Question Which one of these 4 MoBos are better for my specific demands?

[monere]

Hey, peeps!

After a lot of research on MoBos and their specs I've filtered most of them out and left with only 4 of them that seem appealing to me, and they are:

Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro AX
Gigabyte B550l Aorus Pro AX
AsRock B550M Steel Legend
MSI Pro B550M-VC WiFi

Now, here is the thing... I've spent almost 2 days (yes, I am newbie and I'm trying to learn, ok?) going through each technical specification and supported feature, benefit and app of each one of these 4 MoBos and - overall - I have the correct rankings of my most to least favorite of these 4, which I will keep to myself for now because I want to hear your (un-influenced by my preference) opinion about these 4 MoBos...

However, what I couldn't figure out (mostly since I can't test this as I don't own any of these MoBos) and where I would need your input on is these questions:

1) Which one of these 4 MoBos is the best in terms of stability?

By stability I mean:

a) no overclocking, boosting, and other shady stuff that ruins the life of components. I just want to plug the MoBo into the system, power up the PC and have this MoBo run smoothly out of the box for 10 years straight without a single shutdown - for whatever reason - of my computer for 3650 days straight like I said.

I know that what I'm asking belongs to fantasy, but I just wanted to make a point, and if this point is impossible to accomplish then at least give your opinion on which one of these 4 is closest to meeting my fantastic expectations

b) no / least amount of risks for power surge damage, components failure / malfunctioning, poor quality of the wiring and components, etc... basically, which one is the safest and most durable?

c) no / less risks of damaging by newbies (ME) who might need to flash the BIOS, or frenzily enable / disable stuff into the BIOS without knowing what he's doing. Which one of these 4 MoBo's BIOS can handle the most and heaviest BIOS testing (like I said, including flashing it via Q-Flash buttons, USB sticks, in-Windows / in-Linux software, etc) by rookies like me before breaking beyond repair?

d) best cooling capabilities
e) least power consumption when under heavy workloads

2) speaking of BIOS, sort of... which one of these 4 MoBos works the best with Linux? I intend to switch over to Linux completely after 35 years of Windows (I will still run Windows in VM, but more on this later), and since I'm newbie and I will most likely have no idea what I'll be doing a lot of times (and since Linux is a much more interactive OS than Windows) I will probably brake a lot of stuff, which I'm Ok with as long as my poor MoBo can take all of this bashing without irremediably breaking.

So, which one of them works best with Linux, with ANY distro? Because you can be sure that I will install / uninstall / install again / uninstall again and so on dozens of distros until I find the one that I like. So, I need the MoBo to work flawlessly with ALL of the distros, but if that's not possible then I want it to - at least - work flawlessly with as many of them as it can. So, which one can do this?

Also important: when I say that I want the MoBo to work with Linux I'm expecting it to work with Linux WITHOUT me having to be a born hacker in order to create a rocket from a tin can. I just want the MoBo to be installed into the computer case, power up the computer, insert the Linux live USB and the MoBo will outright work, without any errors, crashes, BIOS tweaks and all of that crap. And of course that I will still be getting my dirty hands on the BIOS functions and play with them as much as I want to, but I still want the MoBo to work with ALL Linux distros, FLAWLESSLY, OUT OF THE BOX, without me touching anything

3) somewhat related to point #2, but... which one of these MoBos works best with dual booting? I intend to have about 5-6 OSes active at the same time (Windows 8.1 and several distros that I'll like), so I expect the MoBo to be capable of dual booting 5+ OS at the same time if I so choose to.

So, which one is capable of doing this without heavy customization / tweaking and without breaking down?

4) which one of these 4 MoBo has the best...

a) audio capabilities for headphones / 2.1 audio systems
b) WiFi capabilities (fast, easy and stable connection, and good speeds CONSISTENTLY)
c) Ethernet stability and speed
d) connectivity out of the box? By "out of the box" I mean PnP USB sticks that flat-out work without me having to customize USB internal headers (whatever those are), or to need to make BIOS updates to enable, and so on?

5) more resistant to power outages

I live in an area where power outages are frequent, sometimes the electricity goes down even 3-4 times an hour, for few days in a row, and I need a MoBo that doesn't fry its components because of this. I don't know if that's even possible, but hey, I'm newbie so I'm trying to learn / understand stuff, that's why I'm asking you

Basically, like I said in the beginning, I want a sturdy, durable, stable, and secure MoBo. I don't intend to overclock or boost anything ever. I will purchase a CPU, a GPU, and RAM sticks that function at the recommended settings of both the MoBo and the component (CPU / GPU / RAM), but I expect them to work flawlessly in EVERY dangerous / risky situation since I won't put any of these components under any boosting / overclocking stress at all, EVER!

