Question B850-A vs B850-E

[Elliah246]

ASUS ROG Strix B850-A​

vs​

ASUS ROG Strix B850-E​

Any reason to get the more expensive board?
My personal needs are 2x M.2 slots + 2x PCIe slots. That's all. Don't care about things like 5G ethernet or Wifi7.

Question: I will run one GPU + one soundcard + 2 nvme ssds.
Will my GPU run in x8 or in x4 mode with the B850-E ? And how would it run with the B850-A?

Thank you.

 

[Lutfij]

The E denotes the Extreme series...which was a nomenclature used about a decade or so ago. The A would stand for Arctic or rather a white board. So if anything it boils down to the aesthetics of your build. I'd also avoid Asus and side with ASRock, Gigabyte or MSI, if possible.

one soundcard
Please elaborate. If you drop a device onto the second PCIeX16(G4) slot, you shouldn't populate slot M2_3 on the board with an SSD as they are both shared.
^
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM5/ROG_STRIX_B850-A_GAMING_WIFI/E24382_ROG_STRIX_B850-A_GAMING_WIFI_EM_WEB.pdf?model=ROG STRIX B850-A GAMING WIFI
page 14 for the Strix B850-A.

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...EM_WEB.pdf?model=ROG STRIX B850-E GAMING WIFI
page 13 for the Strix B850-E

My personal needs are 2x M.2 slots + 2x PCIe slots.
Why not look at an matx motherboard?

 

[Elliah246]

The E denotes the Extreme series...which was a nomenclature used about a decade or so ago. The A would stand for Arctic or rather a white board. So if anything it boils down to the aesthetics of your build. I'd also avoid Asus and side with ASRock, Gigabyte or MSI, if possible.

one soundcard
Please elaborate. If you drop a device onto the second PCIeX16(G4) slot, you shouldn't populate slot M2_3 on the board with an SSD as they are both shared.
^
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM5/ROG_STRIX_B850-A_GAMING_WIFI/E24382_ROG_STRIX_B850-A_GAMING_WIFI_EM_WEB.pdf?model=ROG STRIX B850-A GAMING WIFI
page 14 for the Strix B850-A.

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM5/ROG_STRIX_B850-E_GAMING_WIFI/E24280_ROG_STRIX_B850-E_GAMING_WIFI_EM_WEB.pdf?model=ROG STRIX B850-E GAMING WIFI
page 13 for the Strix B850-E

My personal needs are 2x M.2 slots + 2x PCIe slots.
Why not look at an matx motherboard?

Yeah i know that much that E series is thought to be a superior class over the rest.
But in practice i cannot spot much of a difference other than a few more slots for this or that.
So is it essentially the same board with a 100 dollar price gap?

Why avoid asus? The newer boards use realtek network over intel but i asume this isn't what you're on about.
I have bad experience with msi, from my knownledge their products lack quality.

Yes my intention was to mount the soundcard into the second PCIe slot below the graphicscard.
Oh, does the manual say not to use the M2_3 slot because it shares "bandwidth" with the lower PCIe slot? What would happen when both are used, fallback to x4?

What's mATX? mini atx? Can't say, used to having the typical mid range sized atx desktop.

 

[COLGeek]

What's mATX? mini atx? Can't say, used to having the typical mid range sized atx desktop.

Micro ATX. See here for background info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

 

[Elliah246]

Looking at this, correct me if wrong, all slots labeled with "A" share bandwidth, same goes for "B".
So if i populate more than one A slot, the bandwidth for both will become lower.
Also there is a total of 3x A slots but the configuration tab only provides information for max 2x devices operating. What if all 3 are operating?

What would happen if i mounted the GPU to upper PCIe "A" slot, and a soundcard to the lowest PCIe "B" slot, i mean would the gpu still run at x16 since those two slots share no bandwidth?

Then i could mount one M.2 nvme ssd to the upside M.2_1 slot since it's neither labeled with A or B must indicate it's independently operating.
The second M.2 nvme ssd could be mounted to the "B" slot right above the lowest "B" slot.
That would result in the soundcard and the nvme ssd sharing bandwidth and thus reduce it.
But would it be reduced to x8 or x4 ?

Still don't know which board to chose. Just need it to run 1 gpu + 1 sound card + 2 nvme drives

https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-b850-e-gaming-wifi/spec/

ROG STRIX B850-A GAMING WIFI | Gaming motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

ROG Strix B850-A: Unleash AI power with AMD Ryzen™ 9000 support, PCIe 5.0, DDR5, WiFi 7, USB 20Gbps, ASUS AI Advisor. Elevate your build to new heights!

rog.asus.com

 

[Elliah246]

So the only difference between A and E board is the E standing for Extreme.
Extreme = few more connection ports like an extra nvme slot and usb slots.
The price gap isn't worth it. Doesn't deserve the naming scheme extreme.
Is that really all? Is the board made of the same quality, same materials, same product?
Am i missing something?