I have a strong preference for cheaper, more austere, boards. Few boards are issue free, but spending more often doesn't lead to a better experience. Indeed, the extra hardware can complicate things and introduce more problems. The only reason to consider more expensive boards, IMO, is if a certain feature set one needs has been paywalled out of lower-end segments. I've had plenty of expensive boards, but outside of the rare exceptional product, I usually wind up disappointed with them. The issues causing such disappointment are much easier to swallow at a third of the price.

You can probably ignore X870 and X870E. The former mandates USB4, which works best if connected to the CPU, and takes four lanes. The latter adds a second Promontory 21 chip, daisy-chained to the first, for extra I/O that it doesn't seem like you'll need. There are X870 boards that allow USB4 to be disabled and a few that use the chipset lanes for it, but this is still feature bloat, extra complexity, and more money.

Anyway, barring any specific need for a 1DPC board geared for squeezing the last few percent out of memory performance, I'm going to recommend the ASUS B850M-E. I liked the earlier non-E incarnation of this board a lot and would have kept it for my 9800X3D, except for the stupid chipset pseudo heatsink it had that would idle at 85C and overheat if anything attached to the chipset was actually used. Sure, I could have replaced the chipset heatsink, but there weren't enough advantages to this approach to keep me from returning it and just going back to the board I was previously using. This new version should not have that issue (chipset heatsink on the E is still garbage, but it's good enough garbage, rather than completely unusable garbage). It also has M2_1 and M2_2 directly connected to the CPU and doesn't share lanes with anything. The only extraneous feature is the ARGB controller/headers, which is almost impossible to avoid without really cheaping out elsewhere.

ASUS kinda annoys me, but they still have the best AM5 firmware (most exposed options). I'm still a bit paranoid about their support stinginess, but maybe they've improved.

ASRock has been my go to for a while, but I have had some issues with their RMA service recently; they haven't refused any of my returns and generally send me working replacements, but there has been something minor wrong with most of the boards I've gotten back, which is starting to piss me off. I'm not at all concerned about ASRock boards killing CPUs, but I am concerned with getting replacements with improperly installed I/O shields, questionable ports, or that are caked in flux residue from a socket replacement/BGA rework. My 9800X3D, 9700X, and 7700X are all in ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 and, despite the quirks, I really like the board...especially since the average price I paid for them was about $120 each.

Gigabyte isn't bad, and I really like the hardware on some of their boards, but their firmware still seems a bit sketchy on AM5. My 7800X3D is in a B650M Aorus Elite, which has great hardware, but annoying firmware. I tried my 9800X3D in a second one for a while, but as with the original TUF 850M, I didn't find it to be an improvement over my cheap ASRock board and it's a poor memory overclocker. Some of their more recent boards are more appealing, but I don't have enough experience with their 800 series line up to recommend any of them yet.

I really want to like MSI, but they segment/simplify their firmware to an absurd degree and all their lower-end and mid-range boards are missing options I make use of that are present in other brands' budget boards. Most notably they have no ODT Group A/B options on any board less than about 800 USD. This is a deal breaker in and of itself.

Settings are a more complex issue. There are a lot of areas to tune and a lot optimizations that can be made, even with a single CCD part like a 9800X3D. Precise goals and use cases will be important.

I imagine plenty of people will be recommending significantly more expensive boards than the $200 ASUS I am suggesting. Some of them will have compelling reasons, most of them probably won't. For some reason, people love to piss away money for no reason. It's not that I'm adverse to spending money where it needs to be spent, or even more than a strict price vs. performance assessment would justify (if I have a specific performance floor in mind), but I don't pay for aesthetics, gizmos, or gimmicks.

 

Blameless, that is your opinion and you are welcome to it. I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessments. This is more or less a hobbyist/enthusiasts forum and not the usual place for business types although they do frequent these threads. It's not like one is out buying a new motherboard on regular basis. To me, it's an event and I want the best that I can afford to suit my recreation. You come across like you're in a lab or some other professional environment and need to economize. Like today's new cars, they all come with AM/FM radios, power steering, breaks, power windows, air conditioning and so on. But some folks want more, like leather power seats and deluxe entertainment systems, etc. It isn't always the need but occasionally the want is present too.

 

At the bare minimum, i always go for a Hero board/equivalent.

Q Code display, decent amount of SATA and M.2 Slots, Good VRM heatsinks and phases.

