Is motherboard quality really that matter in higher end CPUs to warrant replacing my current one?
Posted by Adventurous-Vast7499@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 39 comments
I currently own an MSI B650M A Pro motherboard. I've been told that I may wanna want to upgrade my motherboard into something better like a B850/MSI Mortar/Tomahawk so I can pair it with higher end CPUs. Is the better Pcie and VRMS really that very important, especially for gaming and general browsing? I'm a lil hesitant because I've been expecting a motherboard to be futureproof and AM5 mobos are just expensive in my country to invest on rn.
ziptofaf@reddit
Your motherboard is perfectly fine and you can use it with 7800X3D no problem.
No. 5.0 x16 vs 4.0 x16 is a 0.5% difference on an RTX 5090. I assume you are not in a market for a 5090 so it's a 0% difference.
VRMs are important if overclocking, obviously. But at stock settings a 7800X3D or even 9800X3D will work fine on a budget B650. Especially since the one you have isn't even "bad" per se, these are not exposed VRMs (like some A620 boards, these I would be hesitant to combine with higher TDP CPUs) but ones under a proper heatsink at least.
KillEvilThings@reddit
This is utterly incorrect. A higher VRAM, more powerful GPU will suffer less from PCIE. The 5090 is again the worst fucking example to test.
On the other extreme end we see RX6400s eat shit and die on sub 4.0 PCIE due to minimal PCIE lanes.
There is 0 point to losing any % of GPU performance when buying a new motherboard because the cost of the motherboard to maintain that 1-5-10% is literally cheaper than buying 1-5-10% GPU performance by a magnitude of like, 10 (when considering price differences between tiers.)
mig_f1@reddit
PCIe really matters when you exhaust the VRAM, and when you do the smart thing to do is to lower the game settings, not change the motherboard.
KillEvilThings@reddit
None of this disagrees with literally anything I said.
Never once did I suggest OP return and buy a new mobo.
If you're buying new, you should absolutely get the latest PCIE possible. Pennies on the dollar versus raw GPU performance.
That's literally all my post is. Anyone disagreeing with that is an idiotic crab who missed the point.
hydraSlav@reddit
What about something like 5070?
Cold-Inside1555@reddit
5070 and anything higher have x16 pcie lanes, where you will run totally fine on 4.0.
ziptofaf@reddit
Except OP already has a motherboard. You don't want to replace a perfectly fine B650 with B850 just to have PCIe 5.0.
Or 6500XT, yes, where 3.0 vs 4.0 makes up a 50% difference in like Witcher 3. I am aware. Yes, the lower tier GPU you run and the more you have to rely on system RAM the larger the difference. Up to a point - if it's x8 vs x8 then even at 3.0 it's hard to measure noticeable differences on any GPU you should actually buy. If you are on a 4GB VRAM card then yeah, absolutely. But at 8GB VRAM it seems to be a non-issue nowadays.
Cold-Inside1555@reddit
To add on to that, 3.0vs4.0 always had a larger difference than 4.0 to 5.0, having pcie 4.0 even x8 will satisfy any card that runs 5.0x8, such as rtx 5060. Same goes for the 6500xt in example. We aren’t talking about 3.0 here.
CerberusPT@reddit
What about PCIE 3.0 if a RTX 3060 is paired with it
brondonschwab@reddit
No it isn't important.
The people saying you need an X870E or something probably also think you need 128gb of ram.
Part of it is PC gamers being super paranoid about "future proofing" and another part, I feel, is because PC gaming is starting to become like any other (fairly) niche hobby like shoes, it's about flexing that you have spent the most on your PC and have the best parts (despite new parts coming out every other day)
Cold-Inside1555@reddit
For amd it does not matter, any decent b650 can handle 7800x3d. Unless you are planning to do heavy overclocking, where signal integrity and power stability is critical, you don’t need it for stock.
brondonschwab@reddit
You can't heavily overclock a 7800X3D, anyway
ecktt@reddit
Whoever told you that doesn't know their ass from their elbow.
You motherboard is fine.
That person probably watched Hardware Unboxed motherboard shoot out with a goliath 7950X which sucks power that that motherboard can keep up with. The fact of the motter is, the 7950 ran! The 7950X was throttled as the mother simply could not keep up with that +300 watt CPU.
The 7800X3D under intense gaming load sucks 88 watts and 120 watts if you force it with a synthetic load.
A 9800X3D is more or less the same but can spike to 150 watts.
MSI B650M A Pro motherboard is more than capable of handling these loads and Hardware Unbox even said so, all be in passing which I found somewhat mildly misleading as there primary focus was to discredit budget motherboards for advertising 7950X capable.
PersimmonGlum6536@reddit
Not to derail, but this is why I stopped watching anything HWU makes. MOBO doesn't have PCIE 5.0? Bad buy. Doesn't have unlimited OC hardware for the niche 1% of users? Buy the one that does.
illicITparameters@reddit
Buying a board over $150 now without pcie 5.0 IS a bad buy….
PersimmonGlum6536@reddit
Fell For It Again Award
illicITparameters@reddit
Fell for what? Not wasting money? My fault....
PersimmonGlum6536@reddit
Considering there's no PCIE 5.0 (even single lane) for 150 USD MOBO models out there new, yeah.
illicITparameters@reddit
B850M boards go for $120 new, fuck you talking about? 🤣🤣
You done talking out your ass?
PersimmonGlum6536@reddit
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=b850m&srsltid=AfmBOopkEeom8cHsQ1DdSz7Nf2HLYu96NjDMrNUmnKxSmVHYwLlGnFtY
Oh so 120 if you wanna do mATX and run a barebones board just for PCIE 5. Sorry bud, youre not winning this one.
ecktt@reddit
I agree with the critique but like GN, LTT and the plethora of techfluencers (let be honest by admitting these guys weren't really qualified and when the got financially successful, some hire engineers) do run test that we as enthusiast (and some veterans) can at least extract some relevant information from while ignoring the accompanying codswallop. Basically what I did in comment above..
It's the people who get caught up in the narrative we have to watch out for.
Haqgun@reddit
I cant wait for pcie 6.0 parts to start rolling out. Slop creators continuing the cycle despite the lack of available storage and the bandwidth being absolutely insane overkill for 99% of people
That being said theres some stuff from the XOC boards i think they should move down to the mid-high tier gaming boards but thats a separate conversation
robb76264@reddit
I typically go for a motherboard with the features I want and that looks good to me. As long as you dont buy a dirt cheap one the other stuff will typically be fine.
fratersang@reddit
Using a 9800x3d with a b650e right now, I don't see the need to upgrade motherboards
No_Spare1827@reddit
So I have a different take on this. To me, if u have the money to buy one of these expensive CPUs, then u should be able to afford a decent motherboard.
Im not even saying a high-end, just a decent one, even at the b650 level, which a lot of people get confused. A better motherboard, in most cases, won't get u more FPS, especially with a lower power CPU like the 7800x3d.
Now, getting better one will usually get u more or just better quality USB connectivity on the IO. Along with a larger or more capable VRM which isn't just for Overclocking anymore CPUs really do want way more power than they used too, and a Larger VRM will let u upgrade to any future CPU that u want froma ryzen 5 to the top end Ryzen 9
So no, it's not strictly nessisary, but if u are buying into the AM5 platform for the upgrade path, then investing a little extra into the motherboard never hurts
fray_bentos11@reddit
Not important. What is important is if you decide to add a secondary GPU for lossless scaling in which case get a board that supports OCIe 4.0 x8 on the secondary slot.
Darante2025@reddit
Upgrade the motherboard if your current one is missing features that you need; more usbc, pcie slots, m.2 etc. etc.
jaba_jayru@reddit
High end or more expensive motherboards have beneath better electronics for running CPUs outside of the specifications better chipsets and board layouts that allow tricks that doesn't work with cheaper bords e.g. for x870e there is a lane sharing Problem.
With more expensive boards you can use 2-3 nvme slots that only use the chip set. Other boards in the line up allow you to use the same amount but with lane sharing.
And in general you will find the same principal with PC parts. More expensive always means outside of the specification. Nothing more noting less. Same goes for gpu's. A 4090 for 2k and 3k - difference is one will run in specification with 450w and the other one with 600w
carrotsoup69@reddit
Ive got the exact same mobo as u, pro b650m a wifi, running the 7800x3d just fine.
Long-Dependent-176@reddit
For gaming and general use, your current board should be fine. Upgrading mainly matters if you plan extreme overclocking or need extra features.
nunya-beezwax-69@reddit
You might need to flash the bios to take full advantage of a high end cpu. YouTube it
Captn_Clutch@reddit
I don't have a scientific answer for you but I recently built with a 9800x3d on an ASUS prime b650 plus board so should be similar or same chipset to your board and I'm having the best performance of my life and no issues. I did have to update bios to get the board to recognize the cpu, so make sure you flash a new bios before swapping the chips to avoid the hassle I went through of updating bios with no display and no OS.
dastardly740@reddit
The better PCIE only matters if you get a 9060XT 8GB. Short of buying a new (and fairly high end) M.2 SSD pcie 5 won't have a noticeable difference for SSD speed and even then only in benchmarks. I.e. pcie 4 x4 is so fast the extra speed from 5 is imperceptible.
I think pcie 5 m.2 will be most interesting when boards start having pcie 5 x2 m.2 (and corresponding SSD) and we get boards with 5 pcie 5 m.2 slots. 4 x2 and 1 x4 and the lower cost x2 SSD to put in those slots for fast bulk storage.
Just to add from personal experience, my PNY CS2150 1tb pcie 5 ssd barely benchmarks faster than my Silicon Power US75 4tb pcie 4 ssd. The latter costing 2.25x the price for 4x the storage. Should have either got 2tb of pcie 4 for the same price or got 2 of the 4tb SP SSDs.
Emotional_Isopod_126@reddit
Assuming you're satisfied with it's connectivity options and looks and your VRM temps aren't uncomfortably toasty under load like 85-90c and beyond, there's no need to change.
Additional-Ninja239@reddit
I was checking the ASUS B650 AYM and B850 before deciding. The only major difference was PCIe 5 for the graphics card, the SSD M2 is already PCIe 5. Current gaming and GPUs don't fully utilize the PCIe 4 bandwidth so there's no significant performance benefits from paying more money for technology that is so new it's non beneficial.
dertechie@reddit
There is this weird belief that because the Ryzen 7 X3D CPUs are high end and expensive, you need a high end motherboard to go with them. You really don’t. You need a board that isn’t complete garbage. They are not high draw parts by modern standards.
There’s also the idea that they run hot so they must use a lot of power - the 7800X3D runs hot because the vertically stacked cache means worse heat dissipation, not because it uses an inordinate amount of power. The 9000 series managed to move the cache below the core and fixes that issue.
Very low end boards may have poor VRMs that cannot handle them but even most A620 boards can feed the 7800X3D.
Needing a higher end board for higher end processors is more a concern on the Intel side of things where boost TDP is 150-250W.
Seedling_Critter42@reddit
I'm running 7800x3d with 620 which was really cheap, didn't know about potential vrm issues before I got it though, no issues yet but looking to swap it out. 650 should be fine
AcrobaticNetwork5918@reddit
No, you do not need to upgrade your motherboard. Newer PCIes hardly improve performance on your GPUs and the VRM is sufficient for the 7800x3D (although there may be issues if you're increasing voltage for OC).
It should last you a few years before AM6 is unveiled.
Sillybrownwolf@reddit
You're fine with your current one