[SOLVED] Best B450 board for Ryzen 3600!

[JaSoN_cRuZe]

Hello guys,

I want the best B450 motherboard for my Ryzen 3600.

I'm thinking of Mortar, Tomahawk and Gaming Pro Carbon AC boards from MSI.

I'm leaning towards the Gaming Pro Carbon mobo as it offers the best features and value but with lite version of bios.

Tomahawk Max has very good VRM's but insufficient I/O and m.2 slots.

Mortar Max has excellent VRM's and I/O with 2 m.2 slots but has lesser SATA ports and matx form factor.

I'm going to add these components in my custom loop where the pump and CPU block have argb headers and Gaming Pro Carbon has it (5v 3 pin) with sufficient PWM fan headers which makes it attractive.

I think MSI resolved the BIOS issues which came with the initial release of Ryzen 3000 series.

My question is does the lite bios be of any problem feature wise.
Will gaming pro carbon be suitable for upgrading to 3900x in the future.
Will gaming pro carbon be suitable for PBO and Auto OC.
Will it support Zen 3?

Any other options please share your thoughts.

 

[Lutfij]

If you must look at the Tamahawk or Mortar's, pick up the Max version. It has the necessary BIOS version to have you up and running with Ryzen 3000 series processors and APU's.

Pertaining to Zen 3, that's a rumor which we can only confirm when launch nears.

What are you looking for in your board? You might want to look through the manual for the Pro Carbon board and take note of any SATA ports that might be disabled if you were to populate all ports and the M.2 slots.
SATA5 and SATA6 ports will be unavailable when installing a M.2 device in M2_1 slot.
from the manual. Meaning that you're going to have to compromise on the SATA ports or the first M.2 slot. Near similar story with the Mortar Max.

What features are you looking for, in your baord?

 

[JaSoN_cRuZe]

If you must look at the Tamahawk or Mortar's, pick up the Max version. It has the necessary BIOS version to have you up and running with Ryzen 3000 series processors and APU's.

Pertaining to Zen 3, that's a rumor which we can only confirm when launch nears.

What are you looking for in your board? You might want to look through the manual for the Pro Carbon board and take note of any SATA ports that might be disabled if you were to populate all ports and the M.2 slots.
SATA5 and SATA6 ports will be unavailable when installing a M.2 device in M2_1 slot.
from the manual. Meaning that you're going to have to compromise on the SATA ports or the first M.2 slot. Near similar story with the Mortar Max.

What features are you looking for, in your baord?

I'm basically looking for a motherboard which can handle 3900x, has some extra fan headers and support for PWM pump with an optional 5v 3pin ARGB header to control lighting. 2 m.2 slots Intel LAN and some better quality audio codec are welcome.

In the performance point of view, i need the motherboard to handle better memory overclocking upto 3600Mhz and provide CPU enough juice to reach its maximum boost clocks since i'm using a custom loop, i want the board to have better PBO and Auto OC support.

 

[ocer9999]

Why don't you spend a bit more and get a X570, there couple of options under 150$ like the X570 Pro4 which is quite decent. One thing you need to have in mind is that the B450 won't allow you to maximize the performance of your CPU with higher clocked memories, the X570 way better memory compatibility that runs higher clocks.

 

[JaSoN_cRuZe]

Why don't you spend a bit more and get a X570, there couple of options under 150$ like the X570 Pro4 which is quite decent. One thing you need to have in mind is that the B450 won't allow you to maximize the performance of your CPU with higher clocked memories, the X570 way better memory compatibility that runs higher clocks.

X570 boards in my region starts at $175 and above and a decent x570 option like ASUS TUF x570 costs around 230 dollars.

The B450 carbon costs around 150 dollars, previously it was also 175 dollars.

So for the price and the essential features offered by B450 chipset ticks all the boxes and also provides the essential support instead of features like Gen4 which i'm not going to use.