Are B350 Mobos Worth It Vs A320 For Ryzen Overclocking?

• Froug

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I was thinking of building a budget PC when I came to the motherboard. One option was to use a Ryzen APU (Ryzen 3 2200G) and I was torn between an A320 board and a B350.

For reference, here are the prices in my country, converted to USD

(cheapest mobos I could find)

ASRock A320M-HDV for $49.65

MSI B350M Pro-VH Plus for $75.76

How much does an overclock for the CPU give it in terms of performance, and does it justify the higher price tag? Should I put more money to better RAM?

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• Settlerteo

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Justification per price tag is more like a personal opinion. For example i d prefer to grab an A320 with the 2400g and never overclock it than a b350 with a 2200g and try to overclock it. If you want to go budget don't think about oveclocking. It's really a bad idea imo.

• Origami Cactus
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• SolarNova

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I think completly oposite. If your on a budget DO think about OC'ing, its free performance and can help make up for a lack of performance on a lower end part vs a more expensive higher end part.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/gmyxFT/msi-b350m-pro-vd-plus-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-b350m-pro-vd-plus

its only ~$53 ..same price for A320M boards. Theres atleast 4 B350 boards for $60 or less.

CPU: Intel i7 3930k w/OC & EK Supremacy EVO Block | Motherboard: Asus P9x79 Pro  | RAM: G.Skill 4x4 1866 CL9 | PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1000w Corsair RM 750w Gold (2021)|

VDU: Panasonic 42" Plasma | GPU: Gigabyte 1080ti Gaming OC & Barrow Block (RIP)...GTX 980ti | Sound: Asus Xonar D2X - Z5500 -FiiO X3K DAP/DAC - ATH-M50S | Case: Phantek Enthoo Primo White |

Storage: Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD + WD Blue 1TB SSD | Cooling: XSPC D5 Photon 270 Res & Pump | 2x XSPC AX240 White Rads | NexXxos Monsta 80x240 Rad P/P | NF-A12x25 fans |

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• WereCat

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Most A320 motherboards dont have any VRM cooling and if they do, it is really weak. 

The moment you decide to go for upgrade to 6-core or 8-core in the future, the VRM will overheat even before OC. 

• Settlerteo
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• mariushm

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A320 boards DO NOT support overclocking. For overclocking, you must use B350/B450 and X370/X470 boards. 

There's just too little incentive to go with A320 anyway, you're limited to 2 DDR4 slots and I think officially max 2666 Mhz memory frequency and you get fewer SATA ports and fewer USB 3 ports. They're also crap when it comes to RESALE value.

If you're THAT budget limited, an alternative option may be to go with some cheap socket 1156 boards which can work with DDR3 (that's cheaper) AND you can use intel  that are very cheap on eBay (some lower end processors can cost as little as 5-10$) - see for example:

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• Froug

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7 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

I think completly oposite. i your on a budget DO think about OC'ing, its free performance and can help make up for a lack of performance on a lower end part vs a more expensive higher end part.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/gmyxFT/msi-b350m-pro-vd-plus-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-b350m-pro-vd-plus

 

its only ~$53 ..same price for A320M boards. Theres atleast 4 B350 boards for $60 or less.

8

If B350 boards were $60 I would go for them. Unfortunately, they are not, and they are priced $20-$25 ish higher than A320s.

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• SolarNova

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1 minute ago, Froug said:

If B350 boards were $60 I would go for them. Unfortunately, they are not, and they are priced $20-$25 ish higher than A320s.

Ok fair enough, then may i sugest you look at the used market if your on that tight a budget.

CPU: Intel i7 3930k w/OC & EK Supremacy EVO Block | Motherboard: Asus P9x79 Pro  | RAM: G.Skill 4x4 1866 CL9 | PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1000w Corsair RM 750w Gold (2021)|

VDU: Panasonic 42" Plasma | GPU: Gigabyte 1080ti Gaming OC & Barrow Block (RIP)...GTX 980ti | Sound: Asus Xonar D2X - Z5500 -FiiO X3K DAP/DAC - ATH-M50S | Case: Phantek Enthoo Primo White |

Storage: Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD + WD Blue 1TB SSD | Cooling: XSPC D5 Photon 270 Res & Pump | 2x XSPC AX240 White Rads | NexXxos Monsta 80x240 Rad P/P | NF-A12x25 fans |

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• Froug

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8 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Most A320 motherboards dont have any VRM cooling and if they do, it is really weak. 

