Upgrade time could use some suggestions please?

Preytheon said:
When I was assembling my system ~2 years ago, I avoided the MSI's as they were the only B450 to regularly thermal throttle / fail tests on independent tests.
Click to expand...
Then you need to either visit eye doctor for getting binoculars or stop visiting those add sites.

MSI was the only one using OK VRMs for price level with both high and low FET doubled (+notch up models) compared to Asus and Gigabyte using one overstressed high FET.
Asus even used same garbage VRM in X470 TUF.
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/pga-am4-mainboard-vrm-liste.1155146/

Even Asrock managed to avoid complete catastrophe from the cheapest components/lowest effiency by doubling both FETs to share power loss and by using non-sabotaged heatsink.
https://www.io-tech.fi/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/b450-VRM.png
That comparison was made by The Stilt who's done some overclocking records, including still highest clock frequency.
Google translate does mostly surprisingly understandable job, but end line is Asus and Gigabyte sold scams in B450.
https://www.io-tech.fi/artikkelit/testissa-amd-b450-emolevyt-asrock-asus-gigabyte-msi/

Of course in X570 scale that MSI's B450 VRM became miserable.
Again B550 MSIs have vstrong VRMs above bottom end of line up.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PuUWroxA0HvSSipsXlB8hnYkshxD8LdeO5EA6WLdOQw/edit#gid=0
 
Getting into personal insults isn't very helpful when trying to provide people with balanced views on these forums. I appreciate that MSI have a very loyal following; the way in which that loyalty has been created, albeit via some highly "suspect" reviews is very well documented.

If you've missed the news about MSI and their inconsistent products (regardless of paper specs), you may not have noticed that they have an unpleasant track record of begging/threatening independent media to try to keep people quiet on some of the poorer-performing products. The most relevant example given this topic, being several of their B450 motherboards (note not all). Some of those boards appeared very good on paper, but received VERY mixed reviews due to various design/QA faults. Several of the less enthusiastic reviewers also posted on how the MSI marketing department started with begging them to withhold the reviews and ended up with either offering to pay for favourable reviews and/or threatening to blacklist/block future review samples. Some media outlets simply complied and sent out what was essentially MSI marketing material as a "review" and a lot of others called them out on it (LinusTechTips, HardwareUnboxed, GamersNexus). I now have to treat every MSI review with a level of skepticism after so many have been proven to be bullied/bought.

Off the back of that, I also became a lot more careful about where I get my review information from; so stopped following anybody who repeatedly recommends ANY one brand, regardless of how mixed the independent reviews are.

Even though MSI have created some of that support artificially, it doesn't make me think anything less of their products. As you have pointed out, they do have some VERY good ones. But rather than blindly follow paper specs or MSI-provided marketing material, I carefully scrutinise each product based on independent reviews and real-world performance.

This is not an anti-MSI dig at all, sadly they are not alone in this: lots of other companies (LG and even nVidia, to cite recent examples) have had glimpses of this type of "marketing vs independent media confusion", but MSI are one of the more regular offenders. This is a real shame: they have some great products and clearly some really good engineers, but if they put some of that marketing / media effort into being more consistent with their products, they would probably beat all their competitors at every price point. Unfortunately this type of behaviour does work to some extent as it fools a lot of people, but it makes the more savvy users a little more skeptical of overly-enthusiastic reviews for those companies for a LONG while afterwards.

I'm stepping off this topic as we're no longer offering the OP answers to the question he was asking. It's clear where your loyalties lie and I wish you luck with them, but please allow others to keep a more open mind.
 
Last edited:
Joxeon said:
MSI's B450 tomahawk, mortar, pro carbon and bazooka plus have the best VRM on the B450 line and are capable of handling 16 core CPUs so not sure what Msi boards you were looking at but any research should have led you to one of these boards.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c7qj5e/am4_vcore_vrm_ratings_to_help_you_decide_on_a/
Click to expand...

Thanks for some balance - please note I am NOT anti-MSI - I was mostly just trying to urge ESAT to stop making sweeping statements about MSI always being reliable or "the best": they have some very good products, but they definitely have had their bad days and continue to do so (some X570's). Asus/Gigabyte also frequently have very good* products, but also some truly awful ones (e.g. early revisions of the Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro!).

Currently I'm researching the "cheaper" X-570 boards: Here are some from the $200 range where MSI X570 was beaten by Gigabyte, Asrock and ASUS: https://youtu.be/_7PkZwY9PWM?t=637 and only two boards completely failed the VRM thermal tests (both MSI's).

Note that MSI are one of the best for the $400+ X570 range though... but probably a bit expensive for me and there are more appropriate options out there as I'm unlikely to go beyond a 5900X CPU any time soon! The problem is that each design + revision varies so much, so it's not even possible to make sweeping recommendations about all variants of a particular brand + chipset (although shop very carefully with MSI+B350!).

@Joxeon - your Reddit thread links to videos in that same series I've just been watching on X570's: Steve's not kidding when he says "one board sucks!!" (MSI Gaming Edge WiFi).... note that yet again MSI pretty much "bookended" these tests (top and bottom), with the $700 "Godlike" as one of the best - *only beaten by a cheaper Gigabyte ;)
https://youtu.be/xbyWKufthS4?t=622 again MSI at the bottom (MSI X570-A Pro)

I wouldn't even go so far as to agree with the Reddit poster "still don't really know much about the MSI X570 Gaming Pro Carbon. But if it performs similarly to its other MSI brethren then it might be something to be avoided." - MSI have some really, really good X570's... just quite a few bad ones too.

If I stumble across the MSI B450 tests that made me warn people against the "any MSI is okay" recommendation, I'll add them here.

In terms of the MSI B450's - I know they weren't all bad though - far from it! From reputation, I know that at very least the final versions of the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max were really great.

In terms of current builds and personal experience, the relatively budget MSI MAG B550M Mortar has proven to be a solid performer and very reliable: it is regularly on my entry level and mid-level builds and I've never had any problems, so it's fine on R5 3600 to R7 5800X builds at least and it appears to do well in Hardware Unboxed "torture testing" too... where they run extended multi-core load with mid-level and low-airflow cases.

The tests aren't necessarily reflective of how I'd build and setup any system, but it gives an idea of what it might be like when there's a year or two of dust in the system and the filters are clogged. It's nice to know that if one of those friends I've helped build a system for, decides to re-encode their DVD catalogue next year, it's not going to start a fire and burn their house down...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom