[SOLVED] B550/X570 Motherboard for Ryzen 5700X ?

[BunnyKraken]

What B550 or X570 board would you buy for Ryzen 5700X with RTX 3070 in the 150-220$ price range that has good audio codec and stable LAN chip. I would buy the B550 Rog strix E/F but im a little afraid of the intel I225V hardware issues the boards seem to have. If the LAN chip would be faulty could I buy an internal PCI Lan port ?
I only might do minor overclocking and run 32/64GB 3200/3600 ram. USB-C+Thunderbolt, wifi+bluetooth and 6x sata ports are a bonus that I would like to have. But internet and overall stability is my biggest requirement.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Lh6rHph31fiuijaZA0cff-9-LpVs9I-0SMm4uYuioCw/edit#gid=666643422

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/kppyoi/psa_asus_motherboards_with_intel_i225v_25gb_nic/

Here are some of the boards I've been looking at.

1.Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro
2.Gigabyte B550 Aourus Elite
3.Gigabyte X570 Aourus Elite
4.MSI X570 Tomahawk WIFI
5.MSI B550 Tomahawk
6.MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi
7.Rog Ftrix B550-F gaming
8.Rog Ftrix B550-E gaming

 

[Hellfire13]

The x570 might give you more thermal headroom for future upgrade.

Having said that, they are all good boards.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

The cheapest one. Honestly if you are running stock, I wouldn't worry about future upgrades on that system because Zen 3 is the end of the line for those boards. Maybe get something with a beefier vrm setup if you think you may down the road install a 5800x3d. But honestly even that cpu is a year old at this point and around 300 bucks.

I like AMD as well, but my local microcenter had a combo of an i7 12700k, z690 board and 16gb ram which is very tempting. For not much more than the 5800x3d, I could have an intel setup with an upgrade to intel 13th gen and possibly 14th gen from what I've read. So find a decent b550, your 5700x and call it a day and enjoy it a year or two. I'm sitting on my zen 3 pc probably until intel 14th gen or ryzen 8000 series. I'll see from there.

 

[drea.drechsler]

What B550 or X570 board would you buy for Ryzen 5700X with RTX 3070 in the 150-220$ price range that has good audio codec and stable LAN chip. I would buy the B550 Rog strix E/F but im a little afraid of the intel I225V hardware issues the boards seem to have. If the LAN chip would be faulty could I buy an internal PCI Lan port ?
I only might do minor overclocking and run 32/64GB 3200/3600 ram. USB-C+Thunderbolt, wifi+bluetooth and 6x sata ports are a bonus that I would like to have. But internet and overall stability is my biggest requirement.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Lh6rHph31fiuijaZA0cff-9-LpVs9I-0SMm4uYuioCw/edit#gid=666643422

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/kppyoi/psa_asus_motherboards_with_intel_i225v_25gb_nic/

Here are some of the boards I've been looking at.

1.Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro
2.Gigabyte B550 Aourus Elite
3.Gigabyte X570 Aourus Elite
4.MSI X570 Tomahawk WIFI
5.MSI B550 Tomahawk
6.MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi
7.Rog Ftrix B550-F gaming
8.Rog Ftrix B550-E gaming

Any of those boards could comfortably handle a 5950X VRM-wise. Assuming they all work for you feature-wise I agree: buy based on price first. Avoid the WiFi boards if you don't need it since that should be a savings. I'd probably go for the Gigabyte Aorus Pro: plenty enough motherboard and should be at a good price.

Personally, I'd avoid any Asus board. I'm having too much trouble with my semi-proprietary Asus board that won't install anything but the old Asus driver packages or default Windows drivers. They aren't updating them, probably because AM4 platform is well past its peak and on the way to obsolescence. The device manufacturer's have updated drivers available, you just can't install them without the right install routines that Asus generates. And there are other reasons too.

 

[BunnyKraken]

Any of those boards could comfortably handle a 5950X VRM-wise. Assuming they all work for you feature-wise I agree: buy based on price first. Avoid the WiFi boards if you don't need it since that should be a savings. I'd probably go for the Gigabyte Aorus Pro: plenty enough motherboard and should be at a good price.

Personally, I'd avoid any Asus board. I'm having too much trouble with my semi-proprietary Asus board that won't install anything but the old Asus driver packages or default Windows drivers. They aren't updating them, probably because AM4 platform is well past its peak and on the way to obsolescence. The device manufacturer's have updated drivers available, you just can't install them without the right install routines that Asus generates. And there are other reasons too.

Thanks for your time to answer, I've narrowed the list a little bit Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro v2 cant be found anywhere in europe it seems, I asked some resellers and they don't know if they will get in stock anymore.

My top-3 list at the moment is Gigabyte B550 Aourus Elite AX V2. I'm just a little hesitant since it doesnt have more PCI-e slots, and there is no thundebolt. Also I've heard bad about their Bios. I've added Asus TUF B550 Gaming Plus to the list since only flaw I found that it doesn't have M2 heatsink, but would fit my criterias otherwise. And finally I've been looking at MSI B550 tomahawk that is like a mix between TUF/Aorus elite.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks for your time to answer, I've narrowed the list a little bit Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro v2 cant be found anywhere in europe it seems, I asked some resellers and they don't know if they will get in stock anymore.

My top-3 list at the moment is Gigabyte B550 Aourus Elite AX V2. I'm just a little hesitant since it doesnt have more PCI-e slots, and there is no thundebolt. Also I've heard bad about their Bios. I've added Asus TUF B550 Gaming Plus to the list since only flaw I found that it doesn't have M2 heatsink, but would fit my criterias otherwise. And finally I've been looking at MSI B550 tomahawk that is like a mix between TUF/Aorus elite.

Are you confident you'll need PCIe slots? If so, you also have to take a careful look at the motherboard specs since using some of the slots oftentimes disables something else: like some of the SATA ports or one of the M.2 sockets.

Also keep in mind that modern GPU's are often 2.5 or even 3 slots wide so any slots under a discrete GPU are lost. And using the last slot next to it is a bad idea because it blocks the flow of air that's trying to cool a fire-breathing monster. So effectively, all you need (or should expect) is one more available slot which would be at the far end of an ATX board, or above the GPU between it and the CPU.

I'm not sure about thunderbolt: I thought a very rare few boards furnish it. It's been largely OBE'd by USB 3.2 (or 3.1Gen2, or whatever) Ty A sockets. If that's a hard requirement it will limit your selection to one of those few.

 

[BunnyKraken]

Are you confident you'll need PCIe slots? If so, you also have to take a careful look at the motherboard specs since using some of the slots oftentimes disables something else: like some of the SATA ports or one of the M.2 sockets.

Also keep in mind that modern GPU's are often 2.5 or even 3 slots wide so any slots under a discrete GPU are lost. And using the last slot next to it is a bad idea because it blocks the flow of air that's trying to cool a fire-breathing monster. So effectively, all you need (or should expect) is one more available slot which would be at the far end of an ATX board, or above the GPU between it and the CPU.

I'm not sure about thunderbolt: I thought a very rare few boards furnish it. It's been largely OBE'd by USB 3.2 (or 3.1Gen2, or whatever) Ty A sockets. If that's a hard requirement it will limit your selection to one of those few.

Thanks you made an excellent observation about the PCI-E slots. I even tried to google how come motherboards can have so many PCI-E ports but they get underneath the GPU most of the time, so whats the benefit of having 6 if you can use 2 on most builds. Basically the two most bottom PCI-E slots is something I've used before. I currently need one PCI-E port for my firewire(external audio interface) and would like to keep an extra option ready. Mainly because I've read so much bad about the I225V and Realtek ethernet ports that it feels like I need to buy an PCI-e ethernet board if my motherboard also has ethernet issues. So yes maybe 2 PCI-E ports that could be used would be ideal.

So Asus TUF B550 Plus or Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite AX V2 are the ones im looking currently. Still don'w know if a heatsink is something I need for the TUF board, been trying to google the answer if its necessary but there are mixed opinions. Tomahawk is a little pricier 40$ more than asus and 15$ more than gigabyte, and I don't know if I get anything more with it.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks you made an excellent observation about the PCI-E slots. I even tried to google how come motherboards can have so many PCI-E ports but they get underneath the GPU most of the time, so whats the benefit of having 6 if you can use 2 on most builds.

