Intel boards offer comparatively poor price / performance, vs AMD Zen 3 boards

[g67575]

I'm basing this on this article:
https://www.techspot.com/article/2252-intel-b560-disaster/

The author has this to say about budget B550 AMD motherboards "you can run a Ryzen 9 5950X without any performance restrictions on $110 AMD B550 boards"

Regarding Intel's mainstream B560 motherboards, he concludes that "this is not a single motherboard manufacturer or a specific model screw up, this one’s squarely on Intel".

I found that with my B560 motherboard + 10700KF, I had to do quite a lot of tweaking to the power limits, to get it to run all CPU cores at 4.6-4.7ghz for sustained periods (only with hyper threading disabled), especially during gaming.

So... AMD will get my recommendation to others in my family for price / performance, based on this (especially for Zen 4, next year). This is because, why bother with all that tweaking on budget / mid end motherboards (that may not be successful) when you can buy a cheap AMD motherboard, and it will work at the stated all core speeds, without any messing about with settings in the BIOS?

If you want this kind of performance + convenience with Intel CPUs, you have to buy an expensive Z series motherboard (at least £125), which don't tend to have power limit issues.

I think these problems are compounded by the lacklustre performance of Intel's 11th gen CPUs in general...

Do you think this is a fair assessment, or have I missed something important about recent Intel motherboards?

 

[Joxeon]

Which board do you have?

 

[g67575]

Which board do you have?

It was a cheap ASRock B560, about £75.

Equivalent AMD B550 boards are about £70-£80.

 

[Joxeon]

Looking through your history shows it's the B560m HDV which would explain why you're having issues as it's practically an OEM board and the VRM doesn't even have a heatsink so it's not supprising you're having issues trying to run a CPU which can pull in excess of 200w. It's not the B560 chipset that's the problem but rather the choice of B560 board in your particular case.

 

[g67575]

It's not the B560 chipset that's the problem but rather the choice of B560 board in your particular case.

So, I take it you don't agree with any of what the guy said in the Techspot article above? The article shows that there are power throttling issues on many B550 motherboards (except the much more expensive ones like the B560 Tomahawk or Aurus Pro, which cost about £140-£150, at which point you might as well buy a Z series motherboard).

According to the article author, you don't get issues like this on Zen 3 B550 motherboards.

 

[Joxeon]

So, I take it you don't agree with any of what the guy said in the Techspot article above? The article shows that there are power throttling issues on many B550 motherboards (except the much more expensive ones like the B560 Tomahawk or Aurus Pro, which cost about £140-£150, at which point you might as well buy a Z series motherboard).

According to the article author, you don't get issues like this on Zen 3 B550 motherboards.

It's an issue which is a non issue, as the author says:

"It is possible to remove the power limits and unleash the 11400F on these entry-level B560 boards. How you go about doing this depends on the motherboard, some are easier than others. In the case of the MSI B560M Pro you simply change the cooler option in the BIOS from ‘box cooler’ to ‘water-cooling’ and provided you have a sufficient cooler, the CPU will boost up to 4.2 GHz for all-core workloads."

While it's true that B550 don't have power limits enforced I still think you will run into the same issues you're facing if you try and pair any CPU above the 5600X with a B550 that doesn't have a heatsink on the VRM.

 

[g67575]

I can get 4.6ghz+ on all cores, power usage is upto about 120w under load, a bit more in prime95. I wouldn't want to push it further anyway, as my CPU cooler couldn't handle it. I'm happy with the performance of this CPU / B560 mobo combo for the price, but tweaking it required a fair bit of trial and error + testing.

I would still recommend an AMD B550 + 5600X / 5800 CPU instead to the majority of people building a PC, I haven't so far heard of any power throttling caused by any motherboards with this chipset, and Zen 3 CPU performance is excellent. Also, AMD has never enforced any artificial overclocking limits on any ZEN series CPUs, like Intel does with many CPU and motherboard combos.

The guy who wrote the article reckons even running a Ryzen 9 5950X wouldn't be a problem on a budget B550 motherboard. I see no reason to doubt this.

