[SOLVED] Best motherboard for ryzen 7 3700

[zale123]

I have a ryzen 7 3700 what’s the best motherboard that will compliment it for >170$
Thanks

 

[drea.drechsler]

I have a ryzen 7 3700 what’s the best motherboard that will compliment it for >170$
Thanks

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#c=145,138&X=9510,17071

There you go. Yeah, that's a lot but they'd all work with 3700X. I'd go with the top board: B550 Tomahawk.

If you can tell us more of what's important to you it would be easier to narrow it down some.

 

[zale123]

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#c=145,138&X=9510,17071

There you go. I'd go with the top board: B550 Tomahawk.

Thanks
Well what’s the difference between the tomahawk versus a cheaper x470 or cheaper b550?

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks
Well what’s the difference between the tomahawk versus a cheaper x470 or cheaper b550?

Mainly, VRM. The Tomahawk has a very impressive VRM that will run cool even with a 3950/5950. Some other B550's with good VRM's are Asus B550 ROG Strix-F and -A, but they tend to be in the 175-180 price range. There's also the B550 ROG Strix-E but it's up around $200 and adds WiFi.

Also, B550 has PCie gen 4 from CPU and gen 3 from the chipset. That allows a lot of flexibility for the designers to give higher LAN speed, more USB 3.1/3.2, more storage and etc. You get that with other B550's (they all split the bandwidth out to peripheral interfaces differently, that's why you have to consider what's more important to you) but getting cheaper means you have to look at VRM more closely.

You only get PCIe 3 from CPU and 2 from the chipset with X470 although it has more lanes natively. B550 will get full support for Ryzen 5000 while X470 will require BETA BIOS's. Not sure what that means until it happens, but if buying new it just makes sense to go with the latest.

 

[zale123]

Mainly, VRM. The Tomahawk has a very impressive VRM that will run cool even with a 3950/5950. Some other B550's with good VRM's are Asus B550 ROG Strix-F and -A, but they tend to be in the 175-180 price range. There's also the B550 ROG Strix-E but it's up around $200 and adds WiFi.

Also, B550 has PCie gen 4 from CPU and gen 3 from the chipset. That allows a lot of flexibility for the designers to give higher LAN speed, more USB 3.1/3.2, more storage and etc. You get that with other B550's (they all split the bandwidth out to peripheral interfaces differently, that's why you have to consider what's more important to you) but getting cheaper means you have to look at VRM more closely.

You only get PCIe 3 from CPU and 2 from the chipset with X470 although it has more lanes natively. B550 will get full support for Ryzen 5000 while X470 will require BETA BIOS's. Not sure what that means until it happens, but if buying new it just makes sense to go with the latest.

Thanks for the great explanation!

 

[zale123]

Mainly, VRM. The Tomahawk has a very impressive VRM that will run cool even with a 3950/5950. Some other B550's with good VRM's are Asus B550 ROG Strix-F and -A, but they tend to be in the 175-180 price range. There's also the B550 ROG Strix-E but it's up around $200 and adds WiFi.

Also, B550 has PCie gen 4 from CPU and gen 3 from the chipset. That allows a lot of flexibility for the designers to give higher LAN speed, more USB 3.1/3.2, more storage and etc. You get that with other B550's (they all split the bandwidth out to peripheral interfaces differently, that's why you have to consider what's more important to you) but getting cheaper means you have to look at VRM more closely.

You only get PCIe 3 from CPU and 2 from the chipset with X470 although it has more lanes natively. B550 will get full support for Ryzen 5000 while X470 will require BETA BIOS's. Not sure what that means until it happens, but if buying new it just makes sense to go with the latest.

If I’m always going to be running the ryzen 7 3700 is there any difference between getting the tomahawk versus the MSI x470 Gaming plus max and save some money, and leaving aside the support for better nvme ssds becuase I don’t really ever see myself spending that much on an ssd.

 

[drea.drechsler]

If I’m always going to be running the ryzen 7 3700 is there any difference between getting the tomahawk versus the MSI x470 Gaming plus max and save some money, and leaving aside the support for better nvme ssds becuase I don’t really ever see myself spending that much on an ssd.

The Gaming Plus MAX should run a 3700X quite well enough...and being a MAX board you can be confident it's coming 'Ryzen 3000 Ready'. But do note it's VRM quality is going to be somewhere in the low to mid range of the B550 lineup of boards. It's opinion of course, but I feel the bottom end of B550 is preferable to an X470 simply because it has better 'future proofing' built in.

Even going B450 might offer lower-cost options that work perfectly well with a 3700X. The only thing X470 offers is 'more pcie lanes' so if you're not running a lot of peripherals that require those lanes (more addin cards, more SATA drives, etc) it's not getting you anything to stay with that.

ADDEd: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#c=133&X=9510,17071
The B450 Tomahawk MAX at the top of that list... $127... would be an excellent choice. That's probably the most popular ATX motherboard for Ryzen 3000 CPU's.

 

[digitalgriffin]

I have a ryzen 7 3700 what’s the best motherboard that will compliment it for >170$
Thanks

For that generation, the B450 and B550 Tomahawk is a favorite among enthusiast. But that all depends on your use case and size constraints.

Do you want an M.2 slot for SATA m2/wifi? Do you want AX wifi built in? Do you want a 2.5GBit ethernet connection?

X570 offers more PCIe 4 lanes, and usually more VRMs which help keep things cool. That's about it.

Do you need USB-C? How many 10GBit USB ports do you need? How many 5GBit USB Ports do you need?

I have
3 USB Gaming Pads (USB 2.0)
1 Gaming Mouse Dongle (USB 2.0)
1 wireless keyboard Dongle (USB 2.0)
1 UPS USB cable (to inform me of power backup state) (USB 2.0)
1 VR headset cable (USB 3.0) (Has to be on it's own port bank-non shared, so port #8 is disabled)

So all my 8 ports are FILLED.

IF I get VR Trackers from HTC, I'll have to use a PCIe expansion board and get a 4x4 USB 3.0 Expansion card because each tracker needs full bandwidth USB 3.0 on an independent channel.

 

[ocer9999]

ADDEd: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#c=133&X=9510,17071
The B450 Tomahawk MAX at the top of that list... $127... would be an excellent choice. That's probably the most popular ATX motherboard for Ryzen 3000 CPU's.

For that price you can get a B550M Steel Legend which is as good and newer chipset...
But if you want something under 100$ there's good B450's out there and they also would support the CPU. But to be honest I wouldn't cheap out on the mobo.