Motherboard for Ryzen 7800X3D and 32GB RAM kit

[Flogger23m]

Will be looking to purchase a Ryzen 7800X3D over the coming weeks, and looking for a good motherboard and 32GB RAM kit for it. Of course prices for AM5 motherboards are expensive, so looking to find something that has the best stability, shortest boot times, etc.

My current board is an AS Rock X370 Killer SLI/AC, I have used four CPUs on this board (Ryzen 1600, 2700X, 3700X, 5700X) and think AS Rock did a good job with keeping it relevant with BIOS updates. The current BIOS has a boot time of around 16 seconds, and I can be using Windows 10 in around 30 seconds from the pressing the power button. I would like to get similar results with an AM5 board, I know the latest AGESA / BIOS have reduced boot times but it seems like some AM5 boards still suffer longer boot times and I'd like to avoid those boards.

I would like to keep this for another CPU generation or two, or however long AM5 will be kept around.

If anyone has some good motherboard suggestions as well as accompanying RAM kits I would like to know what I should look into getting. And if you own a board you're suggesting if you can let me know the BIOS boot time I'd appreciate it.

What is the ideal RAM speed for a 7800X3D? 6000 MHZ, CL30?



I came across this ASRock X670E PG Lightning, which is a X670E board. It was on sale for $240 but went back up to $260, but it seems to be the only X670E board in that price range. ASRock page/specs for this model. This looks like a decent board for the price, although two of the PCI-E M.2 slots are Gen 4x2 and Gen 3x4. Is that common for AM5 boards in this price range?

Any other good X670E boards, or should I just look into a B650E? I plan on using 2 PCI-E SSDs eventually with the possibility of a 3rd.

 

[Space Lynx]

amazon.com/ASRock-B650M-HDV-M-2-Supports-Processors/dp/B0BY6YRT41/

this motherboard can run 7800x3d perfectly fine, has some of the fastest boot times around, and has a review on the trusted Hardware Unboxed youtube channel proving those two things. update to latest BIOS before turning on EXPO

$125.

and yes, just pop in some EXPO 6000 CL30 ram and away you go.

amazon.com/G-Skill-Trident-288-Pin-CL30-38-38-96-F5-6000J3038F16GX2-TZ5NR/dp/B0BF8FVLSL/

that ram is not QVL but i had read it works fine, just turn on expo and let it reboot a couple times as it sets its timing and boom away you go.

 

[OneMoar]

I just finished a build for somebody using this board

B650 AORUS ELITE AX (rev. 1.2) Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

I was able to pick it up for 165
6000CL 30 is the sweet spot for many cpus samples so might do more some don't

 

[Flogger23m]

I just finished a build for somebody using this board

B650 AORUS ELITE AX (rev. 1.2) Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

I was able to pick it up for 165
6000CL 30 is the sweet spot for many cpus samples so might do more some don't

Is that a 650E or regular 650? I see it for $210 at Newegg/Amazon currently.

Lets say I want to run 1x NVMe drive that is PCI-E Gen 5, and two that are 4x4. Is there any reason to consider a X670E board over a 650E board?

 

[Shou Miko]

Is that a 650E or regular 650? I see it for $210 at Newegg/Amazon currently.

Lets say I want to run 1x NVMe drive that is PCI-E Gen 5, and two that are 4x4. Is there any reason to consider a X670E board over a 650E board?

It's the B650 non-E so the regular.

If you only want to use 1xNVME any board would really do.

I got a Asus Prime X670-P WiFi but I have been looking at the ASRock B650M PG Riptide because I want to go down to micro-atx.

But if you need more information Steve from Hardware Unboxed tested 35 B650 boards

I wouldn't personally look at B650E or B670E unless you don't care and just want the highest end, not like PCI-E 5.0 graphics wouldn't perform fine in 4.0 mode.

 

[Athlonite]

I plan on using 2 PCI-E SSDs eventually with the possibility of a 3rd.

If this is the case you'll probably be better served with an X670E mobo rather than a B650/E mobo

 

[AusWolf]

The 7800X3D is a very conservative chip in terms of power. Basically any B650/X670 board should be able to run it without any issues. A VRM heatsink is a must when I choose, though.

 

[faye]

It's strange to me that almost no one is acknowledging what you want to do with NVMe SSDs.

X670E is your only real option for 3 drives without major performance degradation, and sorry, but having decided not to take that leap yet I'm not familiar with how the lanes are typically split up. That said, if the ASRock board you found fairly inexpensively won't cut it (and from what you said, that seems to be the case) you're going to have to raise budget. It's unfortunate, but better to spend another $100 or whatever it takes now to get a board that will properly support those drives than to have to swap it later. Used motherboards rarely hold value, and depending on your setup and case, just getting them in and out can be a big hassle.

The other way forward would be to buy a cheaper B650 board that will support 2 drives with the understanding that the second will probably be slowed down at least somewhat. Then wait for X770/E or whatever they call the next chipset revision and pick one of those up.

Side note: absolutely hate that there's the E/standard nonsense on top of the H/B/X division now when it comes to chipset and motherboards for AM5. The last thing the average consumer (or newbie to DIY) needed was further confusion in this space.

 

[Shou Miko]

It's strange to me that almost no one is acknowledging what you want to do with NVMe SSDs.

X670E is your only real option for 3 drives without major performance degradation, and sorry, but having decided not to take that leap yet I'm not familiar with how the lanes are typically split up. That said, if the ASRock board you found fairly inexpensively won't cut it (and from what you said, that seems to be the case) you're going to have to raise budget. It's unfortunate, but better to spend another $100 or whatever it takes now to get a board that will properly support those drives than to have to swap it later. Used motherboards rarely hold value, and depending on your setup and case, just getting them in and out can be a big hassle.

The other way forward would be to buy a cheaper B650 board that will support 2 drives with the understanding that the second will probably be slowed down at least somewhat. Then wait for X770/E or whatever they call the next chipset revision and pick one of those up.

Side note: absolutely hate that there's the E/standard nonsense on top of the H/B/X division now when it comes to chipset and motherboards for AM5. The last thing the average consumer (or newbie to DIY) needed was further confusion in this space.

Rumours suggest that AMD might skip the next chipset with the 8000 series CPU not to get anyone's hopes up.

 

[faye]

Rumours suggest that AMD might skip the next chipset with the 8000 series CPU not to get anyone's hopes up.

Ouch. Fair enough.

 

[Chrispy_]

+1 for Hardware Unboxed being a good place to get motherboard reviews. Techspot is where the written versions are posted if you'd rather read articles.

I also have no complaints with Gigabyte for AM5 boards, though I've only really used two Gigabyte and one Asus board so far for AM5 builds, and I won't have reason to change that until stock availability forces my hand to try something else.

 

[ir_cow]

Rumours suggest that AMD might skip the next chipset with the 8000 series CPU not to get anyone's hopes up.

AMD says support for AM5 until 2025. They were very very clear about that. Only reason to release a new chipset is if the link speed is increased. Otherwise it will just be a clone.

 

[Flogger23m]

It's strange to me that almost no one is acknowledging what you want to do with NVMe SSDs.

X670E is your only real option for 3 drives without major performance degradation, and sorry, but having decided not to take that leap yet I'm not familiar with how the lanes are typically split up. That said, if the ASRock board you found fairly inexpensively won't cut it (and from what you said, that seems to be the case) you're going to have to raise budget. It's unfortunate, but better to spend another $100 or whatever it takes now to get a board that will properly support those drives than to have to swap it later. Used motherboards rarely hold value, and depending on your setup and case, just getting them in and out can be a big hassle.

The other way forward would be to buy a cheaper B650 board that will support 2 drives with the understanding that the second will probably be slowed down at least somewhat. Then wait for X770/E or whatever they call the next chipset revision and pick one of those up.

Side note: absolutely hate that there's the E/standard nonsense on top of the H/B/X division now when it comes to chipset and motherboards for AM5. The last thing the average consumer (or newbie to DIY) needed was further confusion in this space.

As long as I can run two drives at full speed, I wouldn't mind of the 3rd one is a bit slower. That would likely be a cheaper drive for storage or older programs/games. As long as I can get the full speed for one PCI-E gen 5 and gen 4 drive that would be good.

Any reason to look at X670Es in my case, or is it better to look for B650Es?

 

[AusWolf]

As long as I can run two drives at full speed, I wouldn't mind of the 3rd one is a bit slower. That would likely be a cheaper drive for storage or older programs/games. As long as I can get the full speed for one PCI-E gen 5 and gen 4 drive that would be good.

Any reason to look at X670Es in my case, or is it better to look for B650Es?

Even regular B650 has two PCI-e 4.0 nvme slots coming from the CPU (depending on the board, of course).

 

[Taraquin]

I would get Asrock B650m HDV since it has 2 dimm-slots. If you plan on Upgrading to 8000 or 9000 you will benefit from that since 2dimm layout is far easier to overclock ram on than 4dimm.

 

[kapone32]

X670E means you get 2 Chipsets. That leaves the CPU to be wired X16 or X8/X8 for the PCIE lanes. With that you could if the board supports it use an adapter card to get 2 drives in RAID O. With those 2 chipsets I have seen boards that support plenty of M2 slots with 4.0 and 5.0 supported. The only boards that give you a full X8/x8 are the MSI Carbon/Ace and Godlike but those are pricey, ridiculous and stupid in that order (depending on your budget). Even though Asus makes it look like it what they actually do with the X670E-E Gaming actually gives you 4 lanes on the 2nd slot and add an M2 port for the other 4 lanes. That means the only PCIe adapter card that makes sense would be the WD AN1500.

X670: These are the boards for the average user and come with my variants but all follow the same principle. 1X16 slot and 1 M2 slot connected to the CPU. In the most expensive you will get another x16 slot but that will most likely be 4.0. The thing is you will get plenty of M2 connected to the Chipset in some cases another 4 slots but they might share lanes with something else like SATA


B650E: Too expensive as you can get X670 boards cheaper than B650E and that is why you get those instead.

If all you want is a Gaming Machine and maybe 2 to 4 drives A620 is where it's at. Pair that with a 65W AM5 chip and save at least $300 but lose a ton of M2.

 

[Chrispy_]

As long as I can run two drives at full speed, I wouldn't mind of the 3rd one is a bit slower. That would likely be a cheaper drive for storage or older programs/games. As long as I can get the full speed for one PCI-E gen 5 and gen 4 drive that would be good.

Any reason to look at X670Es in my case, or is it better to look for B650Es?

Define "at full speed".

You'd need to be talking about short, burst copy from one drive to another, within the double limitations of "not hitting thermal throttling on either drive" and "not consuming all the pSLC write-cache of the writing drive".

Realistically, unless you are reading from one drive to write to another, you are unlikely to ever simultaneously use all lanes at the same time. Typical use cases use one drive at a time, and the four lanes from the CPU to the chipset are plenty for whichever single drive is active.

From a real-world perspective, even in the unlikely event that you were to do lots of burst copying from one SSD to another using reduced lanes, You're still looking at ~2GB/s of copy speed. How much data and how often are you copying data that waiting becomes a problem?

If (like our video editors at work) you actually have a legitimate use case for "regularly" moving half a terabyte of data between SSDs, it's the difference between waiting one minute or four minutes, once every 2-3 days. Even with two PCIe 4.0 drives completely unrestricted, it's not instant - so they get up and do something else, or alt-tab to another task - at which point how long it takes becomes mostly irrelevant.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Just wanted to note and chime in; all Asus AM5 boards have at least 1 Gen5 M.2 slot onboard.

 

[ir_cow]

I believe all B650E and X670E have one 4x m.2 Gen5 slot because first off, that is coming from the CPU, not the chipset. Secondly, AMD made a big deal in marketing about this. Could just be the E ones since that is the Gen5 MBs.

The CPU has 28 lanes. 16(PCIe slots) +4(extras, USB, PCIe)+4 (m.2) +4 (chipset link)

 

[AusWolf]

The CPU has 28 lanes. 16(PCIe slots) +4(extras, USB, PCIe)+4 (m.2) +4 (chipset link)

Or 16 (PCI-e slots) + 2x4 (2x m.2) + 4 (chipset link).

Whether they're gen 4 or gen 5 is determined by the motherboard.

