which mobo upgrade

[chili]

Looking to build a new pc need help as not bought parts for over 4 yrs, i am going to be using a ryzen5 3600x cpu and want to use one of the nvme drives. the board that was suggested to me is

B450 TOMAHAWK MAX (SOCKET AM4) DDR4 ATX MOTHERBOARD

are there any better with say a £150 cap am not really into all the leds around the edge, but i could live with it

cheers

 

[Marsman]

If you don't have a previous generation Ryzen CPU, then you'll need a board that is either Ryzen 3000 ready out of the box; or one that has a flashback feature, so the board can be flashed with the latest BIOS without the need for anything other than a PSU.

MSI's MAX range come Ryzen 3000 ready, so an ideal choice. They are the only boards that come Ryzen 3000 ready AFAIK. Any other B450/X470 board will require updated BIOS. MSI's non MAX versions of those boards; some have a flashback feature, so can be updated to support Ryzen 3000. Many of those will eventually receive an updated MAX version though.

Motherboards from other manufacturers will either need a similar flashback feature, or the board would need to be flashed with latest BIOS prior to shipping. If you were looking at a Gigabyte Aorus Elite or Pro, for example; then you'd need that to be flashed before shipping. Sadly, this is a service that OcUK don't offer. Buying from OcUK, makes it trickier to look at anything other than an MSI board for a new Ryzen 3000 build.

Having said all of the above; the MSI Tomahawk is a good board. Tomahawk MAX should also be, as it's just an updated version. I've been considering that myself along with the Mortar MAX (yet to be released). I was also looking at one of the Gigabyte Aorus boards as well prior to considering the MSI boards, but with no flashback feature, I'd have to look at getting that from somewhere that offers a BIOS flash before shipping service. Some places offer this service, some don't.

 

[Alan1969]

if you wanted to push yourself an extra £20 you could actually get a x570 msi - even in 8 yrs time the features on that should still be quite modern.

However I just built my wife a ITX build using a Silverstone raven rv03 case and a 3600 - the mobo that I used was a b450 gigabyte itx (which was bios flashed by the supplier to the latest version for free) - and that works fine. However I would not be expecting to put a 16 core in there in the future or overclocking heavily.

It depends on what you want it to do now and in the future? an x470 (or even some b450) mobo should have decent build and power phases in general. I had my eye on a rog strix b450-f or the msi b450 carbon pro for a long while - they should both be decent for a 3600x. Might you upgrade that cpu in 3 yrs time?

 

[an0nym0us]

if you wanted to push yourself an extra £20 you could actually get a x570 msi - even in 8 yrs time the features on that should still be quite modern.

Avoid the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi, VRM temperatures are really bad:

 

[MartinPrince]

I've got a B450 Tomahawk and my son has the MAX version.
One of the main reasons they are popular and highly recommended is to do with the very good quality of the VRMs and their cooling. So should you want to upgrade in a few years the VRMs won't hold you back. I'm using mine with a 3900X and after doing the simple 3min Flashback without the CPU in the board it then worked fine.

OcUK were selling the Tomahawk MAX for £107 and at this price they are great value. It has everything most people need and without the chipset fan (and cost) of most X570 boards.

 

[bakes0310]

How are MSI mortar board regarded with its vrm?

 

[Alan1969]

according to this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...IVNyMatydkpFA/htmlview?sle=true#gid=639584818

the b450 mortar and B450 tomahawk and X570 edge and X570pro can all overclock similar. if you want a x570 the pro is quite inexpensive at £169 and probably does have better vrm cooling etc

 

[an0nym0us]

the b450 mortar and B450 tomahawk and X570 edge and X570pro can all overclock similar. if you want a x570 the pro is quite inexpensive at £169 and probably does have better vrm cooling etc

Personally, I would avoid the MSI MPG X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard (£220.99) or the MSI X570-A PRO (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset Motherboard (£169.99). Something doesn't seem right with MSI's VRM design on their mid to lower end X570 motherboards.

Hardware Unboxed found the X570 Edge WiFi had high VRM temperatures, as shown in video posted previously.

OC3D have separately found the
MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard also had relatively high temperatures:

I therefore assume that the bottom of the barrel MSI X570-A Pro can't be any better than either of these.

 

[an0nym0us]

How are MSI mortar board regarded with its vrm?

They're decent given the price of the motherboard.

Look out for the new MAX version MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard which has a larger 32MB EEPROM (vs 16MB on the non-MAX version). The MAX version should be compatible straight out from the box with 3rd gen Ryzen CPUs and will hopefully be available very soon.

 

[Alan1969]

I imagine that even a low tier x570 should be better for the ryzen 3000 than a mid tier b450. Ok there is a price difference between the mortar and the msi x570 A=pro https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-x570-a-pro-amd-am4-ddr4-x570-chipset-motherboard-mb-34j-ms.html

after all the x570 is designed for the higher core chips. I need to do some research into the actual power phases and current for the x570 A-pro

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X570-A-PRO

it has a flash button so you don't need ram or cpu for flashing the bios