Question Best mainstream ATX B650e motherboard for quiet computing - some gaming, but mostly productivity/coding, rendering, etc...

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alexb75

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Oct 12, 2004
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I am building a silent/quiet PC with Ryzen 7900. What's the best B650e motherboard right now to offer good amount of ports, good quality VRM for longterm use and CPU support, and in general which brand is best these days?

I've mostly been an Asus user, but also have had good luck with MSI and EVGA (my GPU now) but have had challenges with Gigabyte. I don't like bloatware, like a flexible stable BIOS, and most importantly a company that does upgrade drivers quickly and easily.

Last, is GOOD FAN SUPPORT, something I can easily set for 2-pin or 3-pin fans to operate at low speeds and only ramp up when needed as I am building a silent/quiet PC (re-using current case/fans/coolers).

Thanks
 
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You need to elaborate on your understanding of ports, since that interpretation is up in the air, depending on who you ask.

When you look for a good quality VRM design with a board that's fully featured, they won't come cheap,. That being how much have you allocated towards your motherboard purchase? Where are you located? Preferred site for purchase?

As for fans, pretty much all boards in 2024 will have PWM control on al headers. If you're very nitpicky about noise, you can look at Noctua fans, they have been king of the silence hill for awhile and with good reason.
 
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Lutfij said:
You need to elaborate on your understanding of ports, since that interpretation is up in the air, depending on who you ask.

When you look for a good quality VRM design with a board that's fully featured, they won't come cheap,. That being how much have you allocated towards your motherboard purchase? Where are you located? Preferred site for purchase?

As for fans, pretty much all boards in 2024 will have PWM control on al headers. If you're very nitpicky about noise, you can look at Noctua fans, they have been king of the silence hill for awhile and with good reason.
Click to expand...

I am in Canada, but can order from US from any site. Budget is around $200 USD, BUT if I can't find something that matches my needs, might spend a bit more.

Ports: USB 2.0, 3.1, USB-C, POWER ON PORT (don't need thunderbolt)
Slots: 4xSATA min
BT 5.0+

I was reading on Reddit that some of the new Asus boards are finicky about fan adjustments, and it comes with bloatware. Is that true?

Mostly I'd like to narrow choice to a cpl of brands if possible then pick what might match what I need.
 
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alexb75 said:
Hmm, when I look at PC parts, here's what I get around $200. Even X670 at around $220

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#s=41&c=161,158,159&h=0,6&K=4,13&f=2&sort=price&page=1

Specifically, these models:

- Asus Prime X670-P
- Asus Prime X670-P Wifi
- ASRock B650E Riptide
- ASRock X670E PG Lightning
- ASRock X670E Pro RS
- MSI Pro X670p Wifi
- MSI X670E Gaming Plus Wifi
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All of those X670 boards don't have the PCIe 5.0 primary slot only the X670E does. If you don't care about the primary slot being PCIe 5.0 you can look at regular B650 boards and save some money.

Just as a note: I've not seen an Asus Prime board I'd recommend anyone buy, and these are no different.
 
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thestryker said:
All of those X670 boards don't have the PCIe 5.0 primary slot only the X670E does. If you don't care about the primary slot being PCIe 5.0 you can look at regular B650 boards and save some money.

Just as a note: I've not seen an Asus Prime board I'd recommend anyone buy, and these are no different.
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Thanks, what's wrong with Prime boards? Sorry, I haven't shopped motherboards for many years now.

Now, I don't need PCI 5.0 right now, but I thought a B650e would be a good compromise to cover me in case in future I need it for some reason, but you think it's not necessary?
 
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alexb75 said:
Thanks, what's wrong with Prime boards? Sorry, I haven't shopped motherboards for many years now.
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The prime boards are basically the lowest end design boards and have compromised VRM, but because it's Asus they charge more than the competition which leads people to believe they're good lower end solutions.
alexb75 said:
Now, I don't need PCI 5.0 right now, but I thought a B650e would be a good compromise to cover me in case in future I need it for some reason, but you think it's not necessary?
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It's not bad to have, and it's something I would certainly get if I were upgrading now. Most of what I've seen the B650E boards aren't generally a lot cheaper than X670E, but at equivalent prices B650E will likely be a better quality board.
alexb75 said:
Thanks a lot for the link, great review of a lot of boards. Interesting how ASRock, and Gigabyte do well here! Are these brands OK now?
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Steve at Hardware Unboxed (YT channel) is pretty much the only source of motherboard roundups these days. He does a fantastic job, and they publish the information at TechSpot after the videos go live.

