B450 board for son's PC upgrade

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

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5 Feb 2009
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My eldest has his birthday next month and wants "a Ryzen 7 CPU".

Since he currently has a Sandybridge system, obviously I've responded by asking him what he's going to do with it - frame it and put it on his wall?

But no, of course he's thinking that by asking for a CPU for his main and only present a whole Ryzen system will magically appear around it.

Trying to keep CPU, board, case and RAM down to under £300, basically.

CPU, no problem. A 1600AF will be an upgrade and tide him over until he really can ask for just a CPU for Christmas or something.

Case, no problem. Plenty of decent enough sub-£50 case options.

RAM - well, I'm thinking any 3200MHz 16GB kit will do now with the improved memory controllers on Ryzen?

But board? This is where the options are less clear for me.

I want something that will last a couple of CPU upgrade cycles and ideally keep him going for a good few years. One with a reasonable likelihood of taking a Ryzen 4000 series, but at least a 3700X or something.

The only <£100 ones that I see consistently recommended in terms of VRMs and decent future support potential are the MSI Tomahawk and Mortar MAX B450 boards. Are there any other good options that meet my needs? The more options the more chance I have of finding a good deal between now and mid-March...
 
If you're not planning on high overclocks, you'd likely get away with a decent B450 board, I've ordered a B450-M Pro Max for a 1600AF build which seemed decent for the mid-tier VRMs, on my own rig I use the MSI Gaming Edge and can get solid OC's on my 9700K, would likely not ever move away from MSI as I've never had a bad board from them to date :)
 
These are generally the best 3 b450 boards and will handle up to 16 core CPUs for future upgrades.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £311.63 (includes shipping: £11.70)


Cheap fast ram.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £77.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)​
​
 
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I have used loads of Asus Prime B450-Plus boards with no issues. They are a solid board, but that's with the CPU at stock so cannot comment regarding overclocking capability, stability or reliability.
 
Built and sold upwards of 35 systems since the board was available for multiple workloads (Mostly modelling/light rendering systems but 2 customers were using for encoding video footage but not sure to what intensity) most of them with 2600/2700/2700X and had zero reports of slow performance, failures or PSU thermal trips. Oh and no fires.

Not saying that it isn't an issue in a specific scenario but we have not had any reports or significant RMA's, certainly not related.
 
As long as they're under good airflow they should be 'okay' when running a stock 8 core Ryzen, they'll be fine in most scenarios for 6 or fewer core builds.

Regardless, for the money there are much better options.
 
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