Ready to buy the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X? If so, this article will give you guidelines on what parameters you need to consider in order to properly chill – and get the best performance out of – your new CPU.

The Ryzen 5 7600X has a TDP of 105 Watts, which is quite the leap from the previous generation’s 65W requirement. This means you’ll need substantially better performance from your cooler, which is more akin to the last gen’s higher-end processors, like the R9 5900X.

There is more than one way to properly cool the CPU. The two main methods are AIO (All In One) liquid cooling and HSF (HeatSink and Fan) – more commonly known as ‘air’ or ‘tower’ coolers. When considering which to choose, you need to take into account the following:

1. How much available space does your case have?
2. What does your budget allow?
3. How good is the cooling in your case?
4. What’s the threshold of noise you can tolerate?
5. Which type of CPU cooler is compatible with your case?
6. Are your workloads primarily active or passive?
7. Are your rig’s aesthetics important to you?

Air coolers take up more space (generally) but are cheaper than their AIO counterparts. They also produce less noise on average and are easier to install. AIOs don’t clutter the space around the CPU, can be more pleasant to look at, and provide better cooling for extended periods – as opposed to the cooling in bursts of the HSF. Of course, the R5 7600X is designed for active (gaming, editing, modeling, etc.) rather than passive (rendering) workloads, so the HSF does have the advantage in terms of performance for the price. Still, the AIO cooler allows more thermal headroom for those looking to consistently overclock the 7600X.

To help you decide which to choose for your setup, let’s look at the best CPU coolers to pair with the Ryzen 5 7600X – for both cooling types.

Best Coolers for Ryzen 5 7600X – Our Recommendations

1. Best Air Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: Noctua NH-U14S

The NH-U14S is a U-type air cooler (it only has a single vertical tower/heatsink) and comes with one NF-A15 140mm fan. 

It is an excellent choice for the R5 7600X because it provides more than ample cooling even at extreme thermal loads (according to Anandtech’s benchmarks). In fact, at a 340 W load, it outperformed even dual-tower coolers like the Dark Rock Pro 3. 

Another favorable aspect of the NH-U14S is that it is upgradeable. You can add a second 140mm fan and have a push-pull fan configuration around the heatsink. This allows for further cooling potential, especially if you have a smaller rig with fewer case fans.

Pros: 

• Slim design that’s easy to install and compatible with most cases.
• Can assist with proper airflow in the case.
• Benchmarks prove barely audible noise emissions.
• Excellent for active workloads and overclocking, especially with a second fan. 

Cons: 

• Even as a U-type CPU cooler, it is still rather tall.
• Rather expensive at $79.95.
• Does not have the most stylish look.

2. Best Budget Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

Moving on to a D-Type (dual tower) HSF cooler, we have the Peerless Assassin 120 SE. Despite its low price, it offers exceptional performance even for high CPU power limits. Tom’s Hardware proved it averages only 61 degrees over ambient at 200W, which is very impressive for an air cooler. At 140 Watts, temperatures went down to 42 (50% fans) and 47 degrees Celsius – beating or tying with 360mm AIO coolers.

The same benchmarks show a noise level of only 34.5 dbA produced with the fans working at maximum speed, which is incredibly impressive for an under $40 CPU cooler. If you’re looking for a cheap cooler, the Assassin 120 SE truly is Peerless.

Pros: 

• Quiet operation.
• Great for active workloads and low TDP performance.
• More than sufficient cooling for overclocking.
• $36 price tag.

Cons: 

– Can be unappealing visually.

– Large dual-tower design may translate to compatibility issues. 

3. Best Low-profile Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: Big Shuriken 3 Rev.B  

Next, we have a top-flow, low-profile (L-Type, or LP) CPU cooler: the Big Shuriken 3 Rev. B. 

Of course, each SFF (small form factor) case will benefit differently from various low-profile coolers. This is why it is always best to check CPU cooler benchmarks specifically for your SFF case.

There are, however, reasons why the Big Shuriken 3 Rev. B is an excellent pick for almost any build. The most important reason is that it has high cooling potential, as proven by OptimumTech’s benchmarks. Within these benchmarks, you’ll notice another selling point of the Big Shuriken 3: it is upgradable (given you have the clearance). With a 25mm fan attached to it, it can cool your R5 7600X even while overclocking. Also, it allows for full-sized RAM, something that its competitors, like Noctua’s L12-S, cannot guarantee.

Pros:

• Quiet operation that maxes at 35 dB, according to TweakTown.
• Excellent compatibility with most cases and RAM sticks.
• Upgradable with a 25mm fan. 
• Great price at under $50.
• RGB variant for those looking for some extra flare.

Cons: 

• It is not quite at the level of cooling performance as some of its competitors, like the Noctua L12-S.
• Though upgradeable, doing so will increase the price significantly.
• Requires adequate case cooling, as the top-flow configuration will push the CPU’s hot air into the case.

4. Best AIO Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240

Last but not least, we have the liquid cooling category. All things considered, the best choice here is the Liquid Freezer II 240. It has excellent thermal performance, proven by several benchmark tests like those carried out by Tech4Gamers and EnosTech, low noise output (especially for an AIO cooler), and costs under $100. In fact, out of the 17 240mm AIO coolers EnosTech tested, Arctic’s model performed the best in the noise normalized (44 dBA) thermal performance tests.

What makes the Liquid Freezer unique, when compared to its competitors, is the 40mm VRM fan (PWM controlled) that cools the base and voltage transformer. This extra feature can be crucial when overclocking the R5 7600X.

Pros: 

• Excellent price for an AIO cooler.
• No maintenance water loop.
• VRM cooling.
• Low noise output for an AIO cooler.
• Thermal performance that rivals 360mm AIO coolers.

Cons: 

• Can be tricky to install due to the 40mm fan. 
• Not as visually appealing as other AIO coolers, especially on the pump. It does, however, have a variant with A-RGB lit fans for $14 extra.

The post 4 Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 5 7600X appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD’s latest Zen 4 chipsets are finally here – with their flagship model, the Rzyen 9 7950X, being marketed as the ‘fastest’ desktop processor for 2023. Whilst being fast, this new Zen 4 generation really runs hot, with a reported operating temperature of 95 degrees under load. With a raised 230W TDP from 170W of the Zen 3 line, AMD now recommends to cool this flagship Zen 4 processor, you’re going to need a beefy cooler to dissipate all of that heat, and a liquid one at that – with a 240mm AIO cooler being the minimum official recommendation for the Ryzen 9 7950X. Going for a better cooler you necessarily won’t get better temperatures with this Zen 4 processor, but you can squeeze more performance out of it.

Having had time since their release to analyse and understand the thermal performance of the Ryzen 9 7950X, we are able to offer you our recommended CPU coolers to pair with the 7950X, and which coolers to avoid! Our selections will include the best AIO cooler, 240mm cooler, 360mm cooler and 420mm cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X.

Before we begin, I would like to note that although the official recommendation is a minimum of a 240mm AIO, we will offer an Air-cooled CPU cooler pairing for the 7950X for those who don’t want to run a AIO system. However, when possible, we recommend going for a liquid cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X for 2023.

240mm vs 280mm vs 360mm vs 420mm for Ryzen 9 7950X?

Before we go into our AIO recommendation for the Ryzen 9 7950X – it is worth considering which size AIO you would fit your requirements and demands out of your 7950X system – as the different AIO sizes offer different benefits and drawbacks. If you’re looking for maximum performance but don’t mind a higher noise output, go for the 420mm AIO for the 7950X. If you are looking for the overall best performance-to-size ratio and relatively quiet operation – opt for the 280mm size – this has 90% the surface area of the 360mm AIO size and utilises 140mm fans rather than 120mm fans you see in 240mm and 360mm AIOs. If you’re looking to build an ITX system with the Ryzen 9 7950X, then a high performance 240mm AIO cooler will be your best bet. There is a great amount of useful discussion and advise on /r/BuildAPC on Reddit we would recommend checking out on this topic, too.

Best CPU Coolers for Ryzen 9 7950X – Our Recommendations

1. Best AIO Cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X (240mm, 280mm, 360mm, 420mm): Arctic Liquid Freezer II

Whether we’re recommending a 240mm, 280mm, 360mm or 420mm AIO for the Ryzen 9 7950X, our answer for the best AIO to pair with this CPU will always the be same – go for the Arctic Liquid Freezer II series. The Arctic Freezer II is hands down the best CPU cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X thanks to its best-in-class thermal performance and competitive price – making it a no brainer for any builder. It does feature a no-thrills design which is optimised for cooling performance, but if you are looking for something a bit more blingy, then go for the ARGB version of the Liquid Freezer II – it will make for a great aesthetic Zen 4 build with impressive performance. As mentioned above, its worth considering the AIO size for the 7950X based on your personal needs and how much performance you want to squeeze out in sacrifice for noise and case size – but we think the best AIO size for the Liquid Freezer II is the 280mm or 360mm option.

2. Best Air Cooler for Ryzen 9 7950X: Noctua NH-D15 Chromax.Black

If you’re not wanting to put an AIO cooler in your new Ryzen 9 7950X system, despite AMD’s official recommendation of using a 240mm AIO or above, then you’ll be relieved to hear that there are some air coolers that will be sufficient for pairing with the Ryzen 9 7950X. Techpowerup posted an informative article outlining that a decent air cooler will offer enough performance for the Ryzen 9 7950X. As mentioned in many of our other part recommendation articles, by far the best air cooler and the best tower cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X is the Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black. This best-in-class cooler from Noctua offers the best cooling performance of any tower cooler on the market, at a competitive price and a sleek all-black design. If you’re looking to game with the 7950X, the NH-D15 would be perfect – but for any intensive workloads you might be better off with an AIO instead for the 7950X, this is because you may gain up to 3% in clock speeds using an AIO vs the NH-D15.

The post Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 9 7950X appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD’s latest Ryzen 7000 CPUs are finally here – and here at PremiumBuilds, we have spent some time with the new mid-range Ryzen 5 7600X – the next newest Ryzen 5 CPU offering from AMD based on their Zen 4 architecture.

If you’re looking to build a system with the Ryzen 5 7600X, or any new Ryzen 7000 CPU for that matter, you’re going to need to heavily upgrade or spend a pretty penny on a new system as these new CPUs are are based on their AM5 platform. This new platform brings a plethora of new trick features – including DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support.

In this guide, we’re going to take you through some of the best motherboards for the Ryzen 5 7600X – including options for the best overall, budget, mid-range, high-end and overclocking motherboards to pair with the Ryzen 5 7600X.

In addition, we’ll take you through some of the key factors and considerations to take in mind when picking a motherboard for the Ryzen 5 7600X – so if your specific requirements are a little bit more bespoke, you’ll be able to do the research and knowledge to find the perfect motherboard for your new Ryzen 5 7600X system.

With that said, here are the best motherboards for AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600X for 2023.

Best Motherboards for Ryzen 5 7600X – Our Recommendations

1. Best Overall Motherboard for Ryzen 5 7600X – Asus Prime X670-Pro WiFi

Starting with our overall favorite motherboard to pair with the 7600X comes from Asus, with their Prime X670-Pro WiFi. Being a X670 chipset, this motherboard comes in the lower price point than some of its MSI rivals (>$1000!) but comes with plenty of features that will handle everything the Ryzen 5 7600X will throw at it. With a 14+2 Phase 70A VRM with an impressive heatsink for thermal dissipation, this motherboard is perfect for overclocking the Ryzen 5 7600X. Other features include an extensive I/O with USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C support, WiFi 6E, 4 DIMM slots as well as 6 SATA slots. This is a great AM5 motherboard that doesn’t break the bank but offers plenty of performance and connectivity for any Ryzen 5 7600X system.

2. Best Budget Motherboard for Ryzen 5 7600X – ASRock B650M PG Riptide

This is the cheapest motherboard you can use to build a Ryzen 5 7600X system, and boy does it perform for the money. This newest B650 chipset motherboard packs a punch in its micro-ATX form factor and has an impressive 12+2+1 phase VRM, with support up to 6200MHz DDR5, dual PCIe 4.0 support. We’re not happy about the presence of the ALC897 codec, but we think this is outweighed by the solid VRM performance and features making this great for any budget Ryzen 5 7600X system.

3. Best Mid-Range Motherboard for Ryzen 5 7600X – MSI B650 Tomahawk WiFi

If you’re looking for a mid-range motherboard to pair with the Ryzen 5 7600X, the MSI B650 Tomahawk WiFi is the best current option to go for from the AM5 offerings. With most B650 motherboards, you’re really able to build an overkill system but its easy to overspend with these new AM5 motherboards with the price nudging up with each generation. With the B650 Tomahawk WiFi – you get a solid range of features, a overkill 14+2+1 phase VRM design with a oversized VRM heatsink to match. The only downside is that this motherboard doesn’t have support for M2 Gen5 support – so if you’re looking to build a system with this, look for another alternative!

4. Best High-End Motherboard for Ryzen 5 7600X – Asus ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming

When building a high-end system for the Ryzen 5 7600X – we have strong recommendations for pairing this CPU with the Asus ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming. This motherboard is perfect for overclocking with its unmatched 18+2 VRM design with 110A power stages and decent capacitors – kept cool with 2 oversized VRM heatsinks and dissipation features. With support up to PCIe Gen 5 on 2 slots and 3 M2 Gen5 – this motherboard for the 7600X is not short of storage performance. 13 rear ports on the I/O and a S1220A codec and ALC4080 codec help round off this motherboard to be one of the best all-round and high-end picks when picking a high-end motherboard for the Ryzen 5 7600X

5. Best ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 7600X – Asus ROG B650E-I Gaming WiFi

If you’re lucky to get your hands on one of these, then we recommend building a ITX 7600X system with the Asus B650-I Gaming WiFi. Whilst the ASRock ITX counterpart has a better VRM design compared to the Asus’ 10-stage 70A VRM, this motherboard is packed with great rear I/O connectivity, DDR5 support up to 6400 MT/s+ and overall feature set is why it gets our pick for the best ITX motherboard for the Ryzen 5 7600X

The post 5 Best Motherboards for the Ryzen 5 7600X appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs can still offer competitive performance for the budget-conscious builder. The Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6 core 12 thread processor that boasts clock speeds ranging from 3.6GHz all of the way up to 4.2GHz with some tweaking and simple overclocking. With a rock-bottom TDP of 65W, this fast CPU can deliver high frames and speedy workstation performance without spiking your internal case temperature. That low power draw makes this previous generation CPU an alluring buy for those looking to get enough power out of an SFF (small form factor) build or those looking to save additional cost on their PSU. 

Enthusiasts can take further advantage of this powerful little processor with new generation motherboards that can support the newer PCIe 4.0 technology. While those differences may be minimal at this price and performance bracket, builders will find the Ryzen 5 3600’s vast compatibility options and robust feature set a solid pairing with new generation B550 and previous generation B450 motherboards. This guide lays out the four best motherboards for the budget, enthusiast, mini-ITX, and micro-ATX builds with the Ryzen 5 3600.

Related: List of AM4 Motherboards with USB BIOS Flashback (for Zen 2 compatibility)

Best Motherboards for Ryzen 5 3600 – Our Recommendations

Award	Model	Design	VRM
Best Entry-Level Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	MSI B450 Tomahawk		6 Phase (4+2)
Best High-Performance Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon Wi-Fi		12 Phase (10+2)
Best mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	ASRock B550M-ITX		8 Phase (6+2)
Best micro-ATX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	ASRock B550M PRO 4		8 Phase (6+2)

Best Entry-Level Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

The MSI B450 Tomahawk; this board offers excellent price-to-performance, at just under $100, given its range of features, connectivity, and best-in-class VRM quality.

MSI has nailed their B450 lineup, with the B450 Tomahawk leading its price bracket with the best VRM cooling of any B450 motherboard out there – which makes it ideal for overclocking the Ryzen 5 3600 on a budget. Only its bigger brother, the MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC, has better VRM cooling than the B450 Tomahawk. Still, considering the low TDP of the Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X, either of these motherboards is almost overkill.

Connectivity-wise, the B450 Tomahawk has USB Type C, 6 SATA ports, and 4 DIMM slots supporting up to 128GB of 3466MHz memory.

Drawbacks here are small but present nonetheless, with no VCore offset function, and only a single M.2 slot where most other B450 ATX motherboards have at least two.

Best High-Performance Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

It’s not necessary to take the leap directly from a B450 board up to a premium board with an X570 chipset like the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon Wi-Fi. However, this board comes with a premium feature list that sets it well above the other contenders on this list. Not only does this full ATX motherboard support PCIe 4.0 technology, but it can also deliver exceptional LAN and Wi-Fi speeds with both Wi-Fi 6 and 2.5G networking built-in. 

This premium-class board supports GPU SLI, custom water cooling, dual Gen 4 M.2 drives, up to 128 GB of DDR4 memory, and it has a jam-packed I/O with all of the connectors an enthusiast needs. The I/O has five USB 3.2 ports, a USB C port, high-definition audio connectors, a handy BIOS flash button, and a couple of additional USB 2.0 ports. This board is equipped with Mystic Sync RGB that can, as the name implies, sync with any other RBG device or fans you may have in your rig. The extended heatsink and onboard “Frozr” fan ensure that your components operate at optimal temperatures. With a steep price set at right around $179, this premium board is meant for only the most serious gamers and professionals out there.

Best mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

Building a small form factor machine doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of the same premium features that come with full-sized ATX boards. Well, unless you plan to rig up a GPU SLI configuration, but that technology is on the way out in terms of support anyway. ASRock’s B550M-ITX motherboard offers an impressive feature set in a compact size. The B550 chipset means that this motherboard can take full advantage of PCIe 4.0 as well as run the newer 5000 series CPUs with a simple BIOS flash for those that plan to upgrade down the line. 

With form factor in mind, this board offers dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and gigabit LAN, which makes it easy to pick the system up and take it on the go. This B550 board even supports Gen 4 Hyper M.2 and has an included heatsink. Those features are often seen on higher-end X570 boards, so having those features on this B550 board is luxury. 

The I/O has six USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a rear type-C port, and ports for 7.1 CH HD audio. While it may lack some of the more expansive features that full ATX boards offer, the ASRock B550M-ITX packs a lot of punch at the low price point of $129.

Related: Best mini ITX cases for Small Form Factor builds

Best mATX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

ASRock knows how to make a high-quality and affordable small form factor board. The ASRock B550M PRO 4 supports PCIe 4.0, Zen 2 & 3 Ryzen CPUs, SLI GPU configurations, and it has four DIMM slots capable of handling DDR4 memory with speeds over 4700MHz. Packing all of those features into an mATX board was no easy feat. The sleek white and black metal finish will make this board look at home in any micro-build. 

Unfortunately, this board does lack Wi-Fi. It has speedy gigabit LAN built-in, but enthusiasts on the go will want to pick up an external Wi-Fi card. Thankfully, this board has plenty of room for those expansions with the additional PCIe connection. 

The ASRock B550M PRO 4 also supports dual 4.0 M.2s that can be kept running fast and cool with the included heatsinks. Builders will be able to enjoy Nahimic audio with optional HDMI output, Polychrome RBG, and an impressive array of I/O connections. You get 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a USB C port, and a solid array of eight USB 3.2 GEN 1 ports. This board has plenty of options for expandability despite its small size and even smaller price point at just $109.

Summary

The Ryzen 5 3600 is a bit of a game-changer, as it opens the door for a lot more users to 6c/12t processors than ever before. With this level of price-to-performance supported by platforms that are just as feature-filled and low-cost as the unit that drives them, it’s hard to say “no,” to Team Red these days.

Best Entry-Level: MSI B450 Tomahawk – Excellent VRM and feature-set at an extremely modest price.

Best High-Performance: MSI MPG X570 Gaming PRO Carbon Wi-Fi – One of the most robust VRM solutions in the X570 lineup, coupled with a comprehensive feature set and USB Type C support – this is a great motherboard pairing for the Ryzen 5 3600 in high-end builds.

Best mini-ITX: ASRock B550M-ITX – this ITX B550 motherboard packs a lot of punch at just $129 – with a decent feature set, VRM, BIOS flash inbuilt as well as type-C support.

Best mATX: ASRock B550M Pro4 – A great feature-set micro-ATX motherboard for the Ryzen 5 3600. Plenty of expansion options, RGB, a decent I/O – this board has plenty of options despite its small size and even smaller price point.

Have you recently built a system with the Ryzen 5 3600? Let us know in the comments below, and thanks for reading!

• Related: Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 5 3600
• Related: Best Graphics Cards to Pair with the Ryzen 5 3600
• Related: Best RTX 2060 Super Aftermarket Cards

The post Best Motherboards for Ryzen 5 3600 Builds appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

To put things bluntly, Intel should be pretty shook by the upcoming Zen 3 processors from AMD, especially considering the Ryzen 7 5800X. There’s still no telling if Zen 3 will have any worthwhile overclocking headroom to speak of, but even if the eight-core/sixteen thread 5800X is flat out incapable of boosting past 4.7GHz, it spells trouble for Intel’s current flagship 10900K.

AMD has boasted roughly 20% instructions per clock (IPC) improvement for Zen 3 over Zen 2 thanks to their new architecture and L3 cache restructure. This means that, despite the 5800X having fewer cores and slower clock speeds than the 10900K, it may not matter in the face of superior technology on a smaller process. Worst of all, for Intel, the 5800X will be nearly $100 cheaper than the 10900K.

Even though we’re due for an announcement of Intel’s 11^th Generation CPUs, the fact that they’re still stuck on 14nm, compared to AMD on 7nm, there’s no guarantee that Intel will be able to maintain their last bastion: gaming performance. AMD isn’t pulling any punches, and they may very well end up with another crown.

Of course, we will have to wait until Zen 3 and Rocket Lake are both out (and Intel is holding off until next year) to see how they truly stack up. Regardless, the 5800X might not be the guaranteed best bet, but it’s guaranteed to be a damn good one. So if you’re placing that bet, today we’re going to help you also place your order for the best motherboards depending on your preferred style of build.

Best Motherboards for Ryzen 7 5800X – Our Recommendations

Award	Motherboard	Design	VRM	Price
Best Entry-Level Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X	Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC		50A 14 Phase (12+2)	$180
Best Overall Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X	Asus ROG STRIX X570-E Gaming		60A 16 Phase (12+4)	$300
Best High-Performance Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X	MSI MEG X570 Ace		60A 15 Phase (12+2+1)	$360
Best mATX Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X	Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus (Wi-Fi)		50A 10 Phase (8+2)	$175
Best mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X	Asus ROG STRIX X570-I Gaming		70A 10 Phase (8+2)	$250

Best Entry-Level Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X

Perhaps you’re not only eyeing a brand new 5800X, but you’re interested in a brand-new chipset as well. Thanks to B550, builders have the option to save a bit of money (or opt-out of the slightly more extensive PCIe 4.0 and connectivity support) they’d potentially waste on an X570 platform. That is where the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC comes in!

B550 motherboards are somewhat restrictive due to having only a PCIe 3.0 link between the CPU and chipset, where X570 has PCIe 4.0. While you still get PCIe 4.0 lanes from your CPU, the lower bandwidth PCIe 3.0 chipset link forces motherboard manufacturers to sacrifice some features in favor of others, chief among them being rear I/O USB connectivity. Some B550 motherboards only have a total of 5 USB ports on their rear I/O, with maybe a couple of USB 3.2 Gen 2 or Gen 1 ports. However, a handful of B550 boards prioritize the rear I/O, especially the B550 Aorus Pro AC, which is usually the deciding factor when determining the best B550 options.

Featured on the B550 Aorus Pro AC are 50A Power Stages, a direct 14 Phase VRM (12+2), support for up to 128GB DDR4-5200MHz memory, 2x M.2 slots (1x PCIe 4.0 x4), Intel AC 3168 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2, Realtek 2.5G LAN + ALC1220-VB Audio CODEC, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 is Type-C), 3x USB 3.2 Gen 1 + 6x USB 2.0 ports, 6x SATA III 6Gb/s ports, an internal USB 3.2 Gen 1 header, and BIOS Flashback.

At $190, the B550 Aorus Pro AC manages to pack some impressive connectivity options, on top of a real finned VRM heatsink and integrated I/O shield, into a package that lives up to the stellar design and build quality of the Aorus name. If you’re looking for a reliable platform to get the job done in gaming and light productivity work, the B550 Aorus Pro AC won’t disappoint.

Best Overall Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X

The 5800X, if the 3800X was any indicator, should be a powerhouse in workstation tasks but should also be exceptional for gaming, and one of the best overall homes for it is the Asus ROG STRIX X570-E Gaming for $300.

The X570-E Gaming is another remarkable entry to Asus’s ever-popular ROG STRIX series. ROG/STRIX components have always offered top-tier features and performance and some of the best proprietary software solutions, user interfaces, and build quality, all complimented by strong design language.

The X570-E Gaming offers 60A Power Stages, a 16 Phase VRM (12+4), support for up to 128GB DDR4-4400MHz memory, 2x PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, Intel Gigabit LAN + AX200 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0, Realtek 2.5G LAN, SupremeFX S1220A Audio CODEC, 8x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 is Type-C) ports, 8x SATA III 6Gb/s ports, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 + 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 internal headers, BIOS Flashback, and a POST code readout.

Asus has been one of the most popular and premier PC hardware manufacturers for what seems like an eternity for one main reason; consistency. Of course, every company makes mistakes or missteps here and there, but it’s no coincidence Asus controlled at least 45% of the market share in the motherboard market (2017-2019). You’re always going to find rock-solid motherboard options in nearly any Asus lineup, and the X570-E Gaming is one of the best overall X570 motherboards available for the 5800X.

If you’re not fond of Asus for some reason, or if you’re specifically looking for features like onboard Power/Reset and Clear CMOS buttons, check out the MSI MEG X570 Unify for the same price!

Best High-Performance Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X

When it comes to enthusiast-class X570 motherboards, at least ones that won’t cost you a month’s worth of utility bills, you have only a few options, all with relatively similar features and pricing. Today, our award for the best high-performance motherboard for the Ryzen 7 5800X goes to the MSI MEG X570 Ace. The X570 Ace certainly isn’t the king of the hill over the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme regarding VRM thermals, but that board costs $700. Further, if you want that highest tier VRM for AMD with a cheaper price tag by opting for their B550 Aorus Master, you end up losing out on the bandwidth/connectivity of an X570 chipset. Hence our decision, because MSI’s X570 Ace is one of the most popular, well-reviewed, and well-rounded enthusiast X570 motherboards ($350-$700) with arguably the best balance of features, build quality, and aesthetic design.

Here, $370 nets you 60A Power Stages, a 15 Phase VRM (12+2+1), support for up to 128GB DDR4-5000MHz memory, 3x PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, Intel Gigabit LAN + AX200 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0, Realtek 2.5G LAN + ALC1220 Audio CODEC, 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 is Type-C) + 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 + 2x USB 2.0 ports, 4x SATA III 6Gb/s ports, an internal USB 3.2 Gen 2 header, onboard Power/Reset buttons, Clear CMOS + BIOS Flashback buttons, and a POST code readout.

The X570 Ace is one of only two platforms MSI didn’t decide neglect after the release of X570 about a year ago. Many of the options priced under the Ace at the time, like the Gaming Edge Carbon and Gaming Edge (Wi-Fi), had worrisome issues with thermal throttling, even for some Zen 2 chips! However, MSI eventually addressed those issues and, as a response, released their MEG X570 Unify, which is essentially a slightly more affordable, blacked-out version of the Ace. If you want one of the sleekest and most potent X570 motherboards on the market, though, consider MSI with their “ace in the hole” .

Best mATX Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X

mATX motherboards are overlooked and underappreciated. It’s a disservice and a tragedy that we don’t see as many high-end mATX options as we should. Until recently, there was only one mATX option for the X570 chipset from ASRock, and it was mediocre at best. Thankfully, with the release of the new B550 chipset, we now have access to several mATX Ryzen motherboards with great VRMs, and the best of the bunch is the $180 Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus (Wi-Fi).

The B550M-Plus (Wi-Fi) comes with 50A Power Stages, a 10 Phase VRM (8+2), support for up to 128GB DDR4-4600MHz memory, 2x M.2 slots (1x PCIe 4.0 x4), Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0, Realtek 2.5G LAN + ALC S1200A Audio CODEC, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 is Type-C) + 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 + 2x USB 2.0 ports, 4x SATA III 6Gb/s ports, and BIOS Flashback.

Despite the general disinterest in mATX compared to full-sized ATX and mini-ITX PCs, mATX can offer the best of both worlds. You can reduce your rig’s overall size from standard ATX while avoiding much of the hassle associated with the extensive hardware compatibility research and tedious build process required for most mini-ITX systems. Now, thanks to Asus and their ubiquitous TUF Gaming series, we have a spectacular mATX motherboard that’s capable of driving even a 5950X. However, it may not keep up with any serious overclocking if Zen 3 turns out to have some headroom to play with, which Zen 2 essentially didn’t, so keep that in mind. But, if you’re itching to shrink your footprint and you don’t want a shoebox PC, the B550M-Plus (Wi-Fi) offers some of the best mATX VRM quality and USB connectivity for Ryzen CPUs to date, making it the clear winner for those looking at the 5800X.

Best mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 7 5800X

While we may not ever experience the same sort of droughts for mini-ITX motherboards that we do for mATX, there’s quite often one option to choose from each of the major manufacturers. Today, we’ve chosen the Asus ROG STRIX X570-I Gaming for $250.

Asus has managed to cram an impressive feature-set onto this little guy with; 70A Power Stages, a 10 Phase VRM (8+2) with active cooling, support for up to 64GB of DDR4-4800MHz memory, 2x PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, Intel Gigabit LAN + AX200 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0, SupremeFX S1220A Audio CODEC, 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 is Type-C) + 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and 4x SATA III 6Gb/s ports.

Not only does the STRIX X570-I have competitive VRM performance for ITX AM4 motherboards overall, but it also sports some of the best rear I/O USB connectivity and memory overclocking support. Builders who want the best possible SFF (small form factor) PC for high-end Ryzen CPUs like the 5800X, you cannot go wrong with the X570-I Gaming.

Summary

AMD continues to dominate the CPU market with Zen 3, and based on their consistent and dramatic improvements, things might start to get tense in the GPU market later this year when Big Navi finally drops. Even though Zen 3 brought a price hike, the performance improvements more than justify an additional $50 on top of what was already a reasonable ask for each tier of Ryzen. However you feel about any PC hardware company, competition is almost always a marvelous thing. We have tons of crazy developments headed our way for at least the next few years because of it.

Best Entry-Level: Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC – This is the best option under $200 for builders looking to leverage PCIe 4.0 with a 5800X who may not want to “waste” features like support for multiple Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSDs on the more expensive X570. The B550 Aorus Pro AC also prioritizes rear I/O USB connectivity more than most other available B550 options.

Best Overall: Asus ROG STRIX X570-E Gaming – Consistency, quality, and reliability are typically the hallmarks of ROG STRIX products, and the X570-E Gaming is no different. With a rock-solid VRM, plenty of USB 3.2 and SATA III ports, and a POST code readout, Asus has one of the most well-rounded high-end X570 boards perfectly suited for the 5800X. If you’re not a fan of Asus, or you specifically require onboard Power/Reset and Clear CMOS buttons, check out the MSI MEG X570 Unify for the same price instead.

Best High-Performance: MSI MEG X570 Ace – For $370, the X570 Ace is one of the best enthusiast-class motherboards with a competent high-end VRM, gorgeous design, and similar features to even $700 boards like the MEG X570 Godlike or Gigabyte’s $700 X570 Aorus Xtreme.

Best mATX: Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus (Wi-Fi) –  The TUF Gaming series continues to deliver with its digital camouflage aesthetic, excellent build quality, and best-in-class USB connectivity for $180.

Best mini-ITX: Asus ROG STRIX X570-I Gaming – Competitive VRM design for X570 ITX and massive USB connectivity on the rear I/O. If you’re thinking of grabbing a 5800X, there is no better option for SFF systems on the market!

The post 5 Best Motherboards for the Ryzen 7 5800X appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

So, you think you want to build a decent PC? 

Well, you probably do, especially if you’re reading this article.

However, what might not be so clear is whether you should build a Ryzen-based rig or use one of the more recently-released Intel chips. With the new Zen 4 chips not due out until the second half of 2022, the latest offerings from AMD have now been on the market for well over a year. 

With that said, they still pack some punch. Today, we’re going to see how the i5-12600K, which is around a year younger than its counterpart, stacks up against the Ryzen 7 5800X. 

We’ll be comparing the specs, affordability, feature set, power consumption, and the benchmark results of both chips, before making a recommendation which will hopefully make it clear exactly where you should be putting your cash.

Specifications

1. Specification Comparison

The 12600K has ten cores and sixteen threads, while the 5800X has around 20% fewer cores (eight) and the same number of threads (sixteen). Working in AMD’s favour, though, is the fact that it does have a smaller processor manufacturing node, meaning that there is a shorter distance between transistors (7nm, as opposed to the 10nm distance on Intel’s new chips).

The 5800X also has a significantly larger L3 Cache, and lower TDP. This is all good news for the Ryzen line, but Intel – having the newer product on the market – have made the wise decision to include support for DDR5 and LPDDR5 in their Alder Lake range. And, while the 12600K definitely draws more power between these two, it also is capable of a higher boost clock speed.

Verdict: Despite all of the good intentions of AMD to make a much more energy-efficient chip here, the fact that Intel have the more powerful product (on paper, at least), and have included support for the next generation of memory, makes it hard to justify picking the 5800X (except, maybe, for gamers particularly concerned about their ecological footprint).

2. Price & Availability

The 12600K, as with most of Intel’s processors right now, is only available on Amazon via third-party sellers. When we last checked, the cheapest you’ll be able to find it for is $349, which is around 16% higher than its list price.

The 5800X paints a much more appealing picture for buyers, being readily available at a discount of just over 21% ($427.99). Also working in the favour of this Ryzen chip is the fact that it will be compatible with many older motherboards (those with AM4 sockets), while anyone picking up an Alder Lake CPU will also find themselves an extra couple of hundred dollars down due to the need for a new LGA 1700 board.

Verdict: The fact that buying a 12600K means having to deal with scalpers is off-putting. Having to buy a brand-new motherboard with it will only compound that. On the other hand, the 5800X could actually save you a significant amount of cash, especially if you already have an AM4 mobo. So, if money is a serious factor you need to consider, go with the 5800X.

3. Included Features

The 12600k belongs to the Alder Lake line, which brings with it some very interesting new features. Perhaps the most notable of these is the Golden Cove architecture, which has been designed from scratch and combines two different types of cores (“Performance Cores” and “Efficiency Cores”). In theory, this allows for better scaling in power-consumption according to how the PC is being used.

Additionally, DDR5 and LPDDR5 compatibility provide a significant head start for Intel’s offering. AMD have now announced that their AM5 chips will support the next generation of memory, but their release has now been put back to at least “2H 2022” (so expect them in the summer at the earliest).

And, as with the other chips in their ‘K’ range, the 12600K comes with an integrated GPU (the UHD 770). While it’s modest – much more modest than a good dedicated GPU, and significantly lower-powered than the iGPUs of the Ryzen’s ‘G’ series – it does provide a fall-back option that the 5800X does not. If you do choose to rely on the 770 while shopping for a more powerful graphics card, we’d advise you to temper your expectations; it’s absolutely fine for Rocket League and other eSports games, but it’s not going to provide impressive visual results by most measures.

The 5800X, being part of Ryzen’s newest generation of chips, has a much less eye-catching list of features this time around. However, one of the most talked about inclusions on this chip is the entirely new architecture design which takes the emphasis off of the Infinity Fabric. This is due to the Core Complex Dies (CCD) now being able to hold eight cores rather than four; consequently, AMD have significantly lowered the need for IF as each of the eight cores can access the 20MB L3 Cache without any inherent latency. Their higher-end chips still support IF (for example, on 12-core chipsets), but there’s no need for one in this case.

Verdict: Intel have really outdone themselves with their latest generation of chips. By taking a much more forward-thinking approach, their support for PCIe 5.0, DDR5, and LPDDR5 has given them the much stronger feature-set on paper. If your main concern is whether or not your CPU can support the latest technologies, it’s hard to recommend against the 12600K.

4. Power Efficiency

One of the most interesting shifts Intel have made is to redefine the power consumption of their Alder Lake processors. Rather than using the TDP definition, they’ve now moved to two separate terms; the first is PBP (which stands for “Processor Base Power”), and the other is MTP (“Maximum Turbo Power”). What they have kept fairly quiet is that these chips can scale up their power toward the MTP without the user really being aware of it.

The 5800X has a base TDP of 105W, which is a 16% decrease compared to the 12600K’s base clock. Even when overclocked, any AM4 chip won’t be able to pull more than 142W, which is still lower than the MTP of Intel’s chip (150W).

Verdict: Again, AMD have always done a good job of making their chips power efficient. With the latest Ryzen line, this has continued to be the case, and the 5800X is capable of providing staggering gaming performance while using significantly less juice than its competitor. Definitely worthy of consideration for any eco-minded gamers out there. 

5. Benchmark Comparison

To get the best possible understanding of how these two chips stack up against each other, we’ll be pulling the benchmarking results from several different sources. These should help us to not only understand which chip has better processing capabilities on paper, but also how that actually carries through into real-world usage.

The first source we’ll look at will be UserBenchmark, which attempts to compute and analyse “millions of benchmarks”. Their results tend to be good for getting a rough overview of what to actually expect from these chips. 

Based on their generated report, the 12600K appears to be the vastly superior product. It outshines the AMD in just about any area most gamers are likely to be concerned with; things like faster single, dual, quad, and octa-core speeds (whether at base clock or overclocked). The 5800X, on the other hand, has slightly better memory latency and looks to be more energy efficient.

Thankfully, we can also get some actual game-performance scores, thanks to Tom’s Hardware. Their comparison of the two CPUs (as well as the 5900X) allows us to see exactly how they each handle some of the most demanding titles on the market today.

The first of these is Horizon Zero Dawn, which was tested at 1080P with the Ultra graphics preset. In that test, the 5800X was the marginal victor with an average FPS of 178.7; ever so slightly beating the 12600K, whether it was paired with DDR4 (176.4 FPS) or DDR5 (176.5 FPS).

With the resolution bumped up to 1440P, something a little interesting happens. The 5800X still churns out a perfectly good 153.3 FPS on average, but the 12600K with DDR5 now out-performs it with an average of 154.4 FPS. However, pair the 12600K with DDR4 and you’ll see a fairly inconsequential drop to 152.3 FPS.

One of the most startling gaming tests was their comparison of both chips while running Microsoft’s Flight Simulator at 1080P and Ultra settings. In that matchup, the 12600K with DDR4 pulled a very impressive average of 143 FPS. Switch that memory to DDR5, though, and there is a somewhat severe reduction of just under 19 FPS. The 5800X sits more-or-less right between them, with 135.6 FPS on average.

Likewise, the Red Dead Redemption 2 comparison (at 1080P with the Ultra preset) had somewhat surprising results. The 5800X managed an average of 171.9 FPS, beating the 12600K with both DDR4 (162.1 FPS) and DDR5 (160.1 FPS) RAM.

With results like these, it’s a good idea to bring in a third set of benchmarking results. For that, we looked at CPU Monkey, which looks at the results of benchmarking utilities like Cinebench and Geekbench, allowing readers to easily compare them.

In almost every single Cinebench test, the victory went to the 12600K. Sometimes this was by a fairly narrow margin (like 1% with Cinebench R15), while it grew to as large as 15% in others (R23 Single-Core, R23 Multi-Core, and R20 Multi-Core). The one W for the 5800X was the Cinebench R15 Multi-Core test (where it was the better-performing chip by 1%). 

Even in the Geekbench Single and Multi-Core tests, the 12600K was the clear victor (by 12% and 7%, respectively).

Verdict: It was very surprising to look at these results. Based on Cinebench, Geekbench, and User Benchmark scores, you could hardly be blamed for expecting the 12600K to be the superior CPU. However, it looks like the 5800X has genuinely better real-world performance, despite being limited to DDR4 memory.

6. Verdict

Consumers looking to put together a workbench machine should look no further than the 12600K. The Cinebench and Geekbench scores alone were enough to settle our minds in this regard, and the fact that this chip can also support the latest and greatest technologies is just another reason to invest in it. It might be more expensive initially, but we have a feeling that its longevity is going to make it a worthwhile investment.

For gamers, both of these chips will do a great job. However, the clear winner is absolutely the 12600K. While some of its wins over the 5800X were a little marginal, we feel that future titles are going to make much better use of DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 technology. Again, the initial overheads of getting set up with the processor are going to be higher, but we have a feeling that it’s going to be well worth it if it means you can get an extra year or two out of your machine.

If you’re only looking for a general use machine, we’d recommend going with the 5800X. It’s still going to churn out impressive performance during heavy multimedia editing work and gaming, and the cost (especially when you factor in the more affordable motherboards) make it an absolute no-brainer.

The post Intel Core i5-12600K vs AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: Which is Best Value? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The B550 chipset represents the current sweet spot for PC builders looking to maximise the Ryzen 5 5600X and 7 5800X CPUs. It offers a full-featured and cost-effective basis for a high-performance PC for gaming or general use.

We’ve rounded up a selection of some of the best B550 motherboards on offer, going into 2022. We’re going to take a look at them to find out their features, any weak points or flaws, and use this information to make recommendations to you as to the best options for your Ryzen-based PC build. We’ll break our recommendations out into a separate article, so this one isn’t too cluttered with too much information. 

At the lower end, we’re testing the MSI Pro VDH WiFi and the Gigabyte Aorus Elite. These are both mATX boards at or close to the $100 price point.

In the mid-range selection of B550 motherboards, we’ve got the Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus WiFi and the MSI B550M Mortar Wifi. 

And to look at the higher end we’ve got the Asus ROG STRIX B550-F Wifi and the ASRock B550 PG Velocita. These boards are a little more expensive and take different approaches to offer you value, so we were interested in finding out what they offer over more budget-friendly B550 options. 

We’ll take a look at performance overall, then dive into each B550 motherboard to investigates its strengths and weaknesses.

B550 Motherboard Performance Testing:

We’ve conducted our testing with a Ryzen 7 5800X in the knowledge that if these boards handle that CPU well, there will be no problems with the less demanding 5600X. The Test system consisted of a 650W Gold-rated PSU, RTX 3060 Ti (not relevant to testing), and G.Skill 3600Mhz CL16 RAM set to XMP and 1:1 Infinity Fabric and Memory clock ratio. A 240mm AIO was used to maximise CPU performance without thermal throttling. 

B550 Motherboard Benchmark Comparisons

1. Cinebench R20 and R23

In this test we ran both single and multi-core workloads, to ensure that the Motherboard allowed the CPU to boost correctly and also didn’t limit the CPU with power draw. You can see that the boards behaved almost identically.

2. 3D Mark Testing: Fire Strike & Time Spy

We also ran Time Spy and Firestrike CPU tests. These show a little more variance in results but looking at CPU metrics we couldn’t identify any substantial change in CPU performance; This is likely down to variables such as cooler fitment or even ambient temperatures of the test and we don’t consider it anything of concern.

The long story short here is that we could not find any discernible difference in performance between any of these B550 motherboards. In single and multi-core tests they all performed remarkably closely, within a margin of error. In fact, if we normalise the scores and average them for each board we find a total variance of less than 0.2% – That’s well within the margin of error. They all held up well to longer duration testing, with no drop in performance after a 30-minute work loop. 

RAM Compatibility

We also checked RAM Compatibility, although it’s not possible to really test this exhaustively. All the boards worked flawlessly with our 3600Mhz Cl16 G.Skill RAM kit, as you’d expect. They were also all capable of running ‘known good’ overclock settings of 4000MHz CL 16-16-16-32 at 1:1 infinity fabric and memory clock on our Samsung B-die test kit, which represents the upper end of Zen 3 RAM speed optimisation. All of these boards have identical RAM overclocking and CPU overclocking settings available in BIOS, and whilst we wouldn’t choose them for dedicated overclockers, they all run RAM stably at acceptably fast speeds.

So, the good news on performance is that across the range of B550 motherboards we’ve tested we’re confident that you’ll be able to extract the maximum potential from a Ryzen 5600X or 5800X as well as reasonably fast RAM, to optimise your system’s performance. 

The ‘Best’ B550 Motherboards, Reviewed

So, with performance covered let’s look into each board. We won’t list specs as they’re actually very similar across all of these motherboards, and you can look them up yourselves. Instead, I’ll point out the most important features or omissions, the things we think you’d most want to know before buying any of these B550 motherboards. 

1. MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi – Entry Level Board

The MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi is a full-featured and good value B550 motherboard currently retailing at about $110.

Pros:

• Great value
• Understated looks with RGB switch.
• Inbuilt Wi-Fi
• Simple BIOS Flashback
• Internal USB C (USB 3.2 Gen 2) header
• 6 USB rear outputs
• 5 fan headers in total – 3 system, one CPU fan, one AIO pump header. 

Cons:

• Only One full length PCIe slot for a GPU. No 4X slots.
• Basic Audio – ALC 892 and 3 rear audio outputs. 
• No rear USB C – make sure your case has usb C if you require it, to make use of the internal header. 
• MATX so it might not look great in an ATX case.

Conclusions: 

Overall we were really impressed with this B550 motherboard. Whilst it has a ‘no-frills approach, MSI has made sensible decisions over what to include. Performance is great, on a par with motherboards that cost twice as much. We’d really just advise that you ensure you won’t need more than that single PCIe x16 slot as the 2 single length slots could limit your ability to add expansion cards down the line. The USB specification also isn’t the best, so make sure you’ll have adequate connectivity between the rear I/O of this board and any case you choose. Overall though for an understated and great value option, we heartily recommend the MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi.

2. Gigabyte B550M Aorus Elite – Entry Level Board

The Gigabyte B550M Aorus Elite is the most affordable AORUS motherboard in Gigabyte’s B550 lineup and is available at just $105.

Pros: 

• Good Value and a good looking board with Aorus branded heatsinking.
• Equivalent performance to the more expensive boards on test.
• BIOS Q-Flash.
• Inbuilt I/O shield helps with installation.
• Lower First PCIe slot position – can fit large air coolers.
• 8 USB ports on the rear.

