- May 21, 2017
- 12
- 0
- 510
I'm planning an upgrade from a pretty old AM2+ system, the hardware I plan to change are the CPU, Motherboard and RAM.
This is mostly about choice of motherboard however any other suggestions regarding CPU & RAM as long as within budget are welcome.
Please refrain from GPU recommendations, as I plan to buy one much after this board upgrade.
Current specs:
Ga-m720-us3 (ATX)
Phenom II 920 x4 3.25 ghz (Stock fan OC from 2.8 on 1.375V (+0.025 CPU, +0.050 NB)
4x2 GB DDR2 932 mhz (OC from 800 using FSB)
500 watt bronze highpower
SATA 2.0 HDD & SATA 3.0 SSD
Asus DCII HD 7790 2 gb gddr5 (OC below)
With a 450-500 $ budget
Specs I plan to have:
mATX b350 motherboard
Ryzen 5 1600
DDR4 min 2666mhz (2x4 GB)
Same GPU, PSU and case
Cooler to be bought later, does not mean I don't need OCing headroom.
(mATX case not included in budget, it's a very later purchase.)
About the b350 Motherboard:
Not strictly talking mATX although I'd very much prefer this unless the ATX is way superior because I plan to buy a mATX case later for portability reasons.
I'd like good onboard audio,good overclockability, stable and long operation under high ambient temps their priorities respectively..Anything else is not neccessary but not unwelcome.
I'd like to avoid 2 DIMM motherboards so I can add 2x4GB sticks later.
Any opinion/experience/suggestion is welcome
Some motherboards I've checked/read reviews/comments about so far:
Gigabyte AB350 gaming 3 (mATX&ATX) : Bad mosfet and cooling, not much overclockability, ATX version is improved on those and has good audio which is a big plus for me, even though it is popular a lot of people seem to complain they can't go above 3.7-3.8 ghz (even with slicon lottery winning chips as they made further with different mobos.) Some claim they get good OC with increased SOC voltage, however mosfets on this board are appereantly more liable to wear from temperature as their max temps are 10-15 C lower than the standard which worries me as I have high ambient temps.
Asrock B350 pro 4 : ATX but seems to be a popular choice although with low availability, I like everything about this board EXCEPT audio which I have no clue about, if anyone could enlighten me about the quality of the audio on this board VS the others listed here, I'd be grateful.
MSI B350M mortar : overall decent mATX with probably better audio quality than prime judging by the caps, however seems to have worse cooling/mosfet quality and I have no info regarding overclocking.
Asus B350 prime plus : ATX with probably lower audio quality, decent overclocking for the price and good cooling.
MSI B350 tomahawk : Average in everything but ATX, has some audio software I'd likely not use other than speech related improvements for voice comm.
I must say I've heard bad things about asus lately, a lot of RMAs, issues still after servicing but if the board's capabilities outweight cons I'm still up for it.
Note: Those are all what I've learned about the motherboards from both specs, reviews and user feedback.Everyone can have different experiences and I'm not claiming 100% accuracy with my view on the motherboards.
READ BELOW ONLY IF YOU NEED SPECIFICS ON MY PRIORITIES ABOUT THE MOTHERBOARD .
I'm looking for a microATX b350 motherboard with the following properties, priority is from first to last respectively:
1- Audio. I've suffered much from my motherboards ALC888, mostly due to it's unshielded, noisy and weird impedance managing chip that even my phone or any other PC I use does a better job with my headphones.I'd have too much volume at 2% in windows, very poor bass that I had to use 3rd party programs (EqualizerAPO, Razer, X-fi MBII) which all did a good job at bass management but some of them ruined the already poor quality.
Most people recommend an external audio card, but I'm afraid this might add to my DPC latency issues. Though I wouldn't know if newer hardware has such issues.
2- Overclockablity. I'd like to overclock R5 1600 since it's single core performance could cripple my gaming performance in the future, as I've learned from my current CPU.
I'd like to get close to the 4 ghz wall as much as I can with 1.425 Vcore although that involes silicon lottery aswell as the motherboard itself.
I'm aware x370's are much more suitable for this but as I don't need any other feature x370s offer I'd like to save the costs for higher freq/16 gb RAM as x370's can cost double.
3- Longetivity & Stability in high ambient. I live in a city that can get as high as 40 C during summer and usually floats at around 30-35. I hear most motherboard mosfets nowadays run pretty hot and some without cooling and as is the nature of circuitry it degrades lifespan much faster.I'd like to keep this PC for 6-7 years before buying a new motherboard/CPU.
4- UEFI & it's updates .I know some companies are more slacking with those and I expect some will even leave the motherboards at its current state.Another thing I hear is that after UEFI flash some motherboards don't boot at all anymore.Which is a scary situation for me as shipping for repairs/replacement would take me some time as I don't live anywhere central.
Things I don't care about (not unwelcome but not needed):
"Crossfire support" as b350 only supports it in 16x first 4x 2nd GPU, performance would suffer greatly.I'd much rather get a strong single GPU to avoid any issues with this (and anything existing with crossfire already)
RGB or anything decorative, I'll be looking at the screen not the hardware.
Software that comes with the motherboard.