ASRock has good quality hardware and value, but their BIOS side is a bit behind the other majors (MSI, Asus and Gigabyte). Personally MSI has my favorite BIOS design, but that's because they haven't really changed where things are in a decade which makes them easier to carry forward for new platforms.

As long as you're not buying a bottom of the barrel motherboard there are good options from the main 4 manufacturers.
 
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alexb75 said:
Thanks, definitely will skip Prime, that review alone showed how their VRM temps were highest of all brands!

I am now between these models (based on price):

  1. https://www.amazon.com/ASRock-B650E-PG-Riptide-Motherboard/dp/B0BHDR53BR/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20
  2. https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B650M-AORUS-PRO-AX-rev-10-11#kf
  3. https://www.amazon.com/MSI-B650-Motherboard-Desktop-Processors/dp/B0BHCD117G/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20
  4. https://www.amazon.com/MSI-B650-Motherboard-Desktop-Processors/dp/B0BHCJDJGF/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20
  5. https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-ROG-B650E-F-LGA1718-Motherboard/dp/B0BHMTYZKZ/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20

Asus $50 more but has everything, all others have either m2 5.0 or PCI 5.0 which I think is a good option for future.
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Those seem like decent options overall with the ASRock delivering the most features versus cost.

If you're seriously considering the Asus option I think making the jump to something like the MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI (currently selling for $280) would be better for long term as it has more storage and slightly better VRM.
 
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thestryker said:
Those seem like decent options overall with the ASRock delivering the most features versus cost.

If you're seriously considering the Asus option I think making the jump to something like the MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI (currently selling for $280) would be better for long term as it has more storage and slightly better VRM.
Click to expand...

Thanks! It's kind of ridiculous how high B650 prices are in comparison to X670E!

If X670E is $280, B650 should be $150-170, NOT $230!
 
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I know you said you're wary of Gigabyte, but i've had nothing but good experience with their motherboards.

So, here's the B650 EAGLE AX - https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B650-EAGLE-AX#kf
PPP says it can be yours for $160. It may be cheaped out in audio and the USB C port is only gen 1, but otherwise it's good value.

The B650 AORUS ELITE AX V2 sells for $200, has USB C gen 2, better audio and is overall not as cut down as the Eagle. - https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B650-AORUS-ELITE-AX-V2/sp#

They both have 4 SATA ports and BT 5.3 like you mentioned plus PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot IF you care about that. 4.0 is good enough but it's your money and your choice.
Both boards have enough to offer going forward, but i would pick the more expensive Aorus elite. That said, the Eagle does have mostly the same specs/engineering. The codec and USB C gen 1 are it's weakness. For $160 it's kind of a steal.

The Aero G is a different board, not aimed at gaming but content creation. Has some intersting features.
 
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Grrrr... why reviews of ALL AM5 boards are BAD?!

Is it just a terrible unstable platform? There's complaints of slow boot, sleep not being available on ASRock, if RAM is OCed, instability, no posting, etc... ACROSS all brands!
 
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This is pretty standard affair and you'd probably find a lot of similar postings about Intel. People generally don't post/review anywhere near as often positively as negatively. It's certainly possible to get bad parts, and AMD's memory overclocking is quite different than Intel so if you're running outside of recommended things can get weird.

Taken from a broad view would I say AMD has more platform problems than Intel? Yes. Is it something that would stop me from choosing AMD over Intel? No. From my experience at least once things are up and running unless there's a bug that specifically impacts your use things are fine no matter who you go with.

Slow boot has been an off and on thing I've seen mentioned across several manufacturers, but doesn't seem common with more recent AGESA revisions.

Sleep mode is something that I honestly never use on anything but my handheld. Even then that's mostly out of laziness as I don't feel like changing settings.
 
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thestryker said:
This is pretty standard affair and you'd probably find a lot of similar postings about Intel. People generally don't post/review anywhere near as often positively as negatively. It's certainly possible to get bad parts, and AMD's memory overclocking is quite different than Intel so if you're running outside of recommended things can get weird.

