New Motherboard and processor

Apr 2, 2020
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Hi, I need some market advice on new motherboards.

I've just blown my motherboard so I will need a new one with a modern processor to suit and RAM. I have to keep the price down but no budget limits.

I have an RX590 card and HDDs, but I need advice on motherboards.

I will go for AMD this time for the CPU and will get a budget Ryzen 5, but would like a motherboard which can accommodate 3rd gen so that I can upgrade to a 7 or even 9 in a few years.

I would like onboard wifi but can't see any.

I also think that it would have to be ATX and not M-ATX.

I will need to get new RAM as I only have old DDR3 1333 but will probably have to stick with the budget-est DDR4

I'd like it to have at least 6 SATA connectors for drives, and if there are no on-board wifi versions it will need a PCIe slot which doesn't interfere with the graphics card (which came as a shock when I bought the RX).

I probably won't be overclocking, and will probably stick with the stock cooler which comes with the CPU so won't do any watercooling yet, but keeping it in mind for later.

I'd appreciate advice on any suitable boards out there.

Thanks

Al.
 
Dec 15, 2019
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Hi, I need some market advice on new motherboards.

I've just blown my motherboard so I will need a new one with a modern processor to suit and RAM. I have to keep the price down but no budget limits.

I have an RX590 card and HDDs, but I need advice on motherboards.

I will go for AMD this time for the CPU and will get a budget Ryzen 5, but would like a motherboard which can accommodate 3rd gen so that I can upgrade to a 7 or even 9 in a few years.

I would like onboard wifi but can't see any.

I also think that it would have to be ATX and not M-ATX.

I will need to get new RAM as I only have old DDR3 1333 but will probably have to stick with the budget-est DDR4

I'd like it to have at least 6 SATA connectors for drives, and if there are no on-board wifi versions it will need a PCIe slot which doesn't interfere with the graphics card (which came as a shock when I bought the RX).

I probably won't be overclocking, and will probably stick with the stock cooler which comes with the CPU so won't do any watercooling yet, but keeping it in mind for later.

I'd appreciate advice on any suitable boards out there.

Thanks

Al.

I picked up the Aorus X470 Ultra super-cheap a couple of months ago with a 2600x, but with a view to upgrading to 3rd gen at some point (I'm not overclocking either). There's an integrated Wifi version of it, but I'm using the 1xPCIe slot for a a Wifi card, which sits on the opposite side of the board, well away from my brick of a Vega 56. I'm very happy with it, for £100.


links:


 
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I will go for AMD this time for the CPU and will get a budget Ryzen 5, but would like a motherboard which can accommodate 3rd gen so that I can upgrade to a 7 or even 9 in a few years.

AMD's current motherboards have the AM4 socket (i.e. they take CPUs that fit that socket).

You can fit a 1000, 2000, or 3000 series Ryzen CPU, and it's all but certain you can fit a 4000 series CPU when they launch later this year. Apart from AM4 motherboards with the "A320" chipset (they'll say A320 in the name instead of B450, X470, or X570), as A320 only supports 1000 and 2000 series.

I do not think you will want to buy a fairly budget R5 + B450 mobo, and then replace the CPU with an R7 or R9 in a few years. Because:
1)in a few years, we'll have seen new generations of CPU, with new motherboards, support DDR5 RAM, PCIe 5.0, etc. Buying a 2nd hand Ryzen to slot in may not really be worth the money versus either buying new stuff, or having bought the thing now and having had 3-5 years' of use.
2) You don't want to put an R9 in a particularly cheap motherboard, because you'd want it to have at least okay VRMs. So you'd need to buy a not-budget board now. And spending a load on a mobo, only to add a cheap CPU, which you then replace with something in a few years which you could have bought today doesn't seem persuasive from a value point of view.

The plan to buy a budget R5 now is fine - it's the replacing with something you could have bought today in a few years that I'm struggling with.

If you're on a pretty tight budget, but you need a CPU with high performance for your specific games or non-gaming uses, then maybe buying an R5 1600 now and replacing it with an R7 4700x later in the year makes sense. But that's only really if you can't afford a 3700x outright and you actually need the performance asap. If you're sort-of-on-a-budget-but-flexible-and-don't-need-lots-of-cores then perhaps you should just buy an R5 3600 and keep it for the lifecycle of your new kit.

I will need to get new RAM as I only have old DDR3 1333 but will probably have to stick with the budget-est DDR4
Ryzen CPUs can benefit a lot from faster RAM, and there are very little savings between the cheapest, slowest DDR4, and a 3000 / 3200 MHz kit.

I'd like it to have at least 6 SATA connectors for drives, and if there are no on-board wifi versions it will need a PCIe slot which doesn't interfere with the graphics card (which came as a shock when I bought the RX).
Quite a few B450 mobos that have onboard wifi seem to be mini ITX, which I guess makes sense when you think about the use cases for those.

The only B450 ATX mobo, with wifi + 6 sata slots that doesn't cost silly money I could find is:

But that's already £120. Which draws you near to X570 territory. Also buying a £90 R5 1600 to put in a £120 mobo doesn't seem to net best VFM.

Non-wifi ATX B450 mobos tend to start at £80+ too. The ASRock Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 is a decent option. But by the time you add a wifi card, it's going to be over £100.

Does it really need to be ATX? You could buy a cheap B450 M-ATX mobo, which will often have the slot for the wifi card just above the GPU slot anyway so no problems there. Those are £50-60. Which are a better fit for a cheap CPU if cheap is the way you're going, and/or save you money for an R5 3600.

CPUs:
R5 1600 - £90
R5 2600 - £115
R5 3600 - £165
R7 2700 - ~£170 (3600's probably a better choice for gaming, but the R7 would outperform in many rendering situations)


Mobos:
ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 - £55 - M-atx but should fit the wifi card and the GPU. Budget option. 4 Sata ports.
MSI B450 Pro Carbon - £120 - ATX, wifi, 6 sata ports.
After that, X570 probably.

RAM
16gb 2133MHz RAM (cheapest)- £57
16gb 3000 MHz RAM - £70
 
Apr 2, 2020
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I do not think you will want to buy a fairly budget R5 + B450 mobo, and then replace the CPU with an R7 or R9 in a few years.

What a cracking reply, thank you very much. Warmed the cockles of my heart, that did!

Thank you all for the advice and info.

In the end I went for an R5 3600 and an ASUS Rog Strix B450. It has shiny pretty lights, my precious...

It was a bundle deal on SCAN; they put it together and tested it for little more than the cost of parts.

I also got 16gb of Corsair Vengeance RAM. It was a big intake of breath, and means a lot of belt tightening, but Assetto Corsa and Project Cars 2 look stunning.

Thanks again for all the help, props to you all.
 
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Did you perform a clean windows install after installing the new kit?

i.e. booted from the installation media, and deleted all partitions on the existing OS drive, leaving only "unallocated space"?

Edit: NVM, reposted to new thread.
 

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