If you're getting Ryzen 3xxx which board?

[Alex Townsend]

Looks like a lot of boards coming for the new Ryzen chips.
Which board do you think will give the best features versus price based on previous x470 boards?
Which one do you like the look of most?
Obviously waiting to see benchmarks for gaming versus Intel and z390 first, but I'm very, very tempted by more power for less money.

 

[RasmusP]

The ryzen look like a big step. Especially with being 7nm, 3rd gen of that architecture and boosted clock speeds, I doubt that there will be a massive step again any time soon.
Apart from maybe going up to 5 GHz...
Anyway, from what I've read the automatic boost of the ryzen 1xxx and 2xxx almost always gave similar or even better results than manual overclocking.
Only if you really boosted the temperatures, voltage etc you got better results.

So in my opinion it will be good to get a really good motherboard with all features. You might keep that cpu for 5-8 years and the saved hassle alone might be worth paying more.
Only if you have the money laying around and can do that without sacrificing anything else.

There are a few x570 boards without active cooling now. At least previews and rumours.

So if I will upgrade, I'll get a good x570 with passive cooling.
Aorus, msi, Asus would be my choice and around 150-220€.

But I think there are people with better knowledge and insight than me.

 

[Alex Townsend]

By passive cooling you mean with heat sinks being cooled by air flow from case fans?
Active being those fans on the boards themselves?

 

[RasmusP]

By passive cooling you mean with heat sinks being cooled by air flow from case fans?
Active being those fans on the boards themselves?

Yep that's what I mean. No annoying fan on the mobo itself. Had it once with an Asus a8n-sli deluxe from my dad's pc. First it was loud, then it failed and cooked the board...

 

[Dan Costa]

The Gigabyte Aorus
https://www.aorus.com/product-list.php?t=53&t2=57&t3=140

 

[Alex Townsend]

The ryzen look like a big step. Especially with being 7nm, 3rd gen of that architecture and boosted clock speeds, I doubt that there will be a massive step again any time soon.
Apart from maybe going up to 5 GHz...
Anyway, from what I've read the automatic boost of the ryzen 1xxx and 2xxx almost always gave similar or even better results than manual overclocking.
Only if you really boosted the temperatures, voltage etc you got better results.

So in my opinion it will be good to get a really good motherboard with all features. You might keep that cpu for 5-8 years and the saved hassle alone might be worth paying more.
Only if you have the money laying around and can do that without sacrificing anything else.

There are a few x570 boards without active cooling now. At least previews and rumours.

So if I will upgrade, I'll get a good x570 with passive cooling.
Aorus, msi, Asus would be my choice and around 150-220€.

But I think there are people with better knowledge and insight than me.

Yes, I'm still considering whether or not I upgrade my CPU and motherboard with ram etc. Or just to upgrade my GPU...
Thing is, I only use 1080p at present, and it's on an old Samsung HDTV so not sure I need extra GPU power yet...
I am looking at ultra wide monitors but to be honest I'm not sure I can really afford one right now, especially not when I think my PC is due an upgrade from being built back in 2012...
Currently my GPU, GTX1070, is at 99% usage with CPU, i7 3770k OC at 4.2, is hovering around the 50% usage mark in ACC against 19 AI as per MSI Afterburner

 

[Alex Townsend]

The Gigabyte Aorus
https://www.aorus.com/product-list.php?t=53&t2=57&t3=140

Website currently under maintenance...

Which version would you be looking at?

 

[Dan Costa]

The Master has a true 14 phase VRM and the extreme 16. Both have amazing vrm coolers.

I used to have the Asus X470 Hero VII, and the CPU throttled back down to 600mhz when the VRM's got to hot, which they did often.

 

[Alex Townsend]

I'll definitely check out the Aorus board next then. Thanks for the recommendation as it's not the first time I've heard this

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

The Gigabyte Aorus
https://www.aorus.com/product-list.php?t=53&t2=57&t3=140

Speaking of the chipset fans, the master version (at least according to some redditors) has active cooling for the chipset. Extreme is the only one that doesn't come with a fan. It makes little sense to me why companies aren't providing passive cooling solutions as it seems it's only about 11 W of heat that needs to be dissipated. I remember some boards from 10 years ago like the Asus P5Q came with some creative solutions to avoid active cooling:

 

[Terry Rock]

I equate most active-cooled chipsets, to using cross-drilled rotors in a non-competition driven road car.
The amount of potential cooling material omitted simply to place the fan, offers diminishing gains.
As with your road car the removal of disc material means there is less surface to dissipate heat.
It is for that reason why race cars have cooling ducts.
They're there to augment the cooling and compensate for the loss of material.
That said, any good X470 should also fit the bill for the coming 3 series.

