It is time for me to upgrade my DDR3 based system and have bought a 7950x. I am now trying to decide on the motherboard. I am looking for an upgradeable board that is somewhere at or below the ~$350 US ($650 AU) price range. I also don’t want to buy into driver issues with Linux, and so sort of want to stick with Intel Ethernet.
My shortlist of motherboards are:
Asus ROG STRIX B650E-E GAMING WIFI - Seems good connectivity and price wise, but from researching it seems like I can find more people withe DDR5 issues with this board than happy users (including Asus boards in general).
Gigabyte B650E AORUS MASTER - PCI connectivity seems a bit low with only 1 slot aside from graphics that is x4, but I don’t see the immediate use of the extra connectivity, as my second usable slot currently adds a single NVM-E slot (which can be eliminated with the new board).
MSI MPG X670E Carbon Wifi - Bit expensive (and has realtek ethernet).
I am slightly disappointed with USB4 being outside of my price range, maybe the best idea is to go for the cheaper Aorus master and in a year or two buy a new motherboard with updated tech.
The way I’m thinking, the more m.2 slots you can fit on a board, the better.
m.2 is simply becoming so useful and ubiquitous, it would not surprise me if the next gen motherboards start putting most fan headers and extra stuff on m.2 breakout boards. You can, for instance, put in a 6 port SATA m.2 instead of wasting space on the motherboard for that, or what about a combined fan header and extra USB 2.0 ports?
So, with that in mind the Gigabyte board is quite interesting. Your choice though!
I am in the same search, currently picked up a 7900 for a really good price and the shortlist of AM5 boards is similar. The Asus B650 e Gaming WIFI of all the boards looks promising spec wise. ECC support on the motherboard, a good amount amount of M2 drives, and for me Dual gpu support for later endeavors. But I had someone warn me off of ASUS boards. I am not sure that this is just a preference thing or that ASUS does not live up to the SPEC. I want this as a moderately priced workstation. So reliability is really big I don’t want to be fiddling with it very much after the initial build and tuning. IF anyone has recommendations. @portablejim I have heard some promising reviews of the Gigabyte Aorus ELITE.
I am in your same shoes.
After reading another users experience on the L1 forums with the wait time on an RMA from Asus, I think they are out of the running for me.
It’s kind of funny since my motherboard choice for AM5 of the ASUS ProArt X670E was partially influenced by the fact that I heard from Canada Asrock is really not great at customer service anymore but ASUS is pretty good so they seemed like a good choice. As well as just having the 2 ethernet ports and three PCIe slots meant that with my budget it would be best to just go for gold and get the ProArt but they can be hard to find and are out of jim’s price range.
Understandable. It could be a fluke with the crazy world we have lived in for the past 2 years and supply chains… Seems like everything has been turned upside down from supply to service with just about everyone.
I think i might regret this, but I’m thinking of going with the X670E Steel Legend and just trying my luck.
I’m of the opinion that you should spend as little as possible on an AM5 board. AsRock or Gigabyte(once you get above the bottom-tier, and get reasonable vrm) with your choice of slots and connections. These AM5 boards are grossly overpriced, and are very immature. Imagine droping $350 now when a better x770 or b770 drops next year for $200. Do not buy AM5 parts with the expectation that it will last 5 years. The current boards all have issues, memory compatibility being a major one - although how much of that is board vs IMC is up for debate.
Why wouldn’t you prefer more PCI-E slots? Many more options and you can buy an M.2 card for the PCI-E slot.
How is your experience with that board? I am interested also in the B650 version of the ProArt I thought reasonable for the 267.00 US asking, except that it doesn’t come with the wifi card.
I think it’s official launch is 12/2/22 At least according to new egg. That’s when the the b650 proART ships. I imagine that their support site will be updated at that time. But yes I found that a bit odd and also when ASUS invites me to browse for my region the B650 Variant disappears. It is odd. Or do you mean no memory QVL or Bios update found in general?
Didn’t realize it wasn’t out yet. Explains BIOS not being available, but you’d think they’d want the QVL for marketing and other sales purposes.
Disappearing from a region is weird too, but not that unusual from an unreleased product.
The market for AM5 is still pretty weak, ASUS could have plan to develop it, but may not be firm on producing it yet, given the weak AM5 market, and the economy in general. Could also be development issues, I’ve heard about new ASUS AM5 BIOS bricking boards, but that’s also anecdotal.
This and other indications are why I’m so bearish on spending big on shiny new AM5 mobos right now. AM5 is good, but all the boards are problematic, spending on anything but good value boards is naive. The boards will be thrown away once the next chipset comes. People are willing to pay these crazy AM5 mobo prices because they think they’re getting a future proof Zen 3 experience, when they may be getting a Zen 1 experience with a platform that may not last more than 2 gens.
Because most PCIe x16 slots are wired to a mere x4 or even x1. m.2 is almost always guaranteed x2 at least.
I think there is a strong possibility that X770 / B750 could provide two x8 PCIe 5.0 slots, and then four x2 m.2 slots, for a total of 24 lanes. Then two or three PCIe x4 or x1 slots (though physically x16) from the chipset lanes. It would not surprise me if AM6 forgoes chipsets almost entirely in favor of pure PCIe lanes, the writing is on the wall is just a matter of how long it will take to get there.
More m.2 is inevitable at this point especially as the need for full blown PCIe cards are dwindling every year. They will still be around in some capacity, but…
I’m not exactly a super user and this was my first time building a computer but the BIOS was a lot easier to navigate then my Dell PreBuilt and when I properly read the manual it was pretty easy to work with. I ended up cutting myself multiple times with the spikes on the back of the motherboard but I think that’s just inexperience.
I just upgraded one host from a 5950X on a Asus C7H motherboard that had all sensors reporting temps, voltages and fan speeds to a 7950X on a Asus X670 Crosshair Hero motherboard and now have NO sensors working. No temps, no voltages, no fan speeds.
The result of trying to use the latest hardware on a OS that takes several years to properly support it.
I figured out how to get the running cpu temp to display on the Q-code display on the motherboard in the BIOS so I can at least check that when the host is running under load. No software solutions for sensors yet.
Memory isn’t read correctly by lshw either. Only reports JEDEC speed.
Anyone else running a X670 motherboard yet and have ANY sensors working?
Using Asus ProArt X670E Creator WiFi as far as I can tell the fan speeds work and the default all the default motherboard data coming makes sense to me.
I was talking about in the UEFI BIOS. But I’m using Fedora Workstation and checking with CPU-X I don’t see voltage but I do see Temperature and when attempting to update files the temperature increased temporarily which would suggest that CPU-X was properly able to sense temperature changes.
Yes, everything you would expect to see regarding sensors is available in the BIOS. But that does not help you while you are in the Linux OS while running your workload.
Thanks for the tip on CPU-X. It runs and identifies the cpu as a Ryzen 9 Vermeer cpu. Does not report any cpu temp or voltage. Does show the cpu core clock.