[SOLVED] Best B450 and X470 AMD Motherboards?

[JQB45]

I'm no longer all that impressed with ASRock as a company and would like to consider other companies.

I feel that support from ASRock's website, apps, driver updates and BIOS/UEFI are behind what I see from other companies
I would be looking to spend less then $140 USD on a B450 and less then $220 USD on a X470 motherboard and would like to
know which motherboard(s) you guys like in that price range and why.

I'd consider paying more if you can really describe to me why Motherboard XYZ is the best available.


PS. I know Zen2 is coming out soon.

 

[CountMike]

I'd suggest my Asus for 2700x or later Ryzen3 processors. It has just right balance of power and features for the price. I'm very satisfied with it. With latest BIOS PBO2 works fine and memory runs at 3600Mhz.
4.3GHz OC is also very stable.

 

[JQB45]

Its my understanding that Asus's nicer motherboards also have a lot of options for memory overclocking if you're using Samsung "B" die memory? Does your motherboard have that feature?

 

[DMAN999]

For a Ryzen 5 2600/2700or 2600X, I can recommend my Asus ROG Strix B450F Gaming.
For the 2700X I'd personally look at X470 MB's but I'm sure this MB would run one fine at stock speeds.
I can OC my 2600 as high as 4.075 GHZ (but I chose to run it at 3.9GHZ) and my G.Skill 3200 RGB A die Hynix RAM runs at 3400 MHz without any issues.
Samsung B die RAM would allow even higher OC speeds.
My motherboard and chipset stay fairly cool (38-40C @ idle up to 45C under load for hours) with the CPU and RAM OC'd.
My VRM stays even cooler (I placed a Thermal Sensor on top of the heatsink under the plastic IO shield) around 28-30 C at idle and I have not seen it get higher than 35 C.
The CPU idles at 27-30 C and maxes out around 55c after gaming for a few hours.
It has every feature I need, (read the specs for a list) and has been problem free since I bought it in November 2018.
There have been numerous BIOS update since I bought it, but I personally choose to run version 1201 since it is more stable than the two newer versions available so far.
I will say that if you do get it be sure to ONLY install the software versions that are listed on the support page for this exact MB.
Many people have had issues using AISuite III and Aura because they used versions NOT listed as supporting this exact MB.

 

[JQB45]

I run the R5-1600 @ 3.865GHz no problem although it seems almost impossible to get to 3.9GHz and stable enough to run benchmarks and stability testing. I'm ok with that. The main problem I have with the motherboard is how slow ASRock has been to release BIOS/UEFI updates. Another thing that worries me is they took down the BIOS update which would have given us AB350 PRO4 users the AGESA 0072 code which is necessary for the Zen 2 (3000 series) CPU support.

I've had some experience with ASUS but no experience recently, I was actually thinking of giving Gigabyte a try if you all think they are at least as good as Asus. If so which Gigabyte boards do you all like/dislike?

 

[CountMike]

Its my understanding that Asus's nicer motherboards also have a lot of options for memory overclocking if you're using Samsung "B" die memory? Does your motherboard have that feature?

Yes, a lot of options to OC processor as well as memory even without b-die chips.
I used to run 3200MHz Hynix m-die at full speed with Cl 12 but that's probably more thanks to 2700x than to MB or BIOS.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Another thing that worries me is they took down the BIOS update which would have given us AB350 PRO4 users the AGESA 0072 code which is necessary for the Zen 2 (3000 series) CPU support.

I've seen a few people say that the latest BIOS was buggy, I'm sure they'll provide a BIOS with Zen 2 support again in the future once they've got the bugs sorted out.