Nice review, and nice MoBo!
I'm thinking of going MSI for the next overhaul (R7 3700X).
Here would be my typical usage scenario:
- Use the AMD Wraith HSF
- No CPU OC'ing (primarily gaming, so I'm more focused on the GPU)
- All DIMM slots populated (4x8GB single rank modules)
- Single GPU, and nothing else populating any other expansion slots
Any thoughts on the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus?
I have some thoughts.................
-The Wraith is a bare bones, I don't want to spend any money type of heat sink. If we were back in the old days when CPU clocks were fixed and it got the job done while making an awful racket
(as stock coolers tend to do) you would be fine. That's not how things work today. Clocks are variable and adjust based on thermals and other variables. If you use a low end cooler, your CPU will not boost as often or even clock as high as a better cooled CPU will. Getting a better quality air cooler will pay dividends in performance. Even on a "stock" CPU.
-Overclocking doesn't matter in this context. There are only really two kinds of overclocks with Ryzen 3000 series CPU's. Manual all core overclocks and per CCX complex overclocks. Since you've chosen a Ryzen 7 3700X, you are in luck in that you only have a single chiplet rather than two. One of these tends to be substantially worse than the other, limiting overclocking potential. You won't be held back by one "****let" on a 3700X. You also won't need quite as much in the way of power delivery to overclock. Even so, you will find that overclocking a single CCX probably won't benefit you that much. Manual all core overclocking on a 3700X can be potentially useful as you have much lower boost clocks than you would on a 3900X or 3950X.
-This is a bad idea. Don't do it. Stick with two DIMMs and two DIMMs only. Ryzen 3000 series CPU's love higher memory clocks and tighter timings. You will not achieve this with four DIMMs. There is a point of diminishing returns after 3800MHz as Infinity Fabric clocks and memory clocks require a divider at that point. So, you don't need ultra-expensive RAM, but going to four DIMMs means your limiting your RAM speed to DDR4 2933MHz or DDR4 2666MHz. Some people will achieve better, but you won't be doing it on that board more than likely. While MSI's do clock RAM fairly well, you need one of their better ones. I'll get to that in just a moment.
-This is fine. No one uses SLI anymore. Not even me. And I've used SLI from the 6800 Ultra days all the way through the GTX 1080 Ti. I used AMD's Crossfire whenever I went AMD during that time as well. If I thought for a second I could get some extra performance consistently out of a second RTX 2080 Ti, I'd have a second one and I'd be running SLI. So you are good on this front.
-To be blunt. MSI's cheaper motherboards for X570 have VRM's that run way too **** hot. To the tune of about 30-40c hotter than they should in some cases. MSI's MEG X570 Gaming Ace and MEG X570 Unify are about as low as you really want to go if your going with MSI. Yes, that's right. You need to be at about $300 or better with MSI or you aren't getting what you are paying for. Hardware Unboxed did a good job of covering this. Eventually, MSI even admitted that the design of their lower end VRM's were pretty bad.
In other words, I wouldn't go with such a low end motherboard from MSI. If you are looking to spend less than $250 on a motherboard, stick with GIGABYTE or ASUS.
.