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Good current motherboard + ram for upcoming Zen 3?

Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2003
Posts
3,950
Location
UK
I'm currrently running a 3770K so I am long due a system upgrade and I am well out of touch with CPUs.
Ive got my eye on the new Zen3.

I have a 30% off voucher for another store but it has to be used by the 12th October, so unfortunately cant wait for the Zen3 release.

I believe some current Zen2 motherboard will be compatible with Zen3, is there any recommendations for a current good low/midrange board + DDR4 ram. I dont need all the bells and whistles, juat a good stable clocking motherboard.

I hear DDR 5 is coming sometime for Zen3 but thats not this year right?

Cheers
 
Soldato
Joined
28 May 2007
Posts
18,200
I'm currrently running a 3770K so I am long due a system upgrade and I am well out of touch with CPUs.
Ive got my eye on the new Zen3.

I have a 30% off voucher for another store but it has to be used by the 12th October, so unfortunately cant wait for the Zen3 release.

I believe some current Zen2 motherboard will be compatible with Zen3, is there any recommendations for a current good low/midrange board + DDR4 ram. I dont need all the bells and whistles, juat a good stable clocking motherboard.

I hear DDR 5 is coming sometime for Zen3 but thats not this year right?

Cheers

You might be able to use the voucher before the 12th. As for memory we just don’t know yet. A set of B die would probably be a good choice as it will generally run high frequency and low timings.

The gigabyte X570 elite, Pro and Asus Tuf are decent boards.
 
Caporegime
Joined
1 Jun 2006
Posts
33,484
Location
Notts
i think you will see deals on the 550 boards this week maybe the 570s as well. this could be for the new amd cpus or...that newer boards are coming with the line up and they want to shift stock. few days we will know. there is some decent 550 boards about as low as £100 now. which is nice to see. realistically where they should be.
 
Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2002
Posts
4,365
Location
Kent
There was a youtube vid by Luumi about how the 32GB kits have the performance benefit of 4 sticks but clock much higher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_mUZgqUjR4
A WR score was set on air cooling vs liquid nitrogen cooled ram. Based on that I was looking at these:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...00c16-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-my-002-8p.html
but I already have 4 x Patriot viper steel 4400 bdie which I need to clock past 3600 16,16,15,16, 32, though they beat my Cosair RGB pro @ 3800MT/s. Also since I'm recommending ram clocking, you can't go wrote with following 1usmus' guide on Techpowerup! about Ryzen memory overclocking (and don't forget clock tool (which I have not tried yet)).

Also, if you're getting 32GB in 2 sticks you can buy a motherboard with only 2 dimm slots which will help you clock further. That means either an expensive Kingpin Dark Pro or a mini ITX board.
 
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Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
10,950
Location
Bristol
i think you will see deals on the 550 boards this week maybe the 570s as well. this could be for the new amd cpus or...that newer boards are coming with the line up and they want to shift stock. few days we will know. there is some decent 550 boards about as low as £100 now. which is nice to see. realistically where they should be.

I doubt we'll see deals on current boards - if anything there's going to be a motherboard shortage at the end of the month. And I see zero evidence of reason there will be newer boards coming out any time soon.

Iirc the MSI B550 Tomahawk and Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master are 2 very good boards, I use crucial micron e memory and really like it
I'd go for the MSI Gaming Edge Wifi B550 over the Tomahawk. It's basically the same board but with WiFi 6 instead of the 1GBit LAN port - seems more useful.
 
Caporegime
Joined
1 Jun 2006
Posts
33,484
Location
Notts
I doubt we'll see deals on current boards - if anything there's going to be a motherboard shortage at the end of the month. And I see zero evidence of reason there will be newer boards coming out any time soon.


I'd go for the MSI Gaming Edge Wifi B550 over the Tomahawk. It's basically the same board but with WiFi 6 instead of the 1GBit LAN port - seems more useful.

there has been deals already and on going. boards that are normally 150 going down to as low as £100
 
Joined
11 Sep 2020
Posts
298
I doubt we'll see deals on current boards - if anything there's going to be a motherboard shortage at the end of the month. And I see zero evidence of reason there will be newer boards coming out any time soon.


I'd go for the MSI Gaming Edge Wifi B550 over the Tomahawk. It's basically the same board but with WiFi 6 instead of the 1GBit LAN port - seems more useful.
Glad you've said this, will investigate the Gaming Edge wifi. Was thinking of the Tomahawk, but will revisit the mobo scene!

Edit: Seems the X570 gaming edge is only £20 more (£180). Although I know a good B550 board doesn't always mean a good X570 board.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Jun 2008
Posts
11,616
Location
Finland
If aiming for B550 you should be looking for closer to £150 prices.
£200 gets good X570 board without problem of constantly running chipset fan.

Is Crucial Ballistix 3600 any good?
Micron rev-E in Crucial Ballistix kits would clock quite close to Samsung B-die.
Whose top bins (3200MHz 14-14-14/3600MHz 16-16-16) are the best DDR4s... but cost really lot.

I hear DDR 5 is coming sometime for Zen3 but thats not this year right?
DDR5 is coming with Zen4 and (likely) AM5 platform.
 
Joined
11 Sep 2020
Posts
298
If aiming for B550 you should be looking for closer to £150 prices.
£200 gets good X570 board without problem of constantly running chipset fan.

Micron rev-E in Crucial Ballistix kits would clock quite close to Samsung B-die.
Whose top bins (3200MHz 14-14-14/3600MHz 16-16-16) are the best DDR4s... but cost really lot.

DDR5 is coming with Zen4 and (likely) AM5 platform.
Finding good 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3600Mhz RAM is so hard... All the reasonably priced stuff is C16/C18 (but the timings aren't all 16 or 18).
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
29 Dec 2003
Posts
3,950
Location
UK
there has been deals already and on going. boards that are normally 150 going down to as low as £100

Ive seen a couple of micro ATX deals around £100 but not full ATX.
If aiming for B550 you should be looking for closer to £150 prices.
£200 gets good X570 board without problem of constantly running chipset fan.

Micron rev-E in Crucial Ballistix kits would clock quite close to Samsung B-die.
Whose top bins (3200MHz 14-14-14/3600MHz 16-16-16) are the best DDR4s... but cost really lot.

DDR5 is coming with Zen4 and (likely) AM5 platform.
Cheers, I think ill go for either the 16GB Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4B 3600 or Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB
 
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Soldato
Joined
6 Jun 2008
Posts
11,616
Location
Finland
Finding good 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3600Mhz RAM is so hard... All the reasonably priced stuff is C16/C18 (but the timings aren't all 16 or 18).
Remember that higher bus clock compensates some latency values.
For example 3600MHz 16-16-16 has roughly equal absolute latencies as 3200MHz 14-14-14.
And latency value of 18 is 10ns at 3600MHz, which equals to 16 "clock ticks" at 3200MHz.

While higher bus speed itself helps with Ryzens because of increasing speed of CPU's internal InfinityFabric bus.


Cheers, I think ill go for either the 16GB Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4B 3600 or Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB
That Crucial is faster in latencies:
CAS: 8.89ns vs 10ns
tRCD: 10ns vs 11.25ns
tRP: 10ns vs 11.25ns
tRAS: 21.11ns vs 22.5ns
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
29 Dec 2003
Posts
3,950
Location
UK
Remember that higher bus clock compensates some latency values.
For example 3600MHz 16-16-16 has roughly equal absolute latencies as 3200MHz 14-14-14.
And latency value of 18 is 10ns at 3600MHz, which equals to 16 "clock ticks" at 3200MHz.


While higher bus speed itself helps with Ryzens because of increasing speed of CPU's internal InfinityFabric bus.


That Crucial is faster in latencies:
CAS: 8.89ns vs 10ns
tRCD: 10ns vs 11.25ns
tRP: 10ns vs 11.25ns
tRAS: 21.11ns vs 22.5ns

Ill go for the crucial then unless you can recommend a better alternative under £70?
 
Joined
11 Sep 2020
Posts
298
Remember that higher bus clock compensates some latency values.
For example 3600MHz 16-16-16 has roughly equal absolute latencies as 3200MHz 14-14-14.
And latency value of 18 is 10ns at 3600MHz, which equals to 16 "clock ticks" at 3200MHz.

While higher bus speed itself helps with Ryzens because of increasing speed of CPU's internal InfinityFabric bus.


That Crucial is faster in latencies:
CAS: 8.89ns vs 10ns
tRCD: 10ns vs 11.25ns
tRP: 10ns vs 11.25ns
tRAS: 21.11ns vs 22.5ns

Thanks! Very useful info. It seems if you want to go above the 'standard' 3600Mhz 2x16GB RAM, price skyrocket. I may just settle with Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G36C16U4B 3600 MHz. I don't think it's anything special, but should be sufficient for the 3700X Zen 3 replacement, MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi and 3080 (if I can find one before I die...). Having said that, please shout if you disagree!
 
Man of Honour
Joined
23 Mar 2011
Posts
16,747
Location
West Side
Thanks! Very useful info. It seems if you want to go above the 'standard' 3600Mhz 2x16GB RAM, price skyrocket. I may just settle with Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G36C16U4B 3600 MHz. I don't think it's anything special, but should be sufficient for the 3700X Zen 3 replacement, MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi and 3080 (if I can find one before I die...). Having said that, please shout if you disagree!
Makes sense but it's just waiting for zen 3, you say you have a 30% voucher.
Msi are doing cashback on ryzen and motherboard combos for certain retailers, s0 it mite be worth grabbing a ryzen cpu .

Check to see if your voucher is one of the retailers there near the bottom , I would list em but i cant.

https://uk.msi.com/Promotion/back-to-school-2020#AMD-Motherboard

Remember to check the terms and conditions.
 
Last edited:
Joined
11 Sep 2020
Posts
298
Makes sense but it's just waiting for zen 3, you say you have a 30% voucher.
Msi are doing cashback on ryzen and motherboard combos for certain retailers, s0 it mite be worth grabbing a ryzen cpu .

Check to see if your voucher is one of the retailers there near the bottom , I would list em but i cant.

https://uk.msi.com/Promotion/back-to-school-2020#AMD-Motherboard

Remember to check the terms and conditions.
Ah! I didn't know there was an offer on. Could save circa £50, but not worth it imo. Definitely want the 5800X or whatever it's called.
 
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