What’s the right motherboard for me?

Endgame

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25 years ago as my high school job (****, has it been that long?!?) I worked for a computer shop building computers, tech support for dial up, etc. I had the job through college and got to use every brand of motherboard there is. ASUS was my favorite, especially the old T-Bird mother boards.

I’ve been using ASUS though sheer inertia for 10 years at this point... maybe it’s time to branch out against for my new Ryzen 5950 build?

what I want:
Solid VRM solution for a triple Rad WC build running folding 24x7 when not gaming or working
Integrated fan control
Multi pcie 4 NVME
Linux support for required apps, to change boost profiles

nice to have, not critical
10gbit nic
Bios flashing tools (ex: flash back)

what I don’t want
WiFi (Wired for life)
Disco lights
LN2 support
Integrated audio (seriously, I’ve never used it in a single build - moved from a sound blaster to USB head set years ago)

I’m sure I’ll think of more, but this is the high level stuff
 
25 years ago as my high school job (****, has it been that long?!?) I worked for a computer shop building computers, tech support for dial up, etc. I had the job through college and got to use every brand of motherboard there is. ASUS was my favorite, especially the old T-Bird mother boards.

I’ve been using ASUS though sheer inertia for 10 years at this point... maybe it’s time to branch out against for my new Ryzen 5950 build?

what I want:
Solid VRM solution for a triple Rad WC build running folding 24x7 when not gaming or working
Integrated fan control
Multi pcie 4 NVME
Linux support for required apps, to change boost profiles

nice to have, not critical
10gbit nic
Bios flashing tools (ex: flash back)

what I don’t want
WiFi (Wired for life)
Disco lights
LN2 support
Integrated audio (seriously, I’ve never used it in a single build - moved from a sound blaster to USB head set years ago)

I’m sure I’ll think of more, but this is the high level stuff

VRMs

If you want a solid VRM solution and want to stick to ASUS, you will have to spend a lot of money to do it. It's reserved for their highest end motherboards. Unfortunately, while I wouldn't say ASUS makes a totally bad VRM on any board, the less expensive options are not the most robust solutions and not the best choice for a 16c/32t CPU. You are going to have to be pretty careful here unless you buy pretty high end. For the most part, any motherboard under about $300 is going to cut corners in a few places to hit that price point. There are a couple exceptions like the MSI X570 Tomahawk, but they are few and far between.

Having said that, pretty much any X570 motherboard will be fine if you do not intend to overclock your CPU. However, when run hard for too long, cheaper VRM solutions may run hot and will therefore be less efficient. Its possible that this could impact boost clocks, although only slightly. The ASUS TUF GAMING X570 PLUS [WiFi] (Yes, that's really it's name) ran most tests slightly slower than other X570 boards we've tested and it has a pretty basic VRM. Then again, other reviewers didn't necessarily have this problem, so it could have been a fluke with my test sample.

PCI-Express Gen 4.0 NVMe Support

Any X570 chipset based motherboard will have support for PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe slots. As long as you use a CPU that supports PCIe 4.0, your good to go. X570 is the only chipset in the mainstream segment that can do this today. X470 doesn't support it. B550, A520 and even Intel's Z490 do not support PCIe 4.0 today. B550 gives it to you on a single slot, but that's because the primary PCI-Express x16 slot's lanes and an additional 4x lanes for NVMe storage are supplied by the CPU's PCIe 4.0 controller. Thus, they don't come from the chipset at all. A520 doesn't even do that, effectively crippling the Ryzen 3000 or 5000 series to force them down to PCIe 4.0.

Fan Control

All motherboards have integrated fan control. All of them can be controlled via the UEFI BIOS. There isn't a single motherboard using the X570 chipset today that does not offer this. ASUS has the best fan control interface in my opinion, but MSI, ASRock and GIGABYTE are all more than capable on this front. EVGA probably is too, but frankly I haven't worked with one of their motherboards in a very long time.

Linux & Something About Clocks

As for Linux support, I can't help you on that. I do not know if there is any application support for adjusting boost profiles. Frankly, it's probably not needed. A 24/7 stable overclock will be capable of handling anything you throw at it, regardless of the workload. This can be done easily in the BIOS with profiles created for using stock boost or an all core manual overclock. Because I haven't tested any Ryzen 5000 series, I can only speculate as to how they'll work on that front. If history is any guide, then you will sacrifice single-threaded performance when using an all core overclock because you haven't a chance in hell of doing an all core overclock that matches the maximum boost clock of the CPU. It's doubtful that there will be more than one or two cores on the entire CPU that can do this. AMD has been binning these things pretty close to the edge of what the silicon can do.

Suck it up Buttercup (Things you will hate and some workarounds.)

Water Cooling:


Now, here is where the bad stuff starts happening and I unfortunately have to be the bearer of bad news on multiple fronts. First and foremost, you will not need a triple radiator setup. This will not help you at all. A single 360 radiator should be plenty for most people. You could go bigger depending on your case. You really only need roughly a 240mm radiator per component. One for the CPU and one for a GPU if you were going to water cool that. If not, a single 360 would be fine and two would be overkill. Three would be a waste of money and resources. It would also be another failure point for no reason. If you want to do this for aesthetics, be my guest but understand you are literally wasting money on a rad and fans that complicate the system with absolutely ZERO benefit. You can't get sub-ambient doing this and your cooling capacity will already be beyond the what the CPU can generate, and what can be dissipated via the heatspreader, TIM and waterblock's surface area.

10GbE Network Controllers:

On the subject of 10GbE NICs, this is typically the domain of HEDT motherboards if you are lucky. This isn't something you see on the mainstream segment offerings unless they are focused on content creators or workstations. Few are. The DIY PC has basically fallen into a niche of being either a workstation platform for content creation or they are for playing games. The selection of integrated hardware and aesthetics are what separate these two domains unless you step up to workstation or HEDT motherboards. I'm not saying these don't exist, but its a foolish thing to pursue given how few of them exist. The consumer standard is all about 2.5GbE and 5GbE right now. 10GbE is more expensive and there just isn't a market for it in the home. The few users who do need it are more than capable of grabbing a 10GbE adapter and installing it.

These boards do have expansion slots. I would leverage one of those and buy some sort of Intel NIC. Having said that, there are some egregiously expensive options that do come with 10GbE NICs. However, these are not the server grade NICs from Intel. They are usually Aquantia's of some sort. They work, but you have to step up to something like an MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE, which I reviewed here when the Ryzen 9 3900X launched a little over a year ago. But that board, will come with a lot of stuff you will hate and it costs $641.06 on Amazon.

Integrated Audio - You are getting it, whether you like it or not.

Now, if what I've said has been disappointing, or infuriating, you are about to feel like I took a dump in your cereal bowl. You are going to get integrated audio whether you like it or not. Not having it hasn't been an option since the late 1990's or very early 2000's. Workstation oriented motherboards skimp on the audio as do lower end motherboards. That's just what has to happen to hit those lower price points. Onboard audio isn't the crap it used to be though. Even the basic Realtek stuff isn't bad. Even so, it's inclusion isn't optional so you are stuck with it. There are NO options where you can avoid it.

Disco Lighting - You are probably getting this too. It's the herpes of the PC world.

As for the RGB LED lighting, it's something you almost have no choice on either. Even content creation focused motherboards often have a glowing logo or something on it somewhere. They won't have the full gamut of RGB LED lighting but most options have varying levels of RGB lighting that ranges from subtle to looking like the Vegas strip at night. However, there are two things to be aware of. Most of them have an option to turn the lights off in the BIOS. You can just kill them right then and there. Secondly, there are a couple of options out there which have no RGB LED lighting whatsoever. The MSI MEG X570 Unify is one such example. It has a good, albeit not crazy VRM.

LN2 Features

LN2 features you will only get on purpose built overclocking motherboards and typically, they are the expensive ones that have many other things you hate. Honestly, an LN2 mode amounts to two things. The first is a jumper or switch on the PCB to enable or disable the mode. The second may be an LN2 mode in the UEFI BIOS itself. It's a feature that's really not invasive, doesn't really cost anything and is very easily ignored and forgotten. Some boards that feature this are actually quite desirable. Robust VRMs, voltage check points and other diagnostic tools that can help you if you have a problem. The boards that have this are overbuilt and while some are like the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE I mentioned earlier, others are like the ASUS Maximus XII APEX, which are much more streamlined, stripped and purpose built. (They still have RGB lights, no 10GbE, and onboard audio.)

BIOS Flashback

BIOS Flashback functionality is something that you can certainly have on a variety of motherboards but it's usually not on the cheap side. That is, you usually have to spend more than $300 to get it. The MSI MEG X570 Unify does have this feature at $312 from Amazon. I reviewed the Unify here.

WiFi - It's a cancer, but it can be cut out.

WiFi is easily avoided. I hate it too as I think it sucks for gaming and blows harder for big file transfers. There are usually WiFi and non-WiFi variants of the same motherboard available. The WiFi suffix is usually added to the board model/name to make distinction easier. So, no problem there.

Quick Summary:
  • VRM - Yes. It's not cheap though.
  • Fan Control - Yes. All boards have this.
  • PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe - All X570 boards have this.
  • Linux - No ****ing idea.
  • 10GbE NIC- Not unless you want to spend $500+ on a motherboard. Just buy a 10GbE NIC and save some money.
  • BIOS Flashback - Yes, but only after about $250-$300 or more.
  • WiFi - No problem. You can avoid this easily.
  • RGB LED Lighting - Can be shut off on any motherboard. Only a few options spare you from this. It's not worth avoiding in my opinion.
  • LN2 Support - Easily avoided, but not a big deal. Really.
  • Integrated Audio - You will take it and like it. Even if you don't, too bad. You are getting it anyway.
Some thoughts and Recommendations.
  • ASUS Pro WS X570-ACE
  • MSI MEG X570 Unify
I wasn't a big fan of the RGB craze when it hit. It's overplayed, but I actually like it. Other trends, not so much. I have never liked some of the consumer networking solutions. I hate WiFi, as its basically crap for gaming or doing real work. You can get a good VRM, but it costs you a little bit of money. There are a couple options out there like the MSI X570 Tomahawk and MSI MEG X570 Unify for that price. Other boards like the ASUS TUF GAMING X570 PLUS WiFi and MSI X570-A Pro are good enough to get by using 8 core CPU's or even 12 core chips at stock speeds. You can overclock the 8 core CPU's all you like with that, but when you step up to an 16c32t CPU, you have to understand that those were HEDT territory just a year ago. They really require beefy VRM's and you just don't get those unless you spend some money.

I used to hate integrated audio. In some instances I still do as I've seen otherwise great motherboards brought down by it. As someone who has been building, upgrading, servicing and reviewing computer hardware in various capacities for two decades, I've been dealing with it a long time. When it first hit the scene I was offended by it. I felt obligated to buy sound cards for systems and I hated having ports on the back of the system that were useless or redundant without having a real purpose. I hated the confusion it brought people trying to figure out which ports to use when there was a sound card in the machine as well. However, we end up with HDMI audio devices, USB headsets have their own cheap DACs in them, and so on. We have tons of audio devices to ignore.

On the subject of 10GbE LAN and a lack of RGB audio, you do have some choices. But there are very few that really give you what you want. I've never looked at one in person but there is always stuff like ASUS' Pro WS X570 ACE. It's another terrible name but you can find them on Amazon for just under $400. I can't speak to the VRM off hand. ASUS says it's a 12+2 phase VRM, which sounds good but ASUS literally can't be trusted to tell you the truth about how many power phases their boards have. Many are 4 or 5 phase with two power stages per phase. They aren't true phases by themselves. They give lots of reasons for this, but it's cost cutting primarily. I have to look at the PCB of each one and research them to know what they are doing with each board. I like their products but its hard to speak for their VRM's with their deceptive practices regarding their marketing.