 

[Alex Townsend]

That said, any good X470 should also fit the bill for the coming 3 series.

Will the x470s also utilise the PCIe 4.0 update that the x570 boards will have?
Also, will our current cards make use of it anyway?

 

[RasmusP]

Will the x470s also utilise the PCIe 4.0 update that the x570 boards will have?

I don't think so.

Also, will our current cards make use of it anyway?

Definitely not. Maybe in 5 years...
Looking at benchmarks you can run a 2080 ti in a 8x PCI-E 2.0 slot and mostly, you don't even lose 1 fps.
16x PCI-E 3.0 will be fine for quite some years to come.

The PCI-E 4.0 is basically only for SSD RAID system where you want some TB/s data rates!

 

[Alex Townsend]

So basically could even save some money picking up an x470 and sling a new Ryzen in it?
Happy dayz

 

[Terry Rock]

Of all the racing sims I currently own, there was only one which took advantage of the PCI-e bump...(framerate-wise)...and that was RF2.
Going from PCI-e 2.0 to PCI-e 3.0 did represent a gain in smoothness for some titles.
I did experience that, but it was not really a 'game-changer'.
I was already getting such good performance on an I7-3820 and Biostar X79 before migrating to the current MSI X470 Gaming Plus with R5-2600X.
Either way, you will not be unhappy.

 

[Alex Townsend]

Ok so looks like either an X470 Gaming plus or Pro Carbon if MSI or a Aorus Ultra Gaming 5 or 7 along with a 3600x processor perhaps. Judging by cost of the Ryzen 2600x and the boards above, I should almost be able to get the CPU and board for the same price as the Intel processor for comparable power!
Xmas may come early in July

 

[maelstrom]

I should almost be able to get the CPU and board for the same price as the Intel processor for comparable power!

If the rumours are true! AMD have been big on hype but not so big on actual performance with many of their processors in the past. I'm not too far away from an upgrade but I'll definitely be waiting for real-world results before considering a change from Intel. It would be great to see them come up with a real alternative for gaming.

 

[Terry Rock]

If the rumours are true! AMD have been big on hype but not so big on actual performance with many of their processors in the past. I'm not too far away from an upgrade but I'll definitely be waiting for real-world results before considering a change from Intel. It would be great to see them come up with a real alternative for gaming.

Those were my exact sentiments...for a very long time.
I then switched to an R5-2600X and the rest is history.
I run ACC and everything else at max settings with a GTX1080Ti. With full grids, the thing is extremely smooth.
If the 3 series is priced well, you cannot lose.

 

[Alex Townsend]

And what is the difference between an 2600x and a non-x processor?
Seems the non-x are lower spec but then can be OC'd higher as have lower wattage?
Or is it best to take the x and OC it even higher?
Not sure how it works with AMD as my last processor from them was a Phenom II X4 965 BE, and I had never heard of Overclocking back then...

 

[RasmusP]

If the rumours are true! AMD have been big on hype but not so big on actual performance with many of their processors in the past. I'm not too far away from an upgrade but I'll definitely be waiting for real-world results before considering a change from Intel. It would be great to see them come up with a real alternative for gaming.

The hype trains were stirred indeed. With ryzen 1xxx and 2xxx though, I've never seen a single thread benchmark shown for the hype.
That was the big weakness of the first two generations and sadly the most relevant for us.

If you find single thread being officially shown please link it though. That would be interesting!

Anyway, now with ryzen 3xxx they've shown 8c/8c cinebench at the very beginning. Showing a very slight advantage and therefore also a very slight advantage in single thread performance.
It's also mentioned lots of times now whereas the first two gens were always about multithread performance (and therefore games that supported it).

This is why this time, I'm really a passanger on the hype train

To Alex: can't help you much but yes, afaik the x version only has a higher clock at defaults. Apart from that you can simply get the non x and change some bios settings and save money.