Cons:

• Second full length PCIe slot is blocked by any GPU larger than 2 slots. 
• No Internal USB 3.2 gen 2 header and no USB C on the rear IO.
• No Diagnostic LEDs – can frustrate when troubleshooting boot issues.
• Only 3 fan headers in total – 1 CPU and 2 System. You will likely need fan splitters. 
• No M.2 Heat sinking – not vitally important but helps with a consistent look. 
• No RGB on board.
• Awkward SATA socket location: Using 90 degree cables blocks other SATA ports, large GPUs may block SATA ports. Flush mount SATA ports would have solved this issue. 

Conclusions: 

Overall this is a good value B550 motherboard that gets the job done for the Ryzen Zen 3 builds. However, in terms of value, it loses out to the MSI B550M Pro-VDH which includes USB 3.2 gen 2 and WiFi for just $5 more. The price-cutting on this motherboard with limited fan headers, awkward SATA ports, lack of any boot diagnostic LEDs and slightly awkward PCIe slot placement all means that in all but the most basic PC builds this board is likely to frustrate. In particular, if you want WiFi or any additional add-in PCIe card you need to ensure that your GPU is no more than 2 slots thick – and many are nowadays with most designs intruding on the third PCIe slot beneath them. If your GPU is long you may have issues connecting SATA cables to some or all of the ports.

At the right price, the B550M Aorus Elite is still a good motherboard, but we’d consider that price to be around $90 to compensate for the shortcomings here. We recommend the MSI B550 Pro VDH Wifi over this for the additional features and fewer compromises of that board. 

3. Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus WiFi – Mid-Range Board

Moving into the mid-range selections, we have the ASUS TUF Gaming B550M Plus WiFi. The TUF lineup offers some really good products and this B550 board is no exception, but at the moment it’s retailing at $160 which is pretty steep for a B550 motherboard.

Pros:

• Great looking with hefty heatsinking and nice RGB highlights. 
• Inbuilt WiFi 6
• Asus BIOS Flashback functionality
• USB C on the rear and 7 USB A ports of various speeds.
• Higher quality Audio CODEC – Realtec S1200A
• Strong VRM – easily capable of running a 5900X.

Cons:

• Expensive
• Slightly awkward SATA socket positioning. Not as bad as the Aorus Elite, but still annoying.
• Limited Fan headers – 2 System, 1 CPU fan, 1 AIO pump optional header. 
• No internal USB 3.2 Gen 2 header. 
• Second PCIe slot blocked by a larger GPU in the first, but the 1x slot is mounted high to keep it accessible. 
• RGB may be obscured by a GPU

Conclusions:

Overall we like this B550 motherboard but not the price. At $130-$140, it’s a good buy but it has enough compromises to make us look elsewhere at $150-$160. Little things like the number of fan headers and lack of an internal USB 3.2 header are the sort of detail you’d expect a board like this to get right. However, it performs well and looks great, so if you find it at the right price there’s no reason not to buy it. Just make sure the compromises this board makes won’t interfere with your planned build. 

4. MSI MAG B550M Mortar WiFi – Mid-Range Board

The MSI B550M Mortar Wifi is the B550 motherboard we’re most familiar with in this test, we’ve actually been using it for about nine months on our test bench. It’s a good mid-range option but let’s see how it stacks up against the competition.

Pros: 

• USB 3.2 Gen 2 internal header plus USB C on the rear I/O panel.
• Plenty of fan headers: 3 system fan headers, 1 CPU, one AIO.
• Full length PCIe slots are 3 slots apart – you can fit 2 GPUs into this motherboard without conflict.
• BIOS flashback
• Inbuilt IO shield
• Inbuilt WiFi 6: A non WiFi option available with a darker colour scheme.
• 6 SATA slots (most mATX have 4)

Cons:

• Expensive at the moment – $170
• Only 5 USB A sockets on the rear.
• mATX form factor may look strange in ATX builds.

Conclusions:

This mid-range B550 motherboard does a lot of things right. The layout is good and it has a good range of internal connectors. The main weakness is the slight lack of USB A options on the rear IO. Subjectively, the silver aesthetic of this WiFi version matches white or silver themed builds nicely, and also somewhat subjectively we find the MSI bios one of the more intuitive to navigate and tweak. There’s a non WiFi version also available at about $155. Overall, this is a great board and we can heartily recommend it, but just be cautious on pricing. 

5. ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming WiFi – High-End Board

Now we move up to the higher end of B550 motherboards with the Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi. This full ATX board adds some more PCIe slots and USB connectivity to the mix, as well as some higher-end components like a strong VRM configuration and a good quality Audio Codec.

Pros:

• Full ATX with plenty of well-spaced PCIe slots.
• Great looking board with RGB and solid heatsinking, including both M.2 slots.
• Lots of Fan headers, with AIO pump, CPU, CPU Optional and 3 chassis fan headers for 6 total.
• High end S1220A Codec for audio. 
• BIOS Flashback
• Six SATA slots.
• Strong VRM

Cons:

• Still only 2 M.2 slots
• No internal USB 3.2 gen 2 header.
• Hard to see the value at near $200

Conclusions:

Moving up to the higher end and a full ATX B550 motherboard, we come to the Asus B550-F ROG Strix Gaming. There’s a lot to like about this motherboard, not least the looks. However, we think it’s hard to find the value on offer here when you compare the specification to, for example, the MSI B550M Mortar you don’t really gain much. Multiple X1 PCIe slots are of limited value on a board that has WiFi inbuilt anyway. There’s still just 2 M.2 slots, and no internal USB 3.2 Gen 2. On the plus side, you get loads of Fan and RGB control options, heavy heatsinking, a great VRM – but remember you’re not buying any more performance with this board, every board here performs the same with a 5600X or 5800X. Overall, if you like the looks and features, and don’t mind the ROG Strix tax or slight compromises in the specification, this is a solid option and we’d recommend it for a showy 5600X or 5800X gaming build. 

6. ASRock B550 PG Velocita – High-End Board

The ASRock B550 PG Velocita is a B550 chipset motherboard with a lot of features aimed at overclockers, but one glaring omission, so let’s take a closer look.

Pros:

• Full ATX format with good PCIe slot layout.
• Seven Fan/Pump headers, giving extensive cooling options
• Really nice LED highlights.
• Very strong VRM with 14 phase set up. You can maximise any Zen 3 CPU on this without concern.
• Excellent heatsinking with a heat pipe to spread heat load.
• Internal USB 3.2 gen 2 header. 
• Good USB connectivity on rear I/O
• Wifi compatible M.2 slot and pre cut I/O plate antenna holes – you can add Wifi without using a PCIe or M.2 storage slot. 

Mixed:

• Power and reset buttons – we found them helpful on our test bench, but how much are you really going to use them in a built PC?
• Fault code display could be a nice touch, but the code index is so generic and unhelpful that it’s really no more use than simple LED lights.
• Love it or hate it styling with red and grey accents. 

Cons:

•  No BIOS Flashback! An unforgivable sin, and this is the only board that required us to swap to a compatible CPU to update the BIOS and get it working with Ryzen 5000 CPUs. 
• Only two storage M.2 slots. 
• Expensive
• You’re not buying any extra performance

Conclusions:

This ASRock B550 PG Velocita is the B550 motherboard in this review that sparks the most mixed feelings for us. We really WANT to love it, but the overall impression is of a board that hasn’t been designed with actual use in mind. The most glaring issue is the lack of any means to perform a BIOS flash without an existing CPU. We bought this board at the start of summer 2021 and it wasn’t Ryzen 5000 ready – forcing us to use our Ryzen 3600 to update the BIOS. For a board aimed at enthusiasts, and when it’s available on boards at literally half the price, it’s just not acceptable not to include this feature. 

The other ‘overclocking’ features really feel like they’ve been added for marketing, not with functionality in mind. The Power and reset buttons were nice whilst we tested this board, but useless if you intend on actually building a PC in a traditional case. Likewise the Numeric LED Fault code display COULD be really useful, but the codes are so cryptic and poorly explained in the manual or online that actually, they’re no more helpful than simple diagnostic LED’s pointing at a problem with the CPU or RAM for example. On the plus side, it’s got great water cooling and system fan flexibility, a good range of connectors, and a hugely capable VRM. That said, you’re not getting extra performance from an overkill VRM, and short of exotic cooling methods you won’t need the VRM on offer here even for a 5950X – the overclocking headroom just doesn’t exist. It’s also, in our opinion, a great looking board with some really nice RGB highlights around the IO panel heatsink. If you’re aware of the shortcomings, have a plan to get around the BIOS flash issue, and find this board at the right price (say under $200) then it makes a solid basis for a high-end B550 based PC build. Otherwise, we’d recommend the Asus B550-F ROG Strix Gaming WiFi which has more features at a lower price and doesn’t feel as quirky as the ASRock PG Velocita. 

Closing Thoughts:

I hope you’ve found this article useful and that it has helped you decide which board is right for you. The nice thing with B550 Motherboards is that there are very few products to avoid – so long as you’re not shopping at the bargain basement they offer the same basic features and functionality as well as equivalent performance. When you’re looking to buy just ensure that the board has BIOS flashback functionality, and adequate slots and I/O for your needs. Also ensure that between the case and the motherboard, you’ve got the USB 3.2 Gen 2 connectivity that matches up, so you’re not left with dead USB-C slots on your case. Consider these points and you’ll have the foundation of a great system using the Ryzen 5600X or 5800X CPUs.

The B550 chipset represents the current sweet spot for PC builders looking to maximise the Ryzen 5 5600X and 7 5800X CPUs. It offers a full-featured and cost-effective basis for a high-performance PC for gaming or general use.

We’ve rounded up a selection of some of the best B550 motherboards on offer, going into 2022. We’re going to take a look at them to find out their features, any weak points or flaws, and use this information to make recommendations to you as to the best options for your Ryzen-based PC build. We’ll break our recommendations out into a separate article, so this one isn’t too cluttered with too much information. 

At the lower end, we’re testing the MSI Pro VDH WiFi and the Gigabyte Aorus Elite. These are both mATX boards at or close to the $100 price point.

In the mid-range selection of B550 motherboards, we’ve got the Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus WiFi and the MSI B550M Mortar Wifi. 

And to look at the higher end we’ve got the Asus ROG STRIX B550-F Wifi and the ASRock B550 PG Velocita. These boards are a little more expensive and take different approaches to offer you value, so we were interested in finding out what they offer over more budget-friendly B550 options. 

We’ll take a look at performance overall, then dive into each B550 motherboard to investigates its strengths and weaknesses.

B550 Motherboard Performance Testing:

We’ve conducted our testing with a Ryzen 7 5800X in the knowledge that if these boards handle that CPU well, there will be no problems with the less demanding 5600X. The Test system consisted of a 650W Gold-rated PSU, RTX 3060 Ti (not relevant to testing), and G.Skill 3600Mhz CL16 RAM set to XMP and 1:1 Infinity Fabric and Memory clock ratio. A 240mm AIO was used to maximise CPU performance without thermal throttling. 

B550 Motherboard Benchmark Comparisons

1. Cinebench R20 and R23

In this test we ran both single and multi-core workloads, to ensure that the Motherboard allowed the CPU to boost correctly and also didn’t limit the CPU with power draw. You can see that the boards behaved almost identically.

2. 3D Mark Testing: Fire Strike & Time Spy

We also ran Time Spy and Firestrike CPU tests. These show a little more variance in results but looking at CPU metrics we couldn’t identify any substantial change in CPU performance; This is likely down to variables such as cooler fitment or even ambient temperatures of the test and we don’t consider it anything of concern.

The long story short here is that we could not find any discernible difference in performance between any of these B550 motherboards. In single and multi-core tests they all performed remarkably closely, within a margin of error. In fact, if we normalise the scores and average them for each board we find a total variance of less than 0.2% – That’s well within the margin of error. They all held up well to longer duration testing, with no drop in performance after a 30-minute work loop. 

