Motherboard Which B450 ITX?

[Arboreal]

I am seriously breaking my own rule of only buying used and jumping into the Ryzen Camp.

I started out looking at the Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITX/ac, but it seemed to compare less favourably than the MSI B450i Gaming Plus ac, particularly on the VRM front, despite lacking Intel Gigabit Ethernet.

Both these boards are available at a similar price of around 120 GBP in the UK, so there's no financial weight to the decision.

I'd initially disregarded the Asus Strix B450i Gaming, as it's over budget.

However, I found it available today at 140 GBP, cheaper than I've seen elsewhere. An additional 20 GBP would bring a much welcome 2nd M.2 slot for example.

I'll be going inexpensive Ryzen for starters, used lower end 2x00 or 3100 as I have an i5 8400 6 core for photo editing and video crunching. I can't see an 8 core in there any time soon.

What are your experiences with B450 ITX?

 

[smitty2k1]

I've been happy with my Asrock B450. I think people's obsession with having the biggest, baddest, bestest VRAM is blown way out of proportion.

I got the ASRock because it seemed to have the best mix of features I wanted (USB-C in particular) at the lowest price point.

I did have some issues that I think stemmed from the BIOS battery, but the RMA process from ASRock was straight forward and the new board has been perfect.

 

[Arboreal]

Thanks @smitty2k1, that's a good an balanced appraisal.

I asked the same on Bit-Tech, and there were a couple of happy B450i Aorus owners saying theirs were fine and not overheating. They liked the top M.2 and good looks too.

I initially was keen on the ASRock, but wanted to see how they fared and what other people made of the other options.

On B-T I've had votes for all 4 main B450i options - ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte and MSi.

It sounds like some early glitchy stuff on ASRock has been sorted with updates, which is good news.