Top choice for a 150-200 budget is a reliable mid-range board with solid performance and good value.
Top choice for a 150-200 budget is a reliable mid-range board with solid performance and good value.
I picked the Gigabyte B450 Aorus M since it was more affordable and matched the other models in price. I didn’t realize the selection would shift. I wish I had chosen the tomahawk. Still, I’m not over it.
You managed to avoid the B350 Gigabyte. Two of your pals own it and they both strongly dislike it—one finds the BIOS confusing, the other can’t optimize his 2400G properly.
I received my first board as a Gigabyte X370 Gaming bundled with my Ryzen 5 1600 from Newegg last Friday for $149. The motherboard was terrible and failed soon after. That’s why I chose the B450. I mostly use Gigabyte boards in my current builds. The X370 lacked an LLC, fixed voltage, and other features. Still, even the B450 Aorus M BIOS is far from ideal compared to my gaming 5.
If evidence supports it, I'd struggle to accept it, since Tomahawk expects extra value and I expect it to be genuinely better. Theorycrafting doesn't matter; the real world does, and I wouldn't be surprised if Tomahawk holds a slight advantage.
since upgrading the CPU isn't necessary unless a better option exists, B450 and X470 boards are sufficient. The main drawback of the B450 is its limited Carbon support from MSI, with only PCIe 2.0 x4 in the second M.2 slot. There aren't any X470 boards available at reasonable prices with BIOS flashback right now, but you might find a Gigabyte Gaming 7 or Asus Crosshair VII Hero locally. For the X570, if rear connectivity isn't essential, the X570-P from Asus is a good choice; otherwise, consider the Asus TUF or Gigabyte Aorus Elite.
There is limited OC headroom for the Pro4, and IIRC higher memory speed support isn't great either as I tried running 3200Mhz RAM on it with very mixed results. The Asrock VRM aren't terrible, its just that MSI's cooling for their B450 boards are so good that it even outperforms some of their lower X470 boards. If OP isn't planning on OC and just wants to run the system as is, the Pro4 would be perfectly fine tbh
it run unqualified 3600 speed C16 dram with Ryzen 3000 fine , id be happy to know what 3200 it had issues with though. i don't doubt overall it has serious bios, and also ram compatability support compared to the Tomahawk though, us ASRock dudes still sitting and waiting for a actual 1.0.0.4B patch when thats been out for other b450s for ages now. It definitely feels like a 2nd-tier board, but i suppose because of issues like that its crazy cheap for what it is, hard to argue with 50$ at Microcenter with a CPU, or 70-80$ elsewhere. Tomahawks are still usually 110-120+, which for me is enough i'd be tempted to just jump to a good budget x570 with way better vrm
Asrock hasn't released a proper BIOS update since the version for the 3000 series Ryzen. It's disappointing because it's a solid budget board. They seem more focused on adding RGB features to the Steel Legend, like the X570, which only lasted my friend a month before failing, rather than updating the software.