I think you make the assumption that you have to buy a motherboard with a beefy VRM, I think Zen 3 is just a more power efficient design, partly because it uses the TSMC 7nm fab. process, rather than 14nm. This fab. process has lead to high power consumption issues on 11th gen / Rocket Lake, even with 8 core CPUs.

 

[Joxeon]

I think you make the assumption that you have to buy a motherboard with a beefy VRM,

You do need a decent VRM if you want to get the best out of a 10700K and pairing it with a 75 quid board without a VRM heatsink is not going to get you that.

Where Intel shines this gen is when you drop a £150 11400F into a £100 B560 and get 90% of the performance of a £300 5600X.

guy who wrote the article reckons even running a Ryzen 9 5950X wouldn't be a problem on a budget B550 motherboard. I see no reason to doubt this.

Even a few X570 boards throttle so I'm sure some of the B550 will especially ones without VRM heatsinks.

 

[g67575]

Where Intel shines this gen is when you drop a £150 11400F into a £100 B560 and get 90% of the performance of a £300 5600X.

Ok, fair enough. I can see the value this would offer. But I think most would probably want something like a 10700 / 10700K to keep up with the 5600X.

If the 5600X, or a cheaper model were sold for around £200, I don't think there would be much reason to buy an Intel CPU in 2021, at least for gamers. Even at £260, the value is quite good.

I can't say the same for the 5800X though.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Buttttt B560 boards are 10 better than B550 boards!!!

 

[g67575]

Buttttt B560 boards are 10 better than B550 boards!!!

Yes, Intel won the bigger number = faster award this time around, as it released later

 

[Game]

So, I take it you don't agree with any of what the guy said in the Techspot article above? The article shows that there are power throttling issues on many B550 motherboards (except the much more expensive ones like the B560 Tomahawk or Aurus Pro, which cost about £140-£150, at which point you might as well buy a Z series motherboard).

According to the article author, you don't get issues like this on Zen 3 B550 motherboards.

Clicked one button on the companion app for my asrock pro4 b560 board and all cores on my 10400f run at 4ghz all day everyday with no issues

took seconds to sort , but it does cost more than your board

but it does seem odd with your other expensive parts you went for the cheapest mobo you could buy

 

[g67575]

Why is it odd, when people haven't been having these issues with recent AMD motherboards. These's quite a bit of bias towards Intel, despite this.

Read the article chaps - In summary AMD B550 motherboards do well regardless of the CPU used, many Intel B560 motherboards do not. The author blames Intel for these design problems.

 

[Cooler running]

The lack of RAM overclocking on many Intel boards is a real kick in the teeth now that 3200 speed RAM is so cheap.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD had the same problems with its cheaper B450/B550 motherboards too,since Hardware Unboxed showed it. There were VRM issues because there wasn't sufficiently decent heatsinking on the cheaper motherboards.

Why do you think MSI became the default recommendation for many B450 motherboards? Other ones had very high VRM temperatures due to poor heatsink designs,and some of the VRMs being marginal. Buildzoid went into detail about it.

To suggest buying very cheap B550 motherboards also means having insufficient VRM cooling.

Also in the B560 video the £110 ASRock B560 they tested,when they unlocked the limits,was only 100MHZ below in boost clockspeeds than the best B560 they tested. That is with a Core i7 11700F.

The Asus they suggested is around £130 and it was fine. This ASRock B560 motherboard is around £120~£130 and is fine:
https://adoredtv.com/asrock-b560-steel-legend-motherboard-review-z590-performance-at-half-the-price/

AdoredTV tested both the B560 with a Core i9 10900K! It was within a few percent of a Z590 motherboard.

Most people on here suggest B550 motherboards which cost around £100~£150 anyway!

Plus if you go with a Core i5 10400F,even a cheap B560 will be fine,and it is unlikely a Core i5 11400F will have a problem.

The fact is a Core i5 10400/Core i5 11400 is a better CPU than a Ryzen 5 3600,and that is coming from a Ryzen 7 3700X owner,and someone who is partial to AMD.

Something like a Core i5 10400/Core i5 11400 with a £100~£130 B560 will work perfectly fine.

