Searching for budget-friendly AM4 boards compatible with 5000-series Ryzen and PCIe 4.0 support
Searching for budget-friendly AM4 boards compatible with 5000-series Ryzen and PCIe 4.0 support
I need to consider my options carefully. Upgrading to an AMD board is attractive because their CPUs are more affordable in the 6-core range I’m targeting. However, most boards I’ve seen only cover Ryzen 3000 models and PCI-gen 3, which doesn’t fit my needs. I also have a compatible air cooler for AMD chips, so I might save on that. But I found an MSI Pro H610M-E DDR4 Intel board priced around 1800, supporting up to 14th gen and PCI-gen 4. If I can’t find an AM4 model that works with Ryzen 5000 series, I might lean toward Intel. It’s a trade-off between cost and compatibility.
For official assistance you must search for B550 motherboards, though numerous B450 models can also run Zen 3 after a BIOS upgrade. (The X470/X570 options are more expensive.) B550 typically handles PCIe 4.0 for graphics cards and one NVMe storage device.
I believe some people do, but officially you require B550 for PCIe 4.0. PCIe is both backward and forward compatible, meaning a PCIe 4.0 GPU usually fits in a PCIe 3.0 slot. For most GPUs, performance drops are minimal. The exceptions are budget models like the AMD RX 6400 and 6500 XT, while high-end cards with more onboard VRAM don’t really need or gain much from PCIe 4.0 (such as the RX 6600 XT or RTX 4090). When it comes to storage, PCIe 4.0 offers a clear advantage, but in everyday use you rarely feel the difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 NVMe. I own both and moving games to the faster drive barely affected load times for most titles. It’s only noticeable when transferring large files to another equally fast drive. Keep in mind that the 5600G doesn’t support PCIe 4.0, so even with a compatible motherboard, your CPU would be restricted to PCIe 3.0.
I plan to stick with PCI Gen 3, as there are many good GPUs available. The Ryzen 5 5600G works well, and if I upgrade to a Gen 4 GPU later, it will run a bit slower until I can upgrade again. I’ll start by getting the motherboard, CPU, and RAM first, since the CPU already has built-in graphics. Which RAM speed should I choose—B450 or A520M? I’m okay with a 1080p gaming setup.
I chose not to visit AMD or MSI Pro H610M-E DDR4 Intel LGA 1700 because its PCI-e gen 4 design seems like a solid future investment, so I won’t need to upgrade soon. I also picked a 6-core i5 processor. It includes Windows 11 support, which makes me a bit uncertain about privacy concerns, so I might switch to Linux and turn off secure boot. What are your thoughts? I’m a bit puzzled since the online store lists DDR4 up to 3200 but says DDR5 on MSI’s site. I understand some boards can handle both, but the details aren’t clear. Edited October 29, 2023 by WackySpace