Question Help me select a MATX B450 motherboard??

[zbs60]

HI All

Its been a couple of years and i wanted to upgrade my computer. I live a couple of blocks from a Microcenter and this is basically what they have in MATX motherboards. My price range is around 85.00

Asus Tuf B450m plus for 87.00 MATX
Gigabyte B450 Aorus M 84.99 MATX
Asrock b450 pro 4 69.99 MATX

Im planning on buying a AMD2600. I already have a Samsung EVO Plus SSD and a 16gb Crucial Ballistic Kit 3000 mcs.

I just need this computer for serfing and business programs. Im looking for a ultra reliable motherboard and a quick no problem build.

In a previous builds i always used MSI motherboards. I would really prefer to build the machine with a MSI performance gamin plus motherboard available through Amazon for
79.99. However, the customer service at microcenter is usually excellent. They'll be their for me in case of problems. All my previous msi builds though were basically problem free..

What do you guys think?

 

[Darkbreeze]

All three of those boards are fairly decent for the price range.

The B450m Pro4 ASRock board has more to offer though in terms of some features. It has better power delivery and more onboard fan headers, including CPU fan, water pump and 3x system fan headers, which is two more than the other two boards and could be a factor if you get a case where you want a few case fans installed.

But they are all decent. And, I hate to have to contradict somebody when they have already stated their own preference but I have to share my (Probably much more extensive) own experience as well and I'll say when it comes to MSI they have great graphics cards and they make very good high end motherboards. Their budget and mid tiered motherboards though, leave much to be desired and those of us who build and fix systems on a regular basis, or spend every day here helping people with problems, have generally conceded the fact that while it won't be true in every case on every board, MSI has problems with quality control on those boards. If you buy an MSI board over 150 bucks, you probably won't see this. If you buy one under a 120 bucks, you're rolling the dice IMO.

Fortunately MSI also has very good customer service and warranty support, so if something is faulty they are good about making it right. Unfortunately that results in having to be without your system through the process AND paying for shipping TO them in order to get something replaced. I'd prefer to buy something that I am less likely to have to deal with that with.

 

[drea.drechsler]

HI All

Its been a couple of years and i wanted to upgrade my computer. I live a couple of blocks from a Microcenter and this is basically what they have in MATX motherboards. My price range is around 85.00

Asus Tuf B450m plus for 87.00 MATX
Gigabyte B450 Aorus M 84.99 MATX
Asrock b450 pro 4 69.99 MATX

Im planning on buying a AMD2600. I already have a Samsung EVO Plus SSD and a 16gb Crucial Ballistic Kit 3000 mcs.

I just need this computer for serfing and business programs. Im looking for a ultra reliable motherboard and a quick no problem build.

In a previous builds i always used MSI motherboards. I would really prefer to build the machine with a MSI performance gamin plus motherboard available through Amazon for
79.99. However, the customer service at microcenter is usually excellent. They'll be their for me in case of problems. All my previous msi builds though were basically problem free..

What do you guys think?

You'll be pleased to know in this case the best choice is the cheapest since of the three the Asrock B450 Pro 4 is clearly the best one with a cool running VRM.

If you like MSI then the Gaming plus is also a good choice. Both the Asrock and Gaming Plus are solid mid-range boards whereas the Asus and Gigabyte are lower tier. But for an undemanding workload any of these will do so why not pick the cheapest, which happens to be the best (the Asrock Pro 4) and put money saved towards something else?

 

[zbs60]

HI Drea

The thing that bothers me about the Asrock is the company only provides a 1 year warranty on their products. Do you think the Asrock board can be expected to go the distance?

 

[Darkbreeze]

I'm going to clarify with ASRock on that because I think that is a typo on their website. Newegg and other vendors seem to indicate that there is a 3 year warranty on ASRock motherboards, which is the industry standard for pretty much all major manufacturers including MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS and ASRock.

As seen in the image below. And IF ASRock has reduced their warranty period to only one year, it will be the last time I ever recommend an ASRock board to anybody. Obviously, if I do that, they will quickly go out of business. (Yes, that is a joke. Well, the last part anyhow. Kind of. You'd be surprised how much weight that word of mouth from around here can carry. Just ask NZXT, regarding hardware that requires their CAM software.)

 

[drea.drechsler]

HI Drea

The thing that bothers me about the Asrock is the company only provides a 1 year warranty on their products. Do you think the Asrock board can be expected to go the distance?

The curious thing about electronics reliability is it's very predictable. If it is going to fail it will within the first couple hundred hours of operation, then the next most likely time is way out at end of life. If you use your system somewhat regularly...like 10 hours a day, 5 days a week...it's most likely going to fail within the first 6 months of use. I think one year warranty is really quite enough. None of us are likely to keep a system long enough to see the 'end of life' scenario.

