Processors

[Zypeth]

Hello! I've been doing some researching and I'm very confused. My motherboard is the A320M Pro-VH Plus. The CPU socket is AM4. Are all AM4 motherboards compatible with AM4 processors? Not a single website I've went to listed Ryzen 7 3800X (the processor I'm looking to get) as compatible with my motherboard. I need some guidance.

[ScotchFury · Accepted solution]

Hi, 

Had a quick look at MSI site. Which is absolutely awful btw..

I assume you mean Ryzen 7 3800x ?

There's a Ryzen 5 5600x ?

Either way get a better MB it'll run considerably faster & much more reliably. 

Both are mildly $$ CPUs and that MSI board is what 80 bucks? Get a new MB

Trying to find any actual information seemed near impossible.

From what I've seen from other brands like Asus etc. And the little info I could get from MSI is 'probably' may require a BIOS update to work and would probably be limited in performance in terms of boost, memory speeds, etc.

The a320 chipset was an entry, budget board and almost every review site recommended against using it with higher end Ryzen processors as the a320 boards don't have as good power delivery, heat dissipation. 

[Zypeth]

Thank you very much! I did mean Ryzen 7 3800x. Do you have any recommendations to which board I should switch to?

[ScotchFury]

Somewhat depends what you want & need from it...?

example...

  - Do you want full size ATX? Or something smaller ITX M-ATX etc.?

  - Things like onboard WI-FI, Sound Chipset / Quality? 
  - NVMe slots, # available Pcie slots?
  - 100, 000 flashing LEDS triggering neighbourhood seizures?
  - CPU Cooler? Standard, Pump / RAD? 
  - Power supply?Case ? Buying new? Reusing existing..?

But all that aside if possible get one with the X570 chipset. Or at minimum the B550.

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3582-amd-chipset-differences-b550-vs-x570-b450-x470-zen-3 

• When I was putting my 3700x system together around 12 months ago  a lot of the ASUS boards where testing and reviewing well.  Would stay clear of MSI they were having all kinds of issues at the time. 
  I normally haven’t had any issues in the past with Gigabyte boards but have heard they’ve had issues soo... AsRock normally do well & most ASUS boards

read a few reviews, watch a couple of benchmark comparisons and work out what features & size etc.

Someone else might have a counter argument to it..? But I’d say get the X570 or at least 550. For ethe extra performance & potential upgrade?

I went a no frills ASUS, mostly because I already had a decent AC1900 Wi-Fi Card, half decent Modded Xonar sound STX W/ upgraded OPAMPS

I really didn’t care, or want a billion RGB flickering lights that pilots could almost mistake for a runway on a hazy foggy night...

only mild downsides to that particular board is the Chipset heat sink & fan could be a little better.. But it holds up even on 34c days without issue & would of been nice to have a included heat sink for the M.2 slots.. Those little Samsung sticks can get a little warm under heavy load. But ironically, people complain that the video card ”covers” or blocks one of the m2 slots, but I found turning off zero fan for the GPU, mixed with a few good case fans keeps the stick cooler than the 2nd unhindered slot..

Has fairly good CPU & Mab power delivery for the price point. but the onboard sound is rather average at best..

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/PRIME-X570-P-CSM/ 

[TRS-80]

Honestly, at the time I got my 3800x I grabbed the only board still left (MSI x570 gaming edge wifi) in stock. I was actually lucky I got them when I did as they went out of stock right after. Hopefully the supply is getting back to normal and you'll have time to research, pick, and choose, but mine has worked out for me. Still a learning process (my first complete build in years) since my last AMD build was an Athlon 64 sock 754. A buddy of mine got a ryzen 9 and an ASUS x570 board I believe. It seems to work fine for him, but he's not into tweaking settings and just wanted to put it together and it run well with stock settings.

I can't speak to other AM4 boards, but PROS about this MSI board I have found are easy to set up, 2 interface modes to bios settings (simple or advanced), 2 m.2 slots (but only the top m.2 slot gets covered by the chipset heat sink), 2 pcie x16 slots, and the chipset cooling fan is located lower so it won't be sucking hot air right off the GPU if you have a full length GPU and use it in the top pcie x16 slot (my buddies ASUS chipset fan is directly under his GPU's heatsink). Ok, some CONS I've found are the dang outer locking nuts on the wifi antenna ports loosened (really annoying pain to use a tiny flat head to fit into that tiny space to turn/tighten them back up so the antenna isn't wiggly loose), memory slots are kinda close to the cpu socket which means I have to take out memory to work on the aftermarket tower cooler front fan (other board brands may have the same issue), and the MSI dragon software seems kinda clunky to work with regarding performance modes vs fan noise control (but could be just me trying to learn the limits/effects of the dragon software/board bios settings).

BTW, if yours came with a stock cooler and you're using it I would recommend you look at it closely!! I like the wraith cooler that came with my ryzen 7 3800x, but after having some temp issues I found my cooler seems to have mfg issues. Mine won't seat flat on the CPU (its not machined flat) and the surface is extremely rough looking instead of shiny / polished. I went with an after market cooler and over temp issue gone, but AMDs still seem to run a little hotter than Intel just like they did 20 years ago. Oh well, not complaining about the temps since its not frying itself and WOW it's freaking performing GREAT!!!

Enjoy and have fun!

[ScotchFury]

I ended up throwing my Corsair H60 that I had on my old i5 2500 and put it on my 3700x and just put the stock one back on the Intel for now.

Apparently the newer included coolers that AMD include are meant to be 'alright' compared to the earlier ones that were inc. on the earlier ones.

Even with only a 120MM radiator the H60 holds up fairly well, but also has two fans in push / pull which help a little. My plan is to upgrade to a 240 or so the old i5 can have the H60 back which worked extremely well on the old i5 even with a reasonable OC.

Good to hear everything is working and running as it should!