Question Motherboard Choices for Ryzen 9 3950x

[kirkdickinson]

There are a bewildering array of boards and I am trying to narrow it down to a good solid choice.

I am getting ready to build a Photoshop/Video Editing machine. Going to use either a 3900X or 3950X. I don't need wifi because my whole office is wired. I am not an overclocker, but I wouldn't be against turning up the speed a little. I don't play any games at all.

I want to get a really good board, but not break the bank. I can't see paying over $400 unless there is something special that I have to have. Will be adding a video card, so don't need onboard video.

I have seen in the fine print of some boards that if certain M2 slots are filled, then certain SATA ports are disabled or shared. I would like to avoid those boards.

I need 2 M.2, 6-8 SATA ports, 4 Ram Slots, maybe other requirements that I can't think of right now.

Here are some that I have been looking at:

• I keep going back to this one.
  $300 ASRock X570 Taichi ATX AM4
  
  
• Puget Systems uses this board for their Photoshop build.
  $250 Gigabyte X570 AORUS ULTRA ATX AM4 only has 6 SATA Ports - I will need all 6 immediately
  
  
• Found this one that has 2 Thunderbolt ports. It is more than I intended to spend. Does Thunderbolt even work well on AMD?
  $500 ASRock X570 CREATOR ATX AM4
  
  
• Found this board got some love in the forums. I like Asus and most of the computers I have built with Asus boards.
  $360 Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ATX AM4
  
  
• Would I lose out just picking the cheapest board that checks all the boxes?
  $165 Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4

Thanks.

 

[Campy]

Damn how much storage do you need?! Get some 2TB M.2 drives.

Ryzens CPUs don't have onboard except for their APUs(3200G, 3400G etc.), so you wouldn't be getting that anyway.

These boards seem to be getting some praise:

MSI X570 Unify (only has 4 SATA, but 3 M.2)

ASRock X570 Taichi (8 SATA, 3 M.2)

Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master (6 SATA, 3 M.2)

ASRock X570 Creator (Honorable mention for having 10Gb LAN and Thunderbolt)

Here are some vids with info:

Afaik Thunderbolt a form of PCIe through a cable, and the controller chip will be from Intel anyway so it should work as intended. Someone else probably has far better knowledge than me about this.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Unless you need 10GB LAN I would go with either the x570 Aorus Master or Crosshair VIII Hero.

Also you will find that a lot of the boards with a third m.2 slot are using PCIe lanes from the chipset to accommodate that slot. That's why certain SATA ports shut down when you use that m.2 slot. It's not like anyone is requiring you to use that extra slot anyway. Instead of avoiding boards like that, just leave the third m.2 empty. Problem solved. I can tell you that on the x570 Aorus Master (I own one), if you use the top two m.2 slots, you get all 8 SATA ports, no problem.

 

[kirkdickinson]

Damn how much storage do you need?! Get some 2TB M.2 drives.

Well, I do a lot of video stuff too and have a whole pile of 4 and 6TB HD and a 4x hotswap on the front of my current computer. I use a 4TB Data drive permantely installed that will get moved to the new computer. Add the DVD/Bluray, and that is 6 SATA Ports. Not used all the time.

When I edit a video project, I load one drive as a working drive and one as a backup that I keep synced.

Ryzens CPUs don't have onboard except for their APUs(3200G, 3400G etc.), so you wouldn't be getting that anyway.

Thanks, didn't know that. This will be my first AMD build in a long time.

These boards seem to be getting some praise:

MSI X570 Unify (only has 4 SATA, but 3 M.2)

ASRock X570 Taichi (8 SATA, 3 M.2)

Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master (8 SATA, 3 M.2)

ASRock X570 Creator (Honorable mention for having 10Gb LAN and Thunderbolt)

Thanks

Here are some vids with info:

I'll watch those, thanks for the links.

Afaik Thunderbolt a form of PCIe through a cable, and the controller chip will be from Intel anyway so it should work as intended. Someone else probably has far better knowledge than me about this.

Yeah, I thought that Turnderbolt was exclusive to Intel. Didn't realize that it would ever work with an AMD CPU. I was surprised to see it on this board.

 

[yeshua]

If you not going to OC the cheapest ASUS mobo will be just fine for you - that is ASUS x570 TUF Gaming Plus.

Mind that you're expected to use watercooling with 3950X (it's not what I say, it's what AMD says).

Every time in my life when I bought something for the future, I would later realize I didn't need it at all. E.g. my previous motherboard contained a BlueTooth module which I used just once ... when I tested it. What I'm trying to say is that people buy crazily overpriced products with a galore of features most of which they don't use.

