Planned upgrades

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about the cpu talk of 3600 vs 3700x vs 2700x. when using userbench, the “effective speed” comparison is 4 cores vs 4 cores. the argument being when they implemented it most games didnt use more then 4 cores. that is no longer the case. when buying a cpu today planning to use it for years to come you got to read the writing on the wall. even intel is releasing 8 core desktop chips today and talking about 10 core chips in a year or two. we cant ignore core count.
as for 2700x vs 3700x they are both good choices with the same number of cores. i would lean towards the newer platform for pci e gen 4, opportunity to up core count later when you can get a 16 core cheap, and higher single core. to me thats worth a extra 100$ or so knowing gpu upgrade some day in the future might be able to take advantage of that.

580 at 1080p works for now. upgrade when it doesnt.

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That’s my thoughts exactly. That’s how i did it when I built my first system, and it’s still doing pretty good.

Exactly. Much easier to upgrade the GPU when the cpu is kicking ass and taking names

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Price for features you do not need for at least a couple of years.

I see it like this; The 3700X is good enough to last until the end of the AM4 socket, and the AM4 socket will be obsolete in 2-4 years, prompting a new upgrade path in either case. So, if I buy a motherboard now, what are the offerings?

B450: PCIe 3.0, ~$110, Ok VRMs, great for 3700X, require reflashing
X470: PCIe 3.0, ~$160, Good VRMs, great for 3700X, require reflashing
X570: PCIe 4.0, ~$210, Great VRMs, great for 3700X, no reflashing required

So, if I build this, in 2-4 years I will want to get a decent GPU. Does PCIe 4.0 matter for GPUs? Not really. The current crop of GPUs all work on 3.0, and I do not see it worth paying the premium for 4.0 just yet - there will be more affordable boards available soon-ish with the new socket. Maybe if you want to go crazy with m.2 drives on the motherboard, but even then…

So, in essence you would be paying $100 more for a single future that will not even be relevant to your use case for several years. Your money, your decisions, but I’d get a B450 and upgrade that and the CPU in five years time. DDR5 is on the horizon as well, which leads me to believe the X570 isn’t going to last very long.

Just because it’s new and shiny doesn’t always make it a great idea, but hey, YMMV. :slight_smile:

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let me put it this way. i bult this system in 2014. it’s now 5 years old. i intentionally bought a better cpu than i really needed at the time… and now it’s still doing decently, 5 years later. i also don’t have another am4 cpu to flash with, soooo… idgaf how long x570 is current, i give a fuck how much capability i have to add and upgrade in the future.

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What do you mean the x570 board have that the B450 tomahawk does not?

And yes you do not need an extra flash cpu for this board.

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Vrms, newer bios, better wifi, far more sata, another m.2 slot, many more usb, etc. Also has usb 3.2

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Vrms - not really relevant to your use case since you do not plan to upgrade CPU

Bios - a one time upgrade solves that, follow a simple 12 step guide

USB ports - you really need more than 2 USB 3.0 and 8 total ports, sure

More SATA - six compared to eight

So to sum it up, the features you get from the X570 that actually matter;

Two extra SATA ports
Two extra usb 3.2
One extra m.2
No need to do a bios upgrade

If that is worth a hundred bucks extra to you then it is worth $100 extra to you. Just making sure You are fully aware what you are buying! :slight_smile:

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Yes. I have accessories.

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I solved that particular problem back in 2006 with an 8-port USB hub that cost me $10. Half of those accessories could probably be solved by something like this, too.

But if you really want to burn money I’m not going to stop you. Might laugh though. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Lol, some of us prefer higher end, newer hardware. Less power drain, less chance of issues. And ive had problems with interference from hubs. It’s a poor solution for a desktop pc. Space is not an issue,so i may as well get as many ports as ill need.

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Of course, you do what works for you.

I just realised that the MSI Tomahawk B450 Max is available now; that guarantees 3xxx support and got four USB 3.2 ports (one type-C, three type-A).

So, this means you pay premium for this:

So your only real reason to get the X570 is the PCIe 4.0 - if that is worth $100 then sure, else the money is better spent elsewhere. Feel free to disagree, and I shall agree to disagree. :slight_smile:

[edit]Oh, and I haven’t even touched on the best part - the X570 is actively cooled, the B450 is not. But, yeah…[/edit]

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Pay a $100 premium for stuff to be integrated or pay $120 for a few add-on cards?

That M.2 riser won’t work/is wasted as well because the fourth PCIe slot on that motherboard is PCIe 2.0 x4 at best, which would bottleneck even one PCIe M.2 drive. It might even be PCIe 2.0 x2 because it seems to share lanes with the slots above it.