Taken from a broad view would I say AMD has more platform problems than Intel? Yes. Is it something that would stop me from choosing AMD over Intel? No. From my experience at least once things are up and running unless there's a bug that specifically impacts your use things are fine no matter who you go with.

Slow boot has been an off and on thing I've seen mentioned across several manufacturers, but doesn't seem common with more recent AGESA revisions.

Sleep mode is something that I honestly never use on anything but my handheld. Even then that's mostly out of laziness as I don't feel like changing settings.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Now knowing the immaturity of AM5. Which motherboard is addressing issues better than others?! I assumed Asus would be best but reviews say otherwise, also ASRock apparently slow to update. Which boards are doing best in this regard then?
 
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The only thing I'd be wary of at this point is buying a board that was just released, or one which had been abandoned. You can check the latter by looking at BIOS updates and look at AGESA release dates. MSI was the first to release a BIOS which supported higher speed memory when AMD pushed it, but that's the only example I can think of where one company got done faster than anyone else.
 
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I've heard Gigabyte motherboards have a habit of having coil whine noise! Is that true across models? As I am building a silent PC, and I am super sensitive to noise, that could be a deal breaker. Anyone have had issues with coil noise?
 
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Based on my needs, I have now narrowed it down to these models:

ALL have PCI 5.0 on both Graphics and m2 slots (future proof), and have the #of ports/SATA I need.

1. ASUS ROG STRIX B650E-F GAMING WiFi - $259
2. ASRock B650E Riptide WiFi - $199
3. Gigabyte Aorus Elite AX - $199
4. ASRock x670E PG Lightning - $209
5. MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk - $279


Now, amongst B650e models, shockingly, Asus actually has the best feature set, it's the only one with USB-C 20gb, and best ports, BUT it's expensive (was $239 earlier, now $259) and for that price, I can get X670 boards (that I really don't need).

Any of the above is to be avoided? Coil whine is a deal breaker, so definitely wanna avoid that. The price difference is $50 up and down which is totally not an issue, but I want THE BEST BOARD of the lot, in terms of reliability, drivers support, best BIOS/Software, and being trouble free. I wont' be doing much OC, maybe just a tad on CPU for fun, but this would be my next PC for the next 10yrs or so, as my current PC was built in 2014 and slowly upgraded over time.
 
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If you want the features of that best motherboard, buy it. It's a one time purchase so the 40-50 dollar difference isn't going to have nearly as much impact as having or not having features.

If you take the Aorus Elite AX, get the V2 model.

Among the ones you liested, i guess i'd take the Strix.
 
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Of those the Strix unless you want/need the extra storage the Tomahawk can provide.

Coil whine is unfortunately not really an "always happens" type of situation except in really low end boards. I doubt you'd have any issues with any of those as they're all decently built and have sufficient VRM.
 
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thestryker said:
Of those the Strix unless you want/need the extra storage the Tomahawk can provide.

Coil whine is unfortunately not really an "always happens" type of situation except in really low end boards. I doubt you'd have any issues with any of those as they're all decently built and have sufficient VRM.
Click to expand...

Tomahawk definitely is better value. $30 more and it’s x670e and has more features. However, I really don’t need more than Rog Strix and even that one maybe too much.

In terms of storage, right now I have 4xSATA drives/bluray, plus one m2. I definitely going to have my main drive nvme, so would be using 2xnvme, 3xSATA. Which then makes it tight for future upgrades as apparently the ROG strix third m2 is shared with one of the PCI-E slots. Might limit options. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Now, would x670e run hotter due to 2 chipsets. It has 14W TDP vs. 7 TDP for the B650e and I’m building a silent and cool PC.
 
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alexb75 said:
In terms of storage, right now I have 4xSATA drives/bluray, plus one m2. I definitely going to have my main drive nvme, so would be using 2xnvme, 3xSATA. Which then makes it tight for future upgrades as apparently the ROG strix third m2 is shared with one of the PCI-E slots. Might limit options. 🤷🏻‍♂️
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Yeah that's the only reason I'd be looking at an X670 board myself: the extra storage capability (same situation on the Intel side).
alexb75 said:
Now, would x670e run hotter due to 2 chipsets. It has 14W TDP vs. 7 TDP for the B650e and I’m building a silent and cool PC.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it'd be negligible as that's a peak power consumption type situation. I don't think it'd be anything that would be really noticed.
 
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