Deep nerd braincheck - ProArt B650 Vs x670 capability check

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 21:13

Hey all,

Need a deep review of these two motherboards as I'm getting a bit lost.

They seem to receive very good reviews, but I'm also seeing reviews bemoaning about how motherboards have increased from a £150 item ten years ago to something pushing £600-750 in some cases without any increase in actual benefit...

ProArt B650-Creator | Motherboards | ASUS UK

ProArt B650-Creator uses the AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series for 3D rendering, video editing & VFX production with PCIe® 5.0, DDR5 support, dual LAN and three M.2 slots.

www.asus.com

ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI｜Motherboards｜ASUS United Kingdom

Built for creators, ProArt X670E-Creator WiFi features 16+2 power stages (70A), PCIe® 5.0, DDR5 support, USB4®, 10 Gb & 2.5 Gb LAN, WiFi 6E and four M.2 slots

www.asus.com

Wanting to use it for photos, videos, 3d graphics etc - these tend to really use up the motherboard capabilities (eg ram, GPU, CPU threads, drive speed etc). Planning on 128gb ram, 8tb (have 2 x 2tb firecuda), have a 4090 24gb and thinking a 7950x to max out the cores.

At one level, I think I've got fairly standard motherboard needs, ie:
- able to take latest AMD CPU
- able to take 128gb ram
- 4 x nvme slots
- able to fit a 4090
- have latest usb transfer speeds

However a lot of stuff seems to be 'below the waterline' of these specs, eg does the pcie slots have enough bandwidth, can the nvme slots run at higher speeds (mine are 7300), can it efficiently use the ram and how many usb drives are actually high speed.

So questions for the resident Uber brains:
1) Are these ProArt motherboards significantly better for this sort of art use (ie will I see the benefit) ?

2) Is the x670 worth it over the b650? Seen some reviews saying the b650 is a better bang for buck and very limited benefit of the x670.

3) Is there any nerd tips that I need to bear in mind - eg I've seen reviews that talk about how some motherboards like this inefficiently share channels or have other odd limitations that are beyond my simple mind!

4) Any other motherboards worth considering?

rare · 11 Dec 2023 at 21:47

katie279 said:
1) Are these ProArt motherboards significantly better for this sort of art use (ie will I see the benefit) ?

IMO no, they do have some additional IO compared to Strix boards such as USB4, but there’s nothing in here rly about them that makes them a better board for any type of specific work. As far as I can make out the specs are like a mashup of existing asus products which makes sense. They seem like more of a marketing exercise. That’s not to say they are bad boards, they aren’t.

I wouldn’t spend this sort of money on a board without PCIE 5, just wouldn’t feel happy with it and the 650 doesn’t have it for the GPU.

Something like the B650E-E has a nice spec, but it’s missing USB4.

Tetras · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:01

katie279 said:
1) Are these ProArt motherboards significantly better for this sort of art use (ie will I see the benefit) ?

As said above, no. They do have some cool features which they have added and might be worth it for you (like 10Gb LAN and USB4), but they can't bypass the chipset/CPU limitations to make a better board than the platform supports.

katie279 said:
2) Is the x670 worth it over the b650? Seen some reviews saying the b650 is a better bang for buck and very limited benefit of the x670.

I don't think B650E has enough lanes for you to run 4 uninhibited high-end drives. There might be a board that can (especially if they steal GPU lanes, which I believe is what the B650E Aorus Master does to achieve this), but given your use case, I'd just get X670E because it is simpler.

katie279 said:
3) Is there any nerd tips that I need to bear in mind - eg I've seen reviews that talk about how some motherboards like this inefficiently share channels or have other odd limitations that are beyond my simple mind!

If the M.2 slots are PCI-E 3.0 or 4.0 then you're usually fine, but if it has multiple PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slots (especially 2 or more for B650E or 3 or more for X670E), then you do need to check the specs carefully.

katie279 said:
Planning on 128gb ram

You're aware of the issues with this, right?

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:02

Thanks, good advice - this is the sort of feel I get. In all honesty it does seem like motherboards have lost the plot - they are increasingly a mess of hidden constraints on other components (eg PCI slots all a muddle of different formats in the same mb, USB formats a muddle, M2 slots a muddle etc). I do think we'd be better off if they gave up and just reverted to focusing on just PCIex slots and let us pick/upgrade the usb, m2 etc ourselves as it's a mess! Rant over.

