Board for 9800X3D - gaming only

Man of Honour
Joined
20 Sep 2006
Posts
35,129
Hi all, motherboards have got a bit confusing! I have some pretty basic requirements for a new board.
Not Asus
2xNVMe v4 drives
No expansion cards
Not bothered by RGB
Currently using a 3080, will likely swap that out to a 5080/5070, or potentially a second hand 4070 Super Ti when folk move on to the 50 series cards.
Preferably black PCB and no garish graphic design

From what I'm reading, I'd be better off with a B650 board? Currently look at the Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX V2 - anything else to consider?

All the PC will be used for is games. Turn on, play games, turn off. No workstation work, no USB requirement beyond keyboard/mouse etc, no wifi requirement.
 
From what I'm reading, I'd be better off with a B650 board? Currently look at the Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX V2 - anything else to consider?
If the 5080 is PCI-E 5.0 and uses 16 lanes then should be no issue, if the 5070 is PCI-E 5.0 and uses 8 lanes then there may be a small performance loss with that board. I quite like it, but lacking PCI-E 5.0 for the graphics is a negative and the V2 version is 6-layer instead of 8-layer and has a weaker VRM to boot.
 
If the 5080 is PCI-E 5.0 and uses 16 lanes then should be no issue, if the 5070 is PCI-E 5.0 and uses 8 lanes then there may be a small performance loss with that board. I quite like it, but lacking PCI-E 5.0 for the graphics is a negative and the V2 version is 6-layer instead of 8-layer and has a weaker VRM to boot.
Ah, shame. What about the more expensive X870 AORUS ELITE?
 
Ah, shame. What about the more expensive X870 AORUS ELITE?
It is 6-layer, but the primary PCI-E slot is PCI-E 5.0. Having 3x PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slots is kind of a disadvantage, because 2 of them share bandwidth with the graphics lanes and using either one knocks it down to 8 lanes, which means you're operating at the same bandwidth as a PCI-E 4.0 board like the B650 Aorus Elite. Since right now you can get the B650 Aorus Elite for less than £150, I wouldn't be inclined to pay £100+ more for the X870 version.
 
It is 6-layer, but the primary PCI-E slot is PCI-E 5.0. Having 3x PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slots is kind of a disadvantage, because 2 of them share bandwidth with the graphics lanes and using either one knocks it down to 8 lanes, which means you're operating at the same bandwidth as a PCI-E 4.0 board like the B650 Aorus Elite. Since right now you can get the B650 Aorus Elite for less than £150, I wouldn't be inclined to pay £100+ more for the X870 version.
What 8 layer board with decent VRMs would you recommend? I know you mentioned that white ASrock in another thread but I don't think it had enough NVMe gen 4 slots.
 
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