[SOLVED] Budget motherboard for AM4 and OC

[raleneuy]

Hello, can anyone recommend good motherboard for AM4 ( ryzen 5 2600) and for oc? I want to spend about 100$. And I know, I need good cooling (I have a cpu cooling for max 150TDP). I'm interested in buying a mobo with chipset not lower than B450. Also I heard that Asrock mobos are poor quality and Msi dont provide much control over voltage. I really don't k'now what should I pick.

 

[Math Geek]

what you need to look for 1st is that it has the features you need. like # sata ports, m.2 support and so on depending on your needs and budget. then you take the ones that fit that feature set and start looking into oc abilities. biggest thing is power delivery. look at vrm set-up and the extra power it can provide to the cpu when overclocking. power draw goes up a lot when overclocking so the mobo needs to be able to provide it.

you've narrowed it down further and now can look at things like oc settings in the bios and so on. at under $100 you're looking at b450 chipset or possibly x370 if you can get one that has updated bios for the 2600 cpu.

you're gonna have to spend some time looking up specs around the various brand websites but in the end you'll find something that works for you and makes you happy.

there really is no "bad" motherboards anymore. just ones that are not priced right or don't fit your needs. folks like to rip on ASrock since they are a mostly budget brand but they are decent boards for what you pay. i've built many systems with them over the years and not had any come back to me with messed up mobo. there's good and bad for every brand/model but you have to weed out user error and uninformed opinions and get to the truth of it.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Hello, can anyone recommend good motherboard for AM4 ( ryzen 5 2600) and for oc? I want to spend about 100$. And I know, I need good cooling (I have a cpu cooling for max 150TDP). I'm interested in buying a mobo with chipset not lower than B450. Also I heard that Asrock mobos are poor quality and Msi dont provide much control over voltage. I really don't k'now what should I pick.

Definitely consider which features are important to you.

MSI doesn't have offset voltage adjustments, that's probably what they mean. That's a good feature to have for a 2700X or 2600X CPU in order to do what's called PBO overclocking. But a 2600 CPU, which doesn't have XFR2, is better to overclock conventionally where direct voltage input is easier and more intuitive for that.

Asrock's boards for Ryzen are actually pretty good... B450 Pro4 and B450m Pro4 seem to have especially good reputation for overclocking. As does MSI's boards, B450 Tomahawk, B450 Pro Carbon, B450M Mortar. These boards all have strong VRM's (for b450) and decent heatsinks so they run cool.

Things to look for: in Audio, the ALC892 codec is a step up from the ALC887. Also, some boards have two NVME slots, even B450. That is really nice when you want to upgrade your NVME since you can clone your system drive over to the new one instead of starting from scratch. Some boards offer USB type C ports, which can be very nice. And some offer more expansion slots and more flexible lane-shedding options when you use them.