As extras to the above, from what I've read so far the overclockability of any motherboard can be boosted significantly through SOC voltage adjustments (+0.200 is common adjustment).
This is mostly about choice of motherboard however any other suggestions regarding CPU & RAM as long as within budget are welcome.
Please refrain from GPU recommendations, as I plan to buy one much after this board upgrade.
Current specs:
Ga-m720-us3 (ATX)
Phenom II 920 x4 3.25 ghz (Stock fan OC from 2.8 on 1.375V (+0.025 CPU, +0.050 NB)
4x2 GB DDR2 932 mhz (OC from 800 using FSB)
500 watt bronze highpower
SATA 2.0 HDD & SATA 3.0 SSD
Asus DCII HD 7790 2 gb gddr5 (OC below)
With a 450-500 $ budget
Specs I plan to have:
mATX b350 motherboard
Ryzen 5 1600
DDR4 min 2666mhz (2x4 GB)
Same GPU, PSU and case
Cooler to be bought later, does not mean I don't need OCing headroom.
(mATX case not included in budget, it's a very later purchase.)
About the b350 Motherboard:
Not strictly talking mATX although I'd very much prefer this unless the ATX is way superior because I plan to buy a mATX case later for portability reasons.
I'd like good onboard audio,good overclockability, stable and long operation under high ambient temps their priorities respectively..Anything else is not neccessary but not unwelcome.
I'd like to avoid 2 DIMM motherboards so I can add 2x4GB sticks later.
Any opinion/experience/suggestion is welcome
Some motherboards I've checked/read reviews/comments about so far:
Gigabyte AB350 gaming 3 (mATX&ATX) : Bad mosfet and cooling, not much overclockability, ATX version is improved on those and has good audio which is a big plus for me, even though it is popular a lot of people seem to complain they can't go above 3.7-3.8 ghz (even with slicon lottery winning chips as they made further with different mobos.) Some claim they get good OC with increased SOC voltage, however mosfets on this board are appereantly more liable to wear from temperature as their max temps are 10-15 C lower than the standard which worries me as I have high ambient temps.
Asrock B350 pro 4 : ATX but seems to be a popular choice although with low availability, I like everything about this board EXCEPT audio which I have no clue about, if anyone could enlighten me about the quality of the audio on this board VS the others listed here, I'd be grateful.
MSI B350M mortar : overall decent mATX with probably better audio quality than prime judging by the caps, however seems to have worse cooling/mosfet quality and I have no info regarding overclocking.
Asus B350 prime plus : ATX with probably lower audio quality, decent overclocking for the price and good cooling.
MSI B350 tomahawk : Average in everything but ATX, has some audio software I'd likely not use other than speech related improvements for voice comm.
I must say I've heard bad things about asus lately, a lot of RMAs, issues still after servicing but if the board's capabilities outweight cons I'm still up for it.
Note: Those are all what I've learned about the motherboards from both specs, reviews and user feedback.Everyone can have different experiences and I'm not claiming 100% accuracy with my view on the motherboards.
READ BELOW ONLY IF YOU NEED SPECIFICS ON MY PRIORITIES ABOUT THE MOTHERBOARD .
I'm looking for a microATX b350 motherboard with the following properties, priority is from first to last respectively:
1- Audio. I've suffered much from my motherboards ALC888, mostly due to it's unshielded, noisy and weird impedance managing chip that even my phone or any other PC I use does a better job with my headphones.I'd have too much volume at 2% in windows, very poor bass that I had to use 3rd party programs (EqualizerAPO, Razer, X-fi MBII) which all did a good job at bass management but some of them ruined the already poor quality.
Most people recommend an external audio card, but I'm afraid this might add to my DPC latency issues. Though I wouldn't know if newer hardware has such issues.
2- Overclockablity. I'd like to overclock R5 1600 since it's single core performance could cripple my gaming performance in the future, as I've learned from my current CPU.
I'd like to get close to the 4 ghz wall as much as I can with 1.425 Vcore although that involes silicon lottery aswell as the motherboard itself.
I'm aware x370's are much more suitable for this but as I don't need any other feature x370s offer I'd like to save the costs for higher freq/16 gb RAM as x370's can cost double.
3- Longetivity & Stability in high ambient. I live in a city that can get as high as 40 C during summer and usually floats at around 30-35. I hear most motherboard mosfets nowadays run pretty hot and some without cooling and as is the nature of circuitry it degrades lifespan much faster.I'd like to keep this PC for 6-7 years before buying a new motherboard/CPU.
4- UEFI & it's updates .I know some companies are more slacking with those and I expect some will even leave the motherboards at its current state.Another thing I hear is that after UEFI flash some motherboards don't boot at all anymore.Which is a scary situation for me as shipping for repairs/replacement would take me some time as I don't live anywhere central.
Things I don't care about (not unwelcome but not needed):
"Crossfire support" as b350 only supports it in 16x first 4x 2nd GPU, performance would suffer greatly.I'd much rather get a strong single GPU to avoid any issues with this (and anything existing with crossfire already)
RGB or anything decorative, I'll be looking at the screen not the hardware.
Software that comes with the motherboard.
As extras to the above, from what I've read so far the overclockability of any motherboard can be boosted significantly through SOC voltage adjustments (+0.200 is common adjustment).
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