In the end the Core i5 11400F is as low as £150,so you use a £100~£130 motherboard and a £30 Hyper 212,that is only £280~£310. If you go for the even cheaper Core i5 10400F it comes closer to £250. For example Gamersnexus had the Core i5 10400 around the same level as Ryzen 5 3600 in power consumption on a Z490.

A Ryzen 5 5600X,is at least £250~£280 for the CPU alone. The stock Wraith Stealth cooler is mediocre too at least from my experience(and mates experience) from using it on various Ryzen 5 CPUs. This is unlike the Wraith Spire which is far better. The cheaper B550 motherboards are not that great either.

So that realistically pushes the Ryzen 5 5600X,with a £100~£130 motherboard and a £30 CPU cooler to nearly £400.

Yes it is faster,but costs more even if you use the stock cooler. The Ryzen 5 3600 isn't faster than the Intel CPUs in gaming for example,so you will need to upgrade quicker.

The difference is even worse in older games,where the dual CCX layout of the Zen2 CPUs,means a tweaked Core i5 10400F is probably going to end up a bit faster than my Ryzen 7 3700X!

The lack of RAM overclocking on many Intel boards is a real kick in the teeth now that 3200 speed RAM is so cheap.

B560 allows XMP RAM and RAM overclocking on CFL and RKL. H510 only allows XMP upto 3200MHZ with RKL.

 

[g67575]

@CAT-THE-FIFTH

Nice find for this review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuPH9pCCK-E&t=8s&ab_channel=HardwareUnboxed

I see what you are saying, there do seem to be some very high temps (over 100 degrees in some cases) on most B550 motherboards + Ryzen CPUs with 12/16 cores. But the review does not mention CPU performance throttling.

May I suggest that most will still be buying 6/8 core CPUs , particularly gamers, so I still think the majority of motherboards with B550 chipsets are easier to recommend than B560 motherboards, as the VRM temps when testing with 8 core CPUs (like the Ryzen 3700X) ranged being between 49-70 depending on the board (While many Intel B560 motherboards with 8 cores or more had problems with power throttling, resulting in lower CPU frequencies).

The best thermally performing B550 board can be had for about £85 at the moment (price cut I think), which is the MSI MAG B550M BAZOOKA, I think this is the same/ similar to the B550M Bazooka shown in the review. It seems good value, unless you want tons of extra features, PCIE slots, etc. This board can comfortably handle the 3950X, with the VRM running at 68 degrees under load. with higher temps when overclocked.

I think the 5600X at £250 is a pretty good price, should work nicely with the MAG B550M BAZOOKA.

It would be good to see a follow up review, showing VRM thermal perf. with the Ryzen 5000 series on B550 boards, to see if the results are similar. I think for the 5600X, the results should still be decent (as the max power consumption is similar to the 3600X).

I would've thought B550 VRM thermals with a 5800X would be similar to with the 3950X seen in the HW Unboxed review, as the max power consumption (multithreaded load) is similar, as shown here:
https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_5800x_review,6.html
So, a decent board like the B550M Bazooka should, in theory, handle it well.

Maybe someone who has tested a 5800X on a B550 motherboard can comment on the VRM temps?

Thoughts - 5nm EUV based CPUs can't come soon enough, one of the main benefits that they offer will be 30-40% lower power usage (at the same clocks) vs AMD's current 7nm based CPUs.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD has said less entry level and mainstream CPUs are going to be made:
https://www.techspot.com/news/89822-chip-shortage-forcing-amd-prioritize-flagship-cpus-over.html

TL;DR: The global semiconductor shortage looks to have claimed another victim: AMD's lower-end CPU offerings. Company CEO Lisa Su said the situation is forcing team red to prioritize its higher-end commercial and gaming processors, which are more in demand.

At an investor event earlier this week (via PC Mag), Su was asked whether AMD would be shipping more CPUs if it had extra chip manufacturing capacity. "There is some compute that we're leaving underserviced," she replied. "So, I would say particularly, if you look at some of the segments in the PC market, sort of the lower end of the PC market. We have prioritized some of the higher-end commercial SKUs and gaming SKUs and those kinds of things."

The price reduction on some of the Zen3 CPU is because they are a B0 stepping. AMD is releasing a new B2 stepping,and since they have skipped the B1 stepping,I suspect there is some major errata they are not telling us about. I suspect once the B2 stepping is released AMD will put price back up.

The Ryzen 5 5600X is overpriced,and for most of its lifespan it was nearly £300. The MSI B550M was only in the last week reduced down to £85 at one retailer and that is probably a short term price reduction - for the most part it was well over £100 since I specified it in some builds for it. Its £120~£130 elsewhere. If you want to go with special pricing - I managed to get a Core i5 10400(the one with the IGP) for £100 brand new.

The ASRock B560 PRO4 is fine with the 8C Core i7 11700 which means by extension its fine with the Core i7 10700. Its £100~££110:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asrock-b560-pro4-socket-lga-1200-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-181-ak.html

It also means the Core i5 10400 and Core i5 11400 are not going to have issues. In fact a few on here use that same motherboard with a Core i5 11400. The mATX version of that ASRock is £93:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asro...200-ddr4-micro-atx-motherboard-mb-180-ak.html

It has a 6+2 phase VRM with 50A power stages. It should be more than enough for a Core i5 11400F for example.

The heatsinks also look decent in size.

In your case you should have done due diligence - I wouldn't go for any full sized motherboard without decent heatsinks,especially with a decent level of fins. Its something that has always been the case!

For my other rig I got a Core i5 10400 and its in a 5 litre Velka 5 case and runs fine. The Core i5 10400 has been as low as £110~£120. The Core i5 11400F is £150.

So even if you go by the Ryzen 5 5600X special price its £100 more,with a crap Wraith Stealth cooler. The Intel CPUs are still better value - as AdoredTV and others showed,even a £130 ASRock B560 motherboard was fine with a Core i9 10900K. So at this point people are worrying way too much about motherboard requirements.

Even Hardware Unboxed/Techspot and Gamersnexus consider the Core i5 11400F and Core i5 10400F the value champions:
https://www.techspot.com/review/2232-intel-core-i5-11400f/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V-MmV1zQfM

The reality is since AMD has the performance lead,they don't feel the need to target entry level and mainstream markets as much. Basically as Gamersnexus said its an inversion of where AMD was with Zen2.

 

[g67575]

@CAT-THE-FIFTH "In your case you should have done due diligence". Lol wut.

I got a cheap board and 2nd hand 10700KF (upgraded from 4770K), why should I care? It runs at 4.6-4.7ghz consistently with an old cooler, more than fast enough for just about any game.

It was cheaper than a 5600X built, which I would have been temped by at the price, if it had 8 cores. It comes with a cooler that is OK, but I've heard ppl recommend at least a half decent tower cooler to avoid thermal throttling. Tbh, it's disappointing that AMD/still don't provide better stock coolers, for mid-high end parts, considering the 5600x price used to be ~£300.

I wanted an 8 core CPU, as many new games benefit from 8 cores these days, and the latest consoles have 8 CPU cores... Not much point in a PC if the CPU spec can't compete with the latest console.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

@CAT-THE-FIFTH "In your case you should have done due diligence". Lol wut.

I got a cheap board and 2nd hand 10700KF (upgraded from 4770K), why should I care? It runs at 4.6-4.7ghz consistently with a old cooler, more than fast enough for just about any game.

It was cheaper than a 5600X built, which I would have been temped by at the price, if it had 8 cores. It comes with a cooler that is OK, but I've heard ppl recommend at least a half decent tower cooler to avoid thermal throttling.

I wanted an 8 core CPU, as many new games benefit from 8 cores these days, and the latest consoles have 8 CPU cores... Not much point in a PC if the CPU spec can't compete with a console.

When Zen was 1st released many companies didn't put effort into the motherboards so a number had crap VRMs,and poor cooling. Even when it came to B450 there were significant issues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqQcgwz1hYA

The heatsinking was so poor,that you could hit over 110C with some of the motherboards. Most Asus and Gigabyte B450 motherboards were rubbish - why do you think MSI is so popular?? Their B450 motherboards were the best. At one point Gigabyte were literally giving away some of their B450 motherboards as they were unpopular.