The ASUS Pro WS X570 ACE is probably closer to what your looking for than the others. It's a more mature and reserved design that at least has some more professional focused features. It advertises having a form of IPMI, but doesn't fully commit to saying that. As I understand it, its rudimentary at best. Having said that, it's closer to a workstation board than the gaming boards you will find so prevalent now. It's probably not a great overclocker as most of those features are used on the gaming boards. Though it can do that too. The audio won't be stellar. But it has no RGB LED's. You won't get 10GbE NICs with it though. The MSI MEG X570 Unify is another great option. It's a gaming board but still far more reserved and adult looking. It also lacks RGB LED lighting of any kind.

I know this was a long post, but the industry has changed a lot. Much of what you are asking for simply isn't possible anymore. Onboard audio is here to stay and it costs almost nothing for manufacturers to integrate it. Same with the RGB LED lighting. All of this stuff you don't want can also be turned off. But you can't get rid of it. Sure, ASUS and MSI (and EVGA I think) have non-RGB models, but most are still focused on gaming.

If you want to narrow this down further, it helps to know your budget and whether or not you have overclocking goals. If you aren't overclocking, you have some more wiggle room on price but if you are overclocking that wiggle room generally goes away and puts you onto the MSI X570 Tomahawk or maybe the Unify.
 
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Budget wise, I can spend $600 on a MB if I have to, I just don’t want to throw money at a board with the kitchen sink (so to speak) if I don’t need to. i always figured there was a market for boards with solid OC capability and minimal anything else to reduce cost, but even in the P2 days you really couldn’t get away from integrated audio, for example.

My use case is:
Primary: gaming / OC. This is a personal system coming out of my own pocket so that takes priority. I enjoy the dialing in phase of an OC, though I understand that isn’t really a thing with PBO. For gaming I prefer to push the system to the bleeding edge OC wise (my ivy bridge ran for 5 years at over 1.5v on an ASUS Maximus to get just under 5ghz). Ideally I would like to game at 4K 120hz HDR, but I haven’t found a monitor with the right feature set yet, so I’ll continue to be gaming at 2560x1600 while I wait. I’m also planning on dipping my toes into VR 2021.

Secondary: folding at home / boinc. I hate spending money on high end hardware, and then just have it idle or off while I travel for work. Ideally I would be able to switch from blistering fast gaming config to ultra efficient folding config with a single click. It’s a pain with my 2700x to do that, so I just dialed in and left It OC’d. I think PBO should just let me change the power target with minimal fuss.

tertiary: work. I generally have ample resources at work, but there are times where I can’t just steal one of 64 core servers with NVME storage, especially to debug something. My work load is varies between GPU bound ML and almost entirely IO bound tasks dealing with 500-800GB of data. It’s all Linux based. I’ve toyed with trying to figure out some kind of VM solution where I can pass through the vid card and storage to which ever VM I’m using at the time, but that makes the base host OS Linux, and Linux support for MB tools like AI suite has been dismal.

Cooling that I already have on hand:

My existing WC loop components are a D5 vario, 2x thermochill 120.3s, an even more ancient black ice extreme 1.0 from like 2001, and a swiftech bayrez. The bayrez is getting ditched in this build for A tube Rez, but I don’t know exactly which one just yet. Hose routing would be less complex if I switched to a single pass rad, so I’m thinking of grabbing a GTS crossflow rad. I’ve got a define 7 XL, but I don’t actually think I can fit both thermochills and the GTS in it at once, so I’ll likely have to drop one of the thermochills.
 
Budget wise, I can spend $600 on a MB if I have to, I just don’t want to throw money at a board with the kitchen sink (so to speak) if I don’t need to. i always figured there was a market for boards with solid OC capability and minimal anything else to reduce cost, but even in the P2 days you really couldn’t get away from integrated audio, for example.

