Board (B650) and GPU (7900 XTX) advice requests

DWaddington

DWaddington

DWaddington

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I'm building a new system and need some advise. Current parts I've picked are:
  • CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor
  • CPU cooler - be quiet! Dark Rock 4 CPU Cooler
  • PSU - be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
  • Storage - Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (from old build)
  • case - Phanteks ECLIPSE G500A DRGB (Fanless) ATX Mid Tower Case
  • RAM - depends on motherboard
Not sure which motherboard to get see current prices below:
MSI MAG B650M Mortar WiFi£220
ASUS TUF Gaming B650-Plus WiFi£200
Gigabyte B650 AORUS Elite AX (x2)£230
MSI MPG B650 Carbon WiFi£260
ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi£310
ASUS TUF Gaming B650-PLUS WiFi£200
MSI AMD B650 TOMAHAWK WIFI£210

Same with the GPU prices below:

Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX£900
Gigabyte Radeon RX 7900 XTX £950
MSI AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GAMING TRIO CLASSIC£950
XFX Radeon RX 7900 XTX Speedster MERC 310£996
Asus Radeon RX 7900 XTX TUF OC £960
Asrock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Phantom Gaming£975
Powercolor Radeon RX 7900 XTX HellHound£999
Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX Nitro Vapor-X£1,000
Powercolor Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil£1,050

Not sure which motherboard and GPU to go for. Any advice is welcomed and thank you in advance.
 
DWaddington said:
Not sure which motherboard to get see current prices below:
Click to expand...

Do you care about sound/spdif?
Do you care about PCI-E 5.0 graphics, or PCI-E 5.0 M.2?
How many M.2 slots / SATA ports?
Do you care about the rear I/O? E.g. The number of USB ports, USB Type-C.
Do you use anything else with the PC that plugs into the board? E.g. capture cards, sound cards.

DWaddington said:
Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX£900
Gigabyte Radeon RX 7900 XTX£950
Click to expand...

Are these MBA cards? I don't know about where you're buying, but @ OCUK, that can have an impact on warranty length and you'd also want to avoid old stock due to the cooler problems.
 
Tetras said:
Do you care about sound/spdif?
Do you care about PCI-E 5.0 graphics, or PCI-E 5.0 M.2?
How many M.2 slots / SATA ports?
Do you care about the rear I/O? E.g. The number of USB ports, USB Type-C.
Do you use anything else with the PC that plugs into the board? E.g. capture cards, sound cards.



Are these MBA cards? I don't know about where you're buying, but @ OCUK, that can have an impact on warranty length and you'd also want to avoid old stock due to the cooler problems.
Click to expand...
2 M2 slots and 4 Sata will be more than enough. Not sure PCI-E 5.0 will be much value to me now. Ports 2 USB on the back and one port for the front is all I need.

Not sure about the MBA cards though.
 
DWaddington said:
Not sure about the MBA cards though.
Click to expand...

If the Sapphire is not a Pulse, then it is an AMD card and at OCUK that shortens your warranty by one year.

DWaddington said:
2 M2 slots and 4 Sata will be more than enough. Not sure PCI-E 5.0 will be much value to me now. Ports 2 USB on the back and one port for the front is all I need.
Click to expand...

Of the cheaper boards, I'd say the Tomahawk has the best all-round spec (it has a decent VRM, good sound features, 3x PCI-E 4.0 M.2, 6x SATA), but it is entirely PCI-E 4.0. The TUF B650-Plus and B650 Aorus Elite both have a PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slot and the Aorus Elite is arguably the strongest build quality, with an 8 layer-PCB. Buildzoid looked at the X670 version here.
 
Went with the asus b650e-e myself as wanted led post code display, which actually helps..had a memory problem with my ram to start. Also wanted pcie5...you never know, if the platform is supported for another few years it might come in useful. just about all boards are capable( a few exceptions), you just need to make a list of what you're looking for as Tetrus put above. Steve at HU goes though pretty much all the specs of boards and then do a quick vrm test at the end (one that get hot avoid).

For the psu, I'd go with a atx3.0 compliant one that has a standard connection on the psu, that goes into a 16pin via the cable that come with it. seeing as nvidia are changing the design somewhat and you're going amd anyway, have standard connections on the back makes a bit more sense, and with 16pin design change, just get the new cable with new connector on end if you switch to nvida in future. Went with a corsair rm1000x shift myself as wanted to see what it was like with the sockets on the side..actually made it very easy to plug/unplug them with the psu installed, but I'm still using a 3*** series gpu, so just used the standard cables that came with it and left the 16pin cable in the box..only having standard connectors on the psu gave me plenty of options

 
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