RAM Compatibility

We also checked RAM Compatibility, although it’s not possible to really test this exhaustively. All the boards worked flawlessly with our 3600Mhz Cl16 G.Skill RAM kit, as you’d expect. They were also all capable of running ‘known good’ overclock settings of 4000MHz CL 16-16-16-32 at 1:1 infinity fabric and memory clock on our Samsung B-die test kit, which represents the upper end of Zen 3 RAM speed optimisation. All of these boards have identical RAM overclocking and CPU overclocking settings available in BIOS, and whilst we wouldn’t choose them for dedicated overclockers, they all run RAM stably at acceptably fast speeds.

So, the good news on performance is that across the range of B550 motherboards we’ve tested we’re confident that you’ll be able to extract the maximum potential from a Ryzen 5600X or 5800X as well as reasonably fast RAM, to optimise your system’s performance. 

The ‘Best’ B550 Motherboards, Reviewed

So, with performance covered let’s look into each board. We won’t list specs as they’re actually very similar across all of these motherboards, and you can look them up yourselves. Instead, I’ll point out the most important features or omissions, the things we think you’d most want to know before buying any of these B550 motherboards. 

1. MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi – Entry Level Board

The MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi is a full-featured and good value B550 motherboard currently retailing at about $110.

Pros:

• Great value
• Understated looks with RGB switch.
• Inbuilt Wi-Fi
• Simple BIOS Flashback
• Internal USB C (USB 3.2 Gen 2) header
• 6 USB rear outputs
• 5 fan headers in total – 3 system, one CPU fan, one AIO pump header. 

Cons:

• Only One full length PCIe slot for a GPU. No 4X slots.
• Basic Audio – ALC 892 and 3 rear audio outputs. 
• No rear USB C – make sure your case has usb C if you require it, to make use of the internal header. 
• MATX so it might not look great in an ATX case.

Conclusions: 

Overall we were really impressed with this B550 motherboard. Whilst it has a ‘no-frills approach, MSI has made sensible decisions over what to include. Performance is great, on a par with motherboards that cost twice as much. We’d really just advise that you ensure you won’t need more than that single PCIe x16 slot as the 2 single length slots could limit your ability to add expansion cards down the line. The USB specification also isn’t the best, so make sure you’ll have adequate connectivity between the rear I/O of this board and any case you choose. Overall though for an understated and great value option, we heartily recommend the MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi.

2. Gigabyte B550M Aorus Elite – Entry Level Board

The Gigabyte B550M Aorus Elite is the most affordable AORUS motherboard in Gigabyte’s B550 lineup and is available at just $105.

Pros: 

• Good Value and a good looking board with Aorus branded heatsinking.
• Equivalent performance to the more expensive boards on test.
• BIOS Q-Flash.
• Inbuilt I/O shield helps with installation.
• Lower First PCIe slot position – can fit large air coolers.
• 8 USB ports on the rear.

Cons:

• Second full length PCIe slot is blocked by any GPU larger than 2 slots. 
• No Internal USB 3.2 gen 2 header and no USB C on the rear IO.
• No Diagnostic LEDs – can frustrate when troubleshooting boot issues.
• Only 3 fan headers in total – 1 CPU and 2 System. You will likely need fan splitters. 
• No M.2 Heat sinking – not vitally important but helps with a consistent look. 
• No RGB on board.
• Awkward SATA socket location: Using 90 degree cables blocks other SATA ports, large GPUs may block SATA ports. Flush mount SATA ports would have solved this issue. 

Conclusions: 

Overall this is a good value B550 motherboard that gets the job done for the Ryzen Zen 3 builds. However, in terms of value, it loses out to the MSI B550M Pro-VDH which includes USB 3.2 gen 2 and WiFi for just $5 more. The price-cutting on this motherboard with limited fan headers, awkward SATA ports, lack of any boot diagnostic LEDs and slightly awkward PCIe slot placement all means that in all but the most basic PC builds this board is likely to frustrate. In particular, if you want WiFi or any additional add-in PCIe card you need to ensure that your GPU is no more than 2 slots thick – and many are nowadays with most designs intruding on the third PCIe slot beneath them. If your GPU is long you may have issues connecting SATA cables to some or all of the ports.

At the right price, the B550M Aorus Elite is still a good motherboard, but we’d consider that price to be around $90 to compensate for the shortcomings here. We recommend the MSI B550 Pro VDH Wifi over this for the additional features and fewer compromises of that board. 

3. Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus WiFi – Mid-Range Board

Moving into the mid-range selections, we have the ASUS TUF Gaming B550M Plus WiFi. The TUF lineup offers some really good products and this B550 board is no exception, but at the moment it’s retailing at $160 which is pretty steep for a B550 motherboard.

Pros:

• Great looking with hefty heatsinking and nice RGB highlights. 
• Inbuilt WiFi 6
• Asus BIOS Flashback functionality
• USB C on the rear and 7 USB A ports of various speeds.
• Higher quality Audio CODEC – Realtec S1200A
• Strong VRM – easily capable of running a 5900X.

Cons:

• Expensive
• Slightly awkward SATA socket positioning. Not as bad as the Aorus Elite, but still annoying.
• Limited Fan headers – 2 System, 1 CPU fan, 1 AIO pump optional header. 
• No internal USB 3.2 Gen 2 header. 
• Second PCIe slot blocked by a larger GPU in the first, but the 1x slot is mounted high to keep it accessible. 
• RGB may be obscured by a GPU

Conclusions:

Overall we like this B550 motherboard but not the price. At $130-$140, it’s a good buy but it has enough compromises to make us look elsewhere at $150-$160. Little things like the number of fan headers and lack of an internal USB 3.2 header are the sort of detail you’d expect a board like this to get right. However, it performs well and looks great, so if you find it at the right price there’s no reason not to buy it. Just make sure the compromises this board makes won’t interfere with your planned build. 

4. MSI MAG B550M Mortar WiFi – Mid-Range Board

The MSI B550M Mortar Wifi is the B550 motherboard we’re most familiar with in this test, we’ve actually been using it for about nine months on our test bench. It’s a good mid-range option but let’s see how it stacks up against the competition.

Pros: 

• USB 3.2 Gen 2 internal header plus USB C on the rear I/O panel.
• Plenty of fan headers: 3 system fan headers, 1 CPU, one AIO.
• Full length PCIe slots are 3 slots apart – you can fit 2 GPUs into this motherboard without conflict.
• BIOS flashback
• Inbuilt IO shield
• Inbuilt WiFi 6: A non WiFi option available with a darker colour scheme.
• 6 SATA slots (most mATX have 4)

Cons:

• Expensive at the moment – $170
• Only 5 USB A sockets on the rear.
• mATX form factor may look strange in ATX builds.

Conclusions:

This mid-range B550 motherboard does a lot of things right. The layout is good and it has a good range of internal connectors. The main weakness is the slight lack of USB A options on the rear IO. Subjectively, the silver aesthetic of this WiFi version matches white or silver themed builds nicely, and also somewhat subjectively we find the MSI bios one of the more intuitive to navigate and tweak. There’s a non WiFi version also available at about $155. Overall, this is a great board and we can heartily recommend it, but just be cautious on pricing. 

5. ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming WiFi – High-End Board

Now we move up to the higher end of B550 motherboards with the Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi. This full ATX board adds some more PCIe slots and USB connectivity to the mix, as well as some higher-end components like a strong VRM configuration and a good quality Audio Codec.

Pros:

• Full ATX with plenty of well-spaced PCIe slots.
• Great looking board with RGB and solid heatsinking, including both M.2 slots.
• Lots of Fan headers, with AIO pump, CPU, CPU Optional and 3 chassis fan headers for 6 total.
• High end S1220A Codec for audio. 
• BIOS Flashback
• Six SATA slots.
• Strong VRM

Cons:

• Still only 2 M.2 slots
• No internal USB 3.2 gen 2 header.
• Hard to see the value at near $200

Conclusions:

Moving up to the higher end and a full ATX B550 motherboard, we come to the Asus B550-F ROG Strix Gaming. There’s a lot to like about this motherboard, not least the looks. However, we think it’s hard to find the value on offer here when you compare the specification to, for example, the MSI B550M Mortar you don’t really gain much. Multiple X1 PCIe slots are of limited value on a board that has WiFi inbuilt anyway. There’s still just 2 M.2 slots, and no internal USB 3.2 Gen 2. On the plus side, you get loads of Fan and RGB control options, heavy heatsinking, a great VRM – but remember you’re not buying any more performance with this board, every board here performs the same with a 5600X or 5800X. Overall, if you like the looks and features, and don’t mind the ROG Strix tax or slight compromises in the specification, this is a solid option and we’d recommend it for a showy 5600X or 5800X gaming build. 

6. ASRock B550 PG Velocita – High-End Board

The ASRock B550 PG Velocita is a B550 chipset motherboard with a lot of features aimed at overclockers, but one glaring omission, so let’s take a closer look.

Pros:

• Full ATX format with good PCIe slot layout.
• Seven Fan/Pump headers, giving extensive cooling options
• Really nice LED highlights.
• Very strong VRM with 14 phase set up. You can maximise any Zen 3 CPU on this without concern.
• Excellent heatsinking with a heat pipe to spread heat load.
• Internal USB 3.2 gen 2 header. 
• Good USB connectivity on rear I/O
• Wifi compatible M.2 slot and pre cut I/O plate antenna holes – you can add Wifi without using a PCIe or M.2 storage slot. 

Mixed:

• Power and reset buttons – we found them helpful on our test bench, but how much are you really going to use them in a built PC?
• Fault code display could be a nice touch, but the code index is so generic and unhelpful that it’s really no more use than simple LED lights.
• Love it or hate it styling with red and grey accents. 

Cons:

•  No BIOS Flashback! An unforgivable sin, and this is the only board that required us to swap to a compatible CPU to update the BIOS and get it working with Ryzen 5000 CPUs. 
• Only two storage M.2 slots. 
• Expensive
• You’re not buying any extra performance

Conclusions:

This ASRock B550 PG Velocita is the B550 motherboard in this review that sparks the most mixed feelings for us. We really WANT to love it, but the overall impression is of a board that hasn’t been designed with actual use in mind. The most glaring issue is the lack of any means to perform a BIOS flash without an existing CPU. We bought this board at the start of summer 2021 and it wasn’t Ryzen 5000 ready – forcing us to use our Ryzen 3600 to update the BIOS. For a board aimed at enthusiasts, and when it’s available on boards at literally half the price, it’s just not acceptable not to include this feature. 

The other ‘overclocking’ features really feel like they’ve been added for marketing, not with functionality in mind. The Power and reset buttons were nice whilst we tested this board, but useless if you intend on actually building a PC in a traditional case. Likewise the Numeric LED Fault code display COULD be really useful, but the codes are so cryptic and poorly explained in the manual or online that actually, they’re no more helpful than simple diagnostic LED’s pointing at a problem with the CPU or RAM for example. On the plus side, it’s got great water cooling and system fan flexibility, a good range of connectors, and a hugely capable VRM. That said, you’re not getting extra performance from an overkill VRM, and short of exotic cooling methods you won’t need the VRM on offer here even for a 5950X – the overclocking headroom just doesn’t exist. It’s also, in our opinion, a great looking board with some really nice RGB highlights around the IO panel heatsink. If you’re aware of the shortcomings, have a plan to get around the BIOS flash issue, and find this board at the right price (say under $200) then it makes a solid basis for a high-end B550 based PC build. Otherwise, we’d recommend the Asus B550-F ROG Strix Gaming WiFi which has more features at a lower price and doesn’t feel as quirky as the ASRock PG Velocita. 

