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ASRock AB350 Pro4 with r7 1700

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DidelisDiskas

Senior member
Was wondering if this motherboard is a good budget pairing with the r7 1700. I might add a mild overclock in the future, but nothing much. I also don't need any of the bling features, sli support, inbuilt wireless, bluetooth, or good quality sound (since i have an external usb audio card) that come with the more expensive x370 boards.
 
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What is your primary use for the new build? Gaming, video work, just surfing? The B350 line of boards are great for the mainstream users, but I would question the pairing with the R7 series cpu's You might look at the R5 and save some coin to put towards a better graphics card, more memory or just pocket the cash.
 
A bit of everything. Programming (ide's , compiling, scripting), audio (ide's, audio synthesizers, score writing software etc), web surfing, virtual machines for things like installing gentoo and then compiling everything from scratch, sometimes i also try out new things like 3d modelling (mostly for fun) and do a bit of gaming. Since i'm running linux, my gaming is limited in time and titles i can play. I don't care much for most AAA games, but i would like to get rid of the terrible stuttering (and fps), in gaming, that i'm getting from my current cpu - x4 860k (i even made a thread about that and will update it once i will have the r7 1700). I would also pair this cpu with an rx 470 card (which i already own, but did not use much since my cpu is limiting the hell out of it).

Since i don't plan on overclocking it much if at all, i thought i could save a bit of money by buying a simple yet durable motherboard. From what i read it has pretty good reviews, however i wonder if there are some caveats with pairing that board with the r7 1700 (sucky VRM's?).
 
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Pairing an R7 with a B350 motherboard is not a bad thing, just the R7 is more of an enthusiast cpu, and generally you see them paired with an enthusiast motherboard. The only thing you will lose is some PCI channels with the B350. But a good solid B350 motherboard paired with say R7 1700 will provide you with good solid performance across your range of usages and applications.
 
jdstern said:
Pairing an R7 with a B350 motherboard is not a bad thing, just the R7 is more of an enthusiast cpu, and generally you see them paired with an enthusiast motherboard. The only thing you will lose is some PCI channels with the B350. But a good solid B350 motherboard paired with say R7 1700 will provide you with good solid performance across your range of usages and applications.
Click to expand...

Well i might consider getting an x370 board if the components were of higher quality and the bang for buck ratio would not suffer that much. These are pretty much the prices and choices i get in my country (every store is about the same, since they share 2 wholsale providers in all):

http://www.skytech.lt/search.php?keywords=b350&x=0&y=0&search_in_description=0&pagesize=100&f=86_85
http://www.skytech.lt/search.php?keywords=x370&x=0&y=0&search_in_description=0&pagesize=100&f=86_85

What would you guys consider the best quality/(bang for buck) choice here between the b350 and x370 boards (considering these crappy prices)? 1 euro is about 1.06 dollar.
 
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Sorry for the triple post, but don't want anyone to think that i had the right idea, looking at this website, it seems the situation is more nuanced than i thought:

https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/f12/am4-mainboard-vrm-liste-1155146.html

The "ASRock AB350 Pro4" has only a 3 real phases instead of the 4 on the "MSI B350 Tomahawk" . This forum lists the "ASUS PRIME X370-PRO" as the price/performance king, since it actually has 6 real phases at 160 dollars/euros. Wish i could read German, since the translator makes it a bit of a mess.

Would be interesting to hear from someone who could explain the difference (in performance) between 3x2 vs 4 vs 6 phase designs.
 
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DidelisDiskas said:
Was wondering if this motherboard is a good budget pairing with the r7 1700. I might add a mild overclock in the future, but nothing much. I also don't need any of the bling features, sli support, inbuilt wireless, bluetooth, or good quality sound (since i have an external usb audio card) that come with the more expensive x370 boards.
Click to expand...

I just completed a new build using the Asrock AB350 Pro 4. Of course I paired it with an R5 1600 and I'm only shooting for a modest overclock i.e. running the 1600 at 1600X speeds. So far I'm only up to 3.7 Ghz with the stock AMD cooler and stock voltage and will probably need something better before going beyond that.

Anyway, its working great so far. Of course its only been running for 3 days so we will see as time goes by as far as this board goes. Of course it was only $39 bundled with the CPU so its hard to go wrong.
As far as chipset goes, I just looked at the extras that the x370 had to offer and decided I didn't need them for my purposes and only really looked at the B350.
 
Ratman6161 said:
I just completed a new build using the Asrock AB350 Pro 4. Of course I paired it with an R5 1600 and I'm only shooting for a modest overclock i.e. running the 1600 at 1600X speeds. So far I'm only up to 3.7 Ghz with the stock AMD cooler and stock voltage and will probably need something better before going beyond that.

Anyway, its working great so far. Of course its only been running for 3 days so we will see as time goes by as far as this board goes. Of course it was only $39 bundled with the CPU so its hard to go wrong.
As far as chipset goes, I just looked at the extras that the x370 had to offer and decided I didn't need them for my purposes and only really looked at the B350.
Click to expand...

