General Discussions

[mackbolan777]

I built this system about 7 months ago, but when I did, the 3600X was a "hot ticket", especially for 1080p gamers, like me. So I also grabbed the RX 5600 XT to save some coin. It was like a month later the 3600 XT comes out that fixed all the variables in how well each chip might perform out of the box for the same price! The 3600X was a "luck of the draw" if it would boost to 4.4 as advertised, most got to 4.2. I guess I got half lucky that mine hits 4.4 on 4 cores but under 100% load it tops at 4.2 all cores. 

It's like a smack in the face to those of us that spent the same money and just a month later the "upgraded", more like "fixed right" model comes out. We should be able to exchange for that model to be fair, if purchases were made in that short of time frame. I would have waited 4 weeks for the XT over the X. 

The card is another horror story, constantly crashing, driver issues were out of the box. Had to upgrade the BIOS on the card since mine came running at 12Gbps. I spent the last 7 months trying to get this machine to just behave. I thought about moving up to the 5700XT but those were having similar or worse problems as well. Now both are EOL and AMD just leaves us here to flail trying different drivers, system settings, ripping our hair out with no intention of fixing anything. (My GPU is still a mystery trying to be solved and an RMA isn't the answer. I can't help but wonder with errors like "processor core failure", "processor core bus interconnect failure/corrected" and other obscure, intermittent, WHEA errors, that the "XT" version of the CPU might fix the whole thing?)

Nope, now the hottest thing is to spend another minimum $900 and a BIOS update to go the 5600X and a 6800XT. All in less than a year! Will these products also yield months of frustration, besides lack of availability? If you buy a 5000 series CPU, in a month is AMD going to come out with an "XT" version for the same price that fixes some glitch?

Point is myself, I spent roughly $1000 building this I should not need to spend another dime this quickly . It's not even a year old and has been a big "problem child". I'm very experienced with 20+ years building PC's, 98% AMD and NEVER had issues this bad. Perhaps AMD is rushing to get new products out so quickly that quality is slipping in a huge way, because I'm far from the first to list these very same complaints. I find it egregious that my limited funds seem to have been wasted on substandard parts from a company I touted for so many years! 

AMD releasing constantly improved products just weeks or days after we build what we think is "top of the line", without even a whisper about something new coming soon, so we can make a decision to wait for the newer or just buy what's available, is not cool. Especially when it's something like the 3000 XT series, which seems to be better binned or the "proper quality" versions of the 3000X series. They cost the same!

Dropping support for the 5000 series GPU's seems like an "abandon ship" call because there probably is no fix for the issues these cards have. Look at the driver release notes, they fix some things and other really important glitches remain unpatched. The only consistency I've found so far is the list of failures and "fixes" that may or may not work. All "hit or miss" with the 5000 series GPU's. In most cases a game crash after an hour or more is highly likely no matter what config you have. It shouldn't be that way. 

Not everyone has $1000+ to shell out every 4 months AMD makes what should have been made prior. How can we trust this newer stuff coming out won't be more of the same headaches and cost more? AMD needs to get back to selling stuff that works right the first time, every time. This is like bad memories of the Phenom X3, buy a 4 core CPU with one disabled because is didn't meet spec. Buy a 3600X then a few weeks later release the 3600XT (the X without flaws), but don't tell the consumer. Drop support for the 5000 series GPU's in the first 14 months, instead of fixing, recalling or offering a discount towards what does work. 

In the mean time, the competition delivers competitive but slower on some benchmark items that just work. Build it and forget it. The "green team", expensive, but again, just works. What gives? 

[pokester]

I understand your frustration but welcome to the world of electronics. The second you buy it, it is obsolete.

The good news is your hardware still does everything it did the day you got it and it was worth it to you then right?

Likely aside from some outstanding problems and I know Navi has had more than its share performance has likely improved a little too with updates. 

Tomorrow will always bring shiny new toys that are better making us not like what we have as much. 

Don't fall into the trap of thinking your stuff really is obsolete it may still serve you well for several years. 

You can likely pair a better GPU with your cpu and still be fine later too. 

Take some solace in knowing that you bought at a good time. You were not paying a premium and it was in stock. Most can't even get this new stuff. 

[mackbolan777]

I just posted under that guy with the 5950X. That error is one of the others I get. Let's see if @Matt_AMD recommends RMA my 3600X as a solution. You are correct in the scarcity of the very new stuff. However, the 3600XT is widely available, if I need an RMA, they should trade me out for the months of inconvenience and incorrect info I got via email support. 

Yes it is still crashing and annoying not providing me with the "joy" when I wasted $1000+ on building this AMD based product. Funny you posted as well under the 5950X guy and said "many have been complaining of similar issues". We all tried default BIOS for days, Memtest 64 (paid version) for 48 hours, OCCT, multimeter, etc. Reinstall the OS, reinstall the GPU driver with DDU in "safe mode", stand on our heads. Prayer. Anything I missed??

I do see I was right that the new stuff was going to cause the same errors and that dude dropped serious cash for a rig like that! Add 3 more K to my bill to build that. So what I'm missing is I'll probably need to sell all this and go Intel/Nvidia until AMD fixes it's show. Because I'm not going to put up with a PC intermittently crashing, data loss, frustration, of trying to make something work that is clearly not made right, to support my AMD loyalist mindset I built over the years that they will fix it eventually. 

This is not about buyers remorse. When a CPU is made and called the "X", that's supposed to mean something special. Not it's substandard silicon we must sell to keep up with Intel while we get it right and rename it the "XT" in a few weeks. Had this CPU worked as it was intended out of the box, I wouldn't care. 20+ years building PC's and you think I don't know the second you build anything it's been outdone?? And your wrong about "obsolete". A chip only 7 months old isn't "obsolete", the RX 5600 XT that AMD just EOF'ed isn't "obsolete". When any of this works, it does work well and provides 165 FPS in BF4 on Ultra, blows away much heartier systems in benchmarks, the GPU runs neck to neck with the 5700XT. When it fails every 3 days, with no logical reason, that is not acceptable. At 47 years old, having been through more than most, and a heart condition, I don't need this grief. Or "shiny new toys" and this patronizing attitude you convey, "BigBoss". 

[pokester]

It would be nice if they would do that. But likely only if they no longer have the other would they. 

You do however have every right to request an RMA if your chip is not meeting speeds it is supposed to. 

But max boost speeds are not really promised and often you can hit them on one core and only sustain it for a second. 

It isn't a speed you will ever on any processor stay at.

Again I get it sucks to buy something and turn around to have another product at the same price point be better. But honestly it didn't really work that way with the 3600x either. By the time the XT was released yes it was selling for what the 3600x was a year earlier but the 3600x was already selling a good bit under MSRP at many retailers. 

I would suggest if you have never dealt with them. MicroCenter usually has about the best deals around IMHO on CPU and or motherboard combos. 

The errors these folks are getting are being reported very frequently. I personally have 2 3600 and one 3700x setup all on B450 MSI Tomahawk boards. I have not upgraded to the last bios as I don't ever update a bios unless I need to because I have a problem the bios says it will fix or I need it to support a CPU or memory.

I have had none of these issues with any of the 3 systems.

I really do understand the frustration of paying good money and stuff not working.

I have been a fan and supporter of AMD for years as an underdog. I can tell you I have had more issues with AMD and their processors in the way of stability over the years but usually in time it gets ironed out. The GPU side though has been pretty bad for a couple years now IMHO and I keep hoping the next gen will be better. 

I am IT guy professionally and can tell you at work I buy Intel. For no other reason than I just never have any stability issues. Most problems are hardware failures over time, Windows update issues and user error. 

I could not possibly deal with the issues at work that I deal with at home being an AMD customer at time. 

[mackbolan777]

Might be an issue with the X570 chipset. You mention having the MSI Tomahawk B450, that board had a modified BIOS just to run the Ryzen 5 3000 series. Surprised that you didn't need an earlier CPU just to do the update. Many complained about the B450's not being "Ryzen 3 ready".

I have the Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming 4S. I bought the X570 board because it was on sale and I didn't need a BIOS update to run a Ryzen R 5 3600X, which at the time was showing as the best 1080p gaming CPU in 4/20 compared to Intel's offerings despite clock speeds and the reviews weren't wrong. 

I think you're not reading my post or not comprehending my point. I know "advertised speed" isn't guaranteed. It says so in the finest of print, but I read that. I also understand how regular boost and PBO work. Speed wasn't my issue, crashing system is. Processor specific errors are. AMD support telling me via email it's video driver related, not CPU when it sure looks like CPU now is an issue.

7 months of frustrating BS, and believe me I built PC's for 20+ years now, my cousin who I helped teach is an "IT" for a huge firm, I need to know both ends. Hardware and software, networking to an extent to run a business building and repairing PC's. I had a Tiger Direct business account for 4 years. I've dealt with probably every vendor you can't think of, so yep, Micro Center is one, I live 5 hours from one and have no car. Online options from them are weak. I'm also a member of C.E.R.T.(Computer Emergency Response Team), we find CVE's. So I'm not a bonehead making frivolous complaints because the XT came out maybe 3 weeks post purchase. 

I am disabled and no longer run said business so I have a fixed income. After losing my prior build to theft in 2018, the stimulus was my chance to have a decent gaming PC. I chose this AMD build based on a lot of research. There weren't complaints about processor core failure, or the others I mentioned. Just rave reviews, Gamers Nexus, Jayz Two Cents, etc., AMD documentation it all looked great. I was tilting between another Intel build, like was stolen or AMD with this "Ryzen" technology. Price was a concern, the CPU was at MSRP of $249 vs. Intel i7 9600K $279, being that the 3600X basically destroys that CPU in nearly all 1080p titles and price, I bought it. The Gigabyte Windforce RX 5600 XT (Rev. 1) was the best new card I could afford. I went AMD with a lump in my throat that something weird would happen. It has, in spades. 

No clear answers from AMD about what is causing the errors from day 1. Every email that took 2 weeks between each went no where. It was like trying to get ahold of a shady used car salesman. So I've been stuck here trying to make it work. I can't run out and buy another CPU, like the XT to see if that fixes it, then RMA this. I can't go buy an Nvidia card and see if that fixes it. The board is the same deal. Then I see a bunch of others having the exact codes, using Ryzen CPU's, not all using AMD GPU's so it looks like any AMD CPU will do the same thing.

"Green screens", well that was due to not all VRAM is created equal and after updating the BIOS on the GPU to the 14Gbps, it won't go over 1800mhz, which is ok. Intermittent reboots, crashing to desktop, walking away and coming back 3 minutes later to see it rebooted on it's own, not cool. Cost me an SSD, lost my OS twice, one thing in common is those errors. 

Now the BIOS update I did addressed 2 things, a critical AMD security patch to the micro code and Agesa improvement for RAM compatibility to the Infinity Fabric. If you haven't updated your BIOS over the summer to get the Agesa update, then you have a major security exploit waiting to happen. My issues remained the same post update, so that didn't cause or cure a thing as far as errors and crashing. The latter updates that AsRock keeps pumping out are garbage or for the 5000 series CPU's.

You say you use Intel at work. Why would you support AMD as a "underdog" if there's so many issues? If you've been around AMD since 1998, like me, then you know there's plenty of junk that they never fix. They were just always cheaper than Intel. I was an Nvidia guy all the way until AMD finally started making cards that you could game on. Like the Radeon 5000 series or something with 512MB DDR2. Nvidia went over the $100 mark and I said "goodbye" for a while. 2018 I went back to Nvidia, the old AM3+ 8150 system had done it's time, I ran into some coin and built my first Intel for my own use. i7 8700K, Nvidia 1080i 8GB, Gigabyte 370X board, all top of the line stuff. The card was $768! The CPU ran perfect at 5GHZ, not one hiccup. In fact, Intel's customer support was so great, when I thought there was an issue with the CPU, the begged me to RMA it with pre-paid postage. But it was a RAM stick not all the way in at the end of them diagnosing it over the phone for 2 hours.

I shouldn't have taken the chance on AMD is what I think now. Here you have an entire web forum dedicated to problems. Few solutions. I'm glad I joined on here to see the mess. To find out an RMA probably won't fix this, nor the $86 sound card I bought to separate my GPU from the audio running off the HDMI. 

So, what I can do is help those on here with what I know. Not diss AMD, it's the customer's choice to pick Heaven or Hell. For myself, I think I'll look for a used 1151 370X or better board, find a used i7 8700K or better, toss all that in this case with the 5600 XT and see if the card is at fault or what. If the card is ok, great, I spent about $300. Sell this board and CPU and move on. If the card is crap, then I'll find a used 1080i or 2060 Super 8GB and call it a day at a total of $600 spent fixing the mistake of buying AMD.

This new stuff both AMD and Nvidia are selling is ridiculous in price and the fact you're buying a paper promise. Who knows when you'll get your card or CPU? Thankfully, most of us don't need or are smart enough to know anything above a RTX 2080Ti is really insane. At most a 2070 Super, if you do 4K. Besides who has all this money? There's a pandemic, unemployment is super high. Yet there's a line of people outside Micro Center the day the 6800XT was released! Boy will they be pissed when it crashes.

[pokester]

The MSI Tomahawk allows for you to flash the bios with the bios loaded on a thumb drive and inserted in a usb slot that has a button next to it that flashes the bios without a CPU even needing to be  installed. You only need board power. B450 was released a year before Zen 2 so at the time of Zen 2 launch no the boards on shelves had to flashed to be ready. Most new B450 boards within a few months after Zen 2 launch were ready for Zen 2. This is pretty normal procedure through the years nothing new. I truly think my board is the best b450 board made and is still made. I never had anything but zen 2 on these boards. I look forward to maybe upgrading to Zen 3 in a year or so for now when they get cheaper when Zen 4 comes out. I can get one more good upgrade out of this board. 

I read what you said and am sorry for all your troubles. One of the reasons I went with the boards I did is they had excellent reviews over a year before I purchased. I pretty much knew I would have no problem.You said "The 3600X was a "luck of the draw" if it would boost to 4.4 as advertised, most got to 4.2. I guess I got half lucky that mine hits 4.4 on 4 cores but under 100% load it tops at 4.2 all cores." My comment was directed to this and your thinking you get better. You may not be understanding what I am telling you. It isn't luck of the draw and yours is going slower.  Yours is behaving as it should. Maximum boost is typically only attainable on one core and for short duration. So it will alternate between the 2 fastest cores. If you are getting 4.2 under full load you are actually doing better than average. 

Buying a new chipset (or any electronic) when new to the market is always a gamble and based on what I see in these forums I think X570 was a regression in stability likely due to the PCIe 4 standard being new. 

That being said even my board in the first few months it was relesed had some complaints that quickly got sorted.  Nothing like the trouble that many 3xx boards ore 570 boards suffered. I really think the 4xx board had the benefit of being fine tuned, better built boards in general that learned from the lessons of 3xx.  Where 570 boards were starting over again. You don't see the complaints with B550 as much either. But in reality they have more in common with the B450 chipset. Their PCIe 4 support is all in the ryzen chip unlike 570's in the chipset that gives it additional lanes etc...

No instability or issues in general are really forgivable AMD should do a better job validating all products as bad partner designs still hurt the AMD name. 

IMHO when it comes to AMD support it is near non-existent. It is why I try to help in these forums as they are likely to get little to non from AMD. It is why I constantly give the support forum address to users as AMD buries it several pages deep under links common sense really would not dictate in a way that to me seems like they are trying to make it hard to find. Regardless it has been pointed out numerous times by many and they never change it making it accessible easily . 

Too many users here report getting no replies ever from AMD support and when they do it is canned answers that typically off less help than fellow users. 

My personal experience in filling support questions is that about 70% of the time I get no reply. Same with asking in these forums questions to moderators and staff. Most the time you ask a very valid question spend the time to write it well and get now answer. 

As an IT professional of over 30 years I can tell you that Intel does not operate like this. Their support has always been stellar. 30 years ago and today. Sure for a lot of those years you paid a premium but the stuff was stable and when you need help they really help. 

When it comes to AMD communicating with their users well they don't really even participate in their own forums. Nvidia calls their forum a user forum too. Their forum however is full of Nvidia employees helping. I am not saying no AMD employee helps here either. There are a couple that do a lot but it is like a drop in a bucket. To me all I can really say is they constantly talk about being more gamer focused and concentrating on fixing drivers. You sure would not know that from the user complaints and the AMD participation in these forums. The silence is defensing. 

Now with all that said to answer why support AMD, that is easy even though a lot of their stuff has been tricky to say the least to use over the years they usually do get to the point you are stable. The fact they have many times over the yeas offered multiple generations of processors on the same boards, as a home user has saved me a ton of money on new boards and memory. Their GPUS until the last couple years were awesome for me. Never had issues and they were typically cheaper with more memory. What is not to like once you figure out the kinks. As an IT guy I don't mind a minor personal challenge. Hower at times AMD takes this too far and should do better and should communicate with their base. There lack of this has really y hurt them in market share on the GPU side. I have been using AMD since the early 80's. I used Cyrix when they were around. If you don't support the underdog even with shortcomings you don't have the opportunity to benefit from the triumphs they do come up with, like Ryzen in general. You also don't get the competitive pricing. However in the last couple years pricing sucks for many reasons. Normally though that competition thing is imperative. When I think of how much computer you can buy for 500 to 1500 bucks today and think back to spending almost 4 grand on early computers. It really is amazing how far we have come and we would not have the pricing we have without competition from AMD vs Intel. 

[mackbolan777]

I'm glad you read my posts right. Except, when I said "I got half lucky" part, wasn't a full complaint. 4.2 does put me roughly .2ghz ahead of everyone else's peak when reading Reddit and such. Look at Gamers Nexus and that guy was pumping 4.4 or higher quite a bit. I'm sure AMD gave him a thoroughly tested sample since he is an AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and others affiliated reviewer with a huge audience. When mine works, I think 4.4 on 4cores at any given time plus the long holding time between switching cores is extremely decent. The truest test is the all core OC max, which in my case 4350 was attainable but I wouldn't stress my CPU all the time like that, it was a once an done deal. Now 4300 is doable 24/7 but Cinebench R15 scores showed nearly the same scores with running the PBO/+200/10X Scalar. The Scalar I backed off some because it tosses 1.45-1.48v to the cores long enough that under load the CPU hits 80c even with my AIO. 

I'm also glad to know you agree that AMD customer service fits that of the shady used car dealer, lol. A lot of what they do seems to place the consumer in the R&D department, rather than giving us the finished product. I think they should start calling their stuff what it is "Beta" products that might work. That guy who spent at least $5k on that 5950X build, his 3090 24GB is like $3k alone, should be fuming. The AMD end of that is $800-900 for the CPU, $700 board, it's a ludicrous amount of money. He must have a 75" organic LED and play in 8K, lmao! Then to get support he drops in here, good luck. 

Intel doesn't have a forum like this where the customers basically handle support for free. Mainly because like you said, they cost more but their business model is better. An 800 number to call virtually anytime for assistance and zero nonsense. I have priced out replacing this with Intel stuff and it comes out to $385 for a refurbished MSI 390X Pro 1151 board or the Gigabyte Aurous 370X I used to have, and a new i7 9700K. I would keep the RX 5600 XT to see if it truly has an issue or not. Ironically, the performance would pretty much equal this build, even with the ability to OC to 5+ GHZ. So far all this talk has made this behave for 4 days now, although I'll push it hard today gaming to see if it flops again. I'm waiting for a sound card today that will transfer audio to my A/V via optical to see if that stops possible feedback/handshake drop via the HDMI. A poster on here found via oscilloscope that the RX580 was going black screen from the card mishandling HDMI and tripping the HDCP. Probably not what's happening here but it's AMD and everything is on the table.

That's nice that MSI got smart and allowed for BIOS update without a CPU. That board was my first pick, since they were flashed when I built this but the price was higher than this board and availability was not there in the "new" market, just some refurbs and used. I think I got swayed some by the allure of PCIe 4.0 and the extra bandwidth that you don't get yet from the video card because games aren't there yet. Gen 4 M.2's aren't exactly affordable at $200 for a 1TB with a heatsink. M.2 SSD's only load maps faster by a tad, nothing really to gain as far as FPS or install speed. That's still more CPU bound. The B450 seems to have few complaints like mine, same as the B550, so there probably is something AMD will never fix with the X570. They came out way too pricey and there's more of the B550's at this point now selling for what the X570 does, plus the support the PCIe 4.0 spec. You can buy either for about the same. 

Yes we've come a long way from the TRS-80 that was over $1k, the Texas Instruments PC's with a side sound module, the 1999 Dell servers that were $12k with 8GB 12k SCSI HDD's and tape drives. My first "gaming" PC was a used, $85 Gateway 2000 that I changed the CPU in and added an Nvidia 5200X 512MB card to(replaced the ATI RagePro 128), it ran Windows '95, then '98, finally XP Home at the end, ran dial-up and played MOHAA on it. I'm a disabled Class A auto-technician as well so, PC's didn't grab my attention until we started using OBDII diagnostics in '96. Then I needed to learn Windows '95/98 because that's what software interfaces with OBDII. Sure, I learned "Go" in junior high, that was fun. 200 pages of code to make "Mr. Bojangles", a block like graphics that danced, after 14 hours of typing every line, miss one character and you had to start all over. Probably why I try to stay away from code today, no python, no putty, busy box, linux, none of that! Just some game files when you need a wide screen fix on older games.

Zen, I toyed with the idea of building a 1800X because it closely matched the upgrade plans I had for my 990 board, which was to go to the 8350 since it Oc'ed better than the 8370 for less. The 1800X was my logical step up to an 8 core in 2018, but went Intel i7 8700K instead. I wasn't feeling the 2700X and I really wanted to see what this new i7 8700K that could allegedly clock to 5GHZ on all cores could do. I hit the silicon lottery, mine did 5GHZ without de-lidding, which I didn't know most had to do to hit that speed everyday. Anyway Zen in general is kind of funny, they have Zen(1800X era), then Zen+(2700X era), Zen 2 (Ryzen 5/7/9), now Zen 3, which really is Zen 4 if they would've named the Zen+ correctly as Zen 2. 

I get what you say about not needing to upgrade boards since AMD uses the same socket for years usually. Intel is good for about 2 years or less. But you don't need to upgrade an Intel as often and you don't have near as many quality issues as AMD. They don't hide deep in cyberspace to avoid customer complaints/questions either. I probably would still be running that Intel build today if I had it. That would've still held it's ground gaming and doing what I do everyday. Who knows, maybe this will behave and for some freak reason never give me an issue again. If not, I told you my options. Messing with support via AMD is depressing. Easier to do what I said, if there's no similar issue, sell this stuff.

[pokester]

I can't disagree with anything you said there. 

While like I said in the past I have not minded dealing with minor issues. 

However I too bought round one Ryzen and returned in 2 weeks as it was so unstable. They did however fix that eventually.

I did though then trade in for a i7-7700k which while fewer cores is still a decent gaming CPU and no longer is my primary gamer. Plus I have 3 other Ryzen systems in the house. 

I didn't go Ryzen again until B450 and Zen 2 proved, though lots of good reviews and customer reports in these forums it was worth trying again.

I had ATI/AMD video cards for over 20 years with no complaints. Then I upgraded my HD 7950 to a RX 580 and the nightmare ensued. Card could not run at defaults without constant black screen hangs with audio loops. I came here for the first time and kingfish told me what to do to help that and I have been here since. Since then I tried Vega and returned it as it wold not run right, and then tried Navi and returned it as it would not run right. I kept the 580 when I got it for 2 big reasons. I really thought AMD would fix the drivers, flash forward the drivers are worse now than then on Polaris. Plus this card was bought during the mining boom and I literally could not get another card. So stuck I was. I used it for a little over a years then gave up in frustration and went green. Have had no issues with that card and now have 3 green team cards and the all just work. I have heard some folks say they do have some issues now with the new Ampere architecture. 

[mackbolan777]

Ahh, yes the mining boom! That's what made my normally Gigabyte Nvidia Windforce GTX 1080i 8GB $768 vs. $400ish in 2018. The RX580 was going for around $400 as well, I believe. I don't think video card prices fully recovered from that era, even with "mining only" cards with no display capability. 

Well sitting here mulling issues. Not that the PC did anything odd yet. I still need to beat on it in a bit. I looked up the differences between the X570 and B550 because I forgot what they all were. Then looked up reliability issues with each and found that this brand, this board has a huge VRM issue. One poster mentioned about the 5950X guy , that "Vdroop" might cause it. It could. Usually unlikely but considering his build and the fact that he mentioned what sounded like a PSU with a bad "power good" circuit, his PSU could be his entire issue. 

My board, mainly the previous X570 Phantom Gaming 4, no "S", had tons of issues relating to poor VRM or faulty VRM issues. My board uses the same VRM's so of course the problems should continue onto this board. I don't recall my VRM's going above 70c with a full load but if poor materials were used, these might not handle that temp and crash me without a visible cause. 

So I looked into board prices and think I'll try something like the Gigabyte Aurous or the Elite version, alternative would be an ASUS TUF with the X570 chipset. Both of those boards have very good VRM's with adequate cooling and can be had for around the $150 mark. Refurbed or course or used. A VRM issue would be intermittent, depend on the weather just about.

I helped a lady building a new rig over the last 2 days using the X570 Phantom Gaming 4 and the thing wouldn't post no matter what. Constant reboots. She swapped the board for an MSI and poof, worked. I always hated AsRock because they are cheaply made junk like Biostar. This could be a "live and learn" thing and the CPU is fine, GPU is fine. Return this to AsRock for an RMA and sell it. Another company with horrible support but they respond.