Then you had people like Buildzoid who went into tons of detail about a number of the B350/B450 motherboards and how many companies were lying about VRM phase arrangements by using doubling and poor quality components. A number of companies didn't implement LLC properly which further caused problems if you wanted to use PBO.

I remember the 1st year of socket AM4 was rather a PITA due to a combination of motherboard and immature BIOS issues. You had to be careful what RAM you got,and what motherboard you got.

B550 was the 1st time a lot of these companies bothered to make a whole set of half decent motherboards and BIOSes at launch for an AM4 system.

So even with B350/B450 motherboards you had to do your research - it was not simply just plug and play either. There are tons of threads of people trying to find the best choices for the AM4 systems.

Even with my B450 mini-ITX motherboard,lots of the cheaper ones had poorly implemented VRM/heatsink combinations. I literally went for the most expensive B450 mini-ITX motherboard which had the second best VRM of any B450 motherboard,and used a horizontal air cooler.

My mate who got a cheaper B450 mini-ITX motherboard with the same CPU as me(Ryzen 7 3700X) with an AIO water cooler,had some heat issues due to the VRM/heatsink combination. They had to direct more airflow over the VRM area.

I didn't need to do it as the motherboard I got,had a better balanced VRM/heatsink solution and I used a cooler which kept air blowing over the VRM.

I have specced AMD systems as far back as 15 years ago,and the same issues with crap motherboards were there. There were AMD AM2/AM3 motherboards with poor VRMs,and lack of heatsinking where the VRM melted the PCB with Phenom II X6 CPUs. It was even worse with the FX CPUs,where the VRMs could not only burn but also many had throttling issues.Then go back to the Core 2,etc you had the same issues especially with 65NM CPUs. This is not a new thing - there used to be threads listing what motherboards to avoid as it was a much bigger minefield in the past. Then mods for people to improve VRM cooling by putting fans on top,etc.

There were even Gigabyte motherboards with 8 phase VRMs which could throttle with a Phenom II X6. So you ended up with motherboards like this being the defacto mainstream choice:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asus-m5a97-evo/4.html

Yes,that is a 275W VRM with a massive finned heatsink in a sub £100 motherboard.

Looking at VRMs,and especially looking at VRM heatsinking is something that many have done on here for the last 10~20 years. It was even worse in the past - at least motherboards now will protect themselves. In the past the motherboards would burn out.

So yes you need to look at the motherboards you buy. Not only the VRMs,but the quality of the VRM heatsinking - the more fins,the better,as it increases surface area. Also the type of cooling affects VRM temperatures. If you use an AIO water cooling,you need better case airflow as there is virtually zero airflow over the VRMs. Air coolers will actually reduce VRM temperatures. Have you noticed most stock air coolers,or cooler in OEM systems are horizontal?? That is because a lot of cheaper motherboards are designed with horizontal stock air coolers in mind.

 

[g67575]

@CAT-THE-FIFTH I must admit, Until I saw that B550 HW Unboxed review, I had no idea motherboards could reach 110 degrees, this just seems insanely hot / unsafe. I read that the VRM capacitors can break in about half a year if they run at 105 degrees (24/7) or higher.

I think they should be required to give clear guidelines about suitable CPUs for motherboards with lower spec/poorly cooled VRMs. I suppose they can avoid that by enforcing thermal throttling on CPUs (apparently not strictly enough) with high power consumptions?

I never worried much about VRMs on previous boards like the B350/B450 or Intel equivalents, I was waiting for 8 core CPUs (with good IPC) to become affordable, and was hoping for 5nm / 10nm fab. process CPUs a bit sooner. So, I settled with a Comet Lake CPU once the initial 11th gen reviews were out. Perhaps I will upgrade again, in a 2-3 years (might even skip Intel's 10nm if they can't hit 5ghz on 8 cores).

I think the key bit of info people need to check is, what is the maximum power consumption of all CPU cores under load (not TDP!), for the CPU model you want to buy. If it's 125w-200w (or more) the motherboard VRM needs to be able to cope with all that extra heat...