Closing Thoughts:

I hope you’ve found this article useful and that it has helped you decide which board is right for you. The nice thing with B550 Motherboards is that there are very few products to avoid – so long as you’re not shopping at the bargain basement they offer the same basic features and functionality as well as equivalent performance. When you’re looking to buy just ensure that the board has BIOS flashback functionality, and adequate slots and I/O for your needs. Also ensure that between the case and the motherboard, you’ve got the USB 3.2 Gen 2 connectivity that matches up, so you’re not left with dead USB-C slots on your case. Consider these points and you’ll have the foundation of a great system using the Ryzen 5600X or 5800X CPUs.

The post 6 Best B550 Motherboards for 2021: Tested, Reviewed & Compared appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

If you’re a gamer or any productivity user, deciding on which CPU to buy is always a tough choice. Moreover, if you plan on building on a budget but still want the best performance for your money; you’d be asking yourself “Intel or AMD?”  

As it stands now, its Team Blue who offers cheaper options in their latest line-up. The surprisingly competent Core i5 11400F is a tiny beast of a CPU. Nonetheless, it’s only fair that we compare it to Team Red’s cheapest offering among their latest Zen 3 processors; the Ryzen 5 5600X. Read on to find out whether you really need to cough up more dough for AMD, or if you’ll be just fine sticking to Intel’s newly crowned budget champ.

Specifications

Model	Core i5 11400	Ryzen 5 5600x
Design
Cores/Threads	6/12	6/12
Base Clock	2.6GHz	3.7GHz
Boost Clock	4.4GHz	4.6GHz
TDP	65W	65W
Included Cooler	Intel Stock Cooler	Wraith Stealth
MSRP	$157	$299
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

At first glance, the specifications show that the Ryzen 5 5600X will vastly outperform the Core i5 11400F. However, it’s also clear why since Team Red’s cheapest Zen 3 offering costs nearly twice as much as the 11400F at its MSRP. The base clock speed of the Ryzen 5 is much higher than that of the Core i5 11400F, while its boost clock is another 200MHz higher than that of Team Blue.

Both have the same advertised thermal design power; however, this means little since in real use cases the power draw of both chips will be higher.

In order to see just how much these two processors differ in terms of performance, let’s turn to the benchmarks.

1080p Gaming- Mixed

*Benchmarks courtesy of Benchmark– YouTube

The 1080p gaming benchmarks show the Ryzen 5 5600X being mostly ahead of the Core i5 11400F. The only exceptions being Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Red Dead Redemption 2; two very GPU intensive games that both have equal average framerates on both processors. Cyberpunk 2077 sees a slightly higher framerate on the Core i5 11400F. But this difference is a tossup between either, so your mileage may vary. The largest variation in FPS is shown in Metro Exodus, with the Ryzen 5 gaining 12 frames per second over the Core i5.

All-in-all, the eight game averages for Team Blue and Team Red are 134 and 137.25 respectively. It goes without saying that for games, paying nearly double for an average 2% increase in framerate does not seem all that worth it.

Productivity Benchmarks- Ryzen 5 5600X

Moving onto CPU intensive productivity workloads, we can see how the $157 MSRP Core i5 11400F fares against the much more expensive Ryzen 5 5600X.

 Starting off with the Cinebench R20 Multi Core benchmark, the Core i5 11400F cores 3954, while the Ryzen 5 5600X scored 4462; an expected gain. Moving onto the Single Core workloads in Cinebench R20, Team Blue manages to obtain a score of 541 with Team Red blasting past with a score of 600.

The 7-Zip File Manager Compression test shows the Core i5 11400F achieve a score of 59002. The Ryzen 5 5600X again trumps Intel with a score of 72344. In the Decompression test, the 11400F scored 64461 while the 5600X was ahead by a good margin with 86940.

In the SiSoft Sandra Cryptography Multi Threaded performance test, the Core i5 11400F achieved a speed of 18.2 GB/s, and as usual the Ryzen 5 5600X was faster at 19.2 GB/s. Meanwhile the 11400F managed to complete the Chromium Code Compile test in 7995 seconds, while the faster Zen 3 5600X completed it in 7047 seconds. The DaVinci Resolve 4K benchmarks scores show that Team Blue and Team Red are quite close, with the former having a score of 969, though the latter outdoes it with a score of 1017.

The Adobe Premiere Pro 2020 benchmark results award the 11400F and 5600X with scores of 677 and 746 respectively. The two processors are again quite close in the Adobe Photoshop 2020 test, with the Core i5 having a score of 1017 and the Ryzen 5 having a score of 1076.

Finally, the Blender Open Data render times for both CPUs show that the Ryzen 5 5600X reached completion in 1122 seconds while the 11400F took longer at 1233 seconds.

Unlike the gaming benchmark, the productivity results for the two CPUs give a very binary result. The Zen 3 based Ryzen 5 5600X is clearly much faster than Intel’s Rocket Lake budget counterpart. Users primarily aiming for a workstation build would appreciate the added performance and faster render times provided by Team Red; even if it means it costs much more. However, it is impressive to see the results of the Core i5 11400F often surpassing last year’s Core i5 10600K; which was a much pricier processor at launch.

*Benchmarks courtesy of Hardware Unboxed– YouTube

Power Consumption- Ryzen 5 5600X

When it comes to total system power draw, there are no surprises here. Intel’s notoriously high power consumption is again evident here, as the Core i5 11400F equipped system had a total power draw of 181W during the Blender render. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 5600X consumed less power at 157W while outperforming the Team Blue variant during the same test. So, if you wish to build a cool Small Form Factor PC, it might be worth spending extra to get the less power-hungry CPU.

Compatibility- Both

In terms of motherboard inter-generational compatibility, both Intel and AMD are on their last legs. The long-supported socket AM4 ends its compatibility with the Ryzen 5000 series of processors. Similarly; as Intel only supports two generations of CPU per socket, the support for LGA 1200 ends with the Rocket Lake line-up of CPUs. So, if you ever wish to upgrade from either processor, you will need to spend extra on a newer motherboard as well.

Verdict

If you’re planning on solely gaming on your PC, there really is only one way to go: Intel. But this is not because they’ve got the most powerful gaming processors. In fact, it’s only because of the enormous demand and supply constraints that have affected the Ryzen 5000 series that you will be better off with the 11^th Gen Core i5 11400F. Currently, the Ryzen 5 5600X sells for $450 US Dollars on Amazon. In contrast, the street price of the Core i5 11400F is only $174. Since it’s simply dull-witted to spend $276 dollars more for a 10 FPS gain, gamers are better off with the newly crowned budget champ; the 11400F.

If you’re a workstation or productivity user on a budget however, you might need to consider ponying up the premium for a Ryzen 5 5600X. It outperforms the Intel counterpart in productivity workloads by quite a margin, and since time is money; you will probably be glad you chose AMD in the long run.

Check out some of our guides below to help you with your next Intel or AMD build:

Core i5 11400F Builds:

• Best Intel Core i5-11400(F) Build for 2021 (Gaming / All-Round Use)
• 6 Best Z590 Motherboards for Intel ‘Rocket Lake’ Builds

Ryzen 5 5600X builds:

• 4 Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 5 5600X
• 4 Best Power Supplies for Ryzen 5 5600X Builds
• 5 Best Motherboards for the Ryzen 5 5600X
• $1400 Ryzen 5 5600X Gaming Build – The Best Value PC Build for
• 4 Best Graphics Cards for Ryzen 5 5600X Builds
• $1800 Ryzen 5 5600X ITX Gaming Build for 2021

The post Intel Core i5 11400F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: Which Is Best For You? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

This is a question which will not die until desktop gaming dies. It’s not a bad question by any means, but the typical answers are lacking and might even be bad advice. The consensus today is that AMD is the best for gaming, and before that it was Intel for many, many years. Now, to answer this question, I could just take all the Ryzen 5000 reviews and average out the results, but there’s a clear problem with that: the reviews aren’t consistent. They do consistently agree that Ryzen 5000 CPUs are in the lead, but they can’t agree by how much. Yet most reviewers were pretty consistent on RX 6000 vs. RTX 3000 around the same time, so what gives? Solving this conundrum is key to understanding which gaming CPU is best. Yes, I am going to get very technical in this article, so if you just want to know which one is better then feel free to skip to the end.

Why are gaming CPUs good at gaming?

Firstly, what even makes a CPU good at gaming? AMD’s last generation of Ryzen CPUs, the 3000 series, was well ahead of Intel in almost everything with the very notable exception of gaming. Games are, by nature, highly dependent on good latency, and they also tend to not use many actual resources. A long 4K video taking about an hour to render is pretty good, but gamers want a brand-new frame at least every 33 millisecond (which translates to 30 FPS) and most PC gamers want a new frame every 16 ms (60 FPS). There is very little time create a single frame, but thankfully game applications don’t ask very much of the CPU; to get the job done, all the CPU needs to do is handle a small amount of data, do a little math on it, and communicate that to the rest of the system.

Ryzen 3000, despite its beefy cores, suffered in gaming because of one of its key design features: the core complex (or CCX). One of the building blocks of modern AMD CPUs is the CCX, which from 2017 to 2020 was a group of 4 cores (or 2 cores in some very low-end CPUs). A CCX has components like cache which are normally shared across the entire CPU. To add more cores, AMD has to add more CCXs, which works very well for tasks which demanded large amounts of resources. However, the CCX has a fatal flaw; when a core within one CCX needs to communicate with a core in another CCX, there is a high amount of latency. Non-shared cache was better than having less cache (because asking the RAM for something takes forever), but shared cache would have been so much better.

This is the key reason why AMD struggled to catch up to Intel in gaming despite introducing new instructions, new features, bigger cores, and more cores. Though Intel did not change the design of its cores for 6 years, their CPUs were able to stay ahead because they had very low latency from core to core and from core to RAM, and they had sufficient amounts of resources. Any AMD CPU with more than 4 cores had to use multiple CCXs, which severely impacted gaming performance where more than 4 cores was needed. While Intel’s old Skylake cores could not match AMD’s modern Zen 2 cores in most applications, if latency was at all important, then Intel would be able to stay ahead or at least be competitive.

In 2020, AMD flipped the tables with Zen 3. They enlarged the size of the CCX to 8 cores, and consequently all Ryzen 5000 CPUs with 8 cores or less have just one CCX and a single block of cache. Now AMD is on top in gaming thanks to the combination of low latency and a massive amount of cache. Meanwhile, Intel’s new Rocket Lake based 11^th gen actually lost ground in some games compared to their previous 10^th gen, because their new cores increased latency by a significant amount.

Why are the benchmarks inconsistent?

A good gaming CPU has low latency and the right amount of resources for certain tasks. So why is the benchmarking data for this all over the place? Well, here’s the other piece of the puzzle: games aren’t demanding much if any more resources from the CPU in order to increase the framerate. You can test this yourself in any game of your choice. Open up MSI Afterburner or even Task Manager and monitor CPU usage and power consumption. Then, set a framerate cap using your driver suite or third party software (MSI Afterburner also comes with Rivatuner which can limit the framerate). If you steadily increase the framerate, CPU usage doesn’t go up very much and neither does power consumption. This is very much unlike GPUs, which would have to increase resource and power consumption to achieve higher framerates, assuming there’s still headroom for more frames without decreasing visual quality settings. If GPU Alpha is twice as fast as GPU Beta at “ultra quality”, it’ll probably be about twice as fast at “high quality”. But CPU Gamma and CPU Zeta might be the same performance at both presets, or maybe they’ll be the same performance at “ultra quality” but suddenly show a gap at “high quality”.

