Looking to build myself a new gaming pc (or wait for a techfast deal)
I want to use a 2600 but I don’t know what’s a good motherboard?
There’s so many options and price ranges. I haven’t overclocked a cpu before but I’m open to the idea of it. My research shows I need a BM350 series?
Ideally I’d like to spend around $150, I’m hoping I can spend less. But I don’t want to compromise on reliability.
Needs:
- reliable
- can overclock
The two options for built-in wifi are
MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC - $229 (better)
Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO WIFI 1.0 -$200
Ah that’s quiet a bit more expensive than the example posted above. I think a cheaper board and wifi module makes more sense.
MSI B450 Tomahawk is highly regarded. still $170 though
@TarquinOliverNimrod Would you recommend MSI Mortar Titanium ?
It's $40 cheaper and only has a few less items which I think won't impact me.
(Anandtech has a round up of 25 different B450 boards all neatly summarised in a single page, just look at the features you want (e.g how many SATA ports you want, typically it's either 4 ports or 6 ports), how many M.2 slots (typically one, but up to two) and whether it has built in Wifi
The more expensive boards are more expensive for a reason — they usually have better VRM's (voltage regulators) and more power phases (up to 8, with the standard being 6 phases. They also have more heatsinks to take away the excess heat the VRM's generate. This would be helpful if you are overclocking… but if you don't think you are going to run your CPU that hard, you can just go the tight-arse route and buy a cheaper board.
VRM's + power phases explained further in this Logical increments article.
You probably want b450 to get the most out of improvements that were made after b350. I bought a b350 strix gaming F. It had a lot of flashy features but apparently it's not the best for vrms. The massive heatsink looking things are plastic. same with gigabyte aorus. Turns our Asrock is meant to have the best value in this area, with MSI next. You could go under or around $130 for most Asrock boards + get a wifi module.
I haven’t overclocked a cpu before but I’m open to the idea of it.
xfr2 + pb2 from b450 with good temps, prolly does better than your manual oc
mind you, 3600 is just around the corner
@Phunkydude - I"m not too sure what xfr2 + pb2 from B450 means.
Could you elaborate ?
eXtended FRequency and Precision Boost are AMD's auto-overclocking feature that auto ramps up the clocks only when needed
they nailed it to near perfect efficiency by squeezing every bits & drops at any avail factors especially on improved ver2.0 introduced to b450 chipset motherboard
some benchmarks shows xfr2+pb2 does a better job than amateur overclocking when proper cooling provided, as with x-series Eg. 2600x comes standard with beefier stock cooler that allows it to achieve extended boost at higher clocks than 2600 vanilla (factor in price difference between X and non-X depends if you can score a deal/price-cut)
if you're a pro OC that knows fine tune + increase voltage + better cooling, you certainly can push for higher clocks at all cores to achieve better result than xfr2+pb2, but mind you you'll be on 24/7 manual OC state blowing heat & sucking power even when idling doing nothing, whereas xfr2+pb2 only auto-OC when required aka according to cpu load at any moment
remember memory ram speed does gives a considerable boost to ryzen cpu, so pick your ram wisely but having said that ryzen 2xxx/b450 shouldn't be picky on rams anymore
also note as i said, ryzen 3600 is just around the corner with further considerable boost on IPC, so either that or pricecut on current gen likely expected.
@phunkydude - Is xfr2+pb2 something which needs to be built into the motherboard ?
If so, how do I know if my motherboard has it ?
@dcep: @Phunkydude - Thanks for the advice, I'm either going to get a Mortar Titanium or a Tomahawk but so good to know I have access to what you mentioned.
I'll only be gaming on this computers so I think Ryzen 5 or even Ryzen 300 series will be plenty even at stock level.
ASUS B450M-A $120
Plus pci-e wifi card