 

Want 2 NVME X4 M.2 slots to CPU while preserving all 16 GPU lanes of primary slot as I use 1 NVME for OS and one larger for games and want them both to use direct CPU.

If this is all the io you need I would definitely look into an itx motherboard like the Asus B850-i/x870-i. I had the B650e-i and it was a awesome board for memory tuning.
Not sure if second m2 is from cpu tho 🤷‍♂️

 

This is more or less a hobbyist/enthusiasts forum

Nothing about being a hobbyist or enthusiast says anything about budget. It certainly doesn't imply one must spend more than they need to.

To me, it's an event and I want the best that I can afford to suit my recreation.

Best is pretty subjective, though many more expensive options are flatly inferior options.

If I want the best (as in what will provide me with the most performance for my recreational gaming activities), that almost rules out boards with more than one Promontory 21 chip (which is a bad for signal routing and suboptimal for latency), automatically rules out every board with more than two DIMM slots (more than one DIMM per channel destroys memory OCing due the the extra slots acting like antennae and hurts tPHYRDL from pure trace lenth), and makes tons of other considerations many people might value totally moot. Piles of extra I/O and decorative elements do not help overclocking or performance.

Extra cost also doesn't speed turnaround times for RMA service or reduce the testing I need to do. If I want my recreation to be as uninterrupted as possible, I'm going to need spare boards. I can afford a stack of the best OCing AM5 boards, but I can't justify that expenditure when the difference between a $120 board and a $700 board amounts to a percent or two of actual performance.

I'd love a GENE or APEX, but they have tons of garbage I actively don't want on them (as in they detract from my valuation of the board) for no other reason than to inflate their prices and ASUS' margins.

If MSI straightens out their firmware, the best (by any criteria I'd use) AM5 board will probably be the B850 MPOWER and I'll get one (or three). I would not recommend this board to Wolverine2349, because it's doesn't meet his particular criteria and he's unlikely to leverage the features that make it appealing to me.

I do like to pay more for better VRMs unless they are beyond overkill to the moon.

There are only a handful of trash AM5 boards where VRM isn't overkill to the moon for a 9800X3D. I think the hottest I've seen on my cheapest board on my delidded 9700X at ~200W was ~65C.

VRM is really a complete non-issue on AM5 unless you plan on pushing a sixteen core part as far as it can go with sub-ambient cooling.

How is the MSI B850 Tomahawk.

Probably fine, other than the aforementioned lack of ODT Group A/B settings.

What about the Asus ROG Strix B850-F and E and A and such??

The F is a good option, probably one of the best options for your needs. The A is almost identical to the F, but white.

The E, being a more feature laden, more premium part, is mostly just worse. It has a lot of lane stealing going on to support USB4 and doesn't meet your criteria.

And I know you had mentioned somewhere else that Asus default settings when enabling XMP are suboptimal and thus sometimes performance regression when running Y-Cruncher. Is that just true for the older B650E/X670E boards or also true for the newer B850/X870 boards as well?

I think it's a general ASUS phenomena, but I have no idea if it's been addressed in newer firmware. Regardless, it should be a non-issue. I'm operating under the assumption that you're going to tune things manually and that your going to do a lot better than what EXPO/XMP would give you. If this is the case, then setting one more option to what it should be is a non-issue. If this is not the case and you're just going to plug and pray with EXPO/XMP, then very little of the stuff you're fussing over matters.

Q Code display

I like having a POST code display and dual BIOS ROMs, preferably socketed, with a physical switch. Unfortunately, these formerly basic features have relegated to the high-end, and in the case of dual BIOS, are almost nonexistent outside of halo products.

So, I usually settle for the little POST LEDs that come with cheaper boards, and break out a POST debugger card that I can plug into a LPC/TPM port when I really need one.

 

What one really needs is a CLR CMOS button and USB Flashback. Any other features are just feature bloat not necessary. Qcode display won't tell you anything a POST LED can't in 99% of the cases. Any I/O you don't need is just bloat. I don't need USB 4 or TB or 2 high speed NIC's but I do want proper built-in M.2 cooling for all slots so I can buy cheaper M.2's and not have to fight with the M.2 heatsink not fitting under a GPU for example.

Hell, I wish there were boards that just didn't even have SATA anymore for example.

But yeah, recommended boards, anything that is open box or whatever. I just scored a Gigabyte X670 Elite for like 85 bucks for a friend's build and it runs great. It does exactly what it has to do and nothing more. Something like ASUS B650E/F/A is totally fine, Gigabyte Elite or higher (would avoid the gaming x or lower tho).

Also, the cheaper boards often come with really bad onboard Audio so if you use that and not a USB headset for example get a bit of a proper board and not some ancient ALC897 stuff.

 

What one really needs is a CLR CMOS button and USB Flashback.

Flashback is a lot better than nothing, but I've had more than one board (including two ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impacts that were $430 at the time) where the flashback controller itself completely failed, mid-flash, bricking the boards. Socketed ROM chips were so much better.

As for clear CMOS, that's pretty trivial to wire up one's self.

 

I think it's a general ASUS phenomena, but I have no idea if it's been addressed in newer firmware. Regardless, it should be a non-issue. I'm operating under the assumption that you're going to tune things manually and that your going to do a lot better than what EXPO/XMP would give you. If this is the case, then setting one more option to what it should be is a non-issue. If this is not the case and you're just going to plug and pray with EXPO/XMP, then very little of the stuff you're fussing over matters.

I am going to tube some things manually bt I like to set EXPO then add minor tunings afterwards like Buildzoid timings but ore conservative by making numbers higher by my own guess Also downclock 6400 RAM to 6200 and thats it. I do not tune as manually and detailed as you do as I know you mentioned you should always set everything manually. So anotherwords Asus probably not a good option then because of suboptimal settings unless your gonna tine manually like crazy?

B850 Tomahawk: Probably fine, other than the aforementioned lack of ODT Group A/B settings.

How important are the lack of ODT Group A/B settings for RAM overclocking for just EXPO 6000 (3000) or even 6200 (3100) 1:1 and CLK 2067 with mild to moderately tuned RAM subtimings for full stability and reliability?

It seems like you only get what you want to your criteria with a 2 DIMM board. But is a 4 DIMM board fine for my criteria of RAM overclocking compared to yours?

I am not against a 2 DIMM board, but unless you go micro ATX or mini ITX which is too small and sacrifices other features I do want you pay insane prices for a full ATX 2 DIMM board like the APEX or Unify-X variants cause almost every board like 95% plus are 4 DIMM boards.

 

I do not tune as manually and detailed as you do as I know you mentioned you should always set everything manually. So anotherwords Asus probably not a good option then because of suboptimal settings unless your gonna tine manually like crazy?

I am sure you can manage to find the DDR Addressing page and enable all the hashing options. Some ASUS boards disabling these when set to Auto at 6000+ seems to be the primary culprit behind the benchmark weirdness observed.

Not an ASUS board, but essentially every AM5 board where the settings haven't been hidden has these options under AMD CBS:

How important are the lack of ODT Group A/B settings for RAM overclocking for just EXPO 6000 (3000) or even 6200 (3100) 1:1 and CLK 2067 with mild to moderately tuned RAM subtimings for full stability and reliability?

They're essentially irrelevant at these settings. Setting them correctly generally lets one run a bit lower voltage, get slightly better timings, or disable GDM at higher clocks. I might mean the difference between 8200 and 8400MT/s, for example. It's not going to limit EXPO settings unless its for a configuration the profile in question doesn't actually support (e.g. mixing kits).

It seems like you only get what you want to your criteria with a 2 DIMM board. But is a 4 DIMM board fine for my criteria of RAM overclocking compared to yours?

I am not against a 2 DIMM board, but unless you go micro ATX or mini ITX which is too small and sacrifices other features I do want you pay insane prices for a full ATX 2 DIMM board like the APEX or Unify-X variants cause almost every board like 95% plus are 4 DIMM boards.

There are essentially no AMD EXPO profiles out there that will not work fine on the majority of quad-DIMM 800 series boards. Indeed, the board I originally recommended (before realizing you needed a 4x slot suitably far from the GPU) is a modest quad-DIMM board...that is still overkill for your needs. A Strix-F should be at least as good.

For maximal memory performance a high-end two-DIMM board is pretty mandatory. Same goes for good results on very cheap boards, where having only two DIMM slots can elevate what would otherwise be a piece of trash like these B650M-HDV/M.2 boards to being competitive with some of the best four-DIMM boards there are when it comes to 1:1 ratios (it falls apart a bit at 8000MT/s+, but those speeds are not especially useful on single CCD parts that are heavily bottlenecked by Fabric). That said, this also presupposes extensive manual tuning.

