Need help choosing motheboard

[Lesage]

Budget (including currency): ~270 USD (11499 UAH)

Country: Ukraine

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Programming, gaming sometimes

Other details: Ryzen 5 7500F, Crucial P3 1TB M.2, Crucial Pro DDR5-5600 (2x16 GB)

I struggle to choose proper motherboard. B850 motherboards are starting to sale in my country, and I have a budget for anything up to MSI X670E Gaming Plus WiFi (goes for about 270 USD in my country), cheapest option I consider is ASRock B650 PG Lightning (~180 USD). My main requirements are stability and possibility for upgrade in future for top-end CPU (9950X or similar). Additional requirement is support for 4 M2, because I use Linux and Windows, both for work tasks and games, and I want RAID set up for total duplication of data for each system. I can live with RAID only for Linux, and just backup essential Windows data on SATA SSD, so it's not a dealbraker for me: if I can buy essentially the same motherboards (without extra-features) for lower price with 3 M2 slots then I'm okay with it. I've already ordered RAM and M2, so compatibility is essential.

 

The options that I was looking into: ASRock B650 PG Lightning, B650/B850 Pro RS, B850 Pro-A, MSI X670E Gaming Plus WiFi, Gigabyte B850 GAMING, and so on in this price range.

 

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Lesage said:

ASRock B650 PG Lightning, B650/B850 Pro RS, B850 Pro-A, MSI X670E Gaming Plus WiFi, Gigabyte B850 GAMING, and so on in this price range.

The cheapest of that selection is all you need.