Trying to choose a motherboard (for 7800X3D, almost certainly)

[Neilski]

I'm getting closer and closer to pulling the pin and replacing some of the key bits of my PC: at minimum, mobo/CPU/RAM. (Maybe: PSU, GPU, chassis.) Current system has a 7700K, for info.

Having not owned a non-Intel CPU since before Slot 1 (!) and having fully expected myself to be buying a 13600K for ages, I now find myself comparing it to the 7800X3D and realising that the AMD chip basically beats it hands down in the ways that will matter to me. (I have toyed with the idea of a 7950X3D but even ignoring the cost hike, the extra grief of controlling which processes run on which die probably spoils the overall package.)

So unless I end up postponing the upgrade yet again, the only really important decision is the motherboard. I've been surprised in the last few days by how difficult it seems to be to find reviews of motherboards, for either chip-maker - I've been looking for reviews of Z790, B650[E] and X670[E]. (Maybe I'm searching the wrong way?! In the good ol' days I remember there being group tests of motherboards... sigh.)

I'm probably going the X670[E] route I guess, and Asus have for a whole bunch of reasons demoted themselves to the very bottom of the pile so I guess that leaves Gigabyte, Asrock and MSI, unless there are some other makers that aren't showing up in my searches.

So... advice on boards would be very welcome, especially if it comes with personal experiences

 

[blekenbleu]

having fully expected myself to be buying a 13600K for ages,
I now find myself comparing it to the 7800X3D and realizing that
the AMD chip basically beats it hands down in the ways that will matter to me

I would be interested in your considerations for choosing 7800X3D over 13600K,
having instead picked the Intel chip (mainly for air cooling, after a bad AIO experience).

Many motherboards were eliminated from consideration by:

• lack of 7.1 analog surround for SimHub tactile outputs
• other than ATX for case compatibility
• relatively poor USB support.
• lack of 2.5GB/s ethernet

One missed consideration was blocked PCIe slots beneath RTX 4090.
Other than that, MSI Tomahawk has been OK; AMD BIOS issues appear sorted:
Amazon X670E Tomahawk customer reviews

PCPartPicker completed ATX 7800X3D builds < US$3200

 

[R8pilot]

I recently got interested in upgrading my 9900k to a newer system, and was looking at the 7800X3D too.

I don't like the newer Intel CPU's because of their ridiculous power consumption, and because performance/efficiency core splits have dubious benefits, or even detriments, for a dedicated sim rig system (I have similar doubts as you about the 7950x3D). In comparison, I'd expect that the 7800X3D shouldn't use much more power than my old 9900k.

This would also be my first AMD system, so don't expect an expert opinion from me. Also, I was looking for a Micro ATX or ITX board, not a full-sized board, since I'd like to swap it into my Micro ATX case.

For a dedicated sim rig (as mine is), there's no need for an abundance of slots or 4 NVMe positions, etc. PCIe 5 slots won't be relevant for quite a few years either. Also, I'd rather that the board not be too expensive - there's virtually no advantage for overclocking-oriented boards, etc., anymore anyway. Reviewers that are still obsessed with massively overkill power delivery to yield minute differences in performance are just sounding ridiculous these days.

After looking at a lot of boards, I concluded that the MSI MAG Mortar WiFi B650 looks like the best choice at about $200 US. The main reason is that it seems to have a superior mix of back-panel IO for the price and WiFi 6E. I don't use back-panel audio, so I didn't really look into that.

If I were investing in an all-purpose system, and if I were willing to spend a lot more for a system that I'd live with for 5 years or so, I like the ASUS X670E Creator ProArt WiFi, especially for its 2 Thunderbolt / USB4 ports, DP pass-through, etc. But for that, the 7800X3D likely would not be the best CPU choice anymore.

Good luck with your decisions.

 

[blekenbleu]

ridiculous power consumption

The 13600K thermally throttles almost immediately with default MSI BIOS settings,
but underVolting to address that allowed modest overclocking with air cooling.
Perhaps some unlucky chips require stock settings...

An 7800X3D seemingly always runs hot.

 

[R8pilot]

Life is too short to fiddle with overclocking anymore, as manufacturers have already squeezed out essentially every drop in stock form. I'd happily make a few percent trade-off in performance for a substantial drop in power consumption, though - if it were a one-button automatic setting. Alas, providing that is not a priority, it seems.

Of course, I could stop buying high-power components, like my latest 4090 acquisition, but where's the fun in that!?

