MSI Gaming Pro Carbon vs. Gigabyte Aorus Gaming K5

[Fred Flintstone]

I've been looking for an X370 motherboard for a while now and I just found these two for the same price in local stores:

MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON.html#productFeature-section

Gigabyte X370 Aorus Gaming K5: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-K5-rev-10#kf

I feel more attracted by the Pro Carbon, but I do not dislike the Aorus either, so are there any pros/cons between them? I mean, are there any missing features in one of them? I checked both manufacturers' websites and I noticed they're quite similar, same I/O (pretty much), same PCIe distribution, both have plenty of RGB LEDs and slot reinforcements. Please, let me know if there are any important differences between them so I can make an appropiate choice.

[LienusLateTips]

I like GIGABYTE so I'll go with that but there isn't really a difference

[Damascus]

Msi am4 mobos are not at all reliable.

[Fred Flintstone]

By the way, I plan to buy a Ryzen 5 1600 and 16GB of RAM @3000MHz (maybe I'll try on overclocking it to 3200MHz).

[Damascus]

Just now, Fred Flintstone said:

By the way, I plan to buy a Ryzen 5 1600 and 16GB of RAM @3000MHz (maybe I'll try on overclocking it to 3200MHz).

In that case get either:

ASRock taichi

Asus x370 Prime

Aorus k5/7

 

The first two have best in class vrms and therefore oc capabilities 

[Fred Flintstone]

2 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Msi am4 mobos are not at all reliable.

What do you mean by "not reliable"?

[Damascus]

Just now, Fred Flintstone said:

What do you mean by "not reliable"?

They have a bunch of issues with RAM speeds and just breaking down in general.

[Zando_]

Gigabyte! Especially the K7. I’ll be getting the black version, or the K5. 

[Fred Flintstone]

1 minute ago, Damascus said:

ASRock taichi

Asus x370 Prime

Aorus k5/7

The Taichi isn't available here, I don't like the Prime and the Aorus K7 is way over my budget ... Looks are important too.

I'm seeing that the Pro Carbon has more chokes than the Aorus K5, doesn't that mean better overclocking performance? I'm not much of a tweaker, but I'd like to try and hit 4.0GHz on the Ryzen 5 1600.

[Shiv78]

6 minutes ago, Fred Flintstone said:

I'm seeing that the Pro Carbon has more chokes than the Aorus K5, doesn't that mean better overclocking performance? I'm not much of a tweaker, but I'd like to try and hit 4.0GHz on the Ryzen 5 1600.

Get the K5, MSIs Ryzen boards are unstable (sadly) and have a bad BIOS but I too love the Carbon

[Fred Flintstone]

7 minutes ago, Shiv78 said:

Get the K5, MSIs Ryzen boards are unstable (sadly) and have a bad BIOS but I too love the Carbon

Oh, but is it really that bad? It's not that I don't like the Aorus K5, I actually like it, but I read a few weeks ago that it has bad BIOS updates and not enough power phases compared to it's big brother, the K7.

Maybe it's still better than the MSI, but I certainly didn't expect it to be that bad...

[Fred Flintstone]

I thought both were on par, they look so similar.

[Himommies]

Just now, Fred Flintstone said:

I thought both were on par, they look so similar.

In my own opinion MSI has been pretty reliable to me on Z170.I assume they used the same BIOS GUI for Ryzen or am I wronf

 

2 minutes ago, Fred Flintstone said:

Oh, but is it really that bad? It's not that I don't like the Aorus K5, I actually like it, but I read a few weeks ago that it has bad BIOS updates and not enough power phases compared to it's big brother, the K7.

Maybe it's still better than the MSI, but I certainly didn't expect it to be that bad...

Gigabyte does have less frequent ones but they are not bad ones by any means.

I would personally get the Strix if you can afford it or the Gaming Pro

[Fred Flintstone]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

I would personally get the Strix

The Strix seems to be overpriced here (sadly), it costs the same as a K7, so it's way over my budget ...

 

5 minutes ago, Himommies said:

or the Gaming Pro

Do you mean the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon? Or just Gaming Pro?

[Himommies]

Just now, Fred Flintstone said:

The Strix seems to be overpriced here (sadly), it costs the same as a K7, so it's way over my budget ...

 

Do you mean the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon? Or just Gaming Pro?

The cheapest X370 Mobo basically in your region.VRM's don't matter that much otherwise the 7 year old Dells would be dead

[Shiv78]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

The cheapest X370 Mobo basically in your region.VRM's don't matter that much otherwise the 7 year old Dells would be dead

7 year old dells don;t get overclocked. VRMs DO matter for overclocking, why do you think monoblocks exist?

[Himommies]

1 minute ago, Shiv78 said:

7 year old dells don;t get overclocked. VRMs DO matter for overclocking, why do you think monoblocks exist?

By the time they die some other part would have died first or the system is unusable at that point.Assuming you plan to upgrade within the next 5-7 years

[Fred Flintstone]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

By the time they die some other part would have died first or the system is unusable at that point.Assuming you plan to upgrade within the next 5-7 years

I really want to try overclocking, I never did it before. Also, I don't think I'll be upgrading whichever motherboard I pick any time soon, so I want a functional one that can handle a voltage increase for at least 8 hours a day. I'm not a heavy user nor an enthusiast tweaker, but I want both reliability and looks.

Some of you guys said before that MSI's AM4 motherboards are unstable, but is that issue physical? Or is it a matter of firmware optimization?

[He_162]

I have an unreasonable passion against Gigabyte products, I'd go with MSI.

I have yet to have a non-buggy Gigabyte bios, and a few boards fail to reset the bios using any of the buttons (even if it says it did, and you hit save, etc).

I have had that issue for several chipsets as well.

[Fred Flintstone]

2 minutes ago, He_162 said:

I have an unreasonable passion against Gigabyte products, I'd go with MSI.

Well, I can see you have an MSI board paired with a 1600 at 1.3V, did you have any trouble with that couple? Have you tried with higher voltages? I'd like to know your personal experience with it ...

[He_162]

55 minutes ago, Fred Flintstone said:

Well, I can see you have an MSI board paired with a 1600 at 1.3V, did you have any trouble with that couple? Have you tried with higher voltages? I'd like to know your personal experience with it ...

I am currently running my chip at 1.425v and 3.8ghz, it is stable, and the board gets 53C after a 24 hour load test, so I think it's plenty for what I am doing, but the lack of some BIOS functions, like changing base clock is annoying with the B350 boards, but at least the BIOS works, I haven't had any kind of issue whatsoever with this board, which surprised me.

[Damascus]

Get the k5 I wouldn't trust an msi board (also, it may have worse vrms than the k7 but it's still better than the pro carbon) 

 

To add to the bios conversation I've used two gigabyte boards and they had a great bios, best I've used (used asus and biostar as well)

[Fred Flintstone]

3 hours ago, Damascus said:

Get the k5 I wouldn't trust an msi board (also, it may have worse vrms than the k7 but it's still better than the pro carbon)

What's the problem with MSI's VRMs? I don't know much about this topic, can you explain to me why are Gigabyte's VRMs better? Please ...

[Fred Flintstone]

@Shiv78 @Damascus Would you guys explain to me what you're saying about MSI's VRMs and stability issues? Why is Gigabyte better in that regard? I really wanna know, I'm kind of a noob in this world...

[Salacious B Crum]

I have the pro carbon that had my 1800x in it on release date and it posted and booted right up on build and has been a trooper ever since now housing my 1600x my 1800x is now riding on a asus crosshair hero