[SOLVED] Best budget MOBO for Ryzen 5600x

[thefreshy]

I am looking to upgrade to Ryzen 5600x ASAP. Now from what I read my current B450 Tomahawk would be compatible with 5600x Ryzen with a BIOS update, but honestly I feel like going with a B550 motherboard would be a best move so I am looking for budget B550 as I do not plan to overclock CPU in near future. I have a ATX mid tower case, so I'm also not sure what type of MOBO it needs to be for that case. Also would 650W be enough for this upgrade and possible future GPU upgrade to NVIDIA 3070 or would I need better PSU too. PC is only used for gaming and streaming and I stream on NVENC encoder. Budget for MOBO not more than 200 USD /150-160ish EUR

These are the specs

MOBO - MSI B450 Tomahawk

CPU - Ryzen 2700x

GPU - MSI 1070TI 8g

RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws CL16 16gb 3200mhz

PSU - Seasonic Focus Plus 650 Gold

CASE - Zalman Z3 Plus white

 

[drea.drechsler]

Do you really NEED to upgrade RIGHT NOW? a 2700X is a good enough CPU...I'd upgrade GPU first if it's for gaming.

Reason to hold off on upgrading to the 5600X is early in '21 we should be getting BIOS's to run ryzen 5000 on B450 and your Tomahawk is about as good as you'll get in a true "budget" B550.

If 200 USD is your top budget though, and you're hard over on B550, I'd suggest the MSI B550 Tomahawk or ASUS B550 ROG Strix-A or -F. They'll take you all the way to a 5950X with aplomb should you ever feel that need too.

A 5600X will, if anything, draw less power than the 2700X (watch the GN 5600X review power draw section). I'd hold off on a 3070 decision, though, until we see power consumption of the 6000 GPU's from AMD. I have a hunch that 650 Seasonic will be ample for a 6800/5600X pairing.

 

[thefreshy]

Do you really NEED to upgrade RIGHT NOW? a 2700X is a good enough CPU...I'd upgrade GPU first if it's for gaming.

Reason to hold off on upgrading to the 5600X is early in '21 we should be getting BIOS's to run ryzen 5000 on B450 and your Tomahawk is about as good as you'll get in a true "budget" B550.

If 200 USD is your top budget though, and you're hard over on B550, I'd suggest the MSI B550 Tomahawk or ASUS B550 ROG Strix-A or -F. They'll take you all the way to a 5950X with aplomb should you ever feel that need too.

A 5600X will, if anything, draw less power than the 2700X (watch the GN 5600X review power draw section). I'd hold off on a 3070 decision, though, until we see power consumption of the 6000 GPU's from AMD. I have a hunch that 650 Seasonic will be ample for a 6800/5600X pairing.

I guess you are right. I could wait for that BIOS update if I don't find one of those B550 mobos on Black Friday discounts. I'd mainly want NVIDIA card, cause I prefer streaming on NVENC encoder as I only have single PC setup and streaming single PC has always caused me issues in games with stuttering and input lag when I would stream on CPU encoder, but if new AMD GPUs are on par with NVIDIA and they are cheaper, then I'm gonna be looking what I could do there with full AMD setup.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I guess you are right. I could wait for that BIOS update if I don't find one of those B550 mobos on Black Friday discounts. I'd mainly want NVIDIA card, cause I prefer streaming on NVENC encoder as I only have single PC setup and streaming single PC has always caused me issues in games with stuttering and input lag when I would stream on CPU encoder, but if new AMD GPUs are on par with NVIDIA and they are cheaper, then I'm gonna be looking what I could do there with full AMD setup.

I'm not a streamer so that's where I'm at a loss and is a bit curious to me. So are you encoding on the NVENC to stream your gaming action? Doesn't that hurt GPU performance, which is normally the source of performance issues?

If so, and since you're upgrading both CPU and GPU, I'd consider an 8 core or even 12 core CPU and let it do the encoding so that GPU gaming performance won't be compromised. I also thought CPU encoding is (generally) better quality than GPU encoding.

 

[thefreshy]

I'm not a streamer so that's where I'm at a loss and is a bit curious to me. So are you encoding on the NVENC to stream your gaming action? Doesn't that hurt GPU performance, which is normally the source of performance issues?

If so, and since you're upgrading both CPU and GPU, I'd consider an 8 core or even 12 core CPU and let it do the encoding so that GPU gaming performance won't be compromised. I also thought CPU encoding is (generally) better quality than GPU encoding.

CPU encoding is better quality, and thats why it is being used in DUAL PC setups. For single PC setup GPU encoder is better as it has almost no impact on gaming performance. Most games I play don't even use 30-40% GPU, while streaming it doesn't go above 70%. RTX cards have an amazing encoder that ALMOST matches the CPU encoder while it has much less impact on performance. Feel free to watch few youtube videos of comparison of the 2 encoders if you are interested. The quality of stream mostly depends on bitrate, which is capped at 6000kbps on twitch, so regardless of the encoder you will only be able to output a certain quality.