Question Best motherboard under $200 for a Ryzen 5 3600 CPU and DDR4 3600 RAM?

[Hugh Jass]

Looking to purchase a Ryzen 5 3600 CPU and DDR4 3600 RAM soon and wondering what motherboard to get. Want to make sure what I get is compatible without a BIOS flash if possible as I don't have an older Ryzen CPU to drop in to do the flashing.

Need it to be under $200 and preferably with built in wifi.

I've read online that the B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC is good but I worry about possibly having to flash the BIOS to get it compatible. I've also read that the stock Wraith cooler that comes with the Ryzen 5 3600 doesn't fit properly as it rubs up against one of the heatsinks.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rigg]

This is kind of a bad time to do a build IMO. Pandemic aside, Intel is about to launch a full desktop lineup. In all likelihood AMD will cut prices on Zen 2 in the next month. It's also likely that Zen 3, RDNA 2, and Ampere will be available for the holiday shopping season. A lot of product announcements are likely to come in the next few months. If you can wait until fall that is probably the best time to build. If you can't, it's advisable to at least wait until 10th gen Intel starts shipping so you can see how AMD responds. I'm not sure what your GPU plan is but I'd probably get a used RX580 (or some other sub $200 card) as a placeholder if I was going to do a build right now.

I believe the new Zen 2 Ryzen 3 embargo lifts tomorrow so it's possible we get some info on B550. B550 is set to release in June. I have a sneaking suspicion that Zen 3 is only going to work with 500 series motherboards. I wouldn't assume a 400 series board will be compatible with a 4000 CPU if you think you might upgrade down the road. Even if you think a 3900x or 3950x might be in your future paying attention to power delivery is a good idea. I find this spreadsheet helpful on that front:

AM4 Vcore VRM Ratings v1.4 (2019-11-07) - Google Drive

docs.google.com

 

[aleader]

Wouldn't I have to flash a B450 board to get it to work with a Ryzen 5 3600?

I just installed a 3600 on an MSI B450 Pro Carbon AC a couple days ago with 16GB Corsair V 3200 (CMK16GX4M2B3200C16) and it was literally plug-and-play. Picked up the CPU and RAM (at 3200) right off the bat. It has a sticker right on the box that says 'AMD Ryzen 3000 Desktop Ready'. I managed to get the board for $159 CDN ($110 USD) when it was on sale a few weeks ago. I'd 2nd the cooler too. I had a CM Hyper 212 Black RGB cooler from my i5 4670k, so I never even tried the AMD cooler, but so far my temps never get above 61C under full gaming load, 26C at idle.

 

[aleader]

This is kind of a bad time to do a build IMO. Pandemic aside, Intel is about to launch a full desktop lineup. In all likelihood AMD will cut prices on Zen 2 in the next month. It's also likely that Zen 3, RDNA 2, and Ampere will be available for the holiday shopping season. A lot of product announcements are likely to come in the next few months. If you can wait until fall that is probably the best time to build. If you can't, it's advisable to at least wait until 10th gen Intel starts shipping so you can see how AMD responds. I'm not sure what your GPU plan is but I'd probably get a used RX580 (or some other sub $200 card) as a placeholder if I was going to do a build right now.

I believe the new Zen 2 Ryzen 3 embargo lifts tomorrow so it's possible we get some info on B550. B550 is set to release in June. I have a sneaking suspicion that Zen 3 is only going to work with 500 series motherboards. I wouldn't assume a 400 series board will be compatible with a 4000 CPU if you think you might upgrade down the road. Even if you think a 3900x or 3950x might be in your future paying attention to power delivery is a good idea. I find this spreadsheet helpful on that front:

AM4 Vcore VRM Ratings v1.4 (2019-11-07) - Google Drive

docs.google.com

This is true too. I would have waited but I don't put a lot of stock in CPUs as I game at 1440p/75Hz and the benefits of CPU upgrades are minimal at best. I've noticed this already going from my i5 4670k@4.5GHz to the 3600...I can't tell any difference other than much lower CPU usage in some games, but I wasn't experiencing any stuttering with the i5 (ANNO 1800, DCS World, The Division 2, Post Scriptum, etc). I'm actually seeing LOWER fps in some games than with my i5...an almost 8 year old CPU. I'm hoping that games begin to properly use the 6 cores in the near future and I will see some real benefits. Also, I plan on upgrading my vid card from a 1070 this fall when the new cards are out and didn't want to have to do the whole system at once.