CPU gaming benchmarks are complicated by the fact that there is a limit to how many frames a CPU can create in each game. You can’t just keep tweaking settings to decrease the load on the CPU when there are few if any of those settings to tweak, and even if there were, reading and executing code is always going to take up some time because the code might be imperfect or because there’s no hardware acceleration. The basic rule for CPU benchmarking is that, as the framerate on the fastest CPU increases, the gap between it and slower CPUs will also increase. Let’s say CPU Gamma can do 240 FPS while CPU Zeta can only do 200 in a certain title. They can both do 200 FPS, however, and if the GPU isn’t fast enough to output more than 200 FPS, the two CPUs will appear to be equal. But if the GPU is fast enough for 240 FPS, then suddenly there’s a noticeable gap between CPU Gamma and CPU Zeta, and this is exactly what is happening with the Ryzen 5000 reviews. Most of the reviews which find little difference between AMD and Intel are only getting 200 FPS or less on the fastest CPU, while the reviews which find a big difference between AMD and Intel are seeing the fastest CPU reach at least 500 FPS.

In the most absolute sense, AMD is the clear winner for gaming. Even at its worst, Ryzen 5000 is tying Intel CPUs, and at its best it can be faster by 30% or more and approaches 1000 FPS in titles like Strange Brigade. I’ve linked to Anandtech’s review here because it gives such good insight into CPU performance and how it varies depending on test conditions. But here’s another question: does it matter? Gaming monitors only go up to 360Hz, and it’s unlikely that anyone but an esports professional can notice the difference between a frame coming every single ms vs. just every three ms. If you just want 120 FPS or even just 60, then plenty of recent CPUs can do just fine.

Pricing

If performance is pretty much fine across the board, then we need to find a different angle. Pricing is a much more interesting discussion for comparing AMD and Intel. In today’s market, when supply is good, CPU pricing for prior generations is pretty good. I would regard Ryzen 1000, 2000, and 3000 as generally being the best value (especially in the used market, Intel CPUs retain their value far too well), but Intel 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th gen can be worthwhile if you want a consistently higher framerate; previous Ryzen CPUs can struggle in certain games and only Ryzen 3000 is truly competitive most of the time with Intel. That being said, all of these CPUs should reliably do 60 FPS gaming but only if they have 6 cores. 4 core CPUs can perform well but newer games are starting to demand resources which few 4 core CPUs can muster. Even a cheap 6 core CPU is a good investment.

Platform

The platform differences between the two are also really important. I would again consider AMD to be the better choice here, because AMD offers more features, and the single most important feature here is the Ryzen upgrade path. A budget PC gamer might decide to go with a Ryzen 5 2600X and a B550 motherboard, and down the line they can upgrade to a 2700X, or any Ryzen 3000 or 5000 CPU. Intel’s upgrade path is more limited, as their 8^th and 9^th gen CPUs are limited to 200 and 300 series boards, and they’re both architecturally identical. 10^th gen is alongside 11^th gen on the 400 and 500 series boards, but 11^th gen isn’t much of an upgrade from 10^th. This, not pricing, is the most important reason to go with AMD, in my opinion.

Other things

Finally, we can’t forget about things that some users might care about even if they’re not related to gaming. Intel CPUs perform well enough but AMD is significantly ahead in several types of applications; thankfully, these are usually hobby or work oriented applications for things like rendering, so casual users won’t need to worry. Intel CPUs also consume quite a bit more power than Ryzen 3000 and 5000 CPUs and consequently require better power supplies and cooling. If you want to build a small form factor PC (or if you just want less heat in general), AMD is a better bet.

Verdict: AMD and Intel are both fine

Generally speaking, I think older AMD Ryzen CPUs are the most ideal for the budget-conscious gamer, but it’s not like buying Intel is a waste of money. In this market, Intel might be your only option depending on what the supply looks like, and if you’re just gaming, then it’s honestly not a bad choice. Really, choosing between AMD and Intel is like choosing between different kinds of pizza; they’re both pizza at the end of the day and they’ll taste pretty much the same. Buy a Ryzen 5000 CPU if you need every single frame possible. Buy Intel or Ryzen 3000 if you want more than 120 FPS reliably. Buy Ryzen 1000 or 2000 if you’re comfortable with 60-120 FPS. Finally, make sure whatever CPU you buy has 6 cores. That’s really all you need to worry about, and if you follow these simple guidelines, you should have little issue gaming the way you want to.

Sources:

• “AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Review”, Techspot.
• “AMD Zen 3 Ryzen Deep Dive Review: 5950X, 5900X, 5800X and 5600X Tested”, Anandtech.

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It’s tough times for PC builders. We’ve been told new GPUs exist, we’ve even seen some of them, but if you want to buy one… you can’t unless you’re dripping in either luck or money. With very high demand, supply, and distribution issues, and another round of crypto-mining madness, availability is as low as prices are high.

Into the midst of this maelstrom, AMD has announced another new GPU: The Radeon RX 6700 XT launches on 18^th March. This RDNA2 based card slots in below the exiting RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 and looks set to challenge the RTX 3060 Ti as a strong 1440p GPU priced at about $479 MSRP. In this article, we’ll take a look at the specifications and consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of the RX 6700 XT compared to the competition – including the RTX 3060 Ti.

Specification Comparison

	RX 6700 XT	RTX 3060 Ti	RX 6800	RX 6800 XT
Design
Price (MSRP)	$479	$399	$579	$649
Fab Process	TSMC 7nm	Samsung 8n	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 7nm
Architecture	RDNA2 / NAVI 22	Ampere / GA104	RDNA2 / NAVI 21	RDNA2 / NAVI 21
Clock Speeds (Base/Boost)	2321/2424MHz (unconfirmed)	1410/1665 MHz	1815MHz/2105MHz	2015MHZ/2250MHz
Shader Units	2560	4864	3840	4608
Compute Units	40	80	60	72
RT Cores	40	38	60	72
Infinity Cache	96MB	N/A	128MB	128MB
Memory capacity	12GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR8	16GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6
Memory Bus/Bandwidth	192bit / 384.0 GB/s	256bit / 448 GB/s	256Bit / 512 GB/s	256Bit 512 GB/s
Power (TDP)	230W	200W	250W	300W
Pixel Rate	165.2 GPixels/s	133.2 GPixels/s	202.1 GPixels/s	288.0 GPixels/s
Availability	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon

Performance: RX 6700XT (by a small margin)

The RX 6700 XT is the first GPU to use the ‘NAVI 22’ core, still based on the new RDNA2 architecture. This core uses 2560 shader units, grouped into 40 compute units, and has 40 Ray Tracing cores as opposed to the 60 or 72 cores of the 6800 and 6800XT respectively. However, the core itself runs significantly faster, with boost clocks approaching 2.5GHz which is likely to make up for some of the deficit in performance attributable to the lower unit count. It also makes use of AMD’s ‘infinity cache’ – 96MB of on-chip memory for the most frequently accessed data that boosts performance by reducing memory latency and this is cut down from the 128MB on the more powerful RDNA2 cards.

The RX 6700 XT is hardware ray tracing enabled, although RTX exclusive titles like Cyberpunk aren’t ray tracing enabled on AMD GPUs – all titles using DirectX12 Ultimate will permit hardware ray tracing. It’s not possible to directly compare clock speeds or compute units between AMD and Nvidia, but looking at relative performance, the RX 6700 XT performs equivalently to the RTX 3060 Ti, averaging around 2% faster across a range of titles.  That means it is a very capable 1440p card and is a star performer at 1080p, but like the RTX 3060 Ti, it’s an expensive option for 1080p gaming. 

Memory: 12GB GDDR6 192bit bus Vs 8GB GDDR6 256 bit bus

Whilst the higher performance RDNA2 cards get a massive 16GB VRAM, the RT 6700 XT gets a still large 12GB frame buffer. It uses GDDR6 RAM running at 16GB/s, accessed via a narrower 192 bit bus meaning memory access performance will not be at the same level as the higher tier cards. The RTX 3060 Ti meanwhile makes do with 8GB GDDR6 but accesses it via a faster 256bit bus. 12GB is ample VRAM for a card with the anticipated performance of the RX 6700XT, meaning there will be no constraints on texture size for the foreseeable future other than the GPU’s ability to manipulate them. This VRAM size is a function of that 192bit bus: This allows access to six memory chips which are available in either 1GB or 2GB sizes. Since 6GB is no longer adequate for a card of this performance, 12GB is the only option for AMD to make a competitive product. Overall, the memory performance of the RTX 3060 Ti is faster, helping performance, whilst the RX 6700XT has higher capacity which may extend how long the card remains relevant. We’ll call this a tie.  

Features – AMD bring all the toys to the party

AMD GPUs come with their own suite of features that help boost performance and get you the most out of your card. RDNA2 are the first generation of AMD cards to feature hardware ray tracing cores, enabling shadows, lighting and reflections rendered in real time with actual ray paths, not approximated ones. However they’re not as powerful as Nvidia’s second generation cores, with performance on a par with the first-gen RTX cores found in the 20 series Nvidia GPUs. Nonetheless they will allow advanced rendering effects in ‘DirectX 12 ultimate’ titles. There’s also ‘Rage mode’ which is an automatic overclock to wring every last ounce of performance out of the card. Finally AMD have ‘SAM’ or Smart Access Memory which allows the CPU direct access to the GPU’s VRAM, enhancing performance in some games but around 5-10%.  Be aware that it can also hurt performance in others – it’s specific to the way the game or engine is coded, so only use it on compatible titles. Nvidia has Resizeable BAR (ReBAR) which performs the same function but is only enabled on games where it brings a performance benefit.

Power and Efficiency: Evenly matched

The RX 6700 XT has 2 8-pin power connectors on the card and draws 230W under load and 250W when overclocked. The RTX 3060 Ti has a TDP of 200W and draws 220W in normal usage or when overclocked, the power limits are carefully constrained to prevent it encroaching on the RTX 3070s performance. In terms of efficiency, the power levels are as closely matched as performance, with a few watts more equating to slightly higher performance for the RX 6700 XT. In short, power draw and efficiency are equivalent between these two GPUs and not a reason to choose one over the other. Any reasonable quality 600W+ power supply will be equipped to handle these GPUs, and you won’t need to go overboard on case cooling to keep system temperatures down to acceptable levels. The modest power draw also bodes well for manufacturers being able to design quiet running versions of the RX 6700 XT.

Supply and availability: Likely to be very hard to buy…

There’s still a large question mark over supply and availability: AMD share the TSMC 7nm production lines used to create this GPU with their RX6800 and RX 6800 XT, the entire Zen 3 CPU line up, and the APUs that go into current generation consoles. All of this points to supplies being highly limited. After the initial batch are sold we’d expect the supply situation to regress to the same as it is for any other GPU right now: Sadly almost impossible to find at MSRP. This is also the situation with the RTX 3060 Ti.

Conclusion: is the RX 6700 XT better than the RTX 3060 Ti? 

Given the factors we’ve discussed above, the RX 6700 XT looks like a viable alternative to the RTX 3060 Ti. It performs as well or better than it in almost all titles, allows you to use hardware raytracing, and has a large VRAM capacity meaning it will stand the test of time if you intend on keeping it for the long haul. Given the RTX 3060 Ti’s slight edge in RTX and DLSS enabled games at this time, we’d rate these two GPU’s as broadly equivalent in terms of the value they offer.

There’s also the interesting discovery that AMD drivers are much more effective at high frame rates and with lower performance CPUs, imposing less of a CPU overhead in those situations: The RX 6700 XT may be the perfect choice if you’re upgrading your GPU and have a system a generation or two old.

The caveats around the RX 6700 XT are more general: It’s relatively expensive and that price is likely to rocket on release, and supply is bound to be scarce. Ultimately you may not have a free choice between the two cards, in which case either will perform excellently in a 1440p or high-FPS 1080p gaming rig.

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