Asrock B350 Pro 4 Mobo Help

[Typical21QuestionsGuy]

Hello to anyone here, I was ordering parts for my pc when I recognized that the Asrock B350 Mobo seems to have a lot of issues with freezing and bios from the reviews given are these true and if so is their a better alternative here’s my part list for reference 

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/W6L7pG
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/W6L7pG/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Walmart) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($49.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($90.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Kingston - A400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($27.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($43.40 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8GB NITRO+ Video Card  ($254.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H18 Tempered Glass MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Monitor: AOC - G2460PF 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor  ($199.56 @ Amazon) 
Keyboard: EagleTec - KG010 Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($38.99 @ Amazon) 
Mouse: Redragon - COBRA M711 Wired Optical Mouse  ($16.88 @ Amazon) 
Headphones: Kingston - HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel  Headset  ($92.00 @ Newegg Marketplace) 
Total: $1062.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-30 1

[Sernefarian]

What is your maximum budget? It will help us make suggestions that will stay within it.

[Typical21QuestionsGuy]

Just now, Sernefarian said:

What is your maximum budget? It will help us make suggestions that will stay within it.

$1100 USD

[Sernefarian]

Perhaps these changes will be to your liking. PSU is higher quality, and motherboard should be less issue prone. it also has a VRM around as good with the addition of heatsinks to keep them cooler underload.

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Walmart) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350M GAMING PRO Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($59.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($90.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Kingston - A400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($27.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($43.40 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8GB NITRO+ Video Card  ($254.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H18 Tempered Glass MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - PRIME Ultra Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Monitor: AOC - G2460PF 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor  ($199.56 @ Amazon) 
Keyboard: EagleTec - KG010 Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($38.99 @ Amazon) 
Mouse: Redragon - COBRA M711 Wired Optical Mouse  ($16.88 @ Amazon) 
Headphones: Kingston - HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel  Headset  ($92.00 @ Newegg Marketplace) 
Total: $1092.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-30 20:21 EDT-0400

[Typical21QuestionsGuy]

2 minutes ago, Sernefarian said:

Perhaps these changes will be to your liking. PSU is higher quality, and motherboard should be less issue prone. it also has a VRM around as good with the addition of heatsinks to keep them cooler underload.

 

  Hide contents

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Walmart) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350M GAMING PRO Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($59.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($90.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Kingston - A400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($27.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($43.40 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8GB NITRO+ Video Card  ($254.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H18 Tempered Glass MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - PRIME Ultra Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Monitor: AOC - G2460PF 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor  ($199.56 @ Amazon) 
Keyboard: EagleTec - KG010 Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($38.99 @ Amazon) 
Mouse: Redragon - COBRA M711 Wired Optical Mouse  ($16.88 @ Amazon) 
Headphones: Kingston - HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel  Headset  ($92.00 @ Newegg Marketplace) 
Total: $1092.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-30 20:21 EDT-0400

Thanks for the recommendation, I wasn’t as willing to take a risk with the Asrock B350 after those freezing and bios complaints along with people saying that they had to RMA several times within short periods and the list goes on?

[Sakkura]

The board only has 3 VRM phases for the CPU core voltage, which is pretty weak, so maybe that's part of the reason for a lot of bad reviews. But generally user reviews are not very indicative of good or bad quality.

 

You could try maybe the Gigabyte AB350M-Gaming 3. It has 4 VRM phases for the CPU cores. The SOC VRM is weaker (no heatsink), but that's fine when you're not running an APU.

 

3 minutes ago, Sernefarian said:

Perhaps these changes will be to your liking. PSU is higher quality, and motherboard should be less issue prone. it also has a VRM around as good with the addition of heatsinks to keep them cooler underload.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Walmart) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350M GAMING PRO Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($59.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($90.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Kingston - A400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($27.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($43.40 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8GB NITRO+ Video Card  ($254.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H18 Tempered Glass MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - PRIME Ultra Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Monitor: AOC - G2460PF 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor  ($199.56 @ Amazon) 
Keyboard: EagleTec - KG010 Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($38.99 @ Amazon) 
Mouse: Redragon - COBRA M711 Wired Optical Mouse  ($16.88 @ Amazon) 
Headphones: Kingston - HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel  Headset  ($92.00 @ Newegg Marketplace) 
Total: $1092.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-30 20:21 EDT-0400

That MSI board still has only 3 VRM phases for the CPU cores. I would pick something a little better, doesn't have to cost way more.

