ASUS mobo returned, need a new mobo

[Greebo]

i must admit, for what you get with the MSI Tomahawk x670e it puts other board manufacturers to shame. IMO best bang for buck AM5 board atm.

It has pcei5 slot and 1 pcie5 nvme but plenty of pcie4 slots and nvme drive locations, more than enough oomph in its VRM. All for £300. The only area it skimps on is the audio chipsets.

But you need to spend £500+ to buy a board with more features than the Tomahawk.

 

[Arclite]

i must admit, for what you get with the MSI Tomahawk x670e it puts other board manufacturers to shame. IMO best bang for buck AM5 board atm.

It has pcei5 slot and 1 pcie5 nvme but plenty of pcie4 slots and nvme drive locations, more than enough oomph in its VRM. All for £300. The only area it skimps on is the audio chipsets.

But you need to spend £500+ to buy a board with more features than the Tomahawk.

These were my thoughts exactly. In the price range, I could not find a better option. the ALC1200 sound is not the greatest but to be honest I am not an audiophile who must sample everything. As long as it works and is decent, it should be fine.

 

[mickyflinn]

These were my thoughts exactly. In the price range, I could not find a better option. the ALC1200 sound is not the greatest but to be honest I am not an audiophile who must sample everything. As long as it works and is decent, it should be fine.

Let's us know your thoughts on the motherboard, but as for sound if you have decent speakers you need decent input. You don't need to spend big for a dac or sound card that will transform your audio , the clarity for one.

 

[Rawr]

At worst if the onboard really is that bad you can just buy a USB dac and carry that over inbetween builds. I've been using the same USB audio set up over my past two builds. Back when I bought it I had a quite old Intel board from the 3xxx series which had poor onboard.

That said in my experience onboard audio is a lot better than it used to be so it really might not be necessary.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

ordered the Tomahawk x670e. Arriving today.

Interested to know what you think of it. I'm still undecided between that and the Carbon.
There's a little bit of me thinking about keeping the Strix X670E-F and hoping Asus sort it out with a nice bios.

i must admit, for what you get with the MSI Tomahawk x670e it puts other board manufacturers to shame. IMO best bang for buck AM5 board atm.

It has pcei5 slot and 1 pcie5 nvme but plenty of pcie4 slots and nvme drive locations, more than enough oomph in its VRM. All for £300. The only area it skimps on is the audio chipsets.

But you need to spend £500+ to buy a board with more features than the Tomahawk.

I'm not sure you need to go up to £500, the Asus Strix X670E-F looks decent for about £400 and there's the ASRock X670E Steel Legend too.
What still concerns me about the MSI boards (and most of the others to be fair) is the m.2 positioning that will be behind the GPU. This makes the awkward to get at and I worry about the heat build up. The Asus and Steel Legend put a pair of m.2 slots further down near the bottom of the board.

 

[Arclite]

Let's us know your thoughts on the motherboard, but as for sound if you have decent speakers you need decent input. You don't need to spend big for a dac or sound card that will transform your audio , the clarity for one.

That was short-lived.

Received the board about 3 hours ago. I had the board out for a bios update w/o cpu, followed the manual to the exact way. Appeared to be working. Since I am "working from home" today, I went about doing other stuff and came back after almost 1 hour and saw the LED debug light still on and the USB light flashing. Thought this is odd because it really should not take this long. waited another 15 minutes and then gave the vendor tech team a call. After reviewing it they said I should RMA as the board may be faulty.

So here I am again lol...

Will see what they say now but I may end up asking for a refund and get something else. I am out of almost £600 on two boards (Asus still waiting on refund to come through and now this).

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

That was short-lived.

Received the board about 3 hours ago. I had the board out for a bios update w/o cpu, followed the manual to the exact way. Appeared to be working. Since I am "working from home" today, I went about doing other stuff and came back after almost 1 hour and saw the LED debug light still on and the USB light flashing. Thought this is odd because it really should not take this long. waited another 15 minutes and then gave the vendor tech team a call. After reviewing it they said I should RMA as the board may be faulty.

So here I am again lol...

Will see what they say now but I may end up asking for a refund and get something else. I am out of almost £600 on two boards (Asus still waiting on refund to come through and now this).

Sorry to hear that. What else you thinking of getting?

 

[Arclite]

I am not sure to be honest. Gigabyte Aorus extreme, MSI carbon, Asrock steel legend are the remaining options after the prices go up steeply for the likes of Taichi. Will need to wait and see what the board vendor says. If they can replace the board with an updated bios, I will consider that.

This upgrade cycle is turning out to be a chore...

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Tell me about it!

 

[Rawr]

That was short-lived.

Received the board about 3 hours ago. I had the board out for a bios update w/o cpu, followed the manual to the exact way. Appeared to be working. Since I am "working from home" today, I went about doing other stuff and came back after almost 1 hour and saw the LED debug light still on and the USB light flashing. Thought this is odd because it really should not take this long. waited another 15 minutes and then gave the vendor tech team a call. After reviewing it they said I should RMA as the board may be faulty.

So here I am again lol...

Will see what they say now but I may end up asking for a refund and get something else. I am out of almost £600 on two boards (Asus still waiting on refund to come through and now this).

For what it's worth you could try just installing the CPU and trying to get into the bios to update it via the normal method.

I've found USB flashback (or whatever name each respective brand uses) to be very finnicky with USB drives. I've had it look like it's updating the bios via the USB drive, but after hours it turns out it just couldn't read the file and was stuck with the bios flash light flashing. Updating inside the bios on the other hand I've never had a single issue with. On my Carbon I managed to get into the bios fine with my 7950x3d before I updated the bios to a newer one.