 

[Neilski]

considerations for choosing 7800X3D over 13600K

Well, I normally overthink purchases, but I may be erring on the hasty side here. However, there are kinda three main reasons:
Firstly, power consumption looks appalling for the Intel chips, with the caveat that I don't know how the performance vs. power-limit curves look at present for both options. (Having seen some older data, it might be that a 13600K limited to 90W retains 95% of its performance.)
Secondly, the 13600K is faster for a few things, generally by a modest margin, and slower for a few things by what is sometimes a huge margin. So the downside of going for the 7800X3D is pretty limited but the potential upside is dramatic in a few cases.
Finally, it's a homogeneous chip - no need for trick process scheduling like for the 7950X3D or 13th gen P+E.

• lack of 7.1 analog surround for SimHub tactile outputs
• other than ATX for case compatibility
• relatively poor USB support.
• lack of 2.5GB/s ethernet

You mean you want a non-ATX board?
I'm not personally too fussed about audio, but am only considering ATX boards at present. What do you mean by poor USB support? The boards I've looked at all seem to have plenty of actual USB ports but maybe you mean chipset issues?

Thanks also for the links - will check 'em out!

For a dedicated sim rig (as mine is), there's no need for an abundance of slots or 4 NVMe positions, etc. PCIe 5 slots won't be relevant for quite a few years either.

Mine will be a one-size-fits-all box, doing sim + general-purpose stuff of many flavours... So having a bit of expandability (including more than 4 SATA ports) will be welcome. I could make do with 3 M.2 slots I'm sure, but having 4 is potentially useful. Agreed on PCIe 5 - I see close to zero value in that.

An 7800X3D seemingly always runs hot.

You mean it idles hot?

As for overclocking: I probably won't do much (haven't done much with my 7700K + Asus Z170-A for example), but it always seems to be the case that the non-overclocking boards are hamstrung in other ways (e.g. limited ports or speeds).

 

[blekenbleu]

manufacturers have already squeezed out essentially every drop in stock form

.. and sometimes more than actually exists, depending on what is meant by "stock";
According to JayzTwoCents, EXPO is a step too far, while XMP has been fine for me...

XTU made Intel underVolting fairly painless...

 

[Neilski]

According to JayzTwoCents, EXPO is a step too far, while XMP has been fine for me...

Yes this stuff bothers me somewhat. In fact, one of the (several) reasons I have blacklisted Asus is because of what my Z170-A did when I used the XMP profile for a 3200 kit. If the AMD ecosystem is currently a worse place for that kind of crap then I might back away from it... :-S

 

[blekenbleu]

13600K is faster for a few things

I mostly play Assetto Corsa (non Comp) in VR.
I have yet to see Windows 11 misallocate efficient cores;
my impression is that AMD depends too much on Windows game detections

 

[blekenbleu]

plenty of actual USB ports but maybe you mean chipset issues

Both.

• Some USB 2 devices can be problematic on USB 3 ports;
  I brought Tomahawk motherboard's USB 2 out to a rear card slot.
• Some USB 3+ chipsets had (still have?) endpoint limitations;
  Tomahawk's single Intel USB 3.20 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.20 has yet to complain about my 19 USB devices (have yet to sort total endpoint count),
  but I wanted a PCIe slot available for second USB controller, just in case...

You mean you want a non-ATX board?

That was a list of things to *eliminate*; sorry about confusing double negative..

 

[Rebel_488]

I have the asrock steel legends x670. Bios is easy to work and I can tune the ram and cpu no issues. Updates have been great along the way. Previously have ASUs but I like this mobo a lot. Using it with a 7700x atm but may go 7800x3d if I ever feel the need.

 

[Neilski]

Other than that, MSI Tomahawk has been OK; AMD BIOS issues appear sorted:
Amazon X670E Tomahawk customer reviews

Am noticing that there are a scarily high number of bad reviews at that (US) Amazon link. (It's not a lot better at the equivalent UK Amazon link in fact.)
It appears to lump a whole load of MSI boards together (5 "styles", all X670 or X670E), with 22% of reviews being 1- or 2-star. That includes a bunch of (presumably) Amazon fails like sending people boards that other people had returned, but also some other issues. Hard to guess at how many of the issues are down to user error of course - I don't have a baseline of reading Amazon reviews of other motherboards and have never bought a motherboard from them.

Given how unbearably awful it is to have to remove and RMA a motherboard, I'm very very keen to pick something which I have every possible reason to believe will be bulletproof...

 

[blekenbleu]

I don't have a baseline of reading Amazon reviews of other motherboards

This was my first Amazon motherboard experience, and the first received
had clearly been already installed and returned with damaged CPU contacts.

