Not Applicable For 5950x
Not Applicable For 5950x
Earlier this month I acquired an EVGA 3080, marking my first upgrade in eight years. After spending eight years without assembling high-end systems, my expertise has become a bit outdated. Some low-quality manufacturers seem to be improving while others lag behind, and newcomers are popping up too. That’s why I tried my best but ended up with subpar results. I bought the ASUS Prime X570 Pro—seemed suitable, but it wasn’t optimized for Zen 3 yet, yet supported it. It was the only white X570 board available at the time. From the photo, you can see a clean white build with much work remaining. My main challenge is that USB devices keep disconnecting and reconnecting five times every minute. I went through the RMA process, but because of part shortages they sent me an outdated board instead of fixing it. Now I’m stuck using an old used board I paid full price for, and its problems are even worse. I tried a PCIe x1 expansion card to fix things, but it didn’t work (I can explain the reason if you’re curious). Right now my keyboard gets stuck on one button—like it’s held down—until I press it again. The mouse behaves erratically, jumping between smooth and very jittery, as if its DPI dropped to 5 instead of the 2400 I set (polling rate 1000). This makes gaming extremely frustrating. The biggest issue is that only the first PCIe x1 slot functions properly. My USB card and sound blaster are working fine in one slot, but not in others. I can’t find any explanation for why other slots would disable themselves, even with multiple M.2 drives or extra cards. There are plenty of PCI lanes available, so it should work. I’m budgeting no more than $500. What I really need is the X570 chipset, two M.2 slots, one PCIe x16 slot, and at least two PCIe x1 slots. Onboard Wi-Fi isn’t essential for me since most boards come with built-in Bluetooth. I’m planning to overclock everything. My CPU isn’t top-tier but can handle average overclocks. Compared to the ASUS Prime X570 Pro, this board offers more flexibility and better stability. I need something reliable, stable, with high-quality parts—something that won’t cause me pain like this. Can anyone help with recommendations?
I've been running an X570 Taichi with my 5900X for about six months now. The main concern has been whether it will boot after a restart when fastboot was enabled—this tends to be inconsistent, but a BIOS update resolved the problem. It’s silver and black, so it might not match your theme perfectly, but it still looks decent overall. Additionally, it’s one of the few consumer boards I know that supports SR-IOV, which could be useful for testing virtualization with certain cards. However, the B550 Tomahawk offers most of what you’d expect and is a great value.
In general, brands can be tricky to choose when avoiding any negative associations. Many face some kind of problem over time. If you repeatedly mention a specific brand each time there’s an issue, you’ll run out of alternatives. I wouldn’t purchase a Gigabyte power supply for my biggest rival. Yet, I’ve relied on their motherboards for years and have always appreciated their quality. The only drawback I’ve encountered is that the built-in software is quite basic at best. Outside of a few RGB lighting tools, most features are superfluous. Recently, I bought an X570S Aorus Master and it performed exceptionally well—no problems at all (currently running 3700x, with plans to upgrade later). It boasts a strong VRM layout and useful options for overclocking (BIOS reset, flashing, status codes, restart button, etc.). It received solid reviews as well. A solid option worth thinking about.
If you go b550 then this is a good white one (sort of) https://nzxt.com/product/n7-b550 Does the board have to be white? As for your budget you can get some pretty good non white ones. I did find these two though https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-X570S-AE...11&sr=8-21 https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-X570-Ste...174&sr=8-3
@RONOTHAN## , i'm not worried about virtualization... I have a couple servers that do most of the virtual machines i need, however... I do run android emulators that do better with virtualization turned on, but thats about my limits. I've had the Taichi recommended to me before so i'll take another look at it, but Asrock is one of those brands that was dirt back when i was building before. Speaking of dirt brands, @DogKnight , Gigabyte was dirt when i built my last comp, i got the i7-2600K when it was released and paired that with the Gigabyte Z77X UP5 motherboard and was SUPER reluctant to do so... I went through 2 different Asus motherboards before giving up (deja vu?) and going with what i thought was a crap brand, turned out to be amazing! Their high end boards back then were great, their low end boards and most mid-range boards were terrible, nowadays it seems like maybe they moved up a little bit more? All their cheap stuff seems to be loaded with issues but all the high-end stuff, from what i hear, is quite good. I'll check out the Aorus Master and compare it. I think one of the issues with this board is its not really fully Zen 3 compatible, all the great reviews i see are with the 3000 series Ryzen chips, the 5000 series reviews are almost always bad. @NOV654 thank you for the list! I'll check through those! I'm steering away from the B550's because i want full Gen4 support. I paid almost $400 for my 2TB Samsung 980 Pro and i want to ensure i get the best speeds from it. My entire build has exceeded the $7k mark (including my screens), and im not even done yet... I also feel like i may exceed the PCI lane limit if i go with something other than X570... Probably not, but better safe than sorry! I should mention that i custom build my servers with PC gaming parts when I upgrade. I did buy the parts for a new server, again using gaming parts (server-grade parts are too expensive) to upgrade a seriously aging server i had... My goal though is in another year or two, i'd like to take the CPU, Motherboard, and RAM out of here and upgrade that aging server, then upgrade this again so i can move into DDR5 when the hype and high prices calm down. If it wasnt for that, i'd have probably gotten the 5900x for the higher single core clock speeds, but since this will be going into the server, i got the higher core count. So last thing, i dont care what color the board is... My goal was all white, but since there's only 1 board on the market that i know of thats white and i own it, and its awful, im fine with any color. I 3D print or cut and bend my own plastic to make panels to my liking to fill in the gaps and make it match the theme better. Here's some of the boards i've been looking at: MSI MEG X570S Ace Max MSI MEG X570 Unify ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WI-FI) ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero Gigabyte X570S Aorus Master Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme Rev.2 (this may be out of my price range)
It was just a nice feature I thought worth noting. Most people have faced problems with a brand, like the many failed Gigabyte motherboards I've seen. But if you check the right sources, you'll find similar issues across almost every company—even EVGA, known for having one of the strongest RMA services. I currently own two ASRock boards (Z170 OC Formula and X570 Taichi), which have performed exceptionally well. Their entry-level models can be inconsistent, but their higher-end options are usually reliable in my opinion. Of course, I haven't used their support team, so that might be a downside, but returning it to the store should be straightforward. Micro Center often runs big discounts on this board, sometimes bringing it down to $200, which is unmatched by any other motherboard at that price point. If you're nearby, look for a chance to grab one.
Yup, that's my next board too. My kid gets this one and my 5600X. I actually might have to give my oldest my 5900X if those new AM4 CPU's are awesome. Youngest will get the 5600X Either way my wallet already has its teeth against the curb, its just waiting for the stomp.
It looks like the Dark Hero is gaining traction among players. While the Crosshair VIII collection exists, most users are favoring the Dark Hero version. Have you encountered any problems while playing? Do you have experience with Zen 3 chips on this board?
Board supports LN2 with AMD 5950X at 6150mhz and 1.72v. Warp9-systems Zorak77 was submitted in August 2021. Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 38422 at 5750mhz using 1.69v. RAM performance is 4000mts (2000mhz effective) at voltage between 14-24V, probably around 1.9v or higher. Overall a solid build.