AM5 board advice

[rare]

Seems to be a bit of a lack of AM5 motherboard threads? Anyhow, looking for some thoughts/advice.

Thinking of getting an AM4 board ahead of the x3d releases, I already have a z690 board in another system and it looks like AM5 would support at least another round of CPU releases.

Ideally I want to use 3/4 NVME drives without impacting the GPU, it looks to me like some b650 boards will reduce the PCIE speed when using more than 2/3 nvme’s?

With that in mind I’m thinking x670e. I already have 32GB (2x16) of Kingston Fury DDR5 6000 CL36 (KF560C36BBEK2-32) and ideally I would want to get another set at some point. I’m aware some boards don’t seem to like 4 full dimms? Is anyone running 4 with success at XMP with those kinds of speeds?

My shortlist is:

X670E-A strix (around £400)
X670E-F strix (can get for £370)

These look like exactly the same board just different colours?

Otherwise, is there anything else anyone recommends? Would love a start button/code readout but seems like you have to spend a lot more to get that. I do like the look of the b650-e master but not a fan of potential limitations with the PCIE lanes…?

 

[rare]

I ordered the Strix X670E-F in the end, it seemed like the best middle of the pack option at around £370, still not what I would class as ‘cheap’ but feature wise it seems to make sense. The X670E-E is substantially more expensive, has a few extra features like 110A vs 90A but I really can’t see any of these being meaningful. And at that price point you might as well just get a Hero - but really not sure the Hero is worth an extra £260 over the Strix-F to me…

Now I just need to wait for some CPU’s to launch

 

[rare]

What DDR5 did you go for?

I haven’t decided yet - or maybe I have, it depends…I have a z690 board in another system (or will be soon) and I may use the DDR5 I already bought in that. Otherwise, I have a set of Kingston Fury Beast 6000 CL36 32GB (2x16GB - KF560C36BBEK2-32) that I might use.

If I use that in the z690 board then I will need to get some more DDR5. Might just end up buying the same ram again, it looks decent value compared to some brands. Though I would ideally like 64GB in the X670 system.

 

[rare]

Contemplating on the 5600 kit myself as performance wise hardly any difference between them.

It’s probably more likely to run perfectly fine at XMP as well. The only thing I still need to do some reading on is if there is a sweet spot for speed/timings if filling all 4 dimm slots.

 

[rare]

I've been doing some deep dives into speeds, etc and that i'm unsure of as I only intend in running 1 kit. Might be an idea to get 1 bigger kit tgan running 4?

Think you might be right, 2x32 if I really want 64 instead of 4x16. Less chance for problems?

 

[rare]

I went a bit mental and ordered a X670E Gene which was the board I was so excited about at launch (until I saw the pricing). Somehow I convinced myself with 10% off to buy one over the Strix F, looks like I’m going all in for a mATX build…

 

[rare]

I recently bought the x670e Crosshair Hero motherboard. It should arrive soon. I can see from the manual is says you can connect a PD 12V PWR (aka 6 pin GPU power cable) to it for 60w of power to the PCIE x 16 slots. If you don’t you are limited to 27w. Does anyone know what this would mean in normal use?

I don’t understand why the manual says that when it also refers (page1-14) to the fast charge feature on the front USB-C header requiring the 6 pin PCIE input…