The problem is, the industry moved in a certain direction and a lot of what you were asking for isn't available in a cheap package or in some cases, at all. Mainly, if you were stuck on 10GbE networking, you are going to have to buy really high end. It's not worth it. I would just buy a 10GbE Intel server NIC and be done with it. You can use that on any motherboard you want without issue. On the VRM front, I did provide a few options. Though for such boards there may be other compromises to get to that price point. Really, at about $300-$400 things improve and you can get a good all around motherboard without a bunch of fluff features you won't use, a solid VRM and good overclocking options.

There are a couple of stripped down options with good VRM's and overclockability, but the best overclockers are the ultra-high end Super Turbo Turkey Puncher III editions that have everything you can imagine thrown in. The MSI MEG X%70 GODLIKE is a great example of this. It actually checks off almost every box you have aside from the fact that it has RGB LED lighting.

It has a 14+2 phase VRM. (It uses doublers, but this is fine.) The power stages are 70a each, so it can provide enough power to utterly incinerate your CPU a couple times over. I can do 4.3GHz all core on my 3950X without issue. It also has a 10GbE network adapter in the box. It's an expansion card, but it comes with it. It's more reserved than most on the RGB LED lighting, but it does have a ton of features on it you would never use. It can handle 7x NVMe devices though. It comes with a 4 slot M.2 to PCIe adapter card with active cooling and it has three M.2 slots onboard.

But for most of your requirements and not looking like the Vegas strip, you are looking at something like the MSI MEG X570 Unify or the ASUS X570 Pro WS ACE or whatever its called. I wouldn't actually put too much stock on the overclocking front besides having the VRM's to do whatever you want and run the system hard. Gaming won't actually push the CPU's as hard as you think, but work might depending on what your doing with it.

My use case is:
Primary: gaming / OC. This is a personal system coming out of my own pocket so that takes priority. I enjoy the dialing in phase of an OC, though I understand that isn’t really a thing with PBO. For gaming I prefer to push the system to the bleeding edge OC wise (my ivy bridge ran for 5 years at over 1.5v on an ASUS Maximus to get just under 5ghz). Ideally I would like to game at 4K 120hz HDR, but I haven’t found a monitor with the right feature set yet, so I’ll continue to be gaming at 2560x1600 while I wait. I’m also planning on dipping my toes into VR 2021.

The thing is, while I can't speak to the Ryzen 5000 series, no Ryzen has historically been a good overclocker. I do not expect this to change with the 5000 series. Typical OC's on these things are 4.2-4.3GHz all core and per CCX overclocking can yield 4.1-4.3GHz on one CCX and 4.4GHz on another if you are extremely lucky. The CCX / CCD arrangement is changing on the 5000 series, so you will have 8 cores per CCX instead of four. That probably tanks the odds of getting as good an overclock as you will be limited by the weakest cores in the CCX. The 5000 series might surprise us, but typically when there are single-threaded IPC increases, clock speeds either don't improve or actually suffer. AMD has managed to ratchet the clocks up about 100MHz each time, but the high boost clock ratings are deceptive. The CPU's simply don't stay at these clocks but for seconds at a time and only for single-threaded applications.

Ryzen 5000 might surprise us, but overclocking Ryzen 3000 CPU's was virtually pointless outside of some very niche use cases. As for gaming at 4K 120Hz, its your GPU you need to invest in. An 8c/16t Ryzen 5800X should be plenty to achieve this on the CPU side. Historically, the boost clocks on the 3900X and 3950X really don't change much here, especially not in GPU limited cases which is what 4K gaming literally is. It's GPU limited.

Secondary: folding at home / boinc. I hate spending money on high end hardware, and then just have it idle or off while I travel for work. Ideally I would be able to switch from blistering fast gaming config to ultra efficient folding config with a single click. It’s a pain with my 2700x to do that, so I just dialed in and left It OC’d. I think PBO should just let me change the power target with minimal fuss.