The moment you decide to go for upgrade to 6-core or 8-core in the future, the VRM will overheat even before OC. 

How overheated would it get? Surely not hot enough for it to cause damage/ limit performance if upgraded...

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

A320 boards DO NOT support overclocking. For overclocking, you must use B350/B450 and X370/X470 boards. 

 

-snip

 

$5-10 chips? Like the Q6600?

Also, my budget is about $400-450 if anyone was wondering.

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• mariushm

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MB That Huanan x79 motherboard from second video I linked , 108 euro on aliexpress : https://it.aliexpress.com/item/HNan-Intel-X79-motherboard-ATX-X79-LGA-2011-mainboard-LGA2011-desktop-motherboard-USB3-0-DDR3-quad/32801792705.html

Socket 2011, Supports  Intel E5-2xxx CPUs (v1 and v2) : (Xeon E5 2620/2630/2640/2650/2660/2665/2670/2680/2690/2697/1650/1660 C2 & V1 e V2 ecc)

Needs DDR3 REGISTERED memory which is cheap

CPU example: Intel E5-2620 six core, 12 threads 2 ghz base, 2.5 ghz for v1 and around 20$, v2 is 2.1ghz, 2.6 ghz and around 33$ - when it comes to brute cpu power, it's beats the 2200g by a tiny bit.  Modern games that are proper multi-threaded will use all the cores well.

ebay link for v1 (19$ plus shipping) : link

ebay link for v2 (33$ plus shipping) : link

These are cheap because of the low frequency per core (2.5ghz-ish boosted)... but a year or two from now, you'll find on eBay the higher end server processors for cheaper prices, these days are still 60$ or more

memory  must be ddr3 registered  and probably best if its 2Rx4 (4 GB per stick)  ... example ebay micron 4 GB sticks 1333 Mhz registered ECC for 12$ each: ebay link

You can buy 2 sticks for around 25$ in total and you have 8 GB and when you have more cash you can buy 8 GB more

So for around 110 euro + 50$ you have mb, cpu, ram ... you'll need  socket 2011 cooler, which is probably 20-30$ and you can spend the rest on a proper video card... a GTX 1060 maybe, should be around 150-200$ ... or you could search for a RX 470 , they're sold on ebay for around 100$ (though a lot of these were used for mining, so you can't be sure if they'll last a long time or if they were abused a lot)

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• orbitalbuzzsaw

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30 minutes ago, Froug said:

If B350 boards were $60 I would go for them. Unfortunately, they are not, and they are priced $20-$25 ish higher than A320s.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Y4kwrH/msi-b350-tomahawk-atx-am4-motherboard-b350-tomahawk

mmmkay then

CPU: Core i9 12900K || CPU COOLER : Corsair H100i Pro XT || MOBO : ASUS Prime Z690 PLUS D4 || GPU: PowerColor RX 6800XT Red Dragon || RAM: 4x8GB Corsair Vengeance (3200) ||SSDs: Samsung 970 Evo 250GB (Boot), Crucial P2 1TB, Crucial MX500 1TB (x2), Samsung 850 EVO 1TB || PSU: Corsair RM850 ||CASE: Fractal Design Meshify C Mini || MONITOR: Acer Predator X34A (1440p 100hz), HP 27yh (1080p 60hz) || KEYBOARD: GameSir GK300 || MOUSE: Logitech G502 Hero || AUDIO: Bose QC35 II || CASE FANS : 2x Corsair ML140, 1x BeQuiet SilentWings 3 120 ||

LAPTOP: Dell XPS 15 7590

TABLET: iPad Pro

PHONE: Galaxy S9

She/they 

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• mariushm

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Guys, he's in Indonesia ... it may very well be that B350 boards there have higher margins and therefore more expensive compared to A320 boards.

Giving him links to US stores won't help, since shipping would probably cost more than buying locally. (unless free shipping from China / HK / Taiwan through ebay, aliexpress, banggood etc)

• NoTxtWhileDrive
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