Motherboard AMD ITX board recommendation (cost or performance)

Midiamp

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Mar 15, 2017
99
49
michaeladhi.com
Hi all, been awhile. From my last SFF build, I've decided to go back to full ATX due to requiring 2x 3.5" HDD for my PC as a home server. Now that I don't need my PC as a server anymore as I've used a NAS for that, I'm at a lost on buying motherboard for my next SFF build.

I'm planning to migrate my current components, Ryzen 7 3700X and Sapphire Nitro+ 5700XT to Silverstone RVZ03. I undervolted the CPU, so no worries about cooling, and mostly I'm running on power saver mode. My cooling preference is air with a noctua, and the cooling component will be NH-L12S.

My motherboard candidates are as follows sorted by price locally:
  1. Gigabyte B450 I Aorus Pro WiFi (US$167)
  2. ASRock X470 Gaming-ITX/Ac (US$205)
  3. Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro Wifi (US$306)
I read about the VRM quality on https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/pga-am4-mainboard-vrm-liste.1155146/ but frankly I'm at lost... Which of which is better. I have plan to buy a used 3900X or whatever 12 core the 4000 series if the price is right.

My conundrum comes from having visual aspect of each board, especially the Gigabyte B450 I vs the Asrock X470 Gaming-ITX. The Gigabyte with its beefy heatsinks just look super assuring compared to the Asrock flimsy looking heatsink (yeah singular). Obviously the safest bet is going for the Gigabyte X570 I but wow... +$100 is quite expensive and I don't know if it's justifiable. I'm also wondering if PCI-E riser on the RVZ03 supports gen 4 or not... So that's that.

Appreciate any help.
 

rfarmer

Spatial Philosopher
Jul 7, 2017
2,588
2,702
I second this, the MSI is a really nice board. BIOS is really bare bones but it works.
 

ignsvn

By Toutatis!
SFFn Staff
Apr 4, 2016
1,707
1,646
Hi all, been awhile. From my last SFF build, I've decided to go back to full ATX due to requiring 2x 3.5" HDD for my PC as a home server. Now that I don't need my PC as a server anymore as I've used a NAS for that, I'm at a lost on buying motherboard for my next SFF build.

I'm planning to migrate my current components, Ryzen 7 3700X and Sapphire Nitro+ 5700XT to Silverstone RVZ03. I undervolted the CPU, so no worries about cooling, and mostly I'm running on power saver mode. My cooling preference is air with a noctua, and the cooling component will be NH-L12S.

My motherboard candidates are as follows sorted by price locally:
  1. Gigabyte B450 I Aorus Pro WiFi (US$167)
  2. ASRock X470 Gaming-ITX/Ac (US$205)
  3. Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro Wifi (US$306)
I read about the VRM quality on https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/pga-am4-mainboard-vrm-liste.1155146/ but frankly I'm at lost... Which of which is better. I have plan to buy a used 3900X or whatever 12 core the 4000 series if the price is right.

My conundrum comes from having visual aspect of each board, especially the Gigabyte B450 I vs the Asrock X470 Gaming-ITX. The Gigabyte with its beefy heatsinks just look super assuring compared to the Asrock flimsy looking heatsink (yeah singular). Obviously the safest bet is going for the Gigabyte X570 I but wow... +$100 is quite expensive and I don't know if it's justifiable. I'm also wondering if PCI-E riser on the RVZ03 supports gen 4 or not... So that's that.

Appreciate any help.

Hey, it's been a while indeed.

If I recall correctly, 5700XT won't even fully utilize PCIE-3.0 bandwidth. So yes you still can save some money and go with the Gigabyte B450 or AsRock X470.
 

Midiamp

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Mar 15, 2017
99
49
michaeladhi.com
Go with this board: https://www.newegg.com/msi-performance-gaming-b450i-gaming-plus-ac/p/N82E16813144190

The best VRMs on B450 itx motherboard. Not to mention it’s cheaper than those listed in the OP.
Thing is, mITX market is a niche market in my country, it's one of the reason why I went back to ATX again for ease of component searching. No MSI AMD ITX. There's Asus STRIX B450-I but I didn't put it in the list because I tried it once and it's unstable as heck (early BIOS memory issue). Sold it under 3 days at a loss of about US$30.

Hey, it's been a while indeed.

If I recall correctly, 5700XT won't even fully utilize PCIE-3.0 bandwidth. So yes you still can save some money and go with the Gigabyte B450 or AsRock X470.
Thanks for the info, I'm leaning towards Gigabyte B450, but I'm having second thought on the VRM thermals. Got the info here for Gigabyte B450-I VRM thermals.

Going back to an enclosed space, should I worry about the board VRM thermals?

Edit: I just read Hardwarecanucks post about X570 and 5700XT issue with PCIe riser cables


So does this means I have to change the riser card on the Silverstone RVZ03 to utilize PCIe 4.0?
 
Last edited: