AM5 board suggestions?

[Niku-Sama]

I've been out of the loop for mobos for some time now and it looks like i'll be upgrading around april with the 7800x3d so i'm starting to look for something now board wise.
I'll probably do some overclocking with it.
looking at full sized boards and i am thinking i might want to get a PCIe 5.0 board since this will be an almost completely ground up upgrade. everything minus the 3070ti and case pretty much untill something else comes along and blows it out of the water that doesn't cost a fortune, but i'll probably use this setup till 6xxx or 7xxx series nvidia cards come out and i'll do minor changes in between in which case they might be able to utilize that 5.0 bandwidth and it'd be nice to have.

I'm looking at
7800x3d
what ever mainboard
32 gb ram since that being standard is probably not far away
existing 3070ti that i got recently
850 (ish) PSU
360mm rad
512 gig nvme probably 5.0 because why not

as you can see its a build totally set in stone.
what is actually set in stone is i will absolutely not get anything from asus.
any thoughts?

 

[EarthDog]

Budget? One of the better boards out with EVERYTHING the platform offers is the Taichi. If you don't care about thunderbolt/usb4 you can spend less.

I dont recall if the 7800 is overclockable... double check that.

32gb of ram as a standard IS here with ddr5 already. For amd, go 6000-6200 lowest CP rating as the platform gets incredibly finicky above that.

 

[Woomack]

I can only recommend Gigabyte Aorus B650E Master or something from ASUS. I wasn't testing MSI/AMD mobos and I have mixed feelings about ASRock recently.

All X3D CPUs seem to overlock even worse than expected because of 89°C temp limit. Since you can only use PBO to OC then it will drop the clock once it reaches Tj. It won't throttle (like below the clock in the specs), but expect 100-150MHz below the stock boost when the CPU will be around 89°C. I wasn't reading much about X3D OC, but some guys who set +200MHz (which is the max), actually got something around +100-150MHz. In short, good cooler, lower voltage and good luck.

 

[Niku-Sama]

Budget? One of the better boards out with EVERYTHING the platform offers is the Taichi. If you don't care about thunderbolt/usb4 you can spend less.

I dont recall if the 7800 is overclockable... double check that.

32gb of ram as a standard IS here with ddr5 already. For amd, go 6000-6200 lowest CP rating as the platform gets incredibly finicky above that.

It is supposed to be to some degree.
nut any way as far as budget, i forgot these new boards are really expensive for some reason. some are more than the CPU which seems a bit strange. I did see the Taichi on sale on amazon for $450 i think (yea here it is) and thats probably my limit. i'd buy it now but its return policy would end before i could test it and i dont want to risk that for an expensive board. I was also looking at the steel legend, its a hundred or so less. has less power phases but i dont think with a 7800x3d i'd utilize all them much on the taichi. then theres the something lightning thats under the steel legend for another $100 less i just found that looks like it has the same phases but i need to look some more on it.

dont really care about ThunderB4 3PO but it seems to come on boards that have PCIe 5.0 support for the most part so eh...

I can only recommend Gigabyte Aorus B650E Master or something from ASUS. I wasn't testing MSI/AMD mobos and I have mixed feelings about ASRock recently.

All X3D CPUs seem to overlock even worse than expected because of 89°C temp limit. Since you can only use PBO to OC then it will drop the clock once it reaches Tj. It won't throttle (like below the clock in the specs), but expect 100-150MHz below the stock boost when the CPU will be around 89°C. I wasn't reading much about X3D OC, but some guys who set +200MHz (which is the max), actually got something around +100-150MHz. In short, good cooler, lower voltage and good luck.

I might consider a gigabyte board but hell no to asus

i dont know about that, the one dude got the 7950 to 5.9 with little work/time and a cooling solution that wasn't very crazy

 

[Woomack]

I might consider a gigabyte board but hell no to asus

i dont know about that, the one dude got the 7950 to 5.9 with little work/time and a cooling solution that wasn't very crazy

I saw headlines, but I wasn't reading the actual article as similar things are all over the web. Afaik regular cores will OC the same as in standard Ryzen 7k chips, so regular cores up to ~5.9GHz, but X3D cores up to ~5.2GHz (as long as temps will be under 89°C), since both have standard boost and additionally about +200MHz OC via PBO. The regular boost for Ryzen 7950X3D is 5.7GHz, so +200MHz max = 5.9GHz. The whole OC thing on these chips isn't anything spectacular to shout about it on the web as people do. Still, there are articles with "wow! we could OC up to 5.9GHz!". It should be, we could barely make ~150MHz more, as with good cooling standard boost is usually ~50MHz higher than what is in the specifications (so 5.75GHz for the 7950X/7950X3D).

Either way, these CPUs have much higher clocks than the last gen, and the performance is great, so there is no point in overclocking them for ~1-5% higher performance. The same as with graphics cards, OC barely gives us anything nowadays. Everything is calculated to have 5-7% max headroom or is locked (voltages, power limits, and more). The typical OC is about ~5% for every AMD and Nvidia graphics card but also every higher AMD and Intel CPU in the last 3-4 generations.