Sorting X670E motherboards by Amazon customer rating
yields ASRock X670E Steel Legend as the first reasonably priced board,
albeit based on relatively few reviews.
It has 16% one and two star ratings...

 

[RasmusP]

According to JayzTwoCents, EXPO is a step too far, while XMP has been fine for me...

Yes this stuff bothers me somewhat. In fact, one of the (several) reasons I have blacklisted Asus is because of what my Z170-A did when I used the XMP profile for a 3200 kit. If the AMD ecosystem is currently a worse place for that kind of crap then I might back away from it... :-S

Just buy Kingston Sticks with at least 5600 MHz. These are, apparently, 100% SK Hynix Chips, which all easily run 6000CL30 at 1.35V RAM, 1.2V SoC.
Mine (2x 16GB 5600 CL36) and the ones of a friend (2x 16GB 6000 CL30) currently run 6200 CL36 but with massively tighter timings than expo (Buildzoid's 24/7 settings after the big agesa/bios updates).

Sleep mode for weeks, multiple times per day, leaving ACC, Fusion360, Prusa Slic3r etc constantly running.

Some USB 2 devices can be problematic on USB 3 ports;

Mhh, my Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX has 2x USB 2.0 at the rear. Due to the longer max. length of cables, I'm using one of them with an active 10m USB 2.0 extension cable, where my Xbox controller goes in to play in the living room.

Some USB 3+ chipsets had (still have?) endpoint limitations;

Afaik the endpoint problems are only a thing with Intel, not with AMD.
Their X570 chipsets had some general USB issues but from what I've read, you can simply use the USB 3.2 Gen2x2 20 gbps port, plug a massive, active USB hub into that and do whatever you can imagine.
Similar to the wild USB4/TB4 port on my surface pro 8, which can probably manage a full simrig plus triple screens, if you use a big active hub with multiple hdmi outs.

On my MB, that USB C is the front port though, which I routed to the rear with the slot extension from Linkup.


@Neilski I sadly can't recommend a big motherboard, but I can tell you that my AMD experience is completely flawless since I bought my system during black Friday 2022.
The only two things to take care off are:
- buy Kingston sticks! The SK Hynix ddr5 is the new Samsung B-Die

- check the default voltages, make sure SoC voltage doesn't go above 1.25V and then don't use expo or xmp but instead type in my timings manually to not trigger some weird voltage settings from using expo/xmp like on some Asus boards.
My "cheap" Gigabyte board doesn't do this btw. Loading expo only changes the RAM voltage and settings, nothing else.
Probably too cheap to try to squeeze out more performance on its own, lol

 

[Neilski]

Just buy Kingston Sticks with at least 5600 MHz. These are, apparently, 100% SK Hynix Chips, which all easily run 6000CL30 at 1.35V RAM, 1.2V SoC.
Mine (2x 16GB 5600 CL36) and the ones of a friend (2x 16GB 6000 CL30) currently run 6200 CL36 but with massively tighter timings than expo (Buildzoid's 24/7 settings after the big agesa/bios updates).

Nice, ta!

Afaik the endpoint problems are only a thing with Intel, not with AMD.

Yeah I believe I read the same (may have been reading/watching the same source as you in fact ).

 

[RasmusP]

Just gonna copy this over for general info about DDR5.
My 7600x is way more sensitive to ram, especially timings, than the 3D CPUs, but this is ACC with brutal settings.
Spa, 49 AI, starting 5th last etc.

My CPU rund up to 200 MHz higher thanks to PBO at maximum.
Power consumption was about 55W average, 70W peak.


PBO MAX, no Watt Limit, Stock RAM (4800 CL40)
07-10-2023, 01:14:21 AC2-Win64-Shipping.exe benchmark completed, 3584 frames rendered in 50.219 s
Average framerate : 71.3 FPS
Minimum framerate : 67.8 FPS
Maximum framerate : 78.1 FPS
1% low framerate : 61.9 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 58.7 FPS

PBO MAX, no Watt Limit, EXPO-Profil 5600 CL36
07-10-2023, 01:28:20 AC2-Win64-Shipping.exe benchmark completed, 3826 frames rendered in 50.110 s
Average framerate : 76.3 FPS
Minimum framerate : 71.3 FPS
Maximum framerate : 83.5 FPS
1% low framerate : 65.9 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 63.2 FPS

PBO MAX, no Watt Limit, 1:1 6200 CL36 Tuned_Stable
07-10-2023, 00:56:33 AC2-Win64-Shipping.exe benchmark completed, 4139 frames rendered in 49.844 s
Average framerate : 83.0 FPS
Minimum framerate : 79.2 FPS
Maximum framerate : 91.3 FPS
1% low framerate : 73.0 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 67.1 FPS

 

[Neilski]

Just gonna copy this over for general info about DDR5.
My 7600x is way more sensitive to ram, especially timings, than the 3D CPUs, but this is ACC with brutal settings.
Spa, 49 AI, starting 5th last etc.

