Picking an AM4 Motherboard

[Eric_182]

I have been looking at the Asus Prime X370 Pro and the Crosshair VI Hero but they seem to be pretty similar in specs? Not surr if I should go for Prime X370 Pro to save some money. I will most likely be using a ryzen 1700 and overclocking since 1700, 1700x are pretty similar in performance as well?

Also, should I get a 1080 or 1080Ti? I will be doing editing in 4K as well as gaming and streaming.

 

[raisonjohn]

I have been looking at the Asus Prime X370 Pro and the Crosshair VI Hero but they seem to be pretty similar in specs? Not surr if I should go for Prime X370 Pro to save some money. I will most likely be using a ryzen 1700 and overclocking since 1700, 1700x are pretty similar in performance as well?

Also, should I get a 1080 or 1080Ti? I will be doing editing in 4K as well as gaming and streaming.

There are some differences in ports/connectivity and features between the Asus Crosshair VI Hero and the Asus Prime X370 Pro. If you don't need such differences, as outlined below, the Pro is enough. If the extra features matter to you, then, get Hero.

Hero has a total of 7x fan headers | Pro has a total of 6x fan headers
Hero has a total of 14x USB ports at the rear panel | Pro has a total of 8x USB ports
Hero has only 1x USB2.0 (9-pin) internal header | Pro has 2x USB2.0 (9-pin) internal headers
Hero has an M.2 (Key E) for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth support (optional) | Pro has none
Hero has 12 (8 + 4) power phases | Pro has 10 (6 + 4) power phases
Hero has an I/O and Audio shroud/armor | Pro has none
Hero has 2x 4-pin RGB LED strip headers | Pro has 1x 4-pin RGB LED strip header
Hero has LN2, Slow Mode, Power On, Reset, ReTry, and SafeBoot switches buttons | Pro has none
Hero has special water pump/flow monitoring headers (W_IN, W_OUT, W_FLOW) | Pro has none
Hero has a 2-Digit LED Debug Display and Debug/Status LEDs | Pro has none

You can also save some money if you do not need Nvidia SLI and if 4x to 6x SATA ports is acceptable to you by choosing a specific B350-chipset motherboard (instead of the X370-chipset motherboards above). The B350 chipset also supports overclocking any Ryzen CPU, like the X370s.

The Ryzen 7 1700 is a good choice for price/performance over the Ryzen 7 1700X.
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RRt5WkVxuk"][/video]

If you will be using 4K, I would suggest getting the GTX 1080 Ti GPU (paired with a good-quality 600-650W PSU).