Consider your financial situation carefully before starting a new budget.
Consider your financial situation carefully before starting a new budget.
It's less frequent outside higher-end tiers and chipsets, but options like the b650m HDV/m.2 are solid choices. They typically cost between $100 to $120, even though they have only two slots. Despite that, they can support OC'ed 7800x3D and 9800x3D models well, maintaining good temperatures and performance.
If the alternative board costs more due to unused features (like USB 4 or Wi-Fi), then it might seem like a waste. However, with a budget-friendly option you could get a solid performance without extra spending. For those on a tighter budget, going for a more affordable 2-slot model such as the HDV/m.2 could save you money overall. Personally, I wouldn’t call it a waste unless you’re certain you don’t need anything special later. The B650m Pro RS offers better VRMs and other upgrades, but those are subjective improvements rather than clear necessity.
am4 doesn't make financial sense, am5 mobos are priced equally, and am5 CPUs are more affordable than am4 in the same category while delivering superior performance.
I located an AM5 motherboard matching the AM4 specs but featuring updated PCIe versions. It offers better value compared to AM4, making it ideal for budget builds under $200 with used components. The planned setup includes a Ryzen 5 9600X paired with an Radeon 9060 XT 16GB, a mid-range ATX case, 32GB RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 650W power supply.
ok well fair, I was more focusing on something that will be viable for 5 years but that and 2x24gb ram should be good to go i guess since you eventually can swap in an better cpu. Unfortunately neweggg isnt running their promotion anymore on ram but you could get a 9600x and 16gb of ddr5 for free with it so youd be in it $260 for the mobo cpu ram comparatively. to me that is worth it, which is why i did exactly that in the same situation of OP when i came up on a am4 mobo.
As long as your VRAM isn’t limited, the difference is usually negligible. PCIe 3.0 still performs quite well in most games. The 8 GB version shows a bigger impact when you go beyond that size. According to Hartware Unboxed’s video, these factors matter more than just adding extra slots. Of course, PCIe 5.0 doesn’t significantly boost performance here—it only slightly improves it.