My CPU rund up to 200 MHz higher thanks to PBO at maximum.
Power consumption was about 55W average, 70W peak.


PBO MAX, no Watt Limit, Stock RAM (4800 CL40)
07-10-2023, 01:14:21 AC2-Win64-Shipping.exe benchmark completed, 3584 frames rendered in 50.219 s
Average framerate : 71.3 FPS
Minimum framerate : 67.8 FPS
Maximum framerate : 78.1 FPS
1% low framerate : 61.9 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 58.7 FPS

PBO MAX, no Watt Limit, EXPO-Profil 5600 CL36
07-10-2023, 01:28:20 AC2-Win64-Shipping.exe benchmark completed, 3826 frames rendered in 50.110 s
Average framerate : 76.3 FPS
Minimum framerate : 71.3 FPS
Maximum framerate : 83.5 FPS
1% low framerate : 65.9 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 63.2 FPS

PBO MAX, no Watt Limit, 1:1 6200 CL36 Tuned_Stable
07-10-2023, 00:56:33 AC2-Win64-Shipping.exe benchmark completed, 4139 frames rendered in 49.844 s
Average framerate : 83.0 FPS
Minimum framerate : 79.2 FPS
Maximum framerate : 91.3 FPS
1% low framerate : 73.0 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 67.1 FPS

Yeah, simply bananas to have so much variation. I think of this as being mainly due to ACC being insanely sensitive to memory performance (rather than the CPU), unless of course you've seen anything like it in other games?

 

[drvrn]

I was in the same situation 1 month ago replacing my i9 10900K/3090.

Instead of Intel (not the fastest for games, especially MSFS2020 and ACC) and the 7950X3D (that needs to be tuned with Process Lasso in order to be fully efficient), I went for the 7800X3D.

The 7800X3D is very fast, not warm (mine is at 55C to 62C when gaming) and because of the AM5 MoBo I can upgrade the CPU while keeping the same MoBo in the next years.

For the MoBo I ended up getting the Asus X670E Hero:

- new Bios from Asus are now safe
- many USB 3.2 (some are directly connected to the CPU for no latency)
- many USB 2.0 (on the MoBo) (I use its 2x2 USB ports)
- USB 3.2 2x2 with 60W PD
- USB 4/ thunderbolt (I disabled them in the Bios)
- HDMI on board (handy if you have a problem with the GPU. I have disabled it in the Bios however)
- very good cooling (CPU and also the 2 chipsets)
- Error/ Status LED (a must IMHO)
- LED for the MoBo (not important for me)
- RGB/ aRGB ports
- Many ports for fans
- Flash Bios button in the rear
- CMOS button in the rear

My only concern was the I225V Intel NIC but it works fine with my 1GB Internet.

(I discarded all MoBo with the Marwell NIC as it is still very buggy it seems. The Asus X670E Extreme had too many problems it seems - reported in many forums - and is discontinued it seems).

It has WiFi 6E but I don’t use it. Only LAN.

Sound on board is good enough for my 5.1 speakers (via Toslink). And I have anyway several external soundcards for simhub tactile.

Format ATX is ok for my PC case Lian Li 011 Evo.

The Asus X670E Hero is not cheap but I intend to keep it a few years, and upgrade the CPU in the meantime.

Ram is DDR5 6000 CL30 64GB, NVMEs 4TB and 2TB.
Nvidia 4090 FE. Seasonic 1600W. Artic Liquid Freezer II 360.
Lian Li 011 Evo. 16 Noctua fans.

BTW, it seems that many users love the ASRock X670E Taichi. And it also has good cooling. Certainly a good alternative.

 

[Bob Gnarley]

This may help clear some of the confusion with the various types of board. Personally i would be looking at B650(E). It's hard to justify the extra cost of X670(E) when they add so little.

 

[Neilski]

The 7800X3D is very fast, not warm (mine is at 55C to 62C when gaming) and because of the AM5 MoBo I can upgrade the CPU while keeping the same MoBo in the next years.

Glad to hear it's nicely cool during gaming

This may help clear some of the confusion with the various types of board. Personally i would be looking at B650(E). It's hard to justify the extra cost of X670(E) when they add so little.

Ta, nice video, I learned quite a lot about AMD chipsets. However, given that I want more than 4 SATA ports, I am one of the unusual people who genuinely has something to gain from the X670