Ryzen 9 3950X on Good and Bad B450 Motherboards

Every bit we predictable when nosotros reviewed AMD'southward new flagship 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X, rather than testing information technology on the very high-end Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme, we want to see how it does on the low-end. Nosotros're not bothering with A320 boards -- that's a chip too empty-headed we figured -- but decent AMD B450 boards do brand sense, maybe not right now, just in the time to come as a potential upgrade for many AM4 owners. Here'south what nosotros're thinking...

The R9 3950X is a $750 processor, so pairing information technology with motherboards priced a footling over $100 wouldn't exist considered by almost right now. Nevertheless, in the non also distant hereafter you'll be able to snag a 2d hand 3950X at a significant discount, that'south just the way it seems to go with AMD processors.

There are a few reasons for this, but the two main ones are that AMD doesn't lock you into a platform like Intel, and so second manus shoppers take significantly more options. And also AMD seems to accept the addiction of reducing prices of CPUs over fourth dimension, and this obviously creates a knock-on effect for second hand sales.

For instance, the 3-year-one-time Core i7-7700K released at $340, still costs ~$220 to this mean solar day on the second hand market. That's a mere 35% disbelieve for a part with no warranty. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 7 1700X which was priced at $400 almost three years ago can be hands had for $100, a 75% discount from new.

What's more shocking is that in belatedly 2022, for nigh all tasks the 1700X is a significantly meliorate processor. Moreover, within some other yr or two there'll be almost no new game or awarding where the quad-core Core i7 tin hold a candle to the 8-cadre Ryzen 7.

As some other instance, the more recently released Ryzen 7 2700X launched at $330. Today though you can snap one up for as little as $150 on eBay. In some other year in that location's no style you lot'll exist paying over $100. So while the Ryzen 9 3950X might cost $750 today, you tin can bet within a year it will exist less costly and inside ii-3 years it will be a hot item for second hand shoppers on the AM4 platform, the aforementioned also applies to the 3900X.

When yous bought that 2nd-gen Ryzen CPU a yr ago, if you did so with a decent B450 motherboard, y'all're golden. In ii-3 years' time yous should be looking at a 16-cadre upgrade for effectually what a new Ryzen 5 2600 would take prepare y'all dorsum in 2022.

Mark this part of the judgement with an asterisk though, *decent B450 lath*, there weren't many of them and we discovered that dorsum in mid 2022 when nosotros published our B450 VRM temp test. Asus and Gigabyte produced some of the worst budget boards we'd seen in some time, while MSI surprised us with high-quality options in the B450 Tomahawk and B450 Pro Carbon.

For a quick epitomize, the Asrock B450 Gaming K4 peaked at 86 degrees and the MSI B450 Tomahawk at 88 degrees using a stock Ryzen 7 2700X in a 21 C room with no direct air-flow. Meanwhile the Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming reached 109 degrees and the Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro Wi-Fi, an incredible 121 degrees. The testing also included a high air-menstruum ATX case test and hither the Asus and Gigabyte boards ran much cooler at betwixt 64 and 67 degrees.

But for the states, the 'no direct air-menses' testing was the nearly telling. At the time nosotros knew the AM4 platform was going to be around for a few more years and we knew more extreme processors, but like the 3900X and 3950X would exist released. Given what we already know about these B450 motherboards based on tests conducted with the Ryzen 7 2700X, we don't look too many surprises once we put the higher-finish Ryzen 9 3950X on the commuter's seat.

This time though we won't be testing without direct air-flow. That would be request too much of these sub-$150 boards, but since we're testing with an optimal ambient room temperature, 21 degrees, we will include a low air-flow configuration along with a loftier-air flow configuration. All testing takes place inside the Corsair Crystal 570X.

Ryzen nine / B450 VRM Temperature Test

The low air-flow configuration sees a pair of in-accept fans mounted in the forepart of the case on a 240mm AIO. And then we take a unmarried 120mm frazzle fan in the rear of the case, a pretty standard configuration.

The high air-flow configuration adds a pair of in-take fans at the top of the instance, normally yous'd configure these equally exhaust fans, just for the purpose of this exam we wanted to blow absurd air over the board'due south VRM heatsinks for maximum cooling performance, and then nosotros consider this a all-time-case scenario.

All motherboards were using the latest BIOS and all are running AGESA version 1.0.0.four. The Ryzen 9 3950X has been left stock, so it should exist slightly less demanding than the 3900X. Let'due south now get into the results...

Get-go lets run a few benchmarks to see how each lath performs with the Ryzen 9 3950X using the low air-menses configuration. Please annotation the Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming overvolted the 3950X resulting in a slight operation boost, but of course this besides increased VRM temps, so we set a negative 0.150v first which put the Asus board more than inline with the voltages seen from the Gigabyte and MSI boards.