 

[Arclite]

For what it's worth you could try just installing the CPU and trying to get into the bios to update it via the normal method.

I've found USB flashback (or whatever name each respective brand uses) to be very finnicky with USB drives. I've had it look like it's updating the bios via the USB drive, but after hours it turns out it just couldn't read the file and was stuck with the bios flash light flashing. Updating inside the bios on the other hand I've never had a single issue with.

Pretty much my experience over the years.

That said, while I was speaking to the technician, I opted to go down that route by installing the CPU and seeing if I can make to the bios screen and update it again. I even mentioned it to him. They suggested that although I could do that but since I am now breaking from an active bios update, there may be a risk of damage to the CPU so it may be easier to just RMA. After seeing some folks on Reddit post pics of their damaged 7800x3d after one boot, I was not going to take any chances.

 

[Rawr]

Pretty much my experience over the years.

That said, while I was speaking to the technician, I opted to go down that route by installing the CPU and seeing if I can make to the bios screen and update it again. I even mentioned it to him. They suggested that although I could do that but since I am now breaking from an active bios update, there may be a risk of damage to the CPU so it may be easier to just RMA. After seeing some folks on Reddit post pics of their damaged 7800x3d after one boot, I was not going to take any chances.

Fair. You could try using a different USB drive otherwise. Or reformat the one you already to FAT32 with nothing else on the drive - you can find some guides for that purpose online.

As I edited into my previous post I just installed the cpu, booted into the carbons bios on my 7950x3d and updated the bios using the normal method. It didn't fry mine, lol.

 

[Arclite]

Fair. You could try using a different USB drive otherwise. Or reformat the one you already to FAT32 with nothing else on the drive - you can find some guides for that purpose online.

As I edited into my previous post I just installed the cpu, booted into the carbons bios on my 7950x3d and updated the bios using the normal method. It didn't fry mine, lol.

All valid ideas but I have now packed the mobo away with a pickup scheduled for tomorrow .

As much as it pains me to have this prolonged, I will try to be patient again.

Who is to say that while this is being done, Asus are burning the midnight oil and releasing the most stable motherboards out of the rest to restore their reputation lol.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Who is to say that while this is being done, Asus are burning the midnight oil and releasing the most stable motherboards out of the rest to restore their reputation lol.

I'm pretty sure that will only happen if I return my Asus board, at which point it will happen almost immediately.

I just keep asking, why did it have to be Asus? The Strix X670E-F ticks so many of my boxes. Why couldn't it have been ASRock or Gigabyte that ha the serious issues and Asus was relatively unaffected other than implementing the 1.3v SoC limit...

 

[mickyflinn]

That was short-lived.

Received the board about 3 hours ago. I had the board out for a bios update w/o cpu, followed the manual to the exact way. Appeared to be working. Since I am "working from home" today, I went about doing other stuff and came back after almost 1 hour and saw the LED debug light still on and the USB light flashing. Thought this is odd because it really should not take this long. waited another 15 minutes and then gave the vendor tech team a call. After reviewing it they said I should RMA as the board may be faulty.

.

Fair. You could try using a different USB drive otherwise. Or reformat the one you already to FAT32 with nothing else on the drive - you can find some guides for that purpose online.

As I edited into my previous post I just installed the cpu, booted into the carbons bios on my 7950x3d and updated the bios using the normal method. It didn't fry mine, lol.

Just read the bios flash process in the manual and there's no mention of format the drive in fat 32 which is likely to be the problem.

This is poor

 

[Arclite]

Just read the bios flash process in the manual and there's no mention of format the drive in fat 32 which is likely to be the problem.

This is poor

I formatted the USB to Fat32 before doing it.

 

[mickyflinn]

I formatted the USB to Fat32 before doing it.

That rules out my theory .

Are you getting a replacement motherboard or something else?

 

[Arclite]

That rules out my theory .

Are you getting a replacement motherboard or something else?

RMA'd for now.

Lets see what they offer. If they a replacement, I would ask if they can update the bios first to see if it works before sending it to me.

But not sure what other options I can consider in the same price bracket.

 

[Arclite]

Just saw this news:

Guess gigabyte is also questionable now.

Gigabyte AM5 Motherboards Also Pull More Than 1.3V On The SoC Even With New BIOS

Following ASUS's controversial BIOS firmware handling for its AMD AM5 motherboards, it looks like Gigabyte might be in the same boat.

wccftech.com

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Just saw this news:

Guess gigabyte is also questionable now.

Gigabyte AM5 Motherboards Also Pull More Than 1.3V On The SoC Even With New BIOS

Following ASUS's controversial BIOS firmware handling for its AMD AM5 motherboards, it looks like Gigabyte might be in the same boat.

wccftech.com

This is my concern, who is OK to use now?
This leaves ASRock and MSI?
With all the issues Asus are having I keep seeing reference to them being less stable than ASRock. If ASRock is the benchmark for poor stability that really doesn't encourage me. Plus at least the Steel Legend, maybe others, seems to have slightly worse than expected m.2 performance (probably not noticeable if you don't run benchmarks).
Which leaves MSI? I bet a few days after I finished a build with an MSI board there would be reports of how with MSI the 1.3v limit doesn't work but with MSI when it goes it takes out the CPU, motherboard, RAM, PSU and for some reason the GPU...