870 for AMD 9800X3D

nheather · 4 Apr 2025 at 20:08

Hi,

My son is planning to upgrade his PC. He has settled on the AMD 9800X3D CPU and is comfortable with selecting most of the other components but is a bit bewildered by the choice of motherboards.

He has decided on the 870 chipset (rather than the 870E) and has seen various options around the £200-£220 mark but is unsure how to select one over the others.

Is there one that stands out or are they all pretty much the same?

Cheers,

Nigel

Tetras · 4 Apr 2025 at 20:53

You're not likely to find huge difference in a £20 span.

This (spreadsheet) can help identify them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/xvvl9b/comment/ir6koh8/

nheather · 4 Apr 2025 at 23:38

Thanks for the link.

For clarity, my question wasn’t so much about features, I’m sure they would be all near identical on that basis, it is whether any of the constructions stands out more than the other.

Out of Gigabyte, MSI, ASUs, Asrock etc. is there any difference in build or performance quality, if faced with a number all with the same features, all at the same price then how do you choose?

opethdisciple · 5 Apr 2025 at 01:03

nheather said:
Thanks for the link.

For clarity, my question wasn’t so much about features, I’m sure they would be all near identical on that basis, it is whether any of the constructions stands out more than the other.

Out of Gigabyte, MSI, ASUs, Asrock etc. is there any difference in build or performance quality, if faced with a number all with the same features, all at the same price then how do you choose?

I went MSI, because in my opinion they are the most on the ball when it comes to releasing new bioses in a timely manner.

That's what shaped my last buying decision.

Tetras · 5 Apr 2025 at 01:23

nheather said:
For clarity, my question wasn’t so much about features, I’m sure they would be all near identical on that basis, it is whether any of the constructions stands out more than the other.

Out of Gigabyte, MSI, ASUs, Asrock etc. is there any difference in build or performance quality, if faced with a number all with the same features, all at the same price then how do you choose?

The VRM and PCB layers are the main difference that you can see in the spreadsheet, but ideally you need a roundup that shows their thermal performance too (since it gives you an idea how effective the VRMs actually are, together with the heatsinks). HUB did one here (timestamps in the description of the video):

In HUB's results, you can see that Gigabyte were generally nearer the bottom and ASRock nearer the top, which is mostly consistent with the paper specs in the spreadsheet.

You could argue that max RAM speed (in the same video) gives you an idea of the signalling quality/integrity, which leads to boards like the Hero and Aorus Master coming out on top, but honestly I wouldn't rely on this because BIOS optimisations can make a big difference and if you wanted the best RAM speed you'd probably just buy a 2 slot board anyway.

So far as the difference in other components, I'm not aware of anyone who covers that stuff in any meaningful detail, apart from buildzoid in the PCB tear downs on YouTube (Actually Hardware Overclocking).

There are reports that ASRock in particular are having issues with X3D CPUs at the moment, but I don't know what is going on there.

My own opinion is that there's no difference I'm aware of that would swing me one way or the other, I'd choose based on how well the following suited me: the PCIE slot config (and lane sharing), number/speed of the USB ports, number of the M.2 slots and of course: the price!

That said, there's one board I'd avoid (from the spreadsheet), which is the X870 Gaming WIFI6, just because it apparently has nearly half the VRM of the other Gigabyte boards, which not being cut in price enough to justify it..

hyperst · 5 Apr 2025 at 03:48

I just upgraded and faced same thing, motherboards in the am5 are way too many, I boiled it down to wanting pcie5 on the graphics and at least 1 on the nvme, i eventually picked asus strix 650e-e, very happy with it, so far its been up and running a few days and no issues so far and can be had for 230, i just found that it has a good set of features for the price, where as you might be on the lower end of x870 at that price, the asus feels very high end for its price

Game · 26 Apr 2025 at 07:31

hyperst said:
I just upgraded and faced same thing, motherboards in the am5 are way too many, I boiled it down to wanting pcie5 on the graphics and at least 1 on the nvme, i eventually picked asus strix 650e-e, very happy with it, so far its been up and running a few days and no issues so far and can be had for 230, i just found that it has a good set of features for the price, where as you might be on the lower end of x870 at that price, the asus feels very high end for its price

for me it was 3 nvme slots on a small budget that I wanted with no hit on the graphics lane so went asrock b850 but only pairing with a 7700 for now , if I was getting a 9800x3d would have upped my budget to £200 ish

had budget and premium boards on my last few builds and once its built and setup been happy with both