Negative offset on the MSI boards

[Cezar]

I have been watching Buildzoid videos about mother boards recently. The guy mentioned that all MSI boards do not have negative offset on them. As far as I understand it makes the whole system run cooler and saves energy. It also sounds like the board without offsets tries to shove additional energy into CPU.
Can someone explain how the offset works?
What are the consequences of absence of this feature?

I am looking to buy x470 board for 1600/2700/2600/2700 processor right now.

I also do not have a running system right now. So I was looking to buy something and Ryzen seems to be the way to go.

A second part of the question is what to do right now if you do not want to loose money on the declining value of 2nd gen processors after the release of 3rd gen? It seems like the prices for 2nd gen are dropping every day. Are the prices going to drop substantially for 2nd gen after the release of the 3rd gen or have we flatted out for the foreseeable future based on your educated guess?

I will add another one. I want a b450 or x470(preferably) under $200 with post code and all kinds of reset buttons. Is it possible to get a board with those features for under $200? From what I searched I could not find one. Asrock taichi was the only one with the post code at around $200. Do you know of any other boards? I was looking at ATX form factor or bigger.

 

[trents]

The last couple of MSI bios releases for b450 and x470 do include a negative offset adjustment. As you can see from my Sig, I have the MSI b450i gaming plus AC and the bios does have a negative offset adjustment. However, that I can tell it does nothing. This control allows you to set either a negative or a positive offset and also the amount of the offset. But no matter what I enter, it doesn't seem to change anything when I check the voltages in HWInfo64. Keep in mind, I am running a non X Ryzen so that may be why. My understanding is that the negative offset is valuable in conjunction with Precision Boost 2 which is not operative (at least this is my understanding) unless you have both an X class board and an X class Ryzen CPU. Sorry, I can't comment on how it works beyond that.

As far as the declining value of 2nd generation Ryzens and the wisdom of investing in one as opposed to waiting for Zen 2, that is a decision for you to make and there are pros and cons. If you had a running system I would say wait until Zen 2 debuts because then there will be a glut of older Ryzen CPUs on the market and the price will go down. There is also the question of if you get a b450 or an x470 board now and a 2nd generation Ryzen CPU will you be sorry that you didn't wait for the x570 boards? Will the x570 chipset boards offer some advantage to running Zen 2 CPUs compared to b450 and x470 chipsets?

Another option would be to pickup a b450 or an x470 board now and buy a cheap used first generation Ryzen (R3 1200?) to be able to make a running system and then wait until Zen 2 CPUs come out and then upgrade.

The other comment I would make about MSI boards, based solely on the one I have, is that the bios has poor CPU voltage granularity. By that I mean I can only change the CPU core voltage in increments of 0.0125. Those are big steps. It may be that MSI's higher end boards do not have that limitation.

On the positive side, there is excellent support for a wide variety of RAM products and good compatibility. In my experience, it runs non AMD tuned RAM just fine.

 

[Bustos]

I am in a similar boat so I’ll share my stance and why.

I do need a new GPU and was planning to build a new computer from scratch as my system is 7+ years old. With Zen2+ and Navi ‘right around the corner’ I’ve decided to wait. There is always a new piece of hardware coming down the pipe so I had planned to jump into the best current tech I can buy. This philosophy is very popular in PC building communities and one I agree with.

A few reasons I am holding out. One and two being a new CPU and a new GPU are coming out on new chips. These are not simply improved chips but new and improved chips. Third, new mobos are coming out with potentially new and improved hardware as well. Fourth and fifth, a few games I’m very interested in haven’t been released and I’m okay with my current running system, playing LOL, in the meantime.

I will base my buying decisions based on a few things.

One, what the new CPUs, GPUs, and mobos are capable of. Two, their pricing. Three, how the market reflects the pricing of the newly, older, generation models.

I hope I raised some questions you need to ask yourself and figure out the answers too.