[SOLVED] Which motherboard supports booting from m.2

Fredass

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Oct 9, 2019
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Hello ! I am in the process of building a PC and currently looking at B450 / x470 motherboards for a 3rd gen Ryzen CPU - I find it really hard to tell if you can actually boot from an m.2 drive or not. On newegg some specs explicitly mention it, the ASRock X470 Master for example states 'Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks', but others like the MSI PERFORMANCE X470 GAMING PLUS don't and even digging through the manual they don't explicitely confirm or deny it. Threads about this topic are pretty scarce.

Is it a standard feature on recent Motherboards ? Else is their a comprehensive list somewhere of which motherboard supports booting from an m.2 drive ? More specifically my build will have a single 1TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 drive. I already have a server in another room so I don't need storage but I want to make sure I can actually boot from that drive !

Thanks !
 
Solution
For pcie 4.0, you need an x570 mobo, it's not available on the 400 series, and that'll be the new standard for upcoming releases of both drives and gpus. If sticking specifically to 3.0, anything recent will work as long as it's an actual m.2 pcie slot, not an m.2 Sata slot. Most modern boards are coming with 1 of each now as m.2 is cheaper and easier to manufacture than the older Sata3 box and data cable. So it's generally the secondary storage that most impacts most consumers, stuck with one NVMe and one Sata capability.

Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($189.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($189.99 @ Amazon)

I'd be looking at either of...

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Any reputable brand B450/X470 board should be able to boot, from an M.2 drive. My old Z270 did, and my current x570 does. I would recommend going with x570, for a ryzen 3000 build, or wait for B550. Older chipsets have been plagued with stability issues, due to poorly written bios updates.
 

Fredass

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Oct 9, 2019
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Any reputable brand B450/X470 board should be able to boot, from an M.2 drive. My old Z270 did, and my current x570 does. I would recommend going with x570, for a ryzen 3000 build, or wait for B550. Older chipsets have been plagued with stability issues, due to poorly written bios updates.

This is an interesting point that I had not seen yet - I've seen this comment a lot for B450 board, but not x470, are you sure this bios issue affects x470 as much as B450 ? The x570 are pricier, especially here in Canada.

Thanks !
 

Fredass

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Oct 9, 2019
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Purpose is high-end gaming, I don't have a fixed budget but I don't want to throw money out of the window either.

Motherboard requirements:
M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 bootable hard drive slot
S/PDIF out (walled in cable going to my home theater)

CPU: I was looking at the Ryzen 3700x because it was significantly cheaper than the intel counterpart, i7-9700k but now I feel like I should go back to intel as the whole chipset mess does not seem to be an issue there.

The GPU is a RTX 2070 super.

The case is the Fractal Design Meshify 3.

HD is HP EX920 M.2 1TB as it has good review and it's cheaper than most.

I was looking at this PSU, a bit overkill but affordable so it's fine: Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-750FX

Haven't picked the ram yet. All mobo support 64 gig so that does not seem to be an issue.
 

Fredass

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Oct 9, 2019
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Its seems it depends on the build, I have seen a few threads where stability was an issue. I wrote B450 in my original post but I was already looking mostly at x470 and now I am being told that these too have stability issues with gen 3 Ryzen.
Also the problem with the ASUS ROG Strix is when buying online you have no way of knowing if the bios has been updated to support gen 3 Ryzen and if it doesn't you can't update it without a CPU which in my case is an issue. I could take it to a shop to update it but I want to avoid these kind of hassle.

Honestly I've bought intel my whole life and never had so much trouble finding a motherboard that I know will work I'm wondering if I should just stick to intel (or go with the x570 which seems to be the only foolproof way of having a gen 3 working)
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
For pcie 4.0, you need an x570 mobo, it's not available on the 400 series, and that'll be the new standard for upcoming releases of both drives and gpus. If sticking specifically to 3.0, anything recent will work as long as it's an actual m.2 pcie slot, not an m.2 Sata slot. Most modern boards are coming with 1 of each now as m.2 is cheaper and easier to manufacture than the older Sata3 box and data cable. So it's generally the secondary storage that most impacts most consumers, stuck with one NVMe and one Sata capability.

Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($189.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($189.99 @ Amazon)

I'd be looking at either of these.
 
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Solution

Fredass

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Oct 9, 2019
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Thank you, In Canada the cheapest one that fits my needs is the MSI X570 PRO , there are no real reviews yet, is MSI a good brand these days, haven't bought their products in a while. The 2 you linked are ~20-30$ more which is not the end of the world.
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
Yes, Msi is a good brand. They do have some killer stuff. Just not killer x570 mobo's until you get to really high end like the Godlike boards. For some odd reason, the really good VRM's and power management they were using, just isn't up to snuff on the x570's. Asrock isn't too shabby at all, especially for its price point, but for a few extra $, it's hard to beat the Asus Tuf series or Gigabyte Auros.

 

Fredass

Prominent
Oct 9, 2019
9
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It looks like my best option is the ASUS TUF gaming x570, especially since a local shop has it for the same price as newegg. That will simplify any issue I may have as I can just return it to them. Hopefully paying extra for the MoBo will allow me to upgrade without changing everything in 3-4 years.

Thanks all for the answers.
 

DMAN999

Honorable
Ambassador
I am running a 3700x with a Gigabyte x570 itx myself. Asus is one that really sticks out, in my mind, with regards to bios releases breaking other things. I was going to get a B450 strix itx, until I did some reading, on the ROG forums.
I disagree,
Asus is slow to release BIOS updates BUT when they do they actually tend to fix issues.
MSI on the other hand tends to release BIOS updates quickly but they tend to be very buggy.

I have had my Asus ROG Strix B450-F since last November with a 2600 on it and I just recently upgraded to a 3700x.
I was on BIOS 1201 for the 2600 and updated to 2704 ten 2801 after installing the 3700x.
I have not had any issues with any of the BIOS versions I have used so far.
 

Karadjgne

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Ambassador
I wouldn't say it's terrible, that's pretty bad, and I've dealt with far worse, but after dealing with Evga, everybody else just seems to be different degrees of terrible. A lot can depend on just whom you end up talking with, or what you end up talking to.