AM5 7800X3D Mobo dilemma, why do they all suck/overpriced!?

Addicted

Addicted

Addicted

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I am really struggling to narrow down a board, the prices make it a nightmare. Hopefully someone can give some insight on why they chose what they have or maybe some recommendations?

I was originally going to go with the ASRock X670E Pro RS - it seemed to be about the best 'affordable' motherboard with the X670E benefits. However I've just learnt that you can't use the second PCIE slot unless you disable the WiFi.... well that's dumb.

I then looked at potentially the next 'recommended' board, the Asus XB650E-E Gaming Wifi which other people were recommending as a good 'affordable' X670E mobo.... what are the downsides you ask? Well, it has a crappy Meditek WiFi/BT module - sure you can change it out but then that's an additional cost... this means you need additional drivers (which is fine), but I've not seen much about the wifi module itself. I'm currently using WiFi so this is a key contender for me too.

We then roll to the Gigabyte B650E Aorus Master, which as far as I can tell has all of the X670E features, but is just more than I really want to pay for an 'affordable' motherboard, though I may end up having to... why have they made it so difficult?! I believe they are using a super old sata controller on this motherboard which only has 370MB/s max transfer speeds too, and while not an issue, is just another annoyance...


For the generic requirements I have:
  • WiFi 6E
  • Additional PCIE slot for soundcard (Soundblaster ZxR)
  • PCIE 5 would be nice for longevity of the board, and NVME PCIE5 support down the line...
  • Currently have 2 NVME drives and 2 sata (1x hdd, 1x old ssd) - will be switching one of the NVME's out with a SN850X / 990 Pro at the time of upgrade.
  • Planning to run 7800X3D with 6000CL30 RAM and likely the Thermalright Peerless Assassin and move away from my Corsair Platinum 140i cooler.

Hardware Unboxed had a great comparison of the X670E boards but their B650 comparison isn't out yet. Is there any board I'm missing which doesn't have a downside and is reasonably priced?? VRM cooling in some of the X670's is also horrendous so skipped the very entry level ones.

Ideally I'd not pay over £350, but it seems I'm really struggling to narrow down something that will do everything that doesn't suck in one area or another. I had read the Asus boards have big problems recently, and lots of the cheaper ones also suffer with huge VRM temps due to shoddy cooling designs, some of which don't even have the 2 banks of VRM's joined up for cooling!

Please help lol.
 
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I went for a Asus B650E-E (~£350).
using:
7950X
32GB 5600 C36 EXPO
2*M.2 (1 gen 4 and 1 gen 3), the board has 4 slots, 2 gen 5(second gen 5 slot drops GPU to 8x if used), 2 gen 4.
3* SATA SSD's
6900XT
SoundBlaster Z in bottom PCI-e slot.

Not noticed any issues yet, its at the top of the B650 price range but has more features than most sub £500 X670 boards.
 
FredFlint said:
I went for a Asus B650E-E (~£350).
using:
7950X
32GB 5600 C36 EXPO
2*M.2 (1 gen 4 and 1 gen 3), the board has 4 slots, 2 gen 5(second gen 5 slot drops GPU to 8x if used), 2 gen 4.
3* SATA SSD's
6900XT
SoundBlaster Z in bottom PCI-e slot.

Not noticed any issues yet, its at the top of the B650 price range but has more features than most sub £500 X670 boards.
Click to expand...

That came up in my list as one to research, thanks I'll take a look :)
 
FredFlint said:
I have not tried the WIFI as my rooter is on top of the PC so I disable WIFI/Bluetooth in the BIOS.
Click to expand...
I just realised now I typo'd the Asus ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi in the OP and it was exactly that I looked at with the MediTek wifi/BT module :cry::cry: updated OP with the 'correct' name.
 
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Addicted said:
I just realised now I typo'd the Asus ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi in the OP and it was exactly that I looked at with the MediTek wifi/BT module :cry::cry: updated OP with the 'correct' name.
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Someone on this forum has an X670E-F with a problem NIC, so is using the Wi-Fi 6E. He/she says it works well so not everyone seems to be affected. It’s the same with the Intel NIC's, some are having lots of problem and other are not, mine has been solid, probably downloaded several TB or more.
 
Brizzles said:
I went with

Gigabyte B650 Aorus Pro AX​


not sure if it fits your exact req'ments


(£287.21)
Click to expand...
It looks pretty decent but the lack of PCIE 5.0 is a bit of a shame :(

It's amazing really - £287 even last generation would have got you so much more for your money, even just looking at the board design you can see it's quite bare.
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
Agreed, I'm having the same issue trying to decide.
Currently think I'm between the Asus B650E-E and the Asus X670E-F, but that could all change at any minute as I read something else!
Click to expand...
Choosing between Asus B650E-E and the Asus X670E-F is difficult as the price is very close. The MSI b650 tomahawk wifi looks ok at ~£250. Not having PCIe 5 is not ideal but it probably won’t be that much of an issue for 1-3 years so it depends how often you upgrade. I used my last board (X370) for 5+ years and if it had PCIe gen 4 I would still be using it now.
 
