AMD x470, B450 motherboard on zen2

michty_me said:
I'm currently looking at purchasing a 3700X/3800X CPU but have no idea what motherboard to buy. Ideally I would get a 3900X but feel its too overkill for my needs. Not saying I won't upgrade to a 12C chip in the future though.

As for my motherboard needs/wants, What were regarded as the best X470/B450 motherboards?

My needs are fairly simple:

I've got a vega 56 pulse GPU for now, 1 NVME M.2 Drive, 1 x MX500 SSD, 32GB RAM.

-The best VRM's along with stability and decent Bios
-I don't need RGB but doesn't bother me if it comes with it.
-I don't require Wifi as I'm hard wired now.
-The ability to update Bios via USB would be beneficial but not necessary.

I think that's it.
I don't really have a budget in mind, I initially thought along the lines of ~£250 for a motherboard. What do you all recommend?

Side note: I keep my systems for several years, My current one is around 8 years old.
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you could get a 3700x for now which will be better than what you have and then when the 4th gen comes out (late 2020?) upgrade to the 4900x (or 4950X) (and sell your 3rd gen cpu). If this is the case then you may want to get a decent mobo - some of the high end B450 are better than the cheap X470. or you could go for a x570 which may be overkill. Also on this forum I heard that there may be a B450 MAX coming out shortly to satisfy us (until the B550 comes out early 2020).
 
Alan1969 said:
you could get a 3700x for now which will be better than what you have and then when the 4th gen comes out (late 2020?) upgrade to the 4900x (or 4950X) (and sell your 3rd gen cpu). If this is the case then you may want to get a decent mobo - some of the high end B450 are better than the cheap X470. or you could go for a x570 which may be overkill. Also on this forum I heard that there may be a B450 MAX coming out shortly to satisfy us (until the B550 comes out early 2020).
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Indeed. Some of the B450 boards are getting the ‘max’ treatment so the BIOS doesn’t need striping back (loss of fancy appearance, raid and some older CPU support), I’ve seen these boards available for preorder already.
Looks like the Tomahawk is getting MAXed but Gaming Pro Carbon isn’t, which i can’t make sense of.
 
Alan1969 said:
you could get a 3700x for now which will be better than what you have and then when the 4th gen comes out (late 2020?) upgrade to the 4900x (or 4950X) (and sell your 3rd gen cpu). If this is the case then you may want to get a decent mobo - some of the high end B450 are better than the cheap X470. or you could go for a x570 which may be overkill. Also on this forum I heard that there may be a B450 MAX coming out shortly to satisfy us (until the B550 comes out early 2020).
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Thanks, this is what I've been thinking about. If I tend to keep systems a while it would probably make more sense to go for an X570. At least hopefully the VRM overkill will be able to handle 4XXX chips no problem.
 
matt1 said:
Indeed. Some of the B450 boards are getting the ‘max’ treatment so the BIOS doesn’t need striping back (loss of fancy appearance, raid and some older CPU support), I’ve seen these boards available for preorder already.
Looks like the Tomahawk is getting MAXed but Gaming Pro Carbon isn’t, which i can’t make sense of.
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The gaming carbon is the best speced, better than a lot of the x470's I reckon they are not MAXing it yet becauase will take away from the x570. Really the board I wanted.
 
MegaPinches said:
The gaming carbon is the best speced, better than a lot of the x470's I reckon they are not MAXing it yet becauase will take away from the x570. Really the board I wanted.
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Same here.
My build is on hold until the B450 MAX boards are available. Ideally I'd want WiFi, hence the Gaming Carbon, but I can pass that up if it is delayed past late August. I'm not in any immediate rush as I'm also waiting for non-reference 5700XT GPUs to become available.
Got a complete build planned for around £1k, excluding monitor.

Edit: my concern with not getting a MAX board is more about support for 4th gen Ryzen. If 3rd gen is struggling to be properly supported on the existing B450 boards, then you get be certain that a MAX is more likely to get support for future gens than the current versions.
 
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Potatowithearsontheside said:
Same here.
My build is on hold until the B450 MAX boards are available. Ideally I'd want WiFi, hence the Gaming Carbon, but I can pass that up if it is delayed past late August. I'm not in any immediate rush as I'm also waiting for non-reference 5700XT GPUs to become available.
Got a complete build planned for around £1k, excluding monitor.

Edit: my concern with not getting a MAX board is more about support for 4th gen Ryzen. If 3rd gen is struggling to be properly supported on the existing B450 boards, then you get be certain that a MAX is more likely to get support for future gens than the current versions.
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I'm thinking the MAX boards might be a good £20-£30 more than the current, which potentially puts the Tomahawk at £120-£130, and you get get into a newer X570 for £50 more. Are those entry-level X570's better than the mid-range B450's?
 
Matmulder said:
I'm thinking the MAX boards might be a good £20-£30 more than the current, which potentially puts the Tomahawk at £120-£130, and you get get into a newer X570 for £50 more. Are those entry-level X570's better than the mid-range B450's?
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I seen UK pre order price £98 so I reckon in time we will see £89 again when the madness dies down, its not like they are anything new, motherboards get revisions all the time.
 
Oh that is interesting. I didn't know that. I would have expected all X570 boards to have 32MB ROMs. Given what these X570 boards cost and the cost difference between 16MB and 32MB ROMs, why would manufacturers not just use 32MB? Having said that though; maybe it won't be an issue for those who don't have over bloated BIOS.
 
Marsman said:
Oh that is interesting. I didn't know that. I would have expected all X570 boards to have 32MB ROMs. Given what these X570 boards cost and the cost difference between 16MB and 32MB ROMs, why would manufacturers not just use 32MB? Having said that though; maybe it won't be an issue for those who don't have over bloated BIOS.
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That was the gigabyte Auros elite. I'll have a look at the higher end boards this morning and see what they have.

Edit:

Looking at this document, The other manufacturers all list 32Mb eeproms.
Only Gigabyte seem to have 16Mb.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ZnKCjaXyzd1o/htmlview?sle=true#gid=2112472504
 
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