9800X3D Bros. Which motherboard are you rocking and why?

The ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming.

Oh I forgot to put why, I forgot why.

I remember because I was there.

Because it has two PCIe 5 lanes. One for Graphics and One for Storage. The storage one can do one PCIe 5 M.2 and two PCie 4 M.2. It does have an additional storage M.2, but that will be shared with the GPU, knocking it down to 8x. Not a huge deal, but three M.2 should keep you going for a while.

If anyone does end up getting the board above, just note the Bluetooth requires the Wifi Antenna. Both Kilau and I thought the Bluetooth was terrible until I saw on some forum the bluetooth uses the same antenna. It is not in the manual. We weren't using the antenna at the time because we were hard wired.
 
Last edited:
There's something going on with Asrock boards and 9800's currently so I'd avoid until AMD or Asrock put a statement and fix out. Check the Asrock subreddit and it's FILLED with dead CPU's.

Leading theory atm is the energy saving settings out of the box aggressively lower voltage and when it flips to request power when coming out of sleep/wake or idle to game boot it's requesting too much voltage for a split second and frying CPU's.

 
Last edited:
PCIe Gen 5 is over hyped and the advantage is barely noticeable compared to PCIe Gen 4.


Maybe now. But pcie 5 for Nvme gen 5 is needed for those Nvme speeds. Besides when you a buy board, you kinda want a future proof as much as you can. Why on earth I would buy a board that is less than gen 5 ? To save 20$ or 30$ ? Not worth it
 
Using the ASRock X870E Nova. Great board so far, and plenty of NVMe slots although there is only one PCIe Gen5x4. On BIOS v3.20 for about a little over a month and haven't had any issues so far. As others have pointed out, there are reports of CPUs dying so I would avoid them for now until they figure out the cause. It's not exclusive to ASRock (MSI and Asus mobos are also included), although there's a greater number of reports coming from users on ASRock.

The MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk (non E-variant), MAG X870E Tomahawk, or the MPG X870E Edge TI would be what I would go for right now since the feature set surrounding M.2 slots is practically one of a kind.

Specifically, they all have the ability to slot in two M.2 PCIe Gen5x4 at full speeds while avoiding lane-sharing with the GPU. Way too many mobos (Asus & Gigabyte) make this mistake and take away bandwidth from GPU when slotting in a second M.2 so you end up with PCIe Gen5x8 speeds on the GPU instead of x16. The only caveat is that the M.2_2 slot shares lanes with USB4 40Gbps ports (runs at PCIe Gen5x2 when both are enabled), but the ports can be disabled to get the full PCIe Gen5x4 bandwidth.

While the MAG X870 & X870E Tomahawk can both do this, they come with their own set of compromises. The X870 Tomahawk has lane-sharing between PCI_E3 & M.2_3, so this is potentially an issue if you're wanting to slot in an old Nvidia GPU to run 32-bit PhysX calculations and want to use all of your M.2 slots. The X870E Tomahawk is the closest to matching the MPG Edge TI, but it specifically cuts down on the number of USB3.2 Gen2 10Gbps ports (not a big deal imo). The MPG Edge TI is about $50 more than the X870E Tomahawk and basically gives you everything. If you don't care about that lack of USB3.2 Gen2 10Gbps ports then the X870E Tomahawk is the best bang-for-buck imo.

TLDR: I'd go for MAG X870E Tomahawk because you can slot in two M.2 PCIe Gen5x4 without lane-sharing with the GPU.
 
Last edited:
MSI B550m Project Zero. For the sole reason that it's the only rear-connector AM5 board.

e3gKYxN.jpeg


Looks like some 800 series AM5 rear connector boards will be shown at Computex this week though.
 
Maybe now. But pcie 5 for Nvme gen 5 is needed for those Nvme speeds. Besides when you a buy board, you kinda want a future proof as much as you can. Why on earth I would buy a board that is less than gen 5 ? To save 20$ or 30$ ? Not worth it
Its not even worth spending $30 more for a 1-2% advantage. By the time pcie 5 really shows its full potential its likely people will just upgrade to pcie 6/7.

Like what many have said, pcie 5 advantage is insignificant to most gamers.
 
MSI B550m Project Zero. For the sole reason that it's the only rear-connector AM5 board.

e3gKYxN.jpeg


Looks like some 800 series AM5 rear connector boards will be shown at Computex this week though.

Looks clean.

Did you pair that with the MSI case or are there now more cases compatible with the rear power connectors?
 
Looks clean.

Did you pair that with the MSI case or are there now more cases compatible with the rear power connectors?
03KAtjL.jpeg


It's the Antec C8 Curve Wood (love this case BTW).

The situation with rear connector cases is a little retarded now. That board is mATX but some cases only support ATX rear connector boards (including even MSI's super high end MEG Maestro case WTF)

This case supports both ATX and mATX. I know Corsair Frame 4000D and 6500 support both.
 
PCI-E 5.0 at 8x is more than enough to run a modern GPU at full speed. Bandwidth is doubled every gen so PCI-E 5.0 at 8x is the same as PCI-E 4.0 at 16x.

Until you see your pci express test results from 3dmark :messenger_loudly_crying:

Here is hoping that DirectStorage-RTX mega geometry will make use of all available pcie bandwidth, soon
 
You won't need any more motherboard than this one:


Rock solid stability, fantastic motherboard.

Whatever motherboard you decide on, double check the bifurication for your needs.
I am going to keep this build very simple and be mainly gaming only. I have my other build and laptops for work productivity.

I'm just going to run 32GB of DDR5 6000 CL30 for now, but want the option to dump that RAM in a couple of years and expand to 64GB of the same speed/spec if needed.

Would only run 1 NVME, WD Black SN850X for now, and use externals for backup. Maybe expand to 2 NVME in the future, but no more than 2. Riser might be an issue due to vertical GPU build, so may need a board where at least 1 secondary M.2 doesn't rob from the GPU PCIEx16 and is on a chipset lane.
 
Last edited:
Its not even worth spending $30 more for a 1-2% advantage. By the time pcie 5 really shows its full potential its likely people will just upgrade to pcie 6/7.

Like what many have said, pcie 5 advantage is insignificant to most gamers.
Sounds like you have pcie gen 4 board and you are trying to justify your purchase.

Don't talk nonsense . Of course if I see 2 boards in front of me with 30$ price tag increase I'll get the gen 5 . wtf are u smoking . Gen 5 Nvme drives are here and they are fast . Even if the performance from video card is not much there is a still a difference. All in all 30$ is nothing for the peace of mind that my Nvme and my card running the highest speed possible as its intended to and not crippled by a board because I am cheap and I didn't want to pay 20 to 3$ more
 
You won't need any more motherboard than this one:


Rock solid stability, fantastic motherboard.

Whatever motherboard you decide on, double check the bifurication for your needs.
I am going to keep this build very simple and be mainly gaming only. I have my other build and laptops for work productivity.

I'm just going to run 32GB of DDR5 6000 CL30 for now, but want the option to dump that RAM in a couple of years and expand to 64GB of the same speed/spec if needed.

Would only run 1 NVME, WD Black SN850X for now, and use externals for backup. Maybe expand to 2 NVME in the future, but no more than 2. Riser might be an issue due to vertical GPU build, so may need a board where at least 1 secondary M.2 doesn't rob from the GPU PCIEx16 and is on a chipset lane.
I just checked the manual, and it seems there is no funny business on this board (like some others) with the M2 slots.

M2 Slot 1 is directly to the CPU, impacts nothing.
M2 Slot 2 is to the chipset, impacts nothing.
M2 slot 3 is to the chipset, shares bandwidth with PCIe slot 4 which will never be used.

