So Ryzen 5000 is less than a week away and we’re all excited to watch it go out of stock before we can get one.
My question is, I am looking to upgrade but can’t decide if I should go B550 for the cheaper prices, since 5000 series is more expensive, or if I should go X570 because based on the new consoles and graphics card architectures the reliance on direct access data streaming from PCIE gen 4 M.2 SSDs, it seems like more gen 4 slots is going to be a serious factor going forward. I don’t want to spend the extra money on a decent X570 if I don’t have to and I also really hate the idea of having a tiny whining fan. Do you think that B550 with its single gen 4 slot will be future proof enough?
Do you really need more than one PCIe gen4 m.2 slot? How many gen4 nvme drives you plan on running to their full speed? To me one would be enough, but I don’t know what uses you have for your machine.
Well it’s more a case of modern games, I mean CoD warfare as an example, like it or not, is 200+ GB. If you extrapolate a few years down the line 1tb or so might not be enough, what with next gen consoles planning to use all the memory bandwidth available.
I think you make some good points, were it so easy to just drop £400 on a 2tb 4.0 nvme I would, but part of me feels the future expansion options provided by X570 is what enables it to be more effective for longer than the single nvme slot on the B550
That really depends. These days the only interface cards that even require 4.0 speeds are drives and GPUs. Even then, most games should be fine with a 3.0 NVMe for at least five years. Everything else can easily run with PCIe 3.0. Heck, even SLI is dead now, so in the future you will pretty much only ever need one GPU, and probably at most 3 NVMe drives (one boot, 2 mirrored data drives).
Not to mention, given the high cost of PCIe 4.0 drives right now, I doubt that is what will ship initially with the consoles. But time will tell on that front. Your call, but as I said, I would most probably go B550, it’s future proof enough to not cause any major hassles.
This kinda answers your question a little bit.
But @wertigon also gave a pretty good advice, which i don’t really have much to add to.
Basically if you use your rig for mainly gaming,
then a good B550 board with all the basic functions you need would generally be fine.
If you have plans to go on the virtualization route with pci-e pass-trough,
then definitely get a x570 board.
But if you don’t like to pay extra for features that you don’t need.
Then B550 would be a good compromise for that.
if you just want all the expand ability options open, then just get a good x570 instead ofc.
In terms of future proofness, there is not really such a thing in regards to that really.
I mean we don’t really know what AMD is going to do next.
But according to their road map am4 is likely going to be eol.
So it’s kinda likely that B550, X570 and the 5000 series cpu’s are going,
to be the last generation on am4.
Although even i cannot look into my for that really.
Here is the issue with future proofing…
The very next AMD chipset will most likely not be AM4 anymore. Be it AM4+ or AM5 we don’t know, but AMD had to fight tooth and nail to make 5000 series Ryzen AM4 compatible. So long story short - the very next chipset AMD introduces will kill any futureproofing anyone tries to make.
You can’t futureproof with the last generation AM4 board. I have futureproofed my system. I run a B350 board, that I can update the BIOS of and run any AM4 CPU I want. X570 is literally end of the line for AM4. There is no futureproofing it.
Instead of attempting to future proof (which I personally think is like chasing your own shadow, or like a dog chasing its own tail) cut cost instead.
Make a list of your requirements, do your own research, ask for advice from (more knowledgable) others, configure your ideal workstation, the one which covers all of your requirements.
Then check the support for the immediate future of the configured CPU socket, motherboard chipset, DDR RAM version, and PCIe version support. (PCIe version, is usually the one to worry the least about.)
If any of them is about or less than 2 years (maybe 2.5 years, it’s up to you) : cut cost, or buy extremely popular (brand and/or model) for an easy offload as used. Estimate what you can ask for used in 2 years. Estimate what the new replacement part will cost in 2 years. Set aside money for the difference in cost, over the next (up to) 2 years.
CPU socket < 2 years support : cut cost on the motherboard itself, try to buy popular brands and models which still cover your (most important) requirements.
Motherboard chipset < 2 years support : cut cost on the motherboard itself, try to buy popular brands and models which still cover your (most important) requirements.
DDR RAM version < 2 years support : cut cost by buying popular brands and models, and popular number of sticks and capacity combos.
PCIe version < 2 years support: This depends on the PC part that you will be buying. For example it’s different for GPUs and NVMe drives. Use common sense and stick to popular brands and models.
for that really.