Im planning to build my first pc soon with ryzen 5 3600 + msi b450 gaming carbon pro
Has anyone built a pc using these parts and if they did, did you encounter any issues?
Did you go to the local store and they updated your bios for you?
I really dont want any bios troubles
I need the wifi.
Warning big post
Like you I was considering and purchased a Ryzen 5 3600 and MSI B450 Gaming pro carbon
There is no competition for motherboards in B450 because MSI wins miles ahead in VRM and featureset. The carbon is considered the flagship choice for the B450 platform.
So to give you some context on the current B450 3rd gen ryzen situation:
-AGESA micro code is being rolled out so incredibly slowly that very few B450 boards are on 1.0.0.3ABB (the most crucial update that fixes linux install and destiny 2 issues)
-There are extreme voltage issues when running 3rd gen ryzen on B450 with safe but really high fail-safe voltages
-MSI is the only brand that offers bios flashback on B450 which means you can do bios update without a 2nd gen processor
That means that MSI has the best motherboard and the ONLY B450 motherboard on the market that you can flash bios without needing a shop to do it or ordering a flashing kit from AMD.
But I returned my B450 Gaming Pro carbon
Why? Because soon after buying the gaming pro carbon I found the r/MSI_gaming subreddit and saw the disastrous number of posts and complaints regarding MSI B450 3rd gen ryzen bios updates and here’s what happened:
-Most motherboard vendors only installed 16mb bios chips on their motherboards which turned out to be less than sufficient when 3rd gen ryzen came and the necessary microcode would not fit.
-vendors like gigbyte and asus decided to either remove support for older gen AM4 chips or provide a dedicated 3rd gen ryzen bios whilst keeping all functionality
-MSI on the other hand did not do this. Instead they kept support but completely butchered their bios turning into click bios lite with most of the features still there but the removal of all the nice graphics and visual fan curve graphs etc (the bios is now a more traditional monotone bios)
-Despite people telling them to make a 3rd gen only bios they refused, crudely implying that their customers would be too dumb to tell the difference and end up installing the wrong update.
-MSI hosted a stream talking about 3rd gen compatibility and they actively said to return and not buy MSI b450 motherboards unless it is a 3rd gen ready MAX board (Tomahawk MAX, Mortar Max etc) MAX boards came with 32mb bios chips that will fit everything.
-additionally they are the slowest vendor and after months still haven’t come out with AGESA 1.0.0.3ABB
All of these factors put me off buying MSI so I returned it and got an ASUS Prime X570-P
But was this the right choice? Yes and no
Before I returned my motherboard I went on the subreddit and asked if having a B450 gaming pro carbon and a 3rd gen ryzen was a hopeless case and many people responded that they were really happy with their purchase and it works fine just with some voltage tweaking here and there.
So what to take away from this?
-If you want all the features (good vrm, wifi, intel lan etc) for that good price and don’t mind a bit of tweaking of voltages then go for the B450 gaming pro carbon
-If you want to keep that low price but don’t want to tweak anything go for a MAX motherboard (Tomahawk MAX, MORTAR MAX, B450-A PRO MAX)
-If you just want the most effortless experience and the most recent updates for 3rd gen ryzen then go for an X570 board (like I did but this is the most expensive)
-I do not think there’s any point to considering other brands on B450 because they all have shit VRM, save money using Realtek lan over intel and NONE of them have bios flashback.
-remember you can always choose a cheaper B450 MAX or any X570 board and addon an AC wifi card for about $60.
I'm not sure if that helps and I'm not sure if I've included all my thoughts in this but If i think of anything else I will add it.
just my 2 cents
I really dont want any bios troubles
Just wanted to add that if this is the case then do NOT go for the B450 Gaming Pro Carbon
the absolute least amount of bios issues is on X570
Did you go to the local store and they updated your bios for you?
this is something that's a requirement for non MSI B450 motherboards due to the lack of bios flashback on them.
I have seen many people being refused by stores so there's no guarantee they will do it (its a risk for them as much as for you)
Please double check with them before buying (even if you want them to do it on an msi Motherboard as well)
If you want to do it yourself the process is to get an 8GB usb and format it to FAT32, download the bios from MSI and rename it then plug it into the bios flashback usb port on the back (24 pin motherboard and 8 pin eps connected), clear CMOS and press the button on the back IO.
(just a general idea of what to do please look at proper instruction if you are actually doing it lol)
So i guess my b450 pro carbon is stuck with 2600x?
No, if you update the bios to version 7B85v18 with AGESA 1.0.0.3AB you can upgrade to Ryzen 3000 and it will handle a 3900X!!!
The issue here is the features you lose due to the limitation of the motherboard's 16mb bios chip.
Frankly your choice of motherboard is the best choice of all B450 motherboards right now so you shouldnt be disappointed!
Hi Mate.
Thanks for your long response. I really appreciate it.
This is my first ever pc build and i spent months of research on what to build, whats the best bang for buck, which components are high quality, what to avoid, what goes well with each other etc.
I finally decided what to build and all of a sudden its the motherboard thats doing my head in.
I know the msi b450 gaming carbon pro is the best motherboard out there for b450s because it was really good wifi,bluetooth and audio. I need wifi so thats a bonus.
I recently browsed through msi gaming subreddit as well and saw alot of people having issues with their carbon pro which sucks and i also asked whether people still had issues etc.
One user actually replied me to saying its gotten better and that there it appears to be "alot of people having issues" only because the majority of the people who dont have any issues with their board, dont post on reddit which was a fair point.
I dont think it makes sense for me to go for the max boards because they cost nearly $200. Almost same as the carbon pro. I need the wifi/bluetooth which will cost me probably $60.