 

I am sure you can manage to find the DDR Addressing page and enable all the hashing options. Some ASUS boards disabling these when set to Auto at 6000+ seems to be the primary culprit behind the benchmark weirdness observed.

Not an ASUS board, but essentially every AM5 board where the settings haven't been hidden has these options under AMD CBS:

Thanks again for your help.

Can I set EXPO and find the DDR addressing pages and enable all hashing options. Or do I have to leave all on Auto and set everything else manually? Are these the things and reason why Asus boards have worse benchmarks at DDR5 6000 plus than SPD defaults in Y-Cruncher compared to the other MSI boards I have tried by just enabling EXPO and tuning timings undervolting SOC a bit and forgetting the rest.

 

Also I notice the Gigabyte B850 AI Top which looks like a good board that suits my needs and its $319 at MicroCenter and has 10Gbe LAN built right in?

And has a very good VRM

Though it is much less than other options with 10GBe built right in. Is it cheap for a reason compared to others with really good VRMs and 10GBe onboard In fact it has 2 10GBe on board? Is it a good board to consider? Or is it cheap compared to others with those features for a reason?

 

Hardware wise, the board looks decent enough. Can't use any of the PCI-E slots, other than the primary 16x slot without disabling or stealing lanes from things. The bottom slot PCI-E slot, as well as M2_3 are only 2x max, and are disabled when the other is used. This is because of the chipset lanes that are routed to the 10Gbps ethernet controllers (2x each).

The 10GBe controllers are Marvell, which is one of the cheapest controllers of it's type...but doesn't seem to be too bad from reviews.

Likewise, the Realtek RTL8922AE is one of the cheapest Wifi7 solutions and only supports 160MHz channels.

The BIOS guide doesn't reveal much about what, if anything, was omitted from the UEFI setup pages.

VRM seems solid, but that's barely a selling point as half the VRM it has, stripped of heatsinks and covered with spray foam, would still be more than plenty for a 9800X3D with ambient cooling. These are not Intel platforms where there is a real risk of a budget board not being able to deliver enough current to support a high-end, or highly tuned, CPU. You'll never get any single CCD Ryzen to what would be the stock PL2 of most i7s or i9s, without a delid and subambient cooling. Even the dual-CCD parts struggle to reach such levels.

 

Thanks for help everyone. I went with the MSI B850 Tomahawk.

 

How is it going with the B850 tomahawk?

 

Well started out well. Then not so good.

Was having issues where PMIC high temp triggered and was not sure if RAM or mobo.

I read there may be some bug with MSI X870E Tomahawk regarding the reporting and the MSI B850 Tomahawk and Edge and X870/X870E Tomahawk and Edge all have exact same VRM so I returned board and RAM suspecting maybe its related.

I mean the Tomahawk and Edge MSI B850 and X870/X870E boards are all exact same just that X870/X870E have mandated USB4 with X870E only difference being 3rd M.2 chipset slot can be used along with bottom PCIe slot unlike B850/X870-non-e and the Edge B850 only difference form Tomahawk B850 is its white and has debug code otherwise exact same board.

So figure it may be related lol.

I wanted the X670E Carbon back but it was hard to find without long delivery date.

Lucky BestBuy had it close enough for tomorrow delivery ands I got it for $379 price match from Amazon and coming tomorrow.

That board is better for my usage case as top PCIe slot far away from GPU for offset mount of Noctua NH-D15 G2 and ore GPU clearance. And no lane stealing unlike X870E Carbon where I can use 2 X4 NVME direct to CPU while having all 16 GPU lanes.

 

I've mostly read succes storys about the mag x870 paired with 9800. What ram did you go with?

 

Welp went with Team Group T-Create EXPERT 2 X 24GB 6400 CL32.

Cause I want 6200 (3100) 1:1 and they 6200 kits are very rare and almost not found so downclock it to 6200.

And sad to say same exact issues with HWInfo64 reporting Yes values for High Temp PMIC, over voltage and under voltage.

So was not the motherboard Afterall. Seems like another kit of same Team Group T Create EXPERT just crappy sensor on RAM or bad crap RAM Team Group T Create EXPERT is or Team Group RAM DDR5 in general now?

I did use similar in past year and did not have those issues?? Maybe they are making RAM with bad sensors. Maybe they are cheaper for a reason??