6) as I said earlier, I will be using Linux as my main OS, but I intend to install Windows 8.1 inside of a Virtual Machine, and while I do know that the virtualization capabilities are handled by the CPU (by the way, my CPU of choice is actually an APU and it's Ryzen 7 5700G, aka Cezanne)... So, I know that the CPU matters the most in this scenario, but I'm thinking that the MoBo (or rather, its BIOS) would weigh in to some extent since I intend to run 5-6 OSes in dual boot (with Windows 8.1 being one of them), and while still dual booting I still want to run Windows 8.1 inside of a VM set on ALL Linux distros that I'll have. Crazy stuff, I know, but it's how I will roll, so don't admonish me

So, in such a scenario, which one of these 4 MoBos do you think would be more suited to handle all of the OSes running smoothly and without much interaction / tweaking from me?

Whew! This was a long one, but only the reading will take you long. If you know your stuff (MoBos) answering these 6 questions should be simple as typing MoBo #2, or MoBos #1 and #4, or whatever. So, please, stop ignoring me (I already posted 2 other questions to which I still didn't get the needed answers), and help me learn about these things before I make the fatal move and buy a MoBo that doesn't do everything that I need it to do

Thanks in advance and I'll eagerly wait for your replies! Cheers!

 

[CountMike]

First, all do same thing equally well and equal performance.
Things I look at first
VRM to supply enough wattage for chosen CPU and spare to upgrade CPU. At least sufficient cooling for same, meaning all VRM voltage regulators covered with coolers.
Next one is equipment like number of PCIe slots and PCIe lanes allocated to them as needed, For instance if top PCIe slot shares lanes with another one. Shared PCIe slot #2 when occupied will drop #1 to PCIe x8 reducing performance of GPUs in first slot from x 16 . Also number of SATA and M.2 slots f or my required number of storage devices with possible even more reduction by one or more often 2 of SATA slots if M.2 slot is populated. Other options, number and type of USB connections back and onboard MB. Last but not least quality of sound system CODEC chip as well as analog part with filters etc also number and type of sound IN/OUTs at back, Possible digital outputs like fiber optic or wired digital output for more advanced sound systems.
BIOS is also important tome, to have enough options for fine tuning and auto and manual OC. Frequency and date of last BIOS update say a lot about how much manufacturer cares about user. In that field Asus leads the pack followed by Asrock and MSI (about equal) while Gigabyte I'm not really fan of , While decent earlier with Ryzen they fell off. You'd be hard pressed to find any that has all best features in one specially in mid/lower price bracket.
Durability and resistance to spikes and overvolting is now largely up to PSU and it's quality, if you skimp on PSU all other parts are in peril.

 

[monere]

First, all do same thing equally well and equal performance.
Things I look at first
VRM to supply enough wattage for chosen CPU and spare to upgrade CPU. At least sufficient cooling for same, meaning all VRM voltage regulators covered with coolers.
Next one is equipment like number of PCIe slots and PCIe lanes allocated to them as needed, For instance if top PCIe slot shares lanes with another one. Shared PCIe slot #2 when occupied will drop #1 to PCIe x8 reducing performance of GPUs in first slot from x 16 . Also number of SATA and M.2 slots f or my required number of storage devices with possible even more reduction by one or more often 2 of SATA slots if M.2 slot is populated. Other options, number and type of USB connections back and onboard MB. Last but not least quality of sound system CODEC chip as well as analog part with filters etc also number and type of sound IN/OUTs at back, Possible digital outputs like fiber optic or wired digital output for more advanced sound systems.
BIOS is also important tome, to have enough options for fine tuning and auto and manual OC. Frequency and date of last BIOS update say a lot about how much manufacturer cares about user. In that field Asus leads the pack followed by Asrock and MSI (about equal) while Gigabyte I'm not really fan of , While decent earlier with Ryzen they fell off. You'd be hard pressed to find any that has all best features in one specially in mid/lower price bracket.
Durability and resistance to spikes and overvolting is now largely up to PSU and it's quality, if you skimp on PSU all other parts are in peril.

after 2 days of research and learning all of the different terminologies I thought that I knew everything to make an informed purchase. And now you introduce me to a new word that I didn't even hear before and which apparently is important: VRM! Time to check what the heck this VRM thing is and get learnt again I guess

But in the meantime, based on the things that you've mentioned as being important (VRM, PCIe, SATAs, USB connections, audio chip, etc), which one of these 4 would you buy, and which features, in particular, made you choose one MoBo over the other 3?