I can also get the Gaming version for the same price at the moment as the Pro, so I may just get that one for the upgraded heatsink thermals.


What do you think?
 
ASRock Steel Legend.
It had good power regulation and PCI-E Gen 5 (just in case).

You can't go wrong. If you're not overclocking much just get something cheap with enough USB ports and WiFi if you need it. Also M.2 depending on your needs there too.
 
I just checked the manual, and it seems there is no funny business on this board (like some others) with the M2 slots.

M2 Slot 1 is directly to the CPU, impacts nothing.
M2 Slot 2 is to the chipset, impacts nothing.
M2 slot 3 is to the chipset, shares bandwidth with PCIe slot 4 which will never be used.

I can also get the Gaming version for the same price at the moment as the Pro, so I may just get that one for the upgraded heatsink thermals.


What do you think?

Yeh that looks good.

Gernerally I'd say go for MSI since their boards tend to have the least amount of bifurication fuckery.

Asus in particular will build boards with 5+ nvme slots, market the shit out of them, but then when you read the small print only 2 are actually usable as advertised without any significant conflicts.
 
Last edited:
Yeh that looks good.

Gernerally I'd say go for MSI din e their boards tend to have the least amount of bifurication fuckery.

Asus in particular will build boards with 5+ nvme slots, market the shit out of them, but then when you read the small print only 2 are actually usable as advertised without any significant conflicts.
I've noticed that. Shit like "slot 2 and 3 share bandwidth with PCIEx16 Slot 1 (the GPU) thus you either have to install risers making it more ugly or potential heat and/or placement issues, or skip them entirely for the other slots. Noticed some other brands sharing some M2 slots with USB 4.0 as well. Cheeky buggers.
 
Gigabyte X870 Gaming Wi-Fi6. I think it was one of the cheaper options that wasn't Asus but had all the options I needed. No issues since November.
 
Asus has been pretty bad on RMA side of things so I would skip them now days. Gigabyte has had issues as well (remember exploding power supplies they tried to cover up?). And MSI and ASRock have their own problems.

Personally I usually go for MSI now days but with any of these it seems to be a crapshoot if something goes wrong.
 
Last edited:
Sounds like you have pcie gen 4 board and you are trying to justify your purchase.

Don't talk nonsense . Of course if I see 2 boards in front of me with 30$ price tag increase I'll get the gen 5 . wtf are u smoking . Gen 5 Nvme drives are here and they are fast . Even if the performance from video card is not much there is a still a difference. All in all 30$ is nothing for the peace of mind that my Nvme and my card running the highest speed possible as its intended to and not crippled by a board because I am cheap and I didn't want to pay 20 to 3$ more

Yes of course I'm justifying it just so to call out on your claims that anything below PCIE 5 as "garbage" when its clearly far from it.
 
Yeh that looks good.

Gernerally I'd say go for MSI since their boards tend to have the least amount of bifurication fuckery.

Asus in particular will build boards with 5+ nvme slots, market the shit out of them, but then when you read the small print only 2 are actually usable as advertised without any significant conflicts.
Yeah, that's an annoying thing with Gigabyte as well across their entire 870/E line - if you want to use more than 2 nvme drives you're eating into the x16 lane bandwidth and dropping it to x8. It's a performance hit no one will notice of 1-3% but the fact that that is how all the current Gigabyte AMD boards are set up is ridiculous - I'm sure that 99% of people are never going to use more than 2 drives but they should be doing what MSI is doing and just let you take lanes from the PCIE slots 99% of people aren't going to be using. On my Gigabyte board, my RAID1 is 3.5" drives currently but if I ever replace them I will need to do 2.5" instead of nvme since I don't want to drop down the x16 for my GPU. It's annoying but not the worst thing in the world. Been otherwise happy with the board until the latest bios which has janky mouse scrolling, no issues with any bios before this one so not sure why it's like this.
 
Top Bottom