Question Which Motherboard To Buy

[LastSamurai]

Hi All

I need some advice and recommendations on a motherboard?I have three in mind:I especially want to go for an msi as there are alot more features than some others.Im going to upgrade my pc to a 3rd Gen Ryzen and Im switching my gpu from amd to nvidia aswell. I am not happy with my Asus Mb.Also do these Mb support SLI or NVMe
B450 TOMAHAWK
B450 GAMING PLUS
X470 GAMING PLUS

Any help would be great

 

[NightHawkRMX]

X470 gaming plus has the most features and best VRM.

The B450 tomahawk and gaming plus appear similar on the surface.

 

[LastSamurai]

Thank you. The x470 looks great especially with its features. Do you know if it comes in a mini tax case?

 

[TJ Hooker]

All of them support NVMe, none of them support SLI. They're all full size ATX boards so none would fit in a mini-ITX case.

What is your current CPU/motherboard/RAM?

 

[NightHawkRMX]

none of them support SLI

Doesnt X470 support SlI?

 

[LastSamurai]

Doesnt X470 support SlI?

@TJ Hooker i just checked it does which is great. The b450 doesn’t. The thing I want to know is would a b450 vs an x470 support up to a ryzen 9 because I no the b450 might not. I don’t think you can OC either with the b450

 

[NightHawkRMX]

B450 can overclock and a decent board can handle the ryzen 9 just fine

 

[LastSamurai]

B450 can overclock and a decent board can handle the ryzen 9 just fine

@remixislandmusic thats really good to know because I was worried about that. The MB I have is my first so it’s the Asus Prime B450Plus which is entry and the features I don’t enjoy software and hardware,But also the factor was can it support up to a ryzen 9.

Well the X470 allows for SLI (splitting the x16 from cpu into 2 x8 slots) it also has 2 extra SATA ports and 4 extra usb 3.1 5gbps ports that’s kind of the hardware difference.

 

[LastSamurai]

All of them support NVMe, none of them support SLI. They're all full size ATX boards so none would fit in a mini-ITX case.

What is your current CPU/motherboard/RAM?

@TJ Hooker
So I have an Asus Prime B450Plus,2600,16gb Corsair vengeance pro. So I want to upgrade to the 3900X and rtx 2060.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Hmm, the X470 Gaming Plus doesn't list support for SLI (only for Crossfire), but it does say it supports x8/x8 PCIe slots so yeah it ought to.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X470-GAMING-PLUS/Specification

 

[TJ Hooker]

@TJ Hooker i just checked it does which is great. The b450 doesn’t. The thing I want to know is would a b450 vs an x470 support up to a ryzen 9 because I no the b450 might not. I don’t think you can OC either with the b450

The VRMs on the X470 Gaming Plus don't see to be meaningfully different than the B450 Gaming Plus, so I don't see any reason why one would support a R9 any better than the other.

Yes, you can OC on B450.

 

[LastSamurai]

Hmm, the X470 Gaming Plus doesn't list support for SLI (only for Crossfire), but it does say it supports x8/x8 PCIe slots so yeah it ought to.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X470-GAMING-PLUS/Specification

@TJ Hooker my bad it’s the x470 gaming pro carbon which supported it. not the Gaming plus

 

[TJ Hooker]

@TJ Hooker
So I have an Asus Prime B450Plus,2600,16gb Corsair vengeance pro. So I want to upgrade to the 3900X and rtx 2060.

What exactly about your current motherboard are you unhappy with?

 

[LastSamurai]

What exactly about your current motherboard are you unhappy with?

Well it’s an entry Asus b450 plus prime which I’m not sure can support a 3900x. The fanxpert is a gimmic because it doesn’t work. Just the whole software of it. I don’t enjoy. I no Asus is one of the best or is the best. I just want to experience something different,especially for gaming is I’m a big gamer

 

[TJ Hooker]

What do you use your PC for? If it's only gaming I question buying a 3900X in the first place. Do you plan on overclocking?

The 3900X doesn't really draw a whole lot more power than the 8 core Ryzen 1/2 CPUs at stock (and overclocking seems very limited anyway), so you may be fine with your current board to be honest.

 

[LastSamurai]

@TJ Hooker
In the beginning it was for video editing and general use,Internet,iTunes movies etc. I played console at the time so it was Xbox. I decided to switch to pc gaming and I only use my pc for that and I do have a laptop aswell. So I want to upgrade my rig now.i was thinking of going for an intel chipset before the 3000 series came out. But looking at the specs of the new chips they are excellent. My graphics card isn’t ideal for gaming especially that I’ve also changed from 1920x1080p to 2560x1440

 

[TJ Hooker]

Do you plan to continue using the PC for video editing? Because that's the only use case of the ones you listed that could benefit in any meaningful way from 3900X's extra cores.

 

[LastSamurai]

I will use my laptop for that now. But gaming only and music,videos and internet browsing.I mean from a 2600 to a 3900x you can’t compare,but maybe it’s not worth it? I mean when it comes down to gaming the extra cores do help but it’s the graphics card which is what you need. Looking at the lineup the 3600x combined with 2060 is a good combination. Do you think it’s bottlenecking with the 3900x?

 

[TJ Hooker]

I mean when it comes down to gaming the extra cores do help

Well no, not really. There is already very little difference between an 8 core 3700X and a 6 core 3600 in gaming, and what little there is may be from the slightly higher boost clocks of the 3700X rather than the extra cores.
https://www.techspot.com/review/1871-amd-ryzen-3600/

The difference between a 3700X and a 3900X is even less (and again, could just come down to boost clocks).

For pure gaming I see little point in going beyond a 3600, maybe a 3700X. Unless you want to get into twitch streaming or something.

What resolution/refresh rate is your monitor? Unless it's 1080p or less and 100 Hz or more, you probably won't see a difference from your current CPU. At 1440p (assuming AAA games, high settings) or higher you'd still likely be limited by a RTX 2060 rather than your CPU in most cases.

 

[LastSamurai]

@TJ Hooker that’s exactly I was looking at the clock speeds And they don’t differ a lot. Besides the boost and the 3600’s base clock was a tad higher than the 3700x which doesn’t really make a difference.

This is an excellent review,the best I’ve seen. Ye you right and I don’t use twitch or online streaming so I won’t need the 3700x and you just paying for the extra cores.We haven’t mentioned overclocking so the 3600 would be more than enough

my new monitor is 144hz as appose to the one I had which was 75hz. But the performance has dropped by 10fps from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 with my current setup,and with the rtx 2060 theres a 30-40fps difference from 1920x1080 to2560x1440. So the graphics card does make an impact.

the 3600 with the rtx 2060 compared to my 2600 theres double FPS mostly maybe more. so the cpu does contribute a lot.