This is up to you. A better VRM will be nice as its more efficient. On the single click front, I'm afraid that's not how it works. You aren't going to get a single click in Linux. As far as I know, there isn't anything like Ryzen Master available for Linux. Someone who uses that can chime in here but I don't think there is. If you are doing a dual boot situation, you can use it in Windows but it's still not a single click. You'd really need to go into the UEFI and use different profiles as those apply at a hardware level. It's never going to be a single click to switch between PBO and a manual OC or PB2, etc. Even in Windows, through Ryzen Master or the motherboard vendor software it's not really a single click as it will prompt for a restart when your change those modes like that.

tertiary: work. I generally have ample resources at work, but there are times where I can’t just steal one of 64 core servers with NVME storage, especially to debug something. My work load is varies between GPU bound ML and almost entirely IO bound tasks dealing with 500-800GB of data. It’s all Linux based. I’ve toyed with trying to figure out some kind of VM solution where I can pass through the vid card and storage to which ever VM I’m using at the time, but that makes the base host OS Linux, and Linux support for MB tools like AI suite has been dismal.

The transfer rates will be fine. X570 boards all support 4x PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe. That's also dependent on your CPU as a Ryzen 2000 series processor on an X570 board wouldn't allow that but Ryzen 3000 and 5000 do. That's about all I can say about that. You can use GPU's in a VM situation now, but I'm unsure of the specifics, but I know it can be done.

Cooling that I already have on hand:

My existing WC loop components are a D5 vario, 2x thermochill 120.3s, an even more ancient black ice extreme 1.0 from like 2001, and a swiftech bayrez. The bayrez is getting ditched in this build for A tube Rez, but I don’t know exactly which one just yet. Hose routing would be less complex if I switched to a single pass rad, so I’m thinking of grabbing a GTS crossflow rad. I’ve got a define 7 XL, but I don’t actually think I can fit both thermochills and the GTS in it at once, so I’ll likely have to drop one of the thermochills.

120mm radiators are less than ideal. In fact, those are only really useful in cases where space is limited, such as mini-ITX builds. Even then, you aren't doing massive overclocking with them and they aren't going to have enough heat dissipation for a 5950X. For something like this, I would get a single 360mm radiator for this. Your choice, there are plenty of good ones. You want to keep your loop as simple as possible.
 
Thanks for all the comments Dan, it's very helpful. If $300-400 hits the spot for MB, that works for me. Totally agree on buying an Intel 10gbit nic too. Maybe that new hero black will end being the right blend of price and VRM.

As for the Rads, the thermochill 120.3s are 360 rads - they are from when double pass, lower fins per inch, 60mm thick 360mm rads first hit the market. The black ice extreme is also thick, but with very dense fins - works best with a GT AP 45 or delta. AP-15s are about right for the 120.3s. I can fit one in the front and top of the define 7 xl, but if I switch to a cross flow on top for tube routing, I don't think I have anywhere else to move the second 120.3. I'm leaning toward a 3090 with a Optimus block, but I didn't land a 3090 at launch, so I'll wait to see if Big Navi is amazing. Will be hard to beat cuda though.
 
Thanks for all the comments Dan, it's very helpful. If $300-400 hits the spot for MB, that works for me. Totally agree on buying an Intel 10gbit nic too. Maybe that new hero black will end being the right blend of price and VRM.

As for the Rads, the thermochill 120.3s are 360 rads - they are from when double pass, lower fins per inch, 60mm thick 360mm rads first hit the market. The black ice extreme is also thick, but with very dense fins - works best with a GT AP 45 or delta. AP-15s are about right for the 120.3s. I can fit one in the front and top of the define 7 xl, but if I switch to a cross flow on top for tube routing, I don't think I have anywhere else to move the second 120.3. I'm leaning toward a 3090 with a Optimus block, but I didn't land a 3090 at launch, so I'll wait to see if Big Navi is amazing. Will be hard to beat cuda though.

Saw 120, and immediately thought of useless 120mm radiators. In any case, you don't need more than two of them for a GPU and CPU.
 
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