Ryzen 3 motherboard choices (X570?)

[SKILL]

I'm looking to build a new machine, definitely going to be Ryzen 3 but trying to decide on motherboard.

Requirements:

• One 16x PCIe slot, one 4x PCIe and a possible extra 1x card as well
• At least one M2 SSD slot, ideally PCIe Gen4x4 and ideally two of these slots
• As many SATA as possible, at least 6
• As cheap as possible?

Few other points:

• RAM, I'm going to be looking between 32Gb and 64Gb to start with, probably 2 sticks rather than 4 as I may want to keep my options open to double up to 64/128Gb in future, does this pose any restrictions?
• I'll be running stock so overclocking is a non-issue (I know, weird forum to post in then )

So looking at that I believe the need for that many PCIe slots as well as ideally dual M2 slots rules out B550? So X570 seems the way forward...

Looking at OcUK I'm drawn to the ASRock X570 Pro4, it seems to fit all the criteria really although little on the expansion side, for a reasonable price?

ASRock seem to generally have those extra 2 SATA slots which would be useful, I'll be starting with 4 drives and probably expanding over time. Couldn't find many other boards with 8 slots, especially at the 'low end' of the X570 list?

Beyond that even the ASRock Creator at >3x the price doesn't add too much, seemingly the ability to run dual graphics cards but that's not something I'll need, anything else?

So I guess any reason *not* to go for the ASRock X570 Pro4?

 

[SKILL]

I want to adjust my comment - a recent review with a good testing methodology suggests that the X570 Pro 4 VRM temperatures are okay for a 3900X, so for a 3300X they’re probably better still.

See here: https://youtu.be/m8d4C80Ub_o
https://youtu.be/m8d4C80Ub_o
Even so, there are better boards.

Thanks, after reading your first comment I've just found several videos from that channel, interesting to hear as I'd vaguely read elsewhere good things about ASRock but will definitely investigate further

The Aorus x570 Elite appears to meet your requirements, including have two NVMe slots.

Interestingly I'd just started looking at the Gigabyte boards after reading the comments from MrRockliffe, my current gaming rig uses one and has been overclocked and in daily usage for many years with zero problems. Both the Aorus Elite and Pro 'lack' 2 SATA ports compared to ASRock, but 6x 'should' be ok.

The difference between the Elite and Pro seems largely to be the sound chip and a heatsink for the second M2 slot, and ~£25-50... The sound chip probably isn't worth it for me but how important are the heatsinks on the M2 slots, and are there aftermarket options rather than relying on the spec of the motherboard?

 

[SKILL]

The gigabyte X570 gaming X is the cheapest decent option.

Still investigating but so far it seems marginally worse (looking purely at VRM temps) compared to ASRock Pro4, and lacking 2 SATA ports, still reading into it though... The Auros Elite/Pro look good, but a step up in price.

Why are you pairing a low-end CPU with a high-end motherboard?

I don't believe the B550 chipsets (let alone B450) meet my requirements? More than happy to be proved wrong.

The biggest seemingly being that the 2nd M2 slot is 'only' PCIe gen3 compatible, not really that important, but it's also mutually exclusive with the PCie 4x slot? Also the PCIe 2x slot is mutually exclusive with 2 of the SATA ports, of which a lot of boards seem to only come with 4 anyway?

I'm also not 100% set on the 3300X, that's the minimum but it's quite possible I'll go higher end, upto 3900X potentially, not sure I see the point in 3950X. There's also the potential for a 3300X now and a 4xxx once they're out in 6-12 months time.

 

[SKILL]

Ah, just realised I put "definitely Ryzen 3", what I meant was Ryzen 3rd gen, not specifically the Ryzen 3 family...

But as mentioned I am leaning towards the 3300X but that's very much the minimum

 

[SKILL]

Tbh any of the X570s besides a couple of the cheaper MSI models will be fine running up to 16 cores so if your looking to go with a 3300x or somthing similar I wouldn't even worry about VRMs

That's kinda how I was leaning last night, still planning to read into it a bit more but even the cheaper boards (except some particularly poor ones like msi...) running an overclocked 3900X were toasty but not overheating/throttling...

I've no plans to overclock, so I'm not sure it affects me...

Let's backtrack: what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to run a home server? A workstation?

Little of column A, little of column B, add in a possible virtualized gaming setup...

So top usage is server, file server specifically hence SATA port requirements. Also plan a pfsense or similar setup utilising a quad intel nic which is what requires the pcie 4x slot.

Next up, 'workstation'/build agent, fast SSD (M2) and lots of ram, CPU also important though and might be the thing that bumps that up from the 3300X

Finally plan to play with gpu pass-through into a Windows VM, not sure how well that'll work though and isn't really feeding the requirements too much...

Can recommend the Asus X570 TUF, really good board and 8 sata ports, 2 nvme. Well priced too.

Cheers, I'll take a look

 

[SKILL]

Sounds like you might be better off with a second-hand Threadripper or Epyc system.

Yeah - Threadripper 1920X are cheap as chips now, motherboards can be a bit more pricy though but definitely better for a workstation/server as you have so many PCIE lanes to play with you can be much more free to add devices (like quad NVME raid...)

I had/have considered Threadripper but the boards are quite a lot more even if the chips are now cheap. Seems like an 1920X and mobo comes to around the same price as an X570 and between a 3700X and 3900X, more pcie lanes and quad channel memory but no upgrade path and no quicker it seems... So not sure it's really worth it?

Whilst my requirements are more than B550 can do, I think X570 doesn't limit me enough to warrant Threadripper...