That, of course, excludes defects, defectives, misuse and abuse.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, I don't agree with that. I've seen hundreds of graphics cards, motherboards and power supplies fail at 1, 2 or 3 years in. There could be any number of reasons for it, and it doesn't have to be an outright failure. Not working fully, like halfway working USB ports, can be a warrantable problem too.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Yeah, I don't agree with that. I've seen hundreds of graphics cards, motherboards and power supplies fail at 1, 2 or 3 years in. There could be any number of reasons for it, and it doesn't have to be an outright failure. Not working fully, like halfway working USB ports, can be a warrantable problem too.

Like I said, defects, defectives, abuse and misuse is excluded. Crazy people and computers don't mix well and people do abuse computer systems. I've seen many a two year old computer that looks like it was used as a vacuum cleaner...only they do empty the vacuum occasionaly.

Even I overclocked my FX-6300 till the VRM bounced off it's thermal limits regularly.

"Reliability" isn't well understood.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Yeah, AFAIK computer parts are like many other products in that they will typically follow a bathtub curve for failure rate. Relatively high failure rate at the beginning (due to a proportion of units having defects/damage), after which the failure rate drops down and becomes a function of random failures. Then after a while it picks up again as things begin to wear out as product gets old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

That being said, there are good alternatives to ASRock at similar prices, so there isn't really a need to sacrifice warranty length if ASRock's is in fact 1 year vs 3 years for competitors.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Looks like maybe I'm right about that except that it's not specifically a "typo" but more like it's only a one year warranty in other countries than the US.

https://www.overclock.net/forum/11-...-warranty-worries-me-am-i-being-paranoid.html

If you are in the US, it should be a 3 year warranty just as described on the Newegg website. So if you're someplace else, you probably want to check specific warranty information AND regional laws governing it as well, but I'm still waiting to hear back from ASRock directly so I can get it from the horse's mouth. I think it's safe to say though that if you are in the US it's a 3 year warranty, just like everybody else. It would be suicide for them to offer anything less when everybody else offers that.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Looks like maybe I'm right about that except that it's not specifically a "typo" but more like it's only a one year warranty in other countries than the US.

https://www.overclock.net/forum/11-...-warranty-worries-me-am-i-being-paranoid.html

If you are in the US, it should be a 3 year warranty just as described on the Newegg website. So if you're someplace else, you probably want to check specific warranty information AND regional laws governing it as well, but I'm still waiting to hear back from ASRock directly so I can get it from the horse's mouth. I think it's safe to say though that if you are in the US it's a 3 year warranty, just like everybody else. It would be suicide for them to offer anything less when everybody else offers that.

Nope...it's 1 year in US too, or can be.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/509732/b450m-pro4-am4-matx-amd-motherboard

That's one way they get a lower cost on the board I suppose. It's a trade-off well worth it, in my opinion. As I said, if the board's gonna fail it will well within that first year of ownership.

I also always turn down the extended warranties they try to up-sell. I can well afford the (extremely rare) defective with the savings I've accumulated over the years.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I don't agree with your opinion on warranties based on my own experience and experiences of handling returns for a number of clients who've had to do pursue them at the midway to near EOL periods on their warranties due to failures of one type or another. It happens. Nobody can say it doesn't. Maybe it hasn't happened to YOU, but that doesn't mean it won't happen to THEM or the next guy, or me, or YOU next time.

So, whatever. Seems there's a lot we don't agree about, and that's ok.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Nope...it's 1 year in US too, or can be.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/509732/b450m-pro4-am4-matx-amd-motherboard

That's one way they get a lower cost on the board I suppose. It's a trade-off well worth it, in my opinion. As I said, if the board's gonna fail it will well within that first year of ownership.

I also always turn down the extended warranties they try to up-sell. I can well afford the (extremely rare) defective with the savings I've accumulated over the years.

As I thought, both the ASRock website AND the Microcenter website are not correct. Newegg IS correct. So it seems that the original preference for this board due to it's features is further bolstered by the fact that it does in fact have the same warranty as any of these other boards, which I pretty much had little doubt about, but wanted to make sure of because you never know.

This is straight from ASRock support.

 

[ryzengamer]

I use Asus motherboards and GPU cards only, because:

- 3 years warranty vs asrock 2 years here in EU.

• active bios updates, my 2 year old board supports Ryzen 3000 already when others did not have a bios update.
• bios can be updated in bios via internet or via a small fat partition, a must for Debian users.
• I did return the gigabyte b350 gaming 3 motherboard because it did not boot after bios update. I got my money back and did buy Asus.
• i have burned one msi mobo and one msi gpu card because of intel e2080 overclocking.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I use Asus motherboards and GPU cards only, because:

- 3 year warranty vs asrock 2 year.

That's not correct, which I have already proven, so we won't even bother with the rest of it.