Question Which AM5 motherboard would you recommend that is the most stable and reliable?

[Faibra]

After dealing with so many problems with my MSI Pro B650M-A Wi-Fi, I have given up and decided to make an entirely new build with new parts. What would you guys recommend for a very stable and consistent AM5 experience?

I really want to use the 7800X3D for my CPU so I can get the best gaming performance, but the AM5 experience seems to be very unstable even with all the BIOS updates. Can someone please recommend a consistent and stable motherboard for AM5 chipsets? It's hard for me to tell which motherboards are consistent and reliable based on reviews alone because I can't tell if the negative experiences are just exceptions, or if those are something to take into consideration.

For example, I was thinking of maybe using an Intel 13900K for my gaming CPU and I was looking at some of the MSI motherboards. Although they looked good on paper, with one of them having a 4.3 out of 5 review, the one star reviews said that they arrived dead on arrival. I don't want to risk that happening to me when I'm looking for an AM5. It's especially concerning when it was a brand like MSI which is supposed to be a reputable and safe brand to buy from.

The previous motherboard I used for my older PC build was an MSI ProSeries Intel B365 LGA 1151 that I bought from Amazon. I had no issues with the motherboard when I used it. I would like to know the good options for both B650 and X670 motherboards. Can you please also list the retailer that you recommend to buy the motherboard from?

 

[Lutfij]

The PRO series of board are the stripped down version of their other higher end series of board in MSI's portfolio.

As for the listing of board retailers, you could use PCPartPicker. Where are you located anyway?

 

[Misgar]

The chances of getting a Dead On Arrival board are very low, when buying brand new from a reputable supplier. Manufacturers subject their boards to a sequence of tests during production, but faults do sometimes get past inspection.

The thousands of people who don't experience problems are less likely to post comments than a few users with serious faults. Some etailers (in Germany?) publish the percentages of returned mobos, GPUs, etc. They may be worth tracking down to help make up your mind.

You'll find negative postings for most motherboard manufacturers. Some people avoid Asus, others Gigabyte. Witness recent failures of the new 12V connector on some 4090 GPUs. Nothing is perfect, people make mistakes, but there's no point getting stressed over a few negative reviews.

If you want a more "reliable" system (what is reliability anyway?) don't overclock anything (CPU, RAM, GPU). The harder you push the envelope, the closer you'll get to instability. Half the fun of overclocking is to extract the last drop of performance, but you don't see many overclocked servers where 24/7/365 stability is essential. If you want more performance from professional equiment, you just throw (a lot) more money at it. In an ideal world, so should you.

I've been running a 7950X on an Asus mobo for 8 months and only had problems with one Beta software package under development, which is updated on a weekly basis as new bugs are fixed. I need stability for 10-hour video rendering sessions with the GPU maxed out, so I haven't overclocked my RAM, nor have I enabled PBO.

For gaming systems, stuttering seems to be a common problem with a number of potential causes. It's up to you to work out if your system is simply too slow to run the latest titles at maximum settings, or your latest overclock is unstable.

Just buy the best components you can afford, match the CPU and GPU performance so neither is a major gaming bottleneck, then get the system working with zero BSODs. If that means not running your DDR5 RAM at 6,000 or 7,000 MT/s, so be it.

For a 13900K, don't skimp out on the mobo, cooler or PSU. Forget anything below a mid-range mobo. Get a Tier-A PSU. You'll need 250W+ of CPU cooling. None of this comes cheap.