 

[EarthDog]

.... but it seems to come on boards that have PCIe 5.0 support for the most part so eh...

TB4/USB4 is still pretty rare. Most boards have pcie 5.0 slots and m.2 sockets, way more than those with TB4/USB4. You can find it on older boards too, but more rare.

 

[Niku-Sama]

well either way, not a big deal for me

so a vote for the taichi, any one else?
i'm still curious as to what people think of the steel legend compared to the taichi

 

[Woomack]

I was only testing Z790 Steel Legend, but looking at specs, X670E Steel Legend is not much different and clearly worse than Taichi. ASRock saved on some components, and the motherboard, in general, looks cheaper in reality than in photos. In short, the audio is worse, USB are worse, and the power design is worse (it doesn't change much) .... feels like only a bit here or there, but they lowered the specs of nearly everything.
I can only say that my experience of the Z790 Steel Legend (as I said, it's not much different than the AMD version) is not bad, but also nothing special.

 

[EarthDog]

Steel Legend is OK (see above, lol). If you can work with the specs/features, it will do fine.

 

[Niku-Sama]

i just discovered a b650e taichi today

ASRock B650E Taichi

Supports AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series Processors<br />24+2+1 Phase Power Design, SPS for VCore+GT<br />4 x DDR5 DIMMs, supports up to 6600+(OC)<br />1 PCIe 5.0 x16, 1 PCIe 4.0 x16<br />Graphics Output Options: 1 USB4 Type-C, 1 HDMI<br />Realtek ALC4082 5.1 CH HD Audio Codec,, ESS SABRE9218 DAC, WIMA...

www.asrock.com

its got the same VRM but a little less pci lane stuff (as would be less on any 650's) its tempting at about $140 less than the x670e
am i really going to use 4 m.2 slots and both pcie 5 16x slots?
i'm thinking probably not, unless sli/crossfire becomes a thing again... i cant see many downsides to this in all honesty...

 

[Woomack]

You probably won't notice a difference.

 

[Niku-Sama]

ok i think i'm set then. i got ram picked out with the motherboard, i can reuse the 360mm aio i already have till i decide on another, grab a decent pcie 4.0 drive.
i think i'm gonna try and day 1 the cpu if i can, not sure if i should get the rest now or at the same time as cpu, i guess i could wait and see if any of them go on sale between then and now

 

[TELmo]

Hi (from the new guy),

Have you found a shoe for this Niku-Sama CPU? Already placed?


I'm interested in your post because I'm wondering the same thing.
Even if I'm not a hyper clock...man, and also effectively... given the poor performance of the X7800 3dx / X79000 3dx in overclocking I think it's not important today.
I've heard a lot about RAM 6000 and (slightly +). Yet I must say that MB compatible with this RAM are rare under $ 250/350 for AMD!


I need a MB / CPU (I've almost already chosen 790003DX) / RAM 6000 CL 30 / AIO
With a 3080Ti and 980 Pro NVMe PCI-e 4.0 (which I already own)
I also have an 850W power supply



I'm thinking of going for an MPG X670E carbon wifi.
I'm looking more for stability and cold (silent) attitude than racing for a few FPS, even if I like to play in 4K.
Nobody has a crystal ball, but I think it's a good idea to have a PCI-e 5.0 and at least 1x M2 also in 5.0 (more future-proof).

But still hesitant about the unstable 1.3V voltage of some motherboards, info/intox!?

Taichi is unfortunately little known on this side of Europe (Belgium), but nevertheless available. (what would be its advantages?) Good brand ASRock ? Taichi (650€ ouff!) and Steal Legend 380€ (Aesthetics not great, but you can't have everything at this price.)

Phil

Edit:
Oh, I missed the B650E you mentioned.
Very good from my point of view, but still 530€.
I find balance in this card

 

[Niku-Sama]

oh i just saw this

yea i went with the b650e taichi since i wanted the PCI e 16x slot to stay at 16x if i add another card in another slot, the 670e taichi knocks the 16x down to two 8x slots when the other is used.
not that i am saturating the 16x slot but you dont know what the future holds either

so far its been ok with the 7800x3d and aside from the SOC voltage issue every one had, and i pointed out on other boards i havent had an issue.
i manually set the SOC on mine to be safe

 

[TELmo]

Sorry, so am I "Holidays"
Thanks for your feedback, I understand about the PCIE 16x slots (and you're teaching me).
My favorite store is out of them!
Victim of its success perhaps.

 

[jarablue]

I have an Asus X670-P wifi board and it has TB4/USB4 header on the motherboard. My board works fine with my 7900x. No issues here at all with the latest bios update.

 

[EarthDog]

I have an Asus X670-P wifi board and it has TB4/USB4 header on the motherboard.

Many do have that header. In order to use it, you need to buy a TB4/USB add-in card ($99-$300+). We're talking about the 40 Gbps port being integrated on the board. For the cost of one of those cards and your board, you can get a Taichi Lite with better everything all around.