Which motherboard?

[lespaul5895]

This past week I was finally able to get my hands on a Ryzen 5600x. Now I’m debating which motherboard to pair with it. I was initially leaning towards the MSI B550 Tomahawk. Are there any other boards in that $180 range that are a better deal?

[bowchikabow]

MSI Tomahawks are quality boards, and one of the few B550 boards with VRMs that support Overclock. I have the Tomahawk MAX for 5600x and am happy. Running stable 4.75ghz OC on a corsair AIO.

TLDR: MSI Tomahawk is a solid choice, and you would be hard pressed to find a board in that price range that offers more fundamentals and less flair (I'll take quality VRM over on-board-bluetooth any day).

[Kagthul]

The Tomahawk series are great boards.

Since you're rocking a 5600X, though, you could probably save some coin. Unless you're planning on trying a manual OC and won the silicon lottery to make it even worth bothering (since itll boost pretty high all on its own with even moderately adequate cooling) you dont need the VRMs and power delivery that are on the Tomahawk.

You could very easily find a board in the ~120-140$ range that will do you just as well. Overclocking Zen 3 actually often produces LESS performance in games because it overrides the TVB settings and can only run as fast as the "worst" core will run. For games in particular you're usually just better off upgrading from the stock cooler to something in the ~35$-60$ range and letting it do its own thing.

As for what board on the cheaper end to recommend, i dunno. Ive had good luck with the ASRock Pro4 series as a good compromise between features and cost. Ive never heard anything bad about the other boards in the MSI Lineup (the Bazooka and Mortar), and ive always had good luck with ASUS boards, though i haven't built any AM4 rigs with ASUS.

[Armourboy]

The Tomahawk series are great boards.

Since you're rocking a 5600X, though, you could probably save some coin. Unless you're planning on trying a manual OC and won the silicon lottery to make it even worth bothering (since itll boost pretty high all on its own with even moderately adequate cooling) you dont need the VRMs and power delivery that are on the Tomahawk.

You could very easily find a board in the ~120-140$ range that will do you just as well. Overclocking Zen 3 actually often produces LESS performance in games because it overrides the TVB settings and can only run as fast as the "worst" core will run. For games in particular you're usually just better off upgrading from the stock cooler to something in the ~35$-60$ range and letting it do its own thing.

As for what board on the cheaper end to recommend, i dunno. Ive had good luck with the ASRock Pro4 series as a good compromise between features and cost. Ive never heard anything bad about the other boards in the MSI Lineup (the Bazooka and Mortar), and ive always had good luck with ASUS boards, though i haven't built any AM4 rigs with ASUS.

Current board is an Asus X570 and my previous is an old Gigabyte that still rocking after 11 years. Haven't seen anything from either manufacturer that would give me pause about recommending them.