Likewise with overpowered PSUs. It's a bane of all IT related forums/reddit - people will always recommend that you buy a PSU which provides twice as much power than you'll ever need. Another really dubious advice which I've recently heard is "you have to swap your PSU if it's old" - what? Why? I have PSUs around me which have seen three different builds and everything still works perfectly.

 

[Ajay]

Since you won’t be overclocking, that Aorus Ultra may be a good fit. There have been some great deals on 12TB drives for BF Cyber Monday - could help you consolidate your storage needs. The 3950X is almost impossible to get right now, sadly. If you want fully featured boards, the ones DrMrLordX are top notch. Also, I think Intel opened up the TBolt spec and dropped licensing to increase adoption.

 

[kirkdickinson]

I can tell you that on the x570 Aorus Master (I own one), if you use the top two m.2 slots, you get all 8 SATA ports, no problem.

How do you have 8 SATA ports? All the listings that I have seen for this board only show 6. That was why I was steering away from it.

Are there more ports hanging off the chipset?

 

[Campy]

How do you have 8 SATA ports? All the listings that I have seen for this board only show 6. That was why I was steering away from it.

Are there more ports hanging off the chipset?

Maybe my fault, I got that part wrong. Edited now though.

 

[DrMrLordX]

How do you have 8 SATA ports? All the listings that I have seen for this board only show 6. That was why I was steering away from it.

Are there more ports hanging off the chipset?

Hmm, thought there were 8! Let me double check: oh yeah there are only 6. Never mind!

 

[Stevae]

How do you have 8 SATA ports? All the listings that I have seen for this board only show 6. That was why I was steering away from it.

Are there more ports hanging off the chipset?

Why do you need eight sata ports? Each sata ribbon has several hookups, and many of the new cases have daisy chained hotswap drive bays, like the Lian Li 011 Dynamic. Also, why get such a cutting edge processor and mobo, and stick to old tech for your storage. You can get the Intel ssd6 with TWO TERABYTES for less than $200 right now on Amazon. Put two of these on a Gigabyte Master or CH VIII Hero, and you have plenty of storage for immediate use. Then you can buy a single 10-12TB HDD Data Drive for less than $300 that only uses one sata port. There are also several 8TB HDD's on Amazon for only $200.
Not trying to tell you what to do, but only give you some ideas so you aren't continually stuck in that same situation. By the way, the Lian Li 011 Dynamic XL case has FOUR hotswap drive bays daisy-chained. Check it out on YT. Cheers!

 

[Ajay]

You can’t daisy chain SATA connections. They are serial point to point devices.

 

[Christopher Bohling]

Anyone tried the 3950X on the Asrock X570M Pro4/Phantom Gaming 4? I know it's probably not good for overclocking, but what about stock?

 

[kirkdickinson]

Why do you need eight sata ports? Each sata ribbon has several hookups, and many of the new cases have daisy chained hotswap drive bays, like the Lian Li 011 Dynamic. Also, why get such a cutting edge processor and mobo, and stick to old tech for your storage. You can get the Intel ssd6 with TWO TERABYTES for less than $200 right now on Amazon. Put two of these on a Gigabyte Master or CH VIII Hero, and you have plenty of storage for immediate use. Then you can buy a single 10-12TB HDD Data Drive for less than $300 that only uses one sata port. There are also several 8TB HDD's on Amazon for only $200.
Not trying to tell you what to do, but only give you some ideas so you aren't continually stuck in that same situation. By the way, the Lian Li 011 Dynamic XL case has FOUR hotswap drive bays daisy-chained. Check it out on YT. Cheers!

First, I will be using 1TB just for my boot drive and another 500GB NVMe for a swap/temp/scratch drive.

Why am I using "old-tech" for storage? Because I currently have 28TB in my machine and even if there were enough SATA ports to run them, the drives that would need from your recommendation would cost $2800 and have ZERO benefit over the drives I already have.

Two terrabytes is nothing for me. I have scads of photoshop files that run into 10-20 GB and loads of video files far far larger that that.

As far as daisy-chained SATA, I haven't heard of that. Can you give me a link. Sata means Serial AT Attachment. Serial means one as far as I know.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I'm rocking the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero WiFi with a 3900X shown here without anything attached. If you do get one pay attention to the little bag with the nvme standoffs that you need for the long drive slot.

 

[KentState]

I've had a long run of Asus motherboards and have found them to be very consistent in quality, features and reliability. In fact, I'm going with the Zenith version for my upcoming Threadripper build. The only issue I had with the Hero X470 version was Asmedia controllers are flaky and there was a limited number of USB headers.

 

[dlerious]

Likewise with overpowered PSUs. It's a bane of all IT related forums/reddit - people will always recommend that you buy a PSU which provides twice as much power than you'll ever need. Another really dubious advice which I've recently heard is "you have to swap your PSU if it's old" - what? Why? I have PSUs around me which have seen three different builds and everything still works perfectly.