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Yup B-series chipset boards also have pci-e limitations indeed.
But it kinda differs per brand how they have wired the slots and m.2’s.
Still i get what @wertigon tries to say about the Msi B450 Tomahawk,
or Msi B450 Gaming Pro carbon.

However i would personally still go for X570.
When the B550 boards come out, then it might be interesting,
to drop something like a 3600 (X) into a B550 board, and have a bang for buck setup.

I really hope that the B550 boards are going to be a bit more decent,
compared to the previous gens.
I mean they do have some price room upto like $150,- msrp now.
Although seeing Asrock’s low end X570 boards vrm situation,
doesn’t give me much faith for the rest of the B550 lineup. :woman_facepalming:

Although the both Msi boards i mention in this post, are basically the best B450 boards out there.
They have a reasonable vrm, but they still kinda use a cheap solution just like the rest.
However if you trow double the amount of ON-semi cheap mosfets in parallel on a phase,
then combined they don’t suck as bad.

But yeah i’m personally not really a fan of B-series boards all together.
Just mainly because the vrm situations on ¨most¨ of them.
And next to that the limitations of the B450 chipset and pci-e in general.

I mean yeah for a Ryzen 5 upto a 6 core i do see a good reason to go with B-series boards.
But honestly why would you limit your nice Ryzen 7 8 core, setup with a limited board?
A motherboard is still one of the most important parts of the system.
And i generally never really recommend to cheap out on one.

People would like to argue that a motherboard generally hasn’t much impact on system performance.
BUt i totally disagree on that.
Because the motherboard is actually the link between all your components.

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well, i mean, looking at things, if you want better vrms, from anyone, you gotta pay over $300. but it is nice to see some amd EATX boards, even if they’re well outta my price range.

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Na you can get very decent vrm’s on X570 from like the $200,- and up.

But the Asrock X570 Pro4, Mpro4 and Phantom Gaming 4 boards in particular are just terrible.
So yeah keep your hands away from those.

The Asrock X570 Steel legend is fine as far as i know.

Another very nice board in my opinion is the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro for like $260,-.
This board has a fully IR vrm implementation, 12+2 phase design (6 phases doubled),
and they use IR3553 40A powerstages.
This vrm is very similar to something like the Asrock X470 Taichi,
But Asrock is using 40A Ti-nexfets instead of IR3553’s.
Because the Nexfets i believe are cheaper.

Another interesting option for you in my opinion could be the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite.
You should kinda look at its connectivity features if it has all the stuff you need.
Because at $200,- ish it basically is a very very nice board in terms of the vrm.
Its not an IR implementation but Intersil Still you get 12+2 phases,
but then with 50A Vishay Dr-mos powerstages which are very nice as well.

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eh, yeah, it’s a nice board, better vrms, but less ports and slots than the steel legend, which , to me, is the main thing steering me to asrock. asrock has a history of packing stuff into their boards

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No, it’s pay $100 premium for 2/2/1 (U / S / M.2) ports integrated, or pay $120 for 7/4/4 ports? Not to mention, the riser cards could be bought as-needed, if even necessary (OP has a bunch of 1TB / 500MB drives, that could be easily consolidated into two extra 2TB SSD drives, or even a single 4TB drive).

The m.2 expansion card is a single PCIe 16x card, but there is a different problem I realize now - There would be 42 PCIe lanes required, but only 40 available (system 4x NVMe + 16x PCIe GPU + 16x PCIe NVMe + 1x USB + 1x SATA). This would be easy to solve for PCIe 4.0, since the GPU cards could drop to 8 PCIe instead…

Still, with 10 USB ports available vs 12 (4 on front of case, 6 on back), well…

You aren’t, since the 3700X isn’t saturating the B450. :grin: It’s adequate, but sure, some people fly first class too and think that’s a good bargain. It’s a matter of priorities.

Look at the use case. It’s buying a motherboard + CPU combo and let it sit there for at least five years without overclocking. Only upgrade will be to a better GPU in a few years time, and then I do not think it will be a $1000 GPU upgrade (for which you would need the PCIe 4.0 - rest would be backward compatible with 3.0).

If there were some chance of upgrading to a future Ryzen 4700X CPU I’d agree with you that the X570 is a better purchase. Ryzen 5700X would probably require an AM4+ or AM5 socket however, at which case the X570 will be dead-in-the-water. :slight_smile:

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you already stated a good use case for havbing pcie 4.0… if i were to go and put in an m.2 card. which probably will happen eventually

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This list sofar is fairly accurate as far as i could find.
So yeah the Asrock X570 Steel legend’s vrm is fine as well.
More then fine for a 3700X.
And yeah it offers a nice feature set for the money.

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