Unfortunately this reduced operation and hither we see the Cinebench R20 multi-core score drop by vi% when compared to the Tomahawk and Aorus Pro. The MSI and Gigabyte boards managed to lucifer the performance seen on the $700 Aorus Xtreme, so that was nice to meet.

Nosotros meet pretty similar performance trends when looking at single core operation, although nosotros're only utilizing a single core, the nether-volt all the same reduced performance with the B450-F Gaming.

Reverse to what we merely saw with Cinebench, the Asus board actually performed slightly better with the nether-volt in this long run Blender test and the reason for that is lower VRM temps. Basically the lower voltage helped reduce CPU throttling and we'll look at this more in a moment. Performance-wise we exercise see that the Tomahawk and Aorus Pro were able to friction match the Aorus Xtreme, so that's another expert sign for these upkeep boards.

Here you can run into only how poorly the Asus Strix B450-F Gaming is configured using the latest BIOS. The board pushed total system consumption with the 3950X to 266 watts, that'southward almost 20% more power than the Tomahawk using the aforementioned CPU.

In fact, the MSI Tomahawk and Gigabyte Aorus Pro saw reduced ability consumption by nearly 10% when compared to the loftier-end X570 Aorus Xtreme motherboard.

Hither's a look at the VRM temperature results for the depression air-flow configuration, above we're showing the operating temperature and the resulting operation side-past-side, lower is better for both.

The MSI Tomahawk produced a stiff consequence in Blender, taking 1819 seconds to complete the test and that places it on par with the best X570 boards. The VRM also peaked at merely 87 degrees, which is an exceptional outcome for a lath that costs ~$120.

The Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro WiFi surprised with the 2d best outcome, though information technology ran x degrees hotter than the Tomahawk, and while that makes it a fleck toasty, that is a prophylactic operating temperature and the lath avoided throttling the 3950X.

The Asus Strix B450-F Gaming was a disaster out of the box, hitting 112 C which resulted in the 3950X downclocking. This saw the completion time increase past 7% when compared to the Tomahawk. Performance aside though, we consider this a fail as running at well over 100 C will shorten the lifespan of the board. Even with the under-volt the lath still under performed and ran excessively hot, so basically the B450-F Gaming is a terrible pairing for the 3900X or 3950X and bluntly it'south actually no skilful with the Ryzen vii 2700X either.

There is some expert news though, if y'all direct a large volume of cool air over the Asus board, it'southward usable, not great relative to the competiton but it works a little better. Performance is however down on the Tomahawk, so even at 88 C we were running into some throttling in this 30 minute exam.

The MSI Tomahawk was impressive, peaking at just 66 C degrees and while this might exist an optimal setup, you can expect this lath to operate somewhere betwixt 66 and 87 degrees depending on setup and ambience temperature.

The Gigabyte Aorus Pro ran 15 degrees hotter which isn't dandy, but the board avoided any throttling and did manage to get the virtually out of the 3950X, and then a pass overall.

Closing Thoughts

The MSI B450 Tomahawk once again proves why information technology's the all-time value, best all-round B450 motherboard. Although we used the newer Max version for this test, functioning is identical to the original, yous're just getting amend BIOS support with the newer version, which sadly still doesn't announced to be on sale in the The states.

For those looking at buying a B450 board today for use with something like the Ryzen 5 3600 or Ryzen vii 3700X, we still strongly propose purchasing either the MSI B450 Tomahawk or Pro Carbon. The Pro Carbon is a little pricey at effectually $140, for that money you could just equally well look at an X570 board. We strongly advise yous to skip the entry-level MSI X570 boards as they are horrible, in the same class as the Asus B450-F Gaming.

Conversely, nosotros'd actually recommend Asus' X570 range. The TUF Gaming X570-Plus, for example, is a corking good board for $165. For more detailed information on great motherboard picks check out our Acme 5 X570 motherboards and favorite B450 motherboards for a skilful summary.

Those of you who took our advice and bought the MSI B450 Tomahawk for your build, good news, you're set up. Once those 3900X and 3950X CPUs start to tumble in price you'll be primed and ready for a serious CPU upgrade without having to change a matter.

Ane last annotation, nosotros'll say the Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro WiFi surprised us in this test. Last time we ran a similar test with the initial F1 BIOS release using a Ryzen 7 2700X information technology was a disaster. Simply Gigabyte seems to have done a skillful chore tuning upwardly the board, and while it's still far from impressive, it's now usable even with the 3950X, so that's dandy to see.