You can finally afford a Ryzen 7000 motherboard | Digital trends

AMD and its partners have just unveiled a whole avalanche of budget B650 and B650E motherboards for Ryzen 7000 processors. Designed for the new AM5 socket, the boards will present an alternative to the already existing high-end X670/X670E.

With the upcoming release of motherboards from Asus, ASRock, MSI, Gigabyte and Biostar, early adopters of AMD Ryzen 7000 will now have the choice between X670 and B650. Let’s see how the two compare.

As we already know, most motherboards will be backwards compatible with socket AM4 coolers, but manufacturers point out that some niche alternatives may not be supported. Some cards will have built-in compatibility and others may require an adapter, so check this when shopping. AMD plans to support socket AM5 until 2025 and possibly beyond. The company has therefore focused on the longevity and scalability of the platform. It should be noted that most cards support AMD’s own memory overclocking technology (AMD EXPO) while retaining support for XMP profiles.

First up we have Asus, with new entries in the ROG Strix, ProArt, TUF Gaming and Prime ranges, with options for ATX and mini-ITX form factors. The ROG Strix B650E-E is the star of the lineup, featuring two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, meaning you can use PCIe 5.0 for both the GPU and your SSD. There are also two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, 2.5G Ethernet support, and Wi-Fi access (also found on some of the other cards). For easy installation, Asus added the Q-Release button which releases your GPU, and the M.2 slot also has a tool-less design. Finally, ROG Strix cards also support Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) for easy automatic overclocking.

ASRock has eight motherboards coming, four of which are of the “Extreme” variety. The flagship is the ASrock B650E Taichi, with a 24+2+1 phase power stage that should overclock on all Zen 4 processors. As a flagship should, it offers PCIe 5.0 support at the times for graphics and an M.2 SSD, access to a fast USB 4 Type-C port, and Wi-Fi 6E. As seems to be the case with all these cards, the Ethernet port caps out at 2.5G. There are also two mATX cards for those who prefer smaller desktop computers.

Gigabyte also offers a full range. Eight motherboards, including Extreme versions and mATX options, will be available soon, spanning the entire Aorus range, starting with the flagship Aorus Master, through the Elite and Pro, all the way to the Aero G The new Gigabyte Aorus Master is the flagship, with the B650E chipset and support for PCIe 5.0 graphics, although you’ll have to relax on PCIe 5.0 SSDs as bandwidth is shared. The card offers plenty of cooling and overclocking options, with up to DDR5-6600 RAM.

MSI keeps things interesting in terms of design, serving up both pure black motherboards and those with a hint of white for lighter builds. Eight motherboards for gamers are coming along with three options for creators. MSI offers plenty of M.2 slots, up to four on some boards. MSI noted the strength of its new VRM, comparing the B650E to the previous generation X570, and touted that even the entry-level B650 card can easily run AMD’s best processor, the 7950X. The entire range supports PCIe 5.0 and DDR5, and DDR5 RAM can be overclocked up to 6600 MHz.

Biostar was the last manufacturer to present its novelties. After a fairly modest X670 lineup (so far), Biostar has several B650 cards up for grabs, with the Racing flagship B650EGTQ offering support for both graphics and PCIe 5.0 storage, a total of four SATA 3 slots and three M.2 slots, dual memory channel, Wi-Fi 6E and 2.5G Ethernet.

The new Zen 4 processors were initially released alongside the enthusiast-grade X670/X670 Extreme motherboards. While these are certainly some of the best motherboards for the Ryzen 7000 that we’ll see in terms of performance, they’re also very expensive, with some boards costing upwards of $1000. Fortunately, AMD’s partners are now set to expand their lines with the B650 and B650 Extreme, with prices starting at just $125. We don’t yet know the exact prices and release dates for each model, but AMD has promised availability sometime in October 2022.

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