Your point on USB 4 is a case in point as it's a muddle comparing it with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (even the latter's naming tells it all!)

Ideally I'd just like like a motherboard with high USB transfer speeds and no bottlenecks, B650E-E does look nice as you say, if there was one with USB 4, that'd be perfect I suspect...!

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:03

Tetras said:
You're aware of the issues with this, right?

I've heard certain boards seem to struggle, so I'd want to check this too!

Tetras · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:07

katie279 said:
I've heard certain boards seem to struggle, so I'd want to check this too!

It isn't the boards, AMD derate their CPU's memory controller to 3600 if you have 4 dual rank sticks (32GB or 48GB sticks are dual rank).

This is an old video on the topic:

Is 128GB of DDR5 IMPOSSIBLE on AM5? Level1 Investigates!

Check out the forum thread here: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/7950x-i-want-4x32gb-unless-it-sucks-does-it-suck/189825**********************************Che...

www.youtube.com

I've seen posts where 5200 is achievable with 128GB, not sure about 192GB.

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:20

Good lord, it's such a mess - MB manufacturers just seem to have adopted this 'used car salesman' approach to their upgrades - ie they'll all list 128gb ram, 4x m2 slots, USB 4, PCIEx16 etc, but only one slot actually does this...and then only under certain conditions....and then it'll throttle something else.... it's just a tiresome process. I don't know if the smart engineers moved onto GPUs or something a decade ago, but boy is it a muddle!

Was quite keen on AMD for the thread counts and better energy usage, but then limiting to 64GB has an effect on the video/rendering stuff.... should I look at Intel or is there anyone who's pieced this mess together (ie what RAM I can get)

In the video you posted, someone's got two 2x32gb kits of corsair CMK64GX5M2B5200Z40 (5200 mts c40) running - which I think would be reasonable - I suspect I'm most commonly throttled by RAM volume, rather than RAM speed, so that might be ok?!

Tetras · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:28

katie279 said:
I suspect I'm most commonly throttled by RAM volume, rather than RAM speed, so that might be ok?!

Most likely. This article can give you an idea which things care and the difference it makes (they're using the 7950X, the 7950X3D is less sensitive to memory speed):

Impact of DDR5 Speed on Content Creation Performance (2023 update)

DDR5 memory has kits rated for up to 8400 Mbps, while desktop CPUs only officially support up to 5600 Mbps. How much does running at official specifications actually impact performance in common content creation applications?

www.pugetsystems.com

katie279 said:
Good lord, it's such a mess - MB manufacturers just seem to have adopted this 'used car salesman' approach to their upgrades - ie they'll all list 128gb ram, 4x m2 slots, USB 4, PCIEx16 etc, but only one slot actually does this...and then only under certain conditions....and then it'll throttle something else.... it's just a tiresome process. I don't know if the smart engineers moved onto GPUs or something a decade ago, but boy is it a muddle!

Put simply, there's just not enough PCIE lanes for what they're trying to put on the board. They could have left these shared devices out of the board, but then you would have less options in how to use them, so it is awkward either way.

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:39

Hmm that's a handy article - missed that at Puget.

I'll definitely be limited for rendering which eats the RAM for breakfast, but that suggests I might get away with 64gb for video work - maybe I should settle for that for now. Annoyingly no 64gb ram sticks on the market yet, so not an easy upgrade in future!

Good advice as always Tetras, much appreciated!

So thinking:

4090 (already bought)
64gb RAM
4 x 2tb Firecuda @ 7300mb/s (bought)
7950x

Just need to pin down the motherboard that'll actually do what it says on the box

Any recommendations welcome - definitely be nice to have super high speed USB as constantly transferring stuff - can live with 2.5gb ethernet as NAS backups can run overnight etc, but USB is more key

rare · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:42

96GB (2x48) is available which could be a good alternative

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:54

That's a really sensible suggestion - would allow me to ultimately upgrade to 192gb at some point if better motherboards get released.... will have a hunt!