I wanted to edit my order to the asus board, but did not make it in time, so decided to just go with the ab350 pro4. Linux booted up fine (though there sometimes seems to be a bit of a lag before the monitor lits up) and the cpu is whisper quite with this cooler compared to my previous x4 860k cpu with the stock cooler. The only problem i'm having is that there seems to be no way to update the bios without a windows installer. My previous asrock fm2a88x board was able to update itself through the bios lan connection, without any installers, but i don't see such an option here. I wonder if running windows on a virtual machine and installing drivers that way would work?
 
DidelisDiskas said:
I wanted to edit my order to the asus board, but did not make it in time, so decided to just go with the ab350 pro4. Linux booted up fine (though there sometimes seems to be a bit of a lag before the monitor lits up) and the cpu is whisper quite with this cooler compared to my previous x4 860k cpu with the stock cooler. The only problem i'm having is that there seems to be no way to update the bios without a windows installer. My previous asrock fm2a88x board was able to update itself through the bios lan connection, without any installers, but i don't see such an option here. I wonder if running windows on a virtual machine and installing drivers that way would work?
Click to expand...

Updating the Bios: ASrock boards usually have an "Instant flash" option inside the bios itself that lets you update from a flash drive. However the BIOS mine had when it came out of the box did not have that option (after I updated it to the latest version : 2.2. it did have the option). On the download page there are three different installers. One for Windows (which I used), one for Instant Flash and one for DOS. For the DOS one, I'm assuming you would need to first figure out how to make a bootable DOS flash drive or cd...which I couldn't tell you how to do from Linux but when I google it, there seems to be instructions all over.
Or, if you have a windows machine available there are a number of free utilities that will create a dos boot flash drive. I use one called Rufus. See:
https://www.howtogeek.com/136987/how-to-create-a-bootable-dos-usb-drive/

Another option I didn't notice until later is that if you hit F11 to go to the boot menu there is an instant flash option there too. Only thing is, I don't know if that was available in the out of the box bios since I didn't look there.
 
lukart said:
Looks like your having fun. If you increase the cpu voltage get a better cooler!
Click to expand...

I actually have a Corsair closed loop liquid system that I've been using on my old rig (i72600K) for several years. I'm waiting on the Ryzen mounting bracket for that to arrive. as soon as it does, I'll be replacing the stock cooler with that. I'm going to keep it at my current 3.7 GHZ and stock voltage until then.
 
you cant update the bios from within the bios itself?

read ratmans post afterwards, lol. they were in a real hurry to get these out the doors i hear.
 
snarfbot said:
you cant update the bios from within the bios itself?
Click to expand...

https://youtu.be/eAx5ifXNjR0?t=97

This is what i did with my last asrock motherboard.

Ratman6161 said:
Updating the Bios: ASrock boards usually have an "Instant flash" option inside the bios itself that lets you update from a flash drive. However the BIOS mine had when it came out of the box did not have that option (after I updated it to the latest version : 2.2. it did have the option). On the download page there are three different installers. One for Windows (which I used), one for Instant Flash and one for DOS. For the DOS one, I'm assuming you would need to first figure out how to make a bootable DOS flash drive or cd...which I couldn't tell you how to do from Linux but when I google it, there seems to be instructions all over.
Or, if you have a windows machine available there are a number of free utilities that will create a dos boot flash drive. I use one called Rufus. See:
https://www.howtogeek.com/136987/how-to-create-a-bootable-dos-usb-drive/

Another option I didn't notice until later is that if you hit F11 to go to the boot menu there is an instant flash option there too. Only thing is, I don't know if that was available in the out of the box bios since I didn't look there.
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Thanks for the answer, alas it does not have that option, but has a spelling mistake in one of the descriptions. I guess i will have to waste some time by doing a dual boot setup, since i'm not that keen on deleting my current linux setup (or bricking the motherboard by making a mistake somewhere when doing the dos usb). Oh well..
 
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I'm usually cautious about buying bottom of the line components. If I were on a budget I'd still try to fit one of the entry level X370 motherboards for a build. ASRock X370 Killer SLI is only $140 after rebate, Sure, it's a bit more than B350 prices, but if you want to build something dependable and lasting (5+ years) then it's worth to buy better quality.
 
fleshconsumed said:
I'm usually cautious about buying bottom of the line components. If I were on a budget I'd still try to fit one of the entry level X370 motherboards for a build. ASRock X370 Killer SLI is only $140 after rebate, Sure, it's a bit more than B350 prices, but if you want to build something dependable and lasting (5+ years) then it's worth to buy better quality.
Click to expand...

Too late for that, i wanted to edit my order for the asus board, but they were already shipping the asrock one. In terms of component quality, ASRock X370 Killer SLI does not seem to differ a lot from the pro4, however Asus Prime X370-Pro (160 dollars) has the same mosfets as the asrock Taichi.
 
Ok, so i remembered that i have a laptop, that i just bought and have not deleted the filthy windows partition. Thank you Ratman6161 for the freeDos suggestion, i quickly made the freedos bootable usb, threw in the dos file, booted up freedos and proceeded to execute the asrock executable. All went smoothly and now i have the 2.2 version bios.
 