I cant afford the x570 :(
With your key takeaway points, I have several questions
-If you want all the features (good vrm, wifi, intel lan etc) for that good price and don’t mind a bit of tweaking of voltages then go for the B450 gaming pro carbon
Would you say the msi b450 gaming carbon pro is an overkill for my needs and wanting this mobo purely because it has good wifi/bluetooth/audio is excessive and stupid?
My build is ryzen 5 3600, rtx 2060/1660ti, 1b hdd, 240gb sdd, 16gb ram ddr4 3200.
-I do not think there’s any point to considering other brands on B450 because they all have shit VRM, save money using Realtek lan over intel and NONE of them have bios flashback.
-remember you can always choose a cheaper B450 MAX or any X570 board and add on an AC wifi card for about $60.
Just want to confirm - Are you saying dont consider other brands other than MSI because other brands have shit vrms and bad audio/wifi?
Through my research, I think MSI makes the best b450 mobos.
I mean i might take the risk and just go for the msi b450 gaming carbon pro and pray it works and if it has issues i would just return it and go for the gigabyte aorus pro wifi but youre saying dont consider other brands so now im questioning the gigabyte aorus pro wifi haha.
Also new stock of the msi b450 gaming carbon pro have "ryzen 3000 ready" in case you didnt know but this is for america and im not so sure if its the same for australia.
Would you say the msi b450 gaming carbon pro is an overkill for my needs and wanting this mobo purely because it has good wifi/bluetooth/audio is excessive and stupid?
My build is ryzen 5 3600, rtx 2060/1660ti, 1b hdd, 240gb sdd, 16gb ram ddr4 3200.
In some ways it is overkill, the VRM for example can handle a 3900X no issues. However for that price you are getting so much value especially with wifi and all the other niceties which other brands on the b450 chipset don't offer at the same price. Personally I just think its the best board on B450 all around (asides from that 16mb bios chip)
Just want to confirm - Are you saying dont consider other brands other than MSI because other brands have shit vrms and bad audio/wifi?
Yeah there is just no reason to consider the other brands for B450 because ASUS, Gigabyte and Asrock all have pretty laughable VRMS and no bios flashback. Gigabyte uses an ancient 10 year old ALC887 audio chip on some of their budget boards and ASUS puts way too tiny heatsinks on their otherwise ok VRM. That is my recommendation for B450. However if you are looking at X470 or X570 the story changes. There isn't one brand that makes the best motherboard and they tend to go through waves of good and bad (on X570 MSI motherboard VRMs overheat for example)
If you do get the B450 Gaming pro carbon I don't think you will be disappointed. There are many people who are happy with theirs but just be sure that you can accept:
-Having click bios lite in lieu of MSI's regular full featured Click Bios
-Needing to tweak voltages to ensure your CPU runs as expected
Also new stock of the msi b450 gaming carbon pro have "ryzen 3000 ready" in case you didnt know but this is for america and im not so sure if its the same for australia.
I am indeed aware of this. However in this case they did not release a MAX version of this board so this retains the 16Mmb bios chip but has the ryzen 3000 compatible AGESA 1.0.0.3AB bios pre-flashed to it. Without a larger bios chip like in the MAX boards you will still get the same problems as I've outlined above.
I mean i might take the risk and just go for the msi b450 gaming carbon pro and pray it works and if it has issues i would just return it and go for the gigabyte aorus pro wifi but youre saying dont consider other brands so now im questioning the gigabyte aorus pro wifi haha.
If you are really put off by the issues of the MSI motherboard then the AORUS pro wifi is an acceptable board for your uses. Just be aware of the AORUS's own issues
-There is no bios flashback so you will need a store to agree to flash for you or you need to order an Boot kit from AMD. However Gigabyte has had no bios issues on B450 thanks to their really big 128mb bios chips!! so you arent getting a lesser experience.
-The VRM is not as capable and I wouldn't put a 95w TDP or above processor into it like the 3600X or 3800X (3700X is probably the comfortable limit) The issue being gigabyte likes putting MOSFETs on the back of their motherboard that are un-cooled making them a heat hazard. A 3600 on this motherboard would be fine and day to day use you wont be able to tell the difference between the gaming pro carbon and AORUS pro.
-you still keep the good intel LAN and wifi and a very good ALC1220 Audio chip.
Both MSI and gigabyte have alright boards but MSI falls short in bios spec and Gigabyte falls short in VRM (which i think is worse)
Pick your poison
also just in case you were curious as to why I personally didn't go with the B450 AORUS pro wifi was because I don't like those plastic covers they put over the IO because they become one big sauna for the VRM heatsink and whilst they look nice, they are awful for cooling. Personally I did not like orange accent and components on the board. Also despite everything I have still heard people out there struggling with B450 memory clocks and pbo. I just wanted a no issues board so I got X570
Im going to buy for the carbon and hope for the best.
Do you think i should wait to build my pc when there is black friday sales?
The ebay sales right now 15% off are pretty good but would there be bigger sales on black friday? Or should I just buy now
@helpme12: I got mine with the 15% off ebay sales. I reckon the prices are pretty good and you get to enjoy it now!
Ryzen 3rd gen is so new now that I don't think it will be better deals on black friday. you might save a bit more on your mobo and ram then but it probably wont be much.
I bought 3600X with MSI B450 Tomahawk and performed a BIOS update via the flashback feature, which it seems the Carbon has too. Took about 5-10 minutes (I was out of the room) and has been functioning perfectly for the last month or so. Very simple process really.
If you truly want a no headache experience then the only option is the premium priced X570 or a B450 Max as said above.
There's heaps of people that were complaining about MSI's BIOS updates being less than adequate but for me there was no issues at all. Guess it's a luck of the draw type thing? Or it's all sorted now? =]
i think there is MAX version for new stock with bigger bios chip