Micro center has a bundle with a Gigabyte B450 AORUS Elite right now. Wondered if anyone had experience with this? Did it go easy? I will overclock later but was going to wait for the bumps to get worked out. Also what memory is recommended? I havent touched Ryzen since the first gen I read that the memory issues are mostly worked out?
I would not really try to OC much with this board. It won’t really be that much of an issue, but still. It’s meh power delivery and the troubleshooting is overwhelmingly basic.
3000 is fine. 3200 is pretty much the same. Nowdays it’s not worth going lower, since you won’t really save any money. What I will say is I strongly recommend going for something in the QVL list on the Gigabyte website.
1st gen issues are gone. Second gen issues are gone. The issues now are the 3000 series issues. Yes, they are mostly gone, maybe a couple updates later they will be completely gone.
2 Likes
Ah, not so sure I would put the 3800X on B450 anything.
2 Likes
I have to concur with the other respondents. Pairing the 3800X with B450 probably not the best of things. $400 CPU on a $100 mainboard doesn’t really add up. The power delivery is going to struggle, even with stock clocks on CPU. Looking at bundles in the near price-point of the one you mentioned I’d go with the 3600 on the Aorus Master for $510 But I have no idea what your use case is and what needs/wants you have. The Asus TUF x570 gaming board at $190 would be the lowest board I’d run with - if it is budget concerns you have and still are wanting to run 3800X.
1 Like
I wouldn´t either.
And i also hope that microcenter pre flashes those bioses.
Because Gigabyte B450 boards don´t support bios flashback,
as far as i´m aware.
So yeah i wouldn´t recommend it either.
Al though the 7nm cpu´s do a little bit better in terms of power consumption.
But yeah the vrm implementation´s on all B-series boards are crap.
So yeah i would personally recommend to buy a decent X570 board really.
It will simply work better out of the box.
@MatDiF what would be your budget on a motherboard in particular?
Maybe i could give some tips or recommendations.
3 Likes
Ok, i’ve seen you state this a thousand times now. Explain it to me please. From all we know now, Not a single Ryzen 3000 chip Overclocks to any degree. In fact, most of them aren’t even capable of hitting the advertised Boost speeds (DerBauer made a great video on a large dataset he collected that’s very insightful).
So, assuming PCIe 4 is not needed (which it probably isn’t), and we can’t overclock anyways, and most 400 Series Boards are Build for higher TDP Chips, why would it be a bad idea to save half the money on a good B450 Board over the cheapest X570 options out there? (Other than BIOS compatibility of course).
It’s not really about OC. It’s the full package. X570 boards are designed for the 3000 series chips. All other boards are retrofitted to run the new chips. PCIe is different, memory control is different, everything is different.
It works, don’t get me wrong, but there could be a lot of quirks and random glitches with 3000 chip on 400 or 300 board.
1 Like
Yeah, because all those “designed for it” X570 Boards work so great atm. The whole situation now is a bit crazy and no CPU+Mainboard combo is working 100% great.
I’d personally get a goob B450 Board for now. It’ll work, cost ub 80 bucks and you can work with it. Let AIB’s sort out all the kinks in the new architecture and upgrade the board in 6-12 months.
I feel like X570 is throwing money out the windows atm for now tangible benefit.
Neither do server CPUs, yet there are 75A smart powerstages in 8 phase configuration on server motherboards.
You answered your own question, because ordering a 200GE and flashing a new BIOS is a hassle. Most B-series mainboards simply don’t support enthusiast-features like BIOS-Flashing without supported CPU.
Snarky on purpose:
When the stuff that is designed for it barely works, what do you expect a retrofit to behave like?
At least go for X470
Anecdotal, but a friend of mine has an Asus X470-Pro and Ryzen 3600X working.
2 Likes
I see it this way:
If you already have a 300 or 400 series board in your system - go ahead and upgrade the CPU. It will work just fine.
If you buy a new system - you may as well get the newest parts as well.
IDK, it’s just my 2c.
2 Likes
Anecdotal, but i have a MSI B450m Bazooka Plus working with a 3600 perfectly. Has Flashback, took 3 Minutes to update and hasn’t skipped a beat.
I’m done with this discussion. We all don’t really now. I personally wouldn’t spend 100 bucks more on a board for no performance increase. But i’m also willing to “tinker” a bit with settings and Bios versions so…
I just wanted to state my feelings on X570 and wanted to provide a counter point to the “just get x570” discussion, as i’ve had good luck with my B450 board. The rest is up to the buyer.
I can see the benefit either way you go.
1 Like
Yup, there is of course a reason why decent X570 boards have a significant vrm upgrade,
over previous gen boards for the Ryzen 7 and 9 cpu’s.
And when it comes to B-series boards in general, non of them really have a great vrm implementation.
That Msi on their B450 Gaming pro carbon board doubled the amount of mosfets,
and chokes per phase,
only makes it better in terms of current handling.
However it still does not make it any better in terms of component quality.
Those mosfets are still not really great.
Pretty much this, pci-e limitations.
If you want to save a few dollars with a previous gen board, then at least go X470.
Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to limit your brand new fancy cpu,
that support the newest tech with an older board.
and yeah quirks.
Agree my point as well. 
2 Likes
Also another good point.
The only B450 boards that support bios flashback are Msi boards as far as i’m aware.
So in that regards your board choice is pretty limited.
Buying a second cpu for just a bios flash is a total waste of 50 bucks.
That money is better spend towards a nice ssd, memory, better psu or of course,
a better gpu.
Because yeah mediocre B450 board + 50 bucks extra for a cpu,
you could very well just go with X570 then.
Or atleast X470 that supports bios flashback.
Note that not all X470 boards support bios flashback either.
So you still have to spend some time to find a board that does.
To me there are simply more con’s to put a new Ryzen 3000 cpu’s on a previous gen board.
Other then cost savings, which is relative, i don’t really see any pro’s here.
If you already have a previous gen board, then sure go ahead and upgrade cpu.
But if you buy new, why bother with old boards, and potential compatibility quirks,
pci-e limitations etc?
@domsch1988 i don’t say that you are generally wrong.
I do think that you have a good argument as well.
However you are likely a bit more tech savy then newer users.
Or first time pc builders.
So yeah with that in mind, i just wouldn’t recommend it to newer users,
just too many hassles and not really worth it.
But that is of course my personal opinion.
For a Ryzen 5 3600X yeah it’s a bit steap to buy a $200,- + X570 board for that,
i totally agree on that.
So yeah hopefully we are going to see some B550 boards soon.
Because the 3600 and 3600X are in a difficult sport atm,
with only Msi B450 boards as a cheap choice.
But we are talking about a 3800X build here.
Which i only can recommend to go with a decent X570 board for.
1 Like
Correct Afaik
A 200GE here is 30 bucks, and AMD is offering to send you one for free if you can wait a few days for it
Far off. Even nice B450 Boards go for 100 bucks tops. At 150 Bucks you aren’t getting anything worth it X570. Cheapest decent boards start at 180-190. And that’s only talking ATX. mATX or ITX are non existent.
Finding the right X570 Board out of the 50 out there isn’t any easier.
X470 Boards disappeared form the market basically (at least where i’m at) and have the same Bios “Problems” B450 has.
I somewhat agree. Though, as you said above:
This is still true. If you can make a B450 or X470 Board work, you still have money left for those upgrades. After all, if it doesn’t work out, you can always return it 
1 Like