[SOLVED] Best b450m motherboard?

Rhaemond

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Hey I'm helping a friend choose the best B450m motherboard, here are our options:
-MSI B450m Mortar Max
-ASUS TUF Gaming B450m Pro S
-Asrock B450m Pro4
-Asrock Steel Legend

Which of the 4 would be the best one to pick? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
 
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This is very educational. Thank you! For some reason on some tier lists the TUF Pro S is ranked higher than the Mortar Max, weirdly, even though they only claim to use 10 phases.
10 phases is actually 8+2: 8 VCore plus 2 VSoC phases. Chasing down some of their spec's I also note ASUS is using DRMos power stages, which could be a plus if not 50A modules.

Based on their ad copy there's some things to like if important: 2.5Gbit LAN and noise cancelling microphone inputs for a couple (although I wonder if that's done in hardware or software) and as well being designed for Zen2 so there's no question about support. I'd expect Asus to be eager to roll out a Zen3 BIOS for it too. It appears that Asus is putting into this B450 board...

Rhaemond

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I had a B450 M Pro4 on one build and was a solid motherboard, it all depends on the price.. if its close to the 100$ mark you might want to consider spending 10$ for a B550.
Unfortunately, B550 boards are still overpriced here and the cheap B550 ones aren't really worth the price compared to some B450m boards. So yea, kinda stuck with those 4 choices.
 
Just built my son a system using the mortar max, great little board,pretty much just a scaled down version of the tomahawk but has 2x m.2 slots to the tomahawks 1. Also, only board on your list that is guaranteed to work with ryzen 3rd gen cpu's straight from the box.
 
Hey I'm helping a friend choose the best B450m motherboard, here are our options:
-MSI B450m Mortar Max
-ASUS TUF Gaming B450m Pro S
-Asrock B450m Pro4
-Asrock Steel Legend

Which of the 4 would be the best one to pick? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
B450m Mortar Max, for sure, is the best choice and you're lucky you have them in your region! Avoid the Asus TUF gaming like the plague, the Asrock boards are pretty much a toss up at second choice so look at features and aesthetics to decide between.

I have a B450m Mortar (not the MAX, but they're identical except for BIOS ROM size) and can say the VRM is so sturdy and cool running it can easily handle even a 3950x. Overclocked! It's also got two NVME M.2 sockets (the second one's gen 2 of course) and a nice complement of USB ports on back along with TOSLINK digital audio out. TOSLINK's great for running an external DAC to get high-quality, ultra low noise audio that you don't throw away every time you upgrade the computer. And lastly: as well as guaranteed booting a Zen 2, MSI's MAX boards are almost a sure thing to get BIOS updates for Zen 3 CPU's.
 
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Rhaemond

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Just built my son a system using the mortar max, great little board,pretty much just a scaled down version of the tomahawk but has 2x m.2 slots to the tomahawks 1. Also, only board on your list that is guaranteed to work with ryzen 3rd gen cpu's straight from the box.
How good is it for overclocking?

B450m Mortar Max, for sure, is the best choice and you're lucky you have them in your region! Avoid the Asus TUF gaming like the plague, the Asrock boards are pretty much a toss up at second choice so look at features and aesthetics to decide between.

I have a B450m Mortar (not the MAX, but they're identical except for BIOS ROM size) and can say the VRM is so sturdy and cool running it can easily handle even a 3950x. Overclocked! It's also got two NVME M.2 sockets (the second one's gen 2 of course) and a nice complement of USB ports on back along with TOSLINK digital audio out. TOSLINK's great for running an external DAC to get high-quality, ultra low noise audio that you don't throw away every time you upgrade the computer. And lastly: as well as guaranteed booting a Zen 2, MSI's MAX boards are almost a sure thing to get BIOS updates for Zen 3 CPU's.
Really? That's amazing. My curiosity was really piqued when I saw this regarding the TUF Pro S View: https://amp.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/hn3dp5/new_asus_b450_micro_atx_matx_motherboard_asus_tuf/

So I thought it was somewhat better than the mortar max...
 
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How good is it for overclocking?


Really? That's amazing. My curiosity was really piqued when I saw this regarding the TUF Pro S
.....

So I thought it was somewhat better than the mortar max...
I'm not familiar with the Tuf Pro 's', and not sure when it came out. But the original B450m Tuf boards were a 'fake' 8 phase VRM that had two lo-side and one hi-side FET (and not very robust ones at that) with 8 VCore inductors to make it look like an 8 phase in the pictures to go along with the marketing blurbs. That was shady at best and both Asus and Gigabyte did it with some of their B450 boards at launch. Once called out on it by Buildzoid and a few of the other TechTubers they relented the '8 phase' claims but the damage to their reputation was done as far as I'm concerned; they do not deserve a recommend for any of their B450 lineup at least.

In contrast, the Mortar uses a true 4 phase (they never advertised otherwise) but with paralelled lo-side and hi-side FETS, so 16 total. And they are high quality FET's with low RDS(on) and high current capability. All 16 FET's are sitting under a massive and well-finned heatsink so this is a cool running VRM. This is the same VRM design as MSI's B450 Tomahawk (Mortar's essentially the mATX variant of it), the leading B450 ATX board and a favorite for overclockers even though Zen 2 is not a good CPU for overclocking.

A good watch: Buildzoid running some thermal tests on a B450 Mortar.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qZW3-xZEHg
 

Rhaemond

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I'm not familiar with the Tuf Pro 's', and not sure when it came out. But the original B450m Tuf boards were a 'fake' 8 phase VRM that had two lo-side and one hi-side FET (and not very robust ones at that) with 8 VCore inductors to make it look like an 8 phase in the pictures to go along with the marketing blurbs. That was shady at best and both Asus and Gigabyte did it with some of their B450 boards at launch. Once called out on it by Buildzoid and a few of the other TechTubers they relented the '8 phase' claims but the damage to their reputation was done as far as I'm concerned; they do not deserve a recommend for any of their B450 lineup at least.

In contrast, the Mortar uses a true 4 phase (they never advertised otherwise) but with paralelled lo-side and hi-side FETS, so 16 total. And they are high quality FET's with low RDS(on) and high current capability. All 16 FET's are sitting under a massive and well-finned heatsink so this is a cool running VRM. This is the same VRM design as MSI's B450 Tomahawk (Mortar's essentially the mATX variant of it), the leading B450 ATX board and a favorite for overclockers even though Zen 2 is not a good CPU for overclocking.

A good watch: Buildzoid running some thermal tests on a B450 Mortar.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qZW3-xZEHg
This is very educational. Thank you! For some reason on some tier lists the TUF Pro S is ranked higher than the Mortar Max, weirdly, even though they only claim to use 10 phases.
 
This is very educational. Thank you! For some reason on some tier lists the TUF Pro S is ranked higher than the Mortar Max, weirdly, even though they only claim to use 10 phases.
10 phases is actually 8+2: 8 VCore plus 2 VSoC phases. Chasing down some of their spec's I also note ASUS is using DRMos power stages, which could be a plus if not 50A modules.

Based on their ad copy there's some things to like if important: 2.5Gbit LAN and noise cancelling microphone inputs for a couple (although I wonder if that's done in hardware or software) and as well being designed for Zen2 so there's no question about support. I'd expect Asus to be eager to roll out a Zen3 BIOS for it too. It appears that Asus is putting into this B450 board a lot of the features now going into B550 boards from all mfr's (excepting PCIe gen 4, of course).

In the end it comes down to principle: the Mortar Max is cool running and capably handles even an overclocked 16 core processor so it's quite enough. I still don't like the Asus B450 if simply because they tried what they did at launch so I can't see why they should be rewarded for it.
 
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Rhaemond

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10 phases is actually 8+2: 8 VCore plus 2 VSoC phases. Chasing down some of their spec's I also note ASUS is using DRMos power stages, which could be a plus if not 50A modules.

Based on their ad copy there's some things to like if important: 2.5Gbit LAN and noise cancelling microphone inputs for a couple (although I wonder if that's done in hardware or software) and as well being designed for Zen2 so there's no question about support. I'd expect Asus to be eager to roll out a Zen3 BIOS for it too. It appears that Asus is putting into this B450 board a lot of the features now going into B550 boards from all mfr's (excepting PCIe gen 4, of course).

In the end it comes down to principle: the Mortar Max is cool running and capably handles even an overclocked 16 core processor so it's quite enough. I still don't like the Asus B450 if simply because they tried what they did at launch so I can't see why they should be rewarded for it.
Oof interesting. I don't really mind the LAN, sound, or m.2 heatsink. Was kinda just concerned about overclocking between the two. The noise canceling does sound interesting tho my current headset handles noise canceling fine so I don't think it really would be an issue. Anyways yea, overclocking would be my main concern here I guess
 
Oof interesting. I don't really mind the LAN, sound, or m.2 heatsink. Was kinda just concerned about overclocking between the two. The noise canceling does sound interesting tho my current headset handles noise canceling fine so I don't think it really would be an issue. Anyways yea, overclocking would be my main concern here I guess

Mainly just curious but what are your overclocking expectations? Ryzen 3000 has very little fixed, all-core overclocking headroom, AMD has squeezed almost all the silicon's potential out of it with the boosting algorithm and binning process they use. Usually, people wind up killing single thread performance to get a little bit more multithread clock speed under load. It helps with a benchmark but actual benefit in applications is negligible if anything. And for that you get the risk of early processor degradation by pushing it with a fixed voltage.
 
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Rhaemond

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Mainly just curious but what are your overclocking expectations? Ryzen 3000 has very little fixed, all-core overclocking headroom, AMD has squeezed almost all the silicon's potential out of it with the boosting algorithm and binning process they use. Usually, people wind up killing single thread performance to get a little bit more multithread clock speed under load. It helps with a benchmark but actual benefit in applications is negligible if anything. And for that you get the risk of early processor degradation by pushing it with a fixed voltage.
Hmmm honeslty I just do mild overclocks, I had a 2200g OCd to 3.9 last year, planning to OC my 2600 now to 4.1-4.2 at best.