Also, thanks for chiming in. I appreciate it

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
Time to check what the heck this VRM thing is and get learnt again I guess
...

VRM = Voltage Regulator Module. There are many VRM's on a motherboard but probably the most important one is the CPU VCore VRM. It down-converts the +12V PSU output to the much lower and highly variable voltage required by the CPU processing cores.

Of the above motherboards, I'd suggest you could probably rule out the B550I Aorus Pro AX. That one is a mini-ITX form factor, very tiny in size and one only PCIe expansion slot. It's needed for a GPU unless you plan on running one of the Ryzen APU's, actually Ryzen Processor with Radeon Graphics according to AMD. These boards tend to be more costly even while less capable because of component and design costs.

Alternatively if you require a mini-ITX then your choice is made.

The three remaining mATX boards all have capable enough VRM's but one that stands out is the Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro AX: it's 10 phases and is covered in a large, well finned heatsink. Most likely overkill even for a 16 core 5950X CPU.

 

[monere]

I'd suggest you could probably rule out the B550I Aorus Pro AX. That one is a mini-ITX form factor, very tiny in size and one only PCIe expansion slot. It's needed for a GPU unless you plan on running one of the Ryzen APU's, actually Ryzen Processor with Radeon Graphics according to AMD. These boards tend to be more costly even while less capable because of component and design costs.

good call, Sir, good call... Thanks for opening up my eyes, for some reason I failed to see that it's an ITX 🙁

And yeah, I do intend to get an APU, Ryzen 7 5700G is my APU of choice, I'm watching youtube videos (right at this very moment) of its benchmarks and I'm pretty impressed with what I'm seeing considering that I will be using this rig for Linux mostly, and the few games that I'll be playing will be non-resource intensive ones like Grim Dawn, Subnautica, Wolcen / Last Epoch probably... so, RPGs mostly which I just checked and the CPU / (32 GB that I'll be buying) of RAM / GPU requirements for these games are something that my APU will probably support easily. I am actually considering not buying a dedicated GPU at all if I'm being honest, but instead spend the GPU money for some cool headphones, a better PSU and CPU fan as I understand that these 2 components are very much needed... so yeah....

VRM = Voltage Regulator Module. There are many VRM's on a motherboard but probably the most important one is the CPU VCore VRM. It down-converts the +12V PSU output to the much lower and highly variable voltage required by the CPU processing cores.

I see... thanks for explaining to me right here, I didn't yet get the chance to check this out in google, but I have no reasons to now

Alternatively if you require a mini-ITX then your choice is made.

yep, my choice is made (thanks to you for pointing this out). And no, I don't need ITX for my first ever DIY build. I prefer to have room to wiggle, literally and figuratively 😀

The three remaining mATX boards all have capable enough VRM's but one that stands out is the Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro AX: it's 10 phases and is covered in a large, well finned heatsink. Most likely overkill even for a 16 core 5950X CPU.

got it! Your opinion has been successfully registered and taken into account (and no, I'm not mocking you, I'm genuinely taking your opinion into account because only God knows how much I struggled deciding between one of these 4... err, 3 MoBos since on their manufacturers' sites they are all THE BEST , according to their producers. So yeah, I definitely need an unbiased opinion, and yours is very valuable to me! Thanks for pointing these out )

 

[monere]

Hi,

I was about to open up a thread similar to this one when your system recommended to me this very thread which - amazingly - had been opened up precisely by me (apparently in January this year, but I totally forgot about it...)

Anyway, I want to kindly ask you to help me decide between 4 other MoBos (different ones this time), and this time I will buy one of the 4 I'll mention for sure. This time I do have the money and - what's more - I am in dire need of a MoBo ASAP, I need to buy one in the next 2-3 days...

I don't remember why I never purchased one of the 4 MoBos mentioned in the beginning of this thread, but it doesn't matter anymore because my options have changed, and it's mostly because of the insane prices that PC components are having, but also because of the availability of the MoBos that I'm interested in. As much as I liked the Aorus Pro AX in my initial post this MoBo is simply not available anymore ANYWHERE in my country, so that's not an option for me anymore...)

So anyway, before I list the 4 candidates can you please tell whether I should list them here or create a new thread about this? How is it better to go about this?

 

[drea.drechsler]

....

So anyway, before I list the 4 candidates can you please tell whether I should list them here or create a new thread about this? How is it better to go about this?

Create a new thread. A moderator is likely to lock this one since they don't like seeing old threads started up again.