A person with a genuine hard-core need for several PCIe slots is not likely also using the system for gaming. So for them, a big fat high-powered GPU isn't needed which opens up more slots. But slot management is always a problem with PCIe since the lanes are so limited. There are some boards that have PCIe switches that can take lanes from the GPU and feed other devices or slots. The B550 Strix-E is one such example with one (or more) of its Gen4 M.2 slots "stealing" 8 of the GPU lanes. That's a board marketed to gamers and DIY but there are others you're less likely to see because they're marketed to business and manufacturing.

Basically the two most bottom PCI-E slots is something I've used before. I currently need one PCI-E port for my firewire(external audio interface) and would like to keep an extra option ready. Mainly because I've read so much bad about the I225V and Realtek ethernet ports that it feels like I need to buy an PCI-e ethernet board if my motherboard also has ethernet issues. So yes maybe 2 PCI-E ports that could be used would be ideal.

So Asus TUF B550 Plus or Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite AX V2 are the ones im looking currently. Still don'w know if a heatsink is something I need for the TUF board, been trying to google the answer if its necessary but there are mixed opinions. Tomahawk is a little pricier 40$ more than asus and 15$ more than gigabyte, and I don't know if I get anything more with it.

I'd definitely get a heatsink for any NVME. They're not expensive and whatever good they do is better than not doing anything at all. BTW, it's the controller chip you want to keep cool as the flash-ram seems to like it hot, or so I've read. Be careful about size since it will have to clear the bottom of a GPU.

I've never had internet issues with my Realtek chips (Giga-bit on two boards, 2.5Gbit on my B550m TUF). I think the major problem that more capable ethernet cards deal with involve highly congested networks as in a business or school environment. A home network is not likely going to have more than three or four high-capacity devices using it at the same time. It's the router they all connect to that has to contend with the WAN problems.

Tomahawks are awesome, worth the money if you have need of the potent VRM it has. But the only way you'd need it is if you overclocked a 5950X on liquid nitrogen, or something similar. That VRM is the $40 difference.

 

[BunnyKraken]

A person with a genuine hard-core need for several PCIe slots is not likely also using the system for gaming. So for them, a big fat high-powered GPU isn't needed which opens up more slots. But slot management is always a problem with PCIe since the lanes are so limited. There are some boards that have PCIe switches that can take lanes from the GPU and feed other devices or slots. The B550 Strix-E is one such example with one (or more) of its Gen4 M.2 slots "stealing" 8 of the GPU lanes. That's a board marketed to gamers and DIY but there are others you're less likely to see because they're marketed to business and manufacturing.



I'd definitely get a heatsink for any NVME. They're not expensive and whatever good they do is better than not doing anything at all. BTW, it's the controller chip you want to keep cool as the flash-ram seems to like it hot, or so I've read. Be careful about size since it will have to clear the bottom of a GPU.

I've never had internet issues with my Realtek chips (Giga-bit on two boards, 2.5Gbit on my B550m TUF). I think the major problem that more capable ethernet cards deal with involve highly congested networks as in a business or school environment. A home network is not likely going to have more than three or four high-capacity devices using it at the same time. It's the router they all connect to that has to contend with the WAN problems.

Tomahawks are awesome, worth the money if you have need of the potent VRM it has. But the only way you'd need it is if you overclocked a 5950X on liquid nitrogen, or something similar. That VRM is the $40 difference.

Thanks for your time to reply and give so valid points. I think I will pick the Asus TUF gaming plus wifi, and get a m2 heatsink since the one over gpu dont have one, only the bottom one has. Do you think I can use both m2 slots (500gb-1tb) and 2xhdd and 4xssd drives simultaneously with full speed. I couldnt find an answer with my search results.

 

[Hellfire13]

Thanks for your time to reply and give so valid points. I think I will pick the Asus TUF gaming plus wifi, and get a m2 heatsink since the one over gpu dont have one, only the bottom one has. Do you think I can use both m2 slots (500gb-1tb) and 2xhdd and 4xssd drives simultaneously with full speed. I couldnt find an answer with my search results.

That board supports 2 x M.2 slot(s) and 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports.
When the motherboard M.2 slot M2_2 (M) is used, two SATA 6 Gb/s ports are disabled.
If you use the 2nd M2 slot, you have 4 Sata ports out of 6 to use.

This is for asus tuf gaming b550 plus wifi.