DidelisDiskas said:
Ok, so i remembered that i have a laptop, that i just bought and have not deleted the filthy windows partition. Thank you Ratman6161 for the freeDos suggestion, i quickly made the freedos bootable usb, threw in the dos file, booted up freedos and proceeded to execute the asrock executable. All went smoothly and now i have the 2.2 version bios.
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now that you have that initial update done you should have the instantaneously option available in the bios.
 
DidelisDiskas said:
Yes, and a bunch of other stuff that was not there initially. Very strange that they would release the bios in such an unfinished state.
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Yup, I was surprised too as I have another Asrock based system where I've got an FX8320 and 99OFX chipset tha's several years old. So I was expecting this board to have all the same settings etc that I'm used to on that system....but no. They must have been really rushed to be not including features that Asrock has been including on AMD boards for years. All's well that ends well I guess since its fine after getting it through that initial update.
 
UPDATE: Last night I discovered that there is a new bios out: 2.50 (up from 2.20).
In the description it says "Update Agesa Version string "SummitPI-AM4 1.0.0.4a""

But the previous 2.2 version said ".Update AGESA to 1.0.0.4a"

So any idea what the actual differences are? Is there an actual change log somewhere I'm missing?
 
DidelisDiskas said:
Sorry for the triple post, but don't want anyone to think that i had the right idea, looking at this website, it seems the situation is more nuanced than i thought:

https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/f12/am4-mainboard-vrm-liste-1155146.html

The "ASRock AB350 Pro4" has only a 3 real phases instead of the 4 on the "MSI B350 Tomahawk" . This forum lists the "ASUS PRIME X370-PRO" as the price/performance king, since it actually has 6 real phases at 160 dollars/euros. Wish i could read German, since the translator makes it a bit of a mess.

Would be interesting to hear from someone who could explain the difference (in performance) between 3x2 vs 4 vs 6 phase designs.
Click to expand...
Sorry for the late reply, but this old overclockers link does a good job of explaining the differences and benefits:

http://www.overclock.net/t/891696/a-short-power-phase-design-explanation

In short, during overclocking it's probably easier to get stable power/higher voltage to the CPU with more phases, but you'll probably be okay if you aren't doing anything too high.

Edit: If you want to get very in-depth: http://www.overclock.net/a/about-vrms-mosfets-motherboard-safety-with-high-tdp-processors
 
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Ratman6161 said:
UPDATE: Last night I discovered that there is a new bios out: 2.50 (up from 2.20).
In the description it says "Update Agesa Version string "SummitPI-AM4 1.0.0.4a""

But the previous 2.2 version said ".Update AGESA to 1.0.0.4a"

So any idea what the actual differences are? Is there an actual change log somewhere I'm missing?
Click to expand...

Its a big update, better memory support, boots faster, lower latency on the memory, new memory overclocking menu. My Corsair 3000mhz kit booted at 2667 with the new 2.50 Asrock bios, before that it stayed at 2133.
 
grimpr said:
Its a big update, better memory support, boots faster, lower latency on the memory, new memory overclocking menu. My Corsair 3000mhz kit booted at 2667 with the new 2.50 Asrock bios, before that it stayed at 2133.
Click to expand...

Ill say. my RAM is Crucial Balistix 16x2 DDR4 2400, 16-16-16-16-38. Its dual rank modules. So I was not really expecting too much due to all the memory issues I've been reading about. But mine booted up first time with the RAM properly recognized at its stock speeds, so I thought I was doing pretty well. I even managed to reduce the timings to 15-15-15-15. All attempts at DDR4 2666 failed. But with the new BIOS suddenly my run of the mill RAM will do DDR4 2666 16-16-16-16-38. This required upping the voltage to 1.35. Then I got greedy and tried for 2934 - but that didn't work. Still, getting 2666 out of my 2400 RAM seems like a pretty nice "upgrade" from just a BIOS update.

This is the first time I've built a system with DDR4. Everything I've read says that raising the voltage from 1.2v up to 1.35 shouldn't be a big deal. True or false???
 
Ratman6161 said:
Ill say. my RAM is Crucial Balistix 16x2 DDR4 2400, 16-16-16-16-38. Its dual rank modules. So I was not really expecting too much due to all the memory issues I've been reading about. But mine booted up first time with the RAM properly recognized at its stock speeds, so I thought I was doing pretty well. I even managed to reduce the timings to 15-15-15-15. All attempts at DDR4 2666 failed. But with the new BIOS suddenly my run of the mill RAM will do DDR4 2666 16-16-16-16-38. This required upping the voltage to 1.35. Then I got greedy and tried for 2934 - but that didn't work. Still, getting 2666 out of my 2400 RAM seems like a pretty nice "upgrade" from just a BIOS update.

This is the first time I've built a system with DDR4. Everything I've read says that raising the voltage from 1.2v up to 1.35 shouldn't be a big deal. True or false???
Click to expand...

True. I've abused DIMMs at as high as 1.6V with no issue. AMD itself says up to 1.45V is safe, though this will depend on the chips used. Most DDR4 will scale fine up to 1.35V long term with no issue.
 
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