Motherboards Which B450 ITX Board?

Right you 'leaders into temptation', what are your thoughts on the choice of B450 ITX motherboard for dipping a toe in the Ryzen pool?

Asrock and MSI are simiar prices at £120 ish, with the MSI recommended for its better VRMS, and eth Asrock having Intel gigabit ethernet and a better codec.

It's now a 3 way fight, as the Strix B450i is now available for only £20 at £140.
This brings a 2nd M.2 slot, which is welcome in a potentially (very) small case.

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.

Whatcha think?

 

Asrock.

You couldn't pay me to have an MSI board.

 

MSI knocked it out of the park with the B450s. No idea on their 5** offerings.

I have to say mine is one of the best i've owned and the BIOS support has been excellent.

Very happily surprised.

 

In the red (flames) corner we have a definite NOT MSI; and in the blue, we have an upvote for MSI B450.

If they have done the same as they did with their Z87 generation boards, I'd be very satisfied.

 

I've been a staunch Asus man for well over a decade (probably closer to 2!) but I went for the motherboard in my sig and its been solid for the last 6 months or so. For around £100 its a good board, so I can recomend MSi (can't forget the lowercase i ) now

 

Thanks @Bloody_Pete, the B450 Mortar and latterly the MAX seem to have really swept the board in that chipset.

I used to use a lot of Gigabyte, and have also been mostly Asus of late; so fairly brand agnostic.

 

Same here, also have an Asus, had Asus and Giga in the past.

It seems different companies often do better with different chipsets, there's no rhyme nor reason beyond some seemingly more reliable in general than others.

 

Its probably the ebb and flow of R&D budgets. Do well, gets cut, does badly, gets increased...

 

Quite possibly, not thought of that.

 

I am "Gigabyte" myself, and I have this baby and I love it but it's just my opinion...

 

Asrock is usually my first choice.

Also:

One of us
One of us
One of us

 

I'm still a chunky monkey, need to shed some weight off my mATX.

 

I've already told you, WE KNOW.

TURN OFF THE BLEEDIN' WEBCAM

 

I've got the gigabyte aurous WiFi also.

Not had any problems with a 3600x in it but just check memory compatibility first.

 

Ah don't worry Dave,the 4k camera will be up and running soon.

 

Aaaand from left field comes a vote for the really smart looking Aorus from our French correspondent; Bonsoir @kim!
Quickly seconded by @Spraduke
I'd heard it overheats and doesn't OC well, but OC isn't really where I'm going.
I'll check the scores tomorrow, thanks again guys

 

Good boy, get slimmed down to ITX and lose those excess slots

 

Bonsoir Arboreal Well, yes, I choosed it for the nice looking it has, but I never noticed overheating, I don't overclock though

 

Finally, my votes asrock, put a rig together for a friend over lock down with one.

Oh but check do you need usb c connectivity for the front panel of your case, not all board's come with a header for one afaik.

The second M2 is nice on the Asus (it's why I got it) that at the time I scored an Uber cheap refurb on eBay, 110 iirc

 

I have the B450i Strix - more than happy with it and using the 2nd m.2.