4 but yeah, very hard to get a board with it. I'd just make sure board covers IO I need and has good VRMs. This board does.

CPU wise I's get 7800X3D if you can, I have it it's awesome. No it doesn't have any issues, core park was some issue for reviewers when swapping CPUs. I'd assume you won't do a lot of editing really, otherwise you'd get a higher core count.

For PSU get 700W min.

 

HUB did a roundup of latest B650 board you can check as some are not worth. https://www.techspot.com/review/2828-amd-b650-motherboard-budget/

Check VRM temps and performance after and avoid those that are bad.