So if I pair ryzen 3 3200g with stock cooler with B450m Mortar Max for light work no overclocking and just little bit of gaming then is it OK?
What are your ambient temps? Does it get extremely hot?
1 Like
I don’t think it will get hot. I’m just thinking about longevity. Initially I just ordered Gigabyte B450 Aorus M but I got Ryzen 2000 ready. And I don’t have previous gen CPU to update the bios so I need to return it. But I’m unable to find out 3000 ready board. So need to find alternatvie. That’s why I’m thinking about Mortar Max. Many people on this forum suggest that board. It’s really strong board.
Im actually more concerned about your case selection. All the cooling in the world wont matter much to your mobo VRM if it doesnt have good case airflow.
Which begs the question: What case are you going to use for your motherboard?
1 Like
When it comes to the soc vrm,
it will not really matter that much even for an apu.
I mean a 2 phase soc vrm like the Tomahawk max with double the amount of mosfets,
per phase will be similarly good to a 3 phase soc vrm with just single high side / low side,
mosfet configuration like on most B405 m-atx boards.
The 3 phase will only be a little bit more efficient.
But that does not matter much.
I personally like the Asus TuF B450m pro, because of its heatsinks on the soc vrm.
Its a 4+2 phase design so 2 phases for soc.
However it has dual highside / low side mosfets per phase.
Which is nice, not the greatest mosfets but still.
Non of the B450m boards have a fantastic vrm to begin with.
But they should be sufficient for a apu.
2 Likes
I’m goging to use cooler master masterbox q300l. I love that case.
Thanks for reply. From all these discussion I realize that quality of SoC VRM is more important than number of SoC VRM. So now I will go with either Mortar max or Asus Tuf B450m pro.
Need to check audio chipset for Linux driver support.
One more think I want to ask about after market vrm heatsink. Are those really helpful?
I cant find a lot of proper reviews for that case. It looks really good but it seems a bit small and in general, small cases are bad for airflow. Maybe get a bigger case with a good airflow review?
With that said:
I assume you want a smaller case, perhaps Phanteks P400A? I havent really checked the size on that, but based on the number, I think it should be only slightly larger than your desired case.
1 Like
I’ll just interject something here… relying on buildzoid for motherboard purchasing advice needs to be taken into context. His perspective (and he does mention this from time to time) is “hard core overclocking”. So take his assessment of VRMs with a pinch of salt - for most users a buildzoid rated “crap” VRM is usually plenty for regular use.
If you aren’t doing hard core overclocking (or any overclocking on anything other than air or a CLC) the VRM is much less relevant.
Also this, mostly.
I’d look for the board(s) with the feature set you want a the price you want to make a shortlist and only then once other concerns are taken care of (BIOS quality, NIC type, USB ports, memory support, etc.) compare VRMs and use that a final discriminator. For most people things like the NIC chipset, BIOS quality, audio solution, driver support, etc. will be more relevant.
Unless you’re actually doing hardcore overclocking on it of course 
2 Likes
I agree with you on this but at the same time, this may be a testament of good build quality which translates to a longer lifetime of the motherboard @thro
1 Like
Yes and no. I’d rather have a motherboard with a BIOS that isn’t a total dumpster fire and actually gets vendor support / non-garbage drivers than say, a piece of shit board (that just happens to have an impressive VRM) that inflicts its pain and suffering (bad drivers, bad NIC/Audio, slow bios update support, bad board layout, etc.) onto me for an extended hardware life.
I’m not saying “buy a trash tier board”, but just remember that there’s a lot more to consider than VRM quality in my opinion in terms of the overall ownership experience. Given that unless you’re doing hard core OC, “most VRMs are fine” - look past them to the other stuff.
Also, in recent times a lot of vendors have been playing games with VRM count/physical layout to make the board look a lot better than it is, or specifically to list it as a feature that doesn’t matter for 99% of people, whilst the rest of the design and support is garbage.
If overclocking is the most important thing to you then buildzoid’s review of a board is probably relevant. But most of us aren’t doing that and you need to remember (and he has even stated this flatly himself in some videos) - his viewpoint is perhaps less relevant to your use case. He himself has even directly stated that his reviews are irrelevant to “normies”
2 Likes
I bought the Asrock B450M Pro4 the first day it was available mostly because it had VRM heatsinks and was under $100. No issues with my 2400G with the iGPU OCed. Does anyone know of any boards that had the SoC VRM’s burn up while running an APU?
In my case I may use my machine in a place with high ambient temps, so it was either a board that came with VRM heatsinks or add my own. For most people I really don’t think obsessing over VRM’s is going to change your experience no matter which board you buy. I can’t say anything good or bad about other boards, but I’m happy with what I bought.
1 Like
Not that i´m aware off.
1 Like
Phanteks is not available in my area. So I ordered that cooler master case. The airflow is good.
Absolutely right. Buildzoid videos are for only for hardcore user or user who want to overclock.
So from all that discussion I realize that if you are normal user like coding programming or not performing high intesive tasks then don’t need to bother too much about VRM.
Thank you so much.
1 Like
Thanks for you suggestion. I also heard a lot about that Asrock board. The thing is in my area there is no any service centre. Also the board (in my area) come with ryzen 2000 desktop ready. And I don’t have 2nd or 1st gen cpu to update the bios.
So MSI is the only option I have.
This topic was automatically closed 273 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.