Questions for a 3900x build

Hi @MisteryAngel

After having looked at a ton of “buildzoid” reviews on mobo’s i have narrowed it down to two and i can’t really figure if the extra €60 is worth spending vs putting that in to my cpu.
i was wondering if you could share your opinions on the matter.

The two motherboards.
AsRock x570 Taichi ( price around €334 that’s $337 )
Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master (price around €394 that’s $432 )

i plan on installing Linux fedora or centos and and i do like to run a couple of vm’s for my home lab studies …
So i consider 16gig low end … But going for the 12core i would say 4gig per core so 4*16gb or 64GB mem would be a dream machine… that would cost me a whopping €680 $746 hahaha…comparing both boards mem compatibility lists it almost looks like the Taichi has better mem options… Perhaps it’s just because Gigabyte uses a pdf that doesn’t sort as well…
i’m kind of getting lost in the weeds here… almost seems like to many factors to consider… oh and i plan on running a amd gpu if that matters …because of the good driver support on linux…

Would love to get your thoughts on all this…Thanks in advance…
Greetings from The Netherlands.

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I’m using the Gigabyte Aorus Master motherboard with my 3800x CPU and 32GB of RAM.

For me it is a gaming rig with Windows 10 Pro but on occasion I do some VM testing with both CentOS and Ubuntu.

I think this mainly comes down to what your particular goals are with those said vm´s.
I believe that Gigabyte is faster with bringing out bios updates,
that improves on iommu situations and all that.
However i do think that Asrock isn’t particulary lacking behind very far either.
Wendell is likely being able to give a little bit more insight,
on this in regards to both Asrock and Gigabyte, and their bios support, ageesa, abba virtualization stuff and all that.

However “if” you are not really interesting in virtualization with,
hardware passtrough in particular.
Then those things generally don´t really matter that much.

When it comes to both boards from a technical standpoint.
Both boards are great as far as i´m concerned.
It kinda depends on your personal needs i guess.
Comparing them feature wise, the X570 Aorus Master,
has a little bit more connectivity to offer like additional lan port and such.
But if you do´n nessaraly need all that,
then i would personally go for the Taichi, especially when you want populate as much memory as possible.

Unless Gigabyte is significantly better then Asrock on the iommu situations with their faster bios updates @wendell ?

Buildzoid of course loves the Aorus Master because of its,
infineon true 16 phase pwm controller.
The Taichi is only a 6+1 phase isl implementation doubled to 12+2.
However Asrock is using very smart ISL6617 doublers.
So yeah, in the real world i don´t really think that it’s going to matter allot.
Because both vrm implementations are plenty decent enough,
to handle the 12 and 16 core cpu´s really.
The Aorus Master will likely run a little bit more efficient,
because of its true 12+2 phase design and 50A IR3556’s,
However in the real world you likely won´t notice any difference.
Other then the Taichi vrm with the 50A Visay sic634’s Drmos running a bit warmer.
But again nothing to be concerned about.

Greetz :wink:

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Hi thanks for your reply / help…

Really helpful … that cleared up a lot… btw found one reviewer that actually mentioned the important stuff you did… unlike 99% of other reviewers just telling us the same thing over and over again… he mentioned that the back plate was actually doing sum cooling on the master and that it had real fins in stead of a mono block…
in short what you said… ahahah https://youtu.be/d31ZO22MZEM

Again really really appreciate your help it cleared up a lot of things that i can look for…
Also had a look in the the bios of both boards and it looks like the Master has a cleaner bios showing all kinds of nice data on the mean screen and that Asrock is trying to do as little as possible giving users just what they need and nothing more…
But the memory subject is interesting and something i’l keep in mind…

i’m not in a hurry but i’m rocking a mid 2012 MacbookPro that starting to show it’s age.
Usually we have good deals around the end of the year starting the new year. if my machine can hold on without boiling over same goes for me hahaha…
i’l start looking in to other parts of the system and compatibility with linux…
only thing i’m sure of now is Asrock and Gigabyte depending on the deals…
Also i know i’m going for the NH-D15 noctua cooler and the replacing all the Meshify C case fans with Noctua fans… considering my current system lasted me 7yr i think i can do the same with this new build…
Thanks for your help… have a nice weekend.

I think your mixing up the Master with the Extreme. Afaik the Extreme has a true 14+2 phase. All other boards use doublers, including the Aorus Master.

Nope the Master also features the 16 phase infineon XDPE132G5C pwm in 12+2 phase mode.
IR3556 50A powerstages no doublers.

The Extreme is running the same XDPE132G5C pwm in 14+2 phase configuration,
powered by 70A Infineon TDA21472’s

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Thanks for telling me that :slight_smile: . I wanted to research myself before answering, but I haven’t found the time yet :wink:

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No problem. :slight_smile:

It’s a great board regardless.

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Is PCIe4 a thing you want to use or would you be fine running gen3? Because X470 is a fine chipset too and opens up more options.

Thanks for your interesting thoughts made me think twice :wink:
i wanted to know if PCIe4 was the only improvement…
and found this interesting article…
https://www.digitalcitizen.life/x570-vs-x470-motherboards

There are sum tiny but interesting improvement on X570. What interests me is the better wiring specs for ram.
but when the time comes i will certainly compare both X570 en X470 prices.
For now i decided to wait and see how long i can use my crappy hardware before it dies on me… migrating from osx to Linux desktop means a lot of time investigating how to do things… main things i do on osx i can do on Fedora so that’s not an issue… it’s the little things i have to think about / figure out…
But i have decided to re-apply thermal paste on my late 2012 mbp so if i mess up i could be moving sooner then i hope to hahah… thanks again.

Keeping a backup system that you are familiar with will be a life saver sooner or later in the process. So … don’t fuck it up. :smiley:

Also memory wiring might not be overly important since Ryzen 3000 caps out (kind of) at around 3600MHz. Most X470 boards should be fine running that when paired up with one of the new CPUs / integrated memory controllers. I’ll probably be able to test that shortly, I’ll let you know.

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Ohh yah now that you mention it 3600MHz was the number that kept popping up (in all the vid reviews i watched) . But there are few people reviewing higher mem capacity say 32gig and 64gig something to do with populating all slots , words like Ranks and all that jazz come to mind… Also if i understand the rumors correctly next gen amd will be less depended on mem speed then current gen. Returning to the topic at hand i guess good mem support and ryzen 3000 support on x470 is more depended on firmware updates then the new x570 having said that i would go with a brand that shows more regular firmware updates even on the x570… looking forward to reading your results …

Probably too late now but Micron E series works best… Sorry just come across these posts today.

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