Best AMD motherboards in 2022

The finest AMD motherboard extends the ability of a speedy AMD Ryzen CPU to all elements of your gaming PC. There are a ton of chipsets obtainable on the market: X570, B550, A520, X470, and B450. The variations could be complicated, however we have damaged down what to search for and which to decide on relying in your finances. The last item you need is your motherboard to forestall you from locking in your new construct or upgrading your present one.

Before you begin including simply any AMD motherboard to your cart, ensure you work out which is the appropriate chipset for you. AMD has caught with the AM4 socket via quite a few CPU generations, so there are lots of choices there. At the highest you may have X570, although you’ll discover lots of the identical options on a B550 board. Sometimes for much less money. The most cost-effective 500-series possibility is the A520, however you might even go for an older 400-series board if you happen to discover one going for a very good value. 

AMD will probably be moving away from the AM4 socket used on all of those chipsets with its coming Zen 4 CPUs and the brand new AM5 socket later. Obviously, you all the time need to make certain the motherboard is suitable with no matter AMD CPU you intend on putting in in your construct, however this implies you will not have an improve path to newer chips with any AM4 motherboard you purchase right this moment.

When trying to find the appropriate AMD motherboard, attempt to combat the urge to select up the most costly factor on the market. Think fastidiously about what options you want and which you might do with out towards your finances. Do you want numerous ports, or are you extra of a Bluetooth individual? Do you want Wi-Fi 6 help if you happen to plan to plug your PC through ethernet? Are you sticking with SATA-based SSD drives or moving on to an NVMe SSD? The cash you save can all the time be put in direction of one thing else in your construct, like a greater GPU.

Asus’ ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero needs to be the final AM4 motherboard you will ever want. It incorporates all the 4+ years of BIOS updates, PCB, and electrical structure tweaks into what ought to be a mature and