Now just need to find a motherboard that actually supports everything - esp decent USB speeds...!

As an aside it's quite hard to use Overclockers.co.uk given how fragmented the PC specs have become - eg can't filter by 48gb ram anywhere, can't filter motherboards by USB4 etc - don't know if I'm missing something, but makes it trickier to sort through motherboards - would be great if there was some sort of reliable benchmarking/spec site for these sorts of things...

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 22:57

Alternative I was musing is whether I get a USB pci card to run (esp given they keep upgrading speeds every year!) - is there any gotchas or recommended cards for this? Ideally it'd have a decent number of ports (eg 4) and that'd do nicely

Tetras · 11 Dec 2023 at 23:00

katie279 said:
That's a really sensible suggestion - would allow me to ultimately upgrade to 192gb at some point if better motherboards get released.... will have a hunt!

Don't believe that we need better motherboards for 192GB, just BIOS/AGESA updates. This is the update video on the previous one I linked:

AMD Ryzen 7000: 48GB DIMMs, Agesa 1.0.0.7 And A Future With 192GB RAM

48gb DIMMs are here, but things aren't quite so simple for Team Red. Wendell lays it out here!Forum thread: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/ddr5-4-dimms-on-a...

www.youtube.com

katie279 said:
Alternative I was musing is whether I get a USB pci card to run (esp given they keep upgrading speeds every year!) - is there any gotchas or recommended cards for this? Ideally it'd have a decent number of ports (eg 4) and that'd do nicely

They're coming, I think. E.g.

MSI Add-on Card hits 3,700 MB/s with USB4 over Thunderbolt 3, has 100W charging

The MS-4489 also uses the ASMedia's first generation USB4 controller supporting 100w output via Type-C and DisplayPort Alt-Mode

www.tomshardware.com

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 23:05

Ah very useful - so plan of going with 2 x 48gb seems a neat solution for now then and a easy couple of extra sticks with a bios update in future....

And good to see add-on cards coming - sounds like your recommended MB above might be a good solution then?!?

Tetras · 11 Dec 2023 at 23:19

katie279 said:
sounds like your recommended MB above might be a good solution then?!?

I didn't recommend one, that I'm aware of, but rare suggested the B650E-E.

katie279 · 11 Dec 2023 at 23:33

Ah quite right, losing my marbles!

Ok that's the winner at the moment unless you or anyone else has a better suggestion....!

Tetras · 12 Dec 2023 at 00:16

katie279 said:
Ah quite right, losing my marbles!

Ok that's the winner at the moment unless you or anyone else has a better suggestion....!

I don't recommend it given what you wrote in the OP, because it is another example like the B650E Aorus Master I mentioned earlier. It doesn't have enough lanes for 4x high speed M.2 slots, it only achieves this by taking them from the GPU. I personally don't care, but you might. If you step up to X670E (e.g. X670E Tomahawk), then you usually don't have this problem.

katie279 · 12 Dec 2023 at 07:16

Hmm, yeah I saw some of them doing this which I think could start thottling the M2 drives @ 7300 which would be silly.

Is this one any better?

MSI Pro X670-P WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard

Order MSI Pro X670-P WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

(Seems to have X4 for all the M2 drives)

Armageus · 12 Dec 2023 at 15:30

If you're actually considering the X670 Proart then it might be worth looking at a Threadripper, as the motherboard cost isn't a huge amount more, and you'll actually have enough PCI-E lanes to not have to worry with e.g. 4x NVME drives

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Gigabyte TRX50 Aero D (sTR5) Quad Channel EATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-GIG-01281) = £699.95
1 x Asrock TRX50 WS (sTR5) Quad Channel EATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-ASR-01268) = £799.99
1 x Asus ProArt X670E-Creator WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6JE-AS) = £539.99

Total: £2,039.93 (includes delivery: £0.00)

Tetras · 12 Dec 2023 at 19:17

katie279 said:
Hmm, yeah I saw some of them doing this which I think could start thottling the M2 drives @ 7300 which would be silly.

Is this one any better?

MSI Pro X670-P WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard

Order MSI Pro X670-P WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

(Seems to have X4 for all the M2 drives)

That board is no good, it only has 3 M.2 slots.