I've built 15+ systems going back to the 90's but this is my first departure from Asus motherboards. They only offered 1 mATA and it only had 1 fan header for Ryzen. I figured I'm already going back to AMD after nearly a decade of only using Intel, why not try another board manufacturer!
I knew about potential for memory issues, so got sticks on the approved list. However, I assumed the CPU would work out of the box. I can't find if Ryzen 5 is supported on my board with the bios that it shipped with:
I've been unable to get into bios, the red CPU light comes on the EZ Debug LED on the board. On the website they list the second bios release as supporting Ryzen 5, but I haven't found a way to tell what my bios version is without a working CPU.
My understanding is that you need a CPU to get into the bios, but does anyone know if a Ryzen 5 would get you into the bios even if it wasn't supported on that version? I have a feeling that I may have a faulty CPU as I noticed 3 slightly bent pins when I first lifted the CPU out of the shipping plastic container. I carefully bent them back with tweezers and it slipped into the tray cleanly.
I don't want to return the CPU just to find out that the motherboard wont support Ryzen 5. Should I just upgrade to 7? I prefer 6 cores of the 1600X at a higher clock for my workload than 8 at a lower, plus it's cheaper.
Hoping for any tips! I am about to try: reseat power cables, GPU, try a known working PSU 4+4 connector. Any others? Thanks!
a Ryzen 5 should be fine in any b350 board, you probably just have a borked mobo.
That said, MSI has some of the worst b350 (and x370) power delivery design on the market, I wouldn't recommend putting a ryzen 7 in one, especially if you plan on overclocking.
Thanks. I didn't spend the effort this time to research the power phases. I'm not too concerned about OC, but I want stability to leave it on days at a time and longevity since I leave this particular machine on a lot. Honestly I saw MSI being promoted here and assumed they were solid without any investigation and they had by far the biggest list of compatible memory which made it easier to get 3200MHz without breaking the bank.
WOuld you go back to the Asus with the Digi+ power technology? I'd be happy to spend $200 on a motherboard but I need microATX. It seems with Ryzen so far it's more about budget boards in this form factor. I really wanted to see how a >4 core part performed!
any sub 8 core part is fine on most (if not all) of the mainstream b350s.
Gigabyte and Asrock have the most sensible VRM design in b350 currently, with a few outliers. Asus boards are OK but unexceptional. Really the only lemons are coming out of MSI RN.
Memory OC seems to vary with each chip's individual SOC, and Asrock and Asus have the best BIOSes for it, ideally you want a blck generator though if you want to go that route.
I'm pretty sure MSI's list just covers dimms that boot, not dimms that actually POST as advertised. you pretty much need B-die kits to hit 2933+ with reasonable timings.
6 vs 8, isn't it more about the TDP than core count? My 1600X is 95W but the 1700 is 65W and the 1700X is 95W.
I realize it's marketing, but it describes the number of phases usually even if it's in an advertising way. Most boards you have to dig to find out about power delivery quality.
If their Vendor list for RAM is only for POST and not stability, that is brutal. I'd like to verify that claim myself! If only I could POST...
are they true phases? doubled phases? split pwm doubling or parallel shared signal? what voltage controller are they using?
Raw phase number is hardly a quality indicator. MSI is running one of their b350's with a 4+2 that is carefully disguised to look like a 8+4, but is worse than the rest of their range. Even the nicest x370's use some sort of pwm line division to get more than, say, a 6+2 design.
It's the type of DDR die soldered to the board. Their b-dies tend to be more compatible than their D-dies, or hynix dies.
timings on that particular kit look a bit loose for b-die, but it might just be badly binned b-die, who knows.(most b-die 3200 kits to 14-14-14-36 or 34)
It generally does, but it is not a measure of power. Companies have been known to massage numbers to fit their marketing, and AMD's chips are pretty much interchangeable in each core-count range, and will draw the same power all other factors controlled for.
I think I bought the MSI board over the Gigabyte one I was looking at because the picture showed the VRM's having a heat-sync haha.. so much for proper research. Laziness has killed me on this build. The main reason though was the MSI extensive RAM vendor supported parts list... I assumed they had done more work on their BIOS to support more chips. Starting to sound like that was BS.
Super frustrating that key comparison between boards being the VRM quality of parts and design requires so much effort to compare.
If I exchange the CPU and it still wont POST, I'll likely have to buy a new motherboard as it's past the return window.
Do you have a source for comparing parts and quality for VRM between boards and manufacturers? You mentioned Gigabyte was good, but what about on entry boards:
I haven't seen any X370 on microATX form factor. Other features of X370 I don't need, but if they tend to be paired with boards featuring better power delivery I am all for it.
A) Stock ryzen 5 on anything but the worst VRMs doesn't draw enough power to need a heat sink
B) That heat sink is a chunk of metal with no surface area, meaning it'll get saturated by a few watts, making it useless. Ironically MSI is currently using the worst (leas efficient) mosfets, so if anything they may be the only boards that actually need them.
A background in EE helps. Barring that, follow HWBOT forums and technical people in the extreme OC scene.
Here's a video that goes through a lot of it for b350, note that this person's opinions may differ from mine, but he's competent and his math/analyses are solid: