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Old January 23rd 19, 03:47 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd
Paul[_28_]
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Default What B450 MB for ryzen 2200g + 2x4GB kingston hiperx predator?

MaxTheFast wrote:
Thanks a lot Paul for your time, I've learned so much about that.

I'd like to ask you a last opinion about this Gigabyte MB which is within my budget as well:
Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO (rev. 1.0)
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...support-manual
http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList...ifi_1002_e.pdf
48 total pages (+ another separate 27 pages PDF of useless "unique features"), 13 bios pages, a couple of pages about "MIT" (advanced settings such as XMP, etc), but there's only the following about DRAM:
"CPU Vcore/CPU VDDP/DRAM Channel A/B Voltage/+3.3V/+5V/+12V/VCORE SOC - Displays the current system voltages" so nothing explicit about DRAM manual setting though I know from forums this is a MB for "enthusiasts".
Moreover its QVL contains HX432C16PB3K2/16 (as the ASUS') so one of my HX432C16PB3K2/8's "twins".

Anyway I've got the 2 asrock Mbs' manuals as well and they seem pretty well done:

- asrock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming K4
https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/Fatal1...dex.asp#Manual
http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/...aming%20K4.pdf
89 total pages, 22 "UEFI SETUP UTILITY" pages, a couple pages of "OC Tweaker Screen", in particular: "DRAM Voltage - Use this to select DRAM Voltage."

-asrock b450 pro4
https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B450%2...dex.asp#Manual
http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/...450%20Pro4.pdf
82 total pages, the rest is as above

Of course the "quantity" of pages doesn't matter in these cases because fonts are huge! One thing about both asrocks impressed me: in both bios sections (eg: https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B450%2...index.asp#BIOS) we can read "We don't recommend users to update the BIOS if their system is already running normally". As far as I know enthusiasts update bios to improve features too, especially for OC, so why this message? Just for newbies or it's a general matter of asrock bioses reliability, in the sense "our bioses are so bad that you'd update yours only if you've no other solutions to carry your system on"? That has came to my mind as you wrote about your experience of "hacked" asrock bios.

So what MB out of those 4 can you finally suggest me for the "AMD overclocker easiest life" after these last comparisons?

See you and thanks again for sharing.


They all support a 105W processor, so the VCore goes at least
that far. We have to check on AMD boards, because of this one
incident where AMD told the motherboard makers to use 65W VCore
circuits, making one generation of boards underpowered for the
high end CPUs. This doesn't appear to be a repeat. You can still
find high definition pictures of each of your quarry, to count
phases and *compare the size of the cooler*. The mistake I made
on my last purchase, is the cooler on VCore was too small, and
I had to fit a blower next to VCore to help out.

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards.../HelpDesk_CPU/

Ryzen 7 2700X(3.7GHz,8C,L3:16M,105W)

https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/B450%20Pro4/index.asp#CPU

Ryzen 7 2700X(YD270XBGM88AF) 105W

https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/Fatal1.../index.asp#CPU

Ryzen 7 2700X(YD270XBGM88AF) 105W

https://www.gigabyte.com/Ajax/Suppor...uct&Value=6635

Ryzen 7 2700X 8C/16T 3.7GHz/4.35GHz 4MB 16MB N/A Pinnacle Ridge 12nm B2 105W

The two Asrock boards look nearly identical, and have a VGA connector
on the back. I can find at least one discussion thread, which mentions that
the VGA doesn't work out of the box with say a 2200G or a 2400G,
and you cable up with say HDMI first, go into the BIOS, *turn on*
the VGA, then move the connector over to the VGA :-/ Not
as much of a slam-dunk as you'd think... A trip to
pain in the ass ville. (You can get DP to VGA and
HDMI to VGA active adapters at the computer store, if
you're stuck. I'm using a DP to VGA on my new video card.
The video card companies are laughing themselves
silly this year, as we all go around buying adapters
adapters adapters to fix this.)

The PCI Express lane count is limited on the hardware, and
so far, I don't see any signs they wasted any additional silicon
on PCIe switches. I'm mostly seeing x16 on one
slot and x4 on a second slot, exactly as it comes out
of the CPU. Sometimes, a company might split to x8,x8,x4 say,
by using bifurcation logic outside the CPU (CPU supports the
x8/x8 interface option, but lacks sufficient pins to do all the lane
switching inside the CPU itself). This has largely
stopped, because the company that used to make cheap components
for that purpose, was swept up and crushed by a larger company,
meaning the "bottom layer" of components is kinda missing.
It means some unique features enabled by moving some
lanes around, is less possible than it used to be.

This also means, if you check the "SATA versus M.2 usage table",
the sharing of some chipset wires will work the same way on
all the products. You might plug in an M.2 and some SATA
get turned off.

This article has a table, showing what interfaces are included
on various chipset solutions on AMD.

https://wccftech.com/amd-b450-mother...abyte-roundup/

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13091...e-motherboards

Some of the boards in your list, have had reviews on Tomshardware,
so you can get info on nuances or quirks that way.

I have a feeling though, of the four PDF files I have sitting
in front of me, there aren't really a lot of "hidden features".
Just keep your eyes open, and see if you agree with
which USB3 interface was placed on the USB C connector
and so on. (I have no use for USB C, but you might.)

The two Asrock boards have practically identical component
layout (even if no board manual shows a realistic picture
of VCore and the VCore heatsink). As a result, you track
down photos at a decent resolution and "count phases"
or make guesses on whether the heatsink is big enough.

The computer I'm typing on, there's like 20-30SqIn of
heatsinks on the thing, for the chipset and VCore. This
is the good old days, where "the thing ran luke warm".
The sinks are a lot smaller now, but you can still compare
the sinks, see if the sinks are tied together with heatpipes
and so on.

My newer motherboard, with the inadequate VCore, cost $250,
but because that was the cheapest board "in the range", they
still saw fit to cut corners. And I missed that while shopping
for the thing, and didn't notice until bench testing
in the kitchen, that VCore was way too hot (65C while running
Prime95). That's one of the reasons you bench test before
putting the motherboard in the computer case, so you can
put your fingers on stuff... and burn them :-/ But, I could
fit a fan, make some BIOS adjustments and that's under
control now.

You still have some research ahead of you, because some
of those connectors on the back could be irrelevant to
your situation.

Paul