PSU's are a lot more efficient now. My Platinum units are 90% at 20% load and my titanium unit drops that to 10% load. A gold unit is 90% at 50% load. For older PSU's you might need to upgrade if it doesn't provide the cables you need like SATA instead of molex or extra power connectors for the motherboard.

 

[Steltek]

I'm surprised you don't have some sort of network attached storage unit for the stuff you have but aren't working on now. How do you back it all up?

 

[VirtualLarry]

While you in fact can't daisy-chain SATA (poster must have been thinking of ATA/IDE cables or somesuch), you can get port-multiplier boards, that, with chipset and driver support, let you run 5-6 SATA devices off of one original port. These are used in "Storage Pods".

 

[Puffnstuff]

I'm rocking the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero WiFi with a 3900X shown here without anything attached. If you do get one pay attention to the little bag with the nvme standoffs that you need for the long drive slot.
View attachment 14380

Gentlemen this motherboard is a piece of garbage! My 2.5gb ethernet port is dead, the board will not honor restart requests, many times it will not even post unless I play with the power multiple times. The ezflash cannot connect to the internet on the one good ethernet adapter, I had to attach a case fan to the cpu fan header so it would post as having an aio in the aio header just isn't good enough.

I tried to rma it to asus and their automated system said it was already under rma. Then I get ahold of Asus CS and they tell me that they cannot ship me a new board even though I paid for a new board and received garbage. Look at how the chipset fan cover is missing. It will not sleep or hybernate nor will it restart. The only thing it will do is power down.

I'm shopping Gigabyte boards at the moment because I will never buy another Asus board as long as I live after they tell me they cannot replace the defect board I purchased from them in good faith with a new board. I bought a new board and I expect a fully functional new board and they won't have it. I will never buy from them again!

Maybe I should've just stuck with Intel....

 

[UsandThem]

I'm shopping Gigabyte boards at the moment because I will never buy another Asus board as long as I live after they tell me they cannot replace the defect board I purchased from them in good faith with a new board. I bought a new board and I expect a fully functional new board and they won't have it. I will never buy from them again!

Maybe I should've just stuck with Intel....

That sounds just like the various posts I've seen about every motherboard manufacturer out there over the years. If you can't return it for an exchange with the retailer during the return period, you will likely receive a refurbished motherboard back from the manufacturer. That's pretty much the S.O.P. from all manufacturers.

I'm not sure what sticking with Intel would have done, since Asus makes plenty of Intel boards. It sounds like you have a defective motherboard, and that can happen with any manufacturer who makes AMD or Intel boards.

 

[thesmokingman]

I'm rocking the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero WiFi with a 3900X shown here without anything attached. If you do get one pay attention to the little bag with the nvme standoffs that you need for the long drive slot.
View attachment 14380

Did you get one of the boards with the missing chipset grill? Or you probably took it off?

 

[Puffnstuff]

Did you get one of the boards with the missing chipset grill? Or you probably took it off?

It was missing when I opened the box and I told Asus about it. My beef with them is that I bought a brand new board and it was defective out of the box. FWIW it was made in Vietnam rather than in China. I miss the days where I could buy a new motherboard that said made in Taiwan. I've seen instances recently of other Asus products with shabby quality control.

In the future I'm going to have to buy all of my motherboards from Amazon so I can return them during the first month plus get a cross ship replacement with no additional charge provided I return the defective unit within the specified time frame.

 

[Ajay]

It was missing when I opened the box and I told Asus about it. My beef with them is that I bought a brand new board and it was defective out of the box. FWIW it was made in Vietnam rather than in China. I miss the days where I could buy a new motherboard that said made in Taiwan. I've seen instances recently of other Asus products with shabby quality control.

In the future I'm going to have to buy all of my motherboards from Amazon so I can return them during the first month plus get a cross ship replacement with no additional charge provided I return the defective unit within the specified time frame.

Well, certainly sucks not buying from a place with a good return policy. I suppose, lesson learned. My first reaction to problems with my AMD build was to run back to Intel. Once, with some great help from our forum members, I got my problems sorted out I wound up with an excellent system. I do admit that there were little annoying cheapouts, like wimpy dram stick latches (really, on a $300 motherboard). Good luck with your efforts, I hope Asus gives you a good board.

 

[Puffnstuff]

My first reaction to problems with my AMD build was to run back to Intel.

I still remember my Slot A Athlon build on an Asus board they generically packaged in a white box so as not to upset Intel.

 

[Topweasel]

Just a reminder of other times Intel used "Shortages" (this case BX chipsets) to scare companies away from offering AMD products.

It's a reminder that AMD as it is more successful will probably push there asps up and margins up, may start segmenting more. But still has a long way to before it reaches Intel levels.