FredFlint said:
Choosing between Asus B650E-E and the Asus X670E-F is difficult as the price is very close. The MSI b650 tomahawk wifi looks ok at ~£250. Not having PCIe 5 is not ideal but it probably won’t be that much of an issue for 1-3 years so it depends how often you upgrade. I used my last board (X370) for 5+ years and if it had PCIe gen 4 I would still be using it now.
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This will be an upgrade from a Rampage IV Extreme running a 3930K for me, so based on that it seems like I hold on to them for a while...

But yeah, they're so close in everything, including price it's a tricky one. Since they're so close I'm leaning towards the X670E-F, but keep looking for an alternative (preferably a cheaper one!)
 
iron_monkey said:
its a sad state of affairs when £300 is mid range money.
Click to expand...

It's a heckin leap of faith that AMD will give us worthwhile CPU upgrades as the next gen. AFAIK they've only committed to 2024, which may only be the 8000 series... if it turns out not to be very significant and all the 7000 owners skip it, then we're going to feel pretty shafted when we could have gotten something much cheaper from team blue!

Addicted said:
  • Currently have 2 NVME drives and 2 sata (1x hdd, 1x old ssd) - will be switching one of the NVME's out with a SN850X / 990 Pro at the time of upgrade.
  • Planning to run 7800X3D with 6000CL30 RAM and likely the Thermalright Peerless Assassin and move away from my Corsair Platinum 140i cooler.
Click to expand...

I think we're literally building the same system - I already have the ram on my desk because I spotted an offer (though I may have gotten the XMP version and have to tap in the timings manually) :cry: I was planning 990 Pro but the excessive wear debacle put me off so SN850X it is.

At the moment I'm favouring the Asus ROG Strix B650-A, partly because it is silver/white, and partly because it's not going to outright suck. I tend to play games that don't demand more than a midrange GPU to max them out, so I don't particularly feel a need for PCI-E 5. Meanwhile modern CPUs just don't appeal to me for overclocking; at most I'll try some casual undervolting and see where it boosts itself to, so midrange VRMs will do me fine.

That said I could probably be talked into an X670. I'd love the new Crosshair Gene, but it's still £150 overpriced, after already being reduced £100 from its launch price. Much as I like the engineering on the m.2 slots to find room for 3 on an mATX board. It's a beautiful thing, it's just not worth its price unless I was absolutely determined to build mATX - and I think I want a Fractal North... if it ever actually... exists.
 
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eddiew said:
It's a heckin leap of faith that AMD will give us worthwhile CPU upgrades as the next gen. AFAIK they've only committed to 2024, which may only be the 8000 series... if it turns out not to be very significant and all the 7000 owners skip it, then we're going to feel pretty shafted when we could have gotten something much cheaper from team blue!



I think we're literally building the same system - I already have the ram on my desk because I spotted an offer (though I may have gotten the XMP version and have to tap in the timings manually) :cry: I was planning 990 Pro but the excessive wear debacle put me off so SN850X it is.

At the moment I'm favouring the Asus ROG Strix B650-A, partly because it is silver/white, and partly because it's not going to outright suck. I tend to play games that don't demand more than a midrange GPU to max them out, so I don't particularly feel a need for PCI-E 5. Meanwhile modern CPUs just don't appeal to me for overclocking; at most I'll try some casual undervolting and see where it boosts itself to, so midrange VRMs will do me fine.

That said I could probably be talked into an X670. I'd love the new Crosshair Gene, but it's still £150 overpriced, after already being reduced £100 from its launch price. Much as I like the engineering on the m.2 slots to find room for 3 on an mATX board. It's a beautiful thing, it's just not worth its price unless I was absolutely determined to build mATX - and I think I want a Fractal North... if it ever actually... exists.
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Its insanely tough isn't it?
I'm still undecided thus far - I ended up picking up a 990 Pro last night for £142 (2Tb) with some insane deal that came up, it looks like firmware updates fixed the wear issues at least, and I can just use the Samsung Migration tool to copy everything across.
 
01001101 said:
https://www.asus.com/uk/motherboards-components/motherboards/tuf-gaming/tuf-gaming-x670e-plus/

I've been running this. Any good to you?
Click to expand...

Sadly it has no wifi, but the wifi variant seems to have really bad VRM cooling and is one of the hottest boards out there. Though, I don't see any other negatives at least (though I'd need to check to make sure you can run the other PCIE slot without disabling wifi like some of the boards do - what a con), it has PCIE5 and the other bells and whistles!
 
Addicted said:
Sadly it has no wifi, but the wifi variant seems to have really bad VRM cooling and is one of the hottest boards out there. Though, I don't see any other negatives at least (though I'd need to check to make sure you can run the other PCIE slot without disabling wifi like some of the boards do - what a con), it has PCIE5 and the other bells and whistles!
Click to expand...
https://www.asus.com/uk/motherboards-components/motherboards/tuf-gaming/tuf-gaming-x670e-plus-wifi/ I sent the non-wifi one. Sorry. This is the one Ive been using with WiFi.
 
Addicted said:
Sadly it has no wifi, but the wifi variant seems to have really bad VRM cooling and is one of the hottest boards out there. Though, I don't see any other negatives at least (though I'd need to check to make sure you can run the other PCIE slot without disabling wifi like some of the boards do - what a con), it has PCIE5 and the other bells and whistles!
Click to expand...
If you need some temperature readings let me know. I've not aware of bad VRM temps. News to me.

I have it installed in a 5000D airflow case and everything seems pretty happy as far as temps go.
 
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