Question Ryzen 2600X, any major advantage of going with a B450 vs a B350 board?

[King_V]

Ok, so first, this is for a friend - and they have no plan to OC - but they're willing to pay a little more for the 2600X to get the beefier cooler and a small amount of extra CPU speed.

That said, as a Wi-Fi card, and possibly an aftermarket sound board (they're a bit of an audiophile) may be in the future, they're likely to go with a full ATX board. Gaming is a major factor though, so a higher-end video card is in the future (trying to account for the possibility of a card that may be 2-1/2 or 3 slot cooler size, ergo, accounting for PCIe slots being blocked on a smaller MB).

There are a few B350 boards out there that are significantly cheaper than their B450 equivalents - specifically, we're looking at the ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4. There's a combo deal for the 2600X and that motherboard for about $205, new, which is extremely tempting.

Assuming it's already got the BIOS upgrade for the 2000 series processors, is there any real downside to this?

 

[Lutfij]

If you're looking to pair the 2nd Gen Ryzen processors with a board, you should look at the B450, regardless since the 2nd Gen processor are known to be power hungry, especially the 2600X which is why you need a beefy heatsink on the VRM area and the B450's come equipped with better power delivery. Yes you can use the B350 chipset boards albeit a BIOS update but BIOS updates don't change the quality of the VRM soldered onto the board.

IMHO, I'd suggest looking at an matx build/board/loadout since not everyone can fully utilize an ATX boards slots.

 

[DMAN999]

The only real downside that I can think of off the top of my head would be the lack of Ryzen 3000 support on the B350 based mb's.
With a B450 board he could just drop in a Ryzen 3000 when he wants to upgrade.

 

[punkncat]

If NOTHING else, having to mess with BIOS updates before the board could possibly even power up correctly would make my mind. Go with 4xx

 

[drea.drechsler]

Ok, so first, this is for a friend - and they have no plan to OC - ...
specifically, we're looking at the ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4....

That's is one of the better B350 motherboards with a cool-running VRM and, with the right BIOS, it should work very well with the processor in the bundle. But even if it comes with compatible BIOS, as you're saying to assume, you should plan on updating to the latest BIOS for best performance.

But even then, many mfr's made changes with the 400 series boards to improve compatibility for higher clock speed memory. That B350 board may work out well but that is another potential up-side to looking further for a B450 bundle.

 

[King_V]

Well, the friend's budget is tight - and by the time the money comes in in the next month or so, who knows what will show up as a good deal (or if this one is still in existence).

That said, I'm glad to know at least that the VRMs on this one are known to be decent ones (one reviewer on PCPartPicker made mention that they're among the best VRMs on a B350 board, though I don't know how they'd know that for sure).

Also, just to be on the safe side, the RAM we've selected (tentatively, assuming we stick with the same board) is from the motherboard's QVL list.

I do know that my friend doesn't plan to upgrade to Ryzen 3000 - they'll probably skip at least 2 generations before upgrading, so that would necessitate a new board anyway.

Of course, depending on the timing of when the money's all gathered, I suppose Ryzen 3000 might already be out, and that'll pretty much throw all plans out the window. But, I try to do the planning along the lines of "if we were to do this tomorrow, what is the best way to go?" and then tweak the plan, if needed, as things change.

 

[ElectrO_90]

In theory, it will be out July 7th... but only a theory right now.

 

[King_V]

Looks like the theory is right... and my friend hesitated, and said "Weeeeellll, if any deals on the 3000 series are good enough, then maybe..." etc.