 

[dynaboom]

I like the Asus X570-P Prime motherboard. Not a lot of fancy features, but performs well, good cooling, and the usual benefits of the X570 platform. PCIe 4.0 and two m.2 slots. The upcoming Tomahawk X570 is promising, but I would wait for reviews before deciding.

 

[Rigg]

The upcoming Tomahawk X570 is promising, but I would wait for reviews before deciding.

The Tomahawk should pretty well be the best value motherboard on x570. It's hard to go wrong on x570 really. Avoid the MSI boards with sub par power delivery relative to other x570 boards. These are the MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi /MPG X570 Gaming Plus /MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi /X570-A Pro. The entry level boards from AsRock and Gigabyte are kind of avoidable as well although they aren't completely awful considering the price bracket they are in. Asus' lineup is strong top to bottom. The Aorus Ultra, Tuf Gaming, and Tomhawk are all standouts for the price. Most people won't need anything more than this unless doing extreme overclocking.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Finally found an Asus TUF Gaming X570-Wifi in stock online so I went with it. From what I can gather it will be compatible with the new Zen 3 processors if I decide to upgrade down the road.

 

[Meghan54]

The Tomahawk should pretty well be the best value motherboard on x570. It's hard to go wrong on x570 really. Avoid the MSI boards with sub par power delivery relative to other x570 boards. These are the MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi /MPG X570 Gaming Plus /MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi /X570-A Pro. The entry level boards from AsRock and Gigabyte are kind of avoidable as well although they aren't completely awful considering the price bracket they are in. Asus' lineup is strong top to bottom. The Aorus Ultra, Tuf Gaming, and Tomhawk are all standouts for the price. Most people won't need anything more than this unless doing extreme overclocking.

I just wonder why MSI made their X570 Gaming mb lineup so crappy while the B450 version of the Gaming Pro Carbon is generally lauded as an excellent B450 board, albeit with a price to match.

I'd have thought the X570 boards would at least be the equal to their B450 counterparts.

 

[Rigg]

I just wonder why MSI made their X570 Gaming mb lineup so crappy while the B450 version of the Gaming Pro Carbon is generally lauded as an excellent B450 board, albeit with a price to match.

I'd have thought the X570 boards would at least be the equal to their B450 counterparts.

They used a very similar VRM design on their sub $200 x570 to the VRM design they used on a lot of their B450 boards (including the B450 Tomahawk). It's not so much that it's a bad VRM, as much as It's bad relative to all of the other x570 boards. There are similarly priced x570 boards (with similar features) that have much better power delivery. I don't think they counted on the other board partners including such good VRM's in the sub $200 range. I think the x570 tomahawk makes up for it though. That should be a really good value.

 

[Rigg]

Finally found an Asus TUF Gaming X570-Wifi in stock online so I went with it. From what I can gather it will be compatible with the new Zen 3 processors if I decide to upgrade down the road.

That's a nice board and good value as far as x570 goes. You'll be good to go if you want to upgrade to a 4000 CPU down the road.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Been getting random restarts with my Asus TUF Gaming X570-Wifi, Ryzen 5 3600 and both Crucial Ballistix 3600 RAM and G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200 RAM. Can't figure out what's causing it.

 

[Shmee]

Start troubleshooting, perhaps starting with Memtest?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Been getting random restarts with my Asus TUF Gaming X570-Wifi, Ryzen 5 3600 and both Crucial Ballistix 3600 RAM and G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200 RAM. Can't figure out what's causing it.

Are you running an all-core OC? My new-batch 3600 that I installed a few days/week ago, I OCed all-core to 4.2Ghz, but it wouldn't stabilize (would randomly restart), until I bumped the vcore all the way up to 1.3500V. Am running an Asus B450-F ROG STRIX Gaming ATX mobo, and 4x8GB Trident RGB "for AMD" RAM, 18-22-22-xx, 1.35V, @ XMP 3600. FCLK 1800.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Are you running an all-core OC? My new-batch 3600 that I installed a few days/week ago, I OCed all-core to 4.2Ghz, but it wouldn't stabilize (would randomly restart), until I bumped the vcore all the way up to 1.3500V. Am running an Asus B450-F ROG STRIX Gaming ATX mobo, and 4x8GB Trident RGB "for AMD" RAM, 18-22-22-xx, 1.35V, @ XMP 3600. FCLK 1800.

I'm not OCing.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Start troubleshooting, perhaps starting with Memtest?

Will do.