 

The power supply upgrade is great though.

[Typical21QuestionsGuy]

5 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

The board only has 3 VRM phases for the CPU core voltage, which is pretty weak, so maybe that's part of the reason for a lot of bad reviews. But generally user reviews are not very indicative of good or bad quality.

 

You could try maybe the Gigabyte AB350M-Gaming 3. It has 4 VRM phases for the CPU cores. The SOC VRM is weaker (no heatsink), but that's fine when you're not running an APU.

 

That MSI board still has only 3 VRM phases for the CPU cores. I would pick something a little better, doesn't have to cost way more.

 

The power supply upgrade is great though.

Yea I wanted to go with the Asrock, since it was recommended in many of the builds people suggested, but the reviews really caught me off guard and even though I know I shouldn’t take the comments word I wanted to ask from the community before I go through, but if the Asrock is more than enough I am willing to go with it just trying to avoid the hassle of it not working as people commented 

[Sernefarian]

4 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

The board only has 3 VRM phases for the CPU core voltage, which is pretty weak, so maybe that's part of the reason for a lot of bad reviews. But generally user reviews are not very indicative of good or bad quality.

 

You could try maybe the Gigabyte AB350M-Gaming 3. It has 4 VRM phases for the CPU cores. The SOC VRM is weaker (no heatsink), but that's fine when you're not running an APU.

 

That MSI board still has only 3 VRM phases for the CPU cores. I would pick something a little better, doesn't have to cost way more.

 

The power supply upgrade is great though.

Find it somewhat frustrating on the VRM side of thigns that manufacturers generally for each board generation really only have between 2 and 4 VRM designs in their product stacks across a multiple hundred dollar price range that sometimes includes as many as a dozen boards. With the chief difference between differing pricepoints of $100.00 or more sometimes being "you now get heatsinks on it"

[Sakkura]

5 minutes ago, Typical21QuestionsGuy said:

Yea I wanted to go with the Asrock, since it was recommended in many of the builds people suggested, but the reviews really caught me off guard and even though I know I shouldn’t take the comments word I wanted to ask from the community before I go through, but if the Asrock is more than enough I am willing to go with it just trying to avoid the hassle of it not working as people commented 

I'd still want to go for a board with 4 VRM phases for the CPU though. Doesn't have to be the Gigabyte board, but it seems to be one of the cheapest options in mATX size.

4 minutes ago, Sernefarian said:

Find it somewhat frustrating on the VRM side of thigns that manufacturers generally for each board generation really only have between 2 and 4 VRM designs in their product stacks across a multiple hundred dollar price range that sometimes includes as many as a dozen boards. With the chief difference between differing pricepoints of $100.00 or more sometimes being "you now get heatsinks on it"

Yeah you have to go pretty high-end to get more than 4 phases, and often that's only full ATX size (for no reason; mATX has plenty of room).

 

Asus in particular lately seems really fond of not using VRM heatsinks. I bet they're really making bank with the 30 cents worth of aluminium they save per board...

[Sernefarian]

2 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

I'd still want to go for a board with 4 VRM phases for the CPU though. Doesn't have to be the Gigabyte board, but it seems to be one of the cheapest options in mATX size.

Yeah you have to go pretty high-end to get more than 4 phases, and often that's only full ATX size (for no reason; mATX has plenty of room).

 

Asus in particular lately seems really fond of not using VRM heatsinks. I bet they're really making bank with the 30 cents worth of aluminium they save per board...

I'd suppose with the shaping of the aluminum stock the cost per heatsink to motherbaord manufacturers is generally close to single digit dollar amounts. Perhaps in the $1.50-$4.00 range. If the VRM is thermally efficient enough a heatsink might not really even be necessary in some use cases. I suppose if you had something like a 16 + 4 phase for something like an 8600k or 2600X you could in most all use cases get away with no heatsink at all.