 

[ir_cow]

Or 16 (PCI-e slots) + 2x4 (2x m.2) + 4 (chipset link).

Whether they're gen 4 or gen 5 is determined by the motherboard.

Had to think back on this one if any MBs I reviewed was quad Gen5. BIOSTAR X670E Valkyrie is one.

 

[Flogger23m]

X670E means you get 2 Chipsets. That leaves the CPU to be wired X16 or X8/X8 for the PCIE lanes. With that you could if the board supports it use an adapter card to get 2 drives in RAID O. With those 2 chipsets I have seen boards that support plenty of M2 slots with 4.0 and 5.0 supported. The only boards that give you a full X8/x8 are the MSI Carbon/Ace and Godlike but those are pricey, ridiculous and stupid in that order (depending on your budget). Even though Asus makes it look like it what they actually do with the X670E-E Gaming actually gives you 4 lanes on the 2nd slot and add an M2 port for the other 4 lanes. That means the only PCIe adapter card that makes sense would be the WD AN1500.

X670: These are the boards for the average user and come with my variants but all follow the same principle. 1X16 slot and 1 M2 slot connected to the CPU. In the most expensive you will get another x16 slot but that will most likely be 4.0. The thing is you will get plenty of M2 connected to the Chipset in some cases another 4 slots but they might share lanes with something else like SATA


B650E: Too expensive as you can get X670 boards cheaper than B650E and that is why you get those instead.

If all you want is a Gaming Machine and maybe 2 to 4 drives A620 is where it's at. Pair that with a 65W AM5 chip and save at least $300 but lose a ton of M2.

As long as I can run three modern NVMe Gen 4/5 SSD without major performance degradation that would be fine. I typically go for middle of the road drives, and I would be looking at WD Black, SK Hynix, or Crucial's counter parts are. Currently I have a SK Hynix P31 and a SATA SSD; the SATA SSD will be replaced with an NVMe as my boot drive. GPU will of course change over the years, but currently it is an RTX 4070.

I would get Asrock B650m HDV since it has 2 dimm-slots. If you plan on Upgrading to 8000 or 9000 you will benefit from that since 2dimm layout is far easier to overclock ram on than 4dimm.

Does it really matter? Most 32GB kits are 2x16GB so two would be occupied and two empty. I would probably not bother overclocking the 7800X3D as it doesn't seem to be an easy overclocker in the first place, but for future CPUs I may consider OCing.

 

[Taraquin]

As long as I can run three modern NVMe Gen 4/5 SSD without major performance degradation that would be fine. I typically go for middle of the road drives, and I would be looking at WD Black, SK Hynix, or Crucial's counter parts are. Currently I have a SK Hynix P31 and a SATA SSD; the SATA SSD will be replaced with an NVMe as my boot drive. GPU will of course change over the years, but currently it is an RTX 4070.



Does it really matter? Most 32GB kits are 2x16GB so two would be occupied and two empty. I would probably not bother overclocking the 7800X3D as it doesn't seem to be an easy overclocker in the first place, but for future CPUs I may consider OCing.

It is for the ram speed, works fine now, but with ryzen 9000 expo at 8400 may not work on a 4dimm board, while a 2dimm can do it also one of the cheapest boards.

 

[AusWolf]

It is for the ram speed, works fine now, but with ryzen 9000 expo at 8400 may not work on a 4dimm board, while a 2dimm can do it also one of the cheapest boards.

The question is, how is running 2 DIMMs in a 2-DIMM board different from running 2 DIMMs in a 4-DIMM board? As far as I know, they're the same thing.

 

[Taraquin]

The question is, how is running 2 DIMMs in a 2-DIMM board different from running 2 DIMMs in a 4-DIMM board? As far as I know, they're the same thing.

Tracing is far more complex in a 4dimm MB, this reduces the maximum speed achieveable. The best ram OC motherboards are always 2dimm. For this generation all boa4ds suffice, but generally 4dimm boards struggle past 7800, while 2dimm boards do 8400+with ease, I have not seen the Asrock in action though. Down the line since treadstarter mentions possibility of upgrading to newer CPU down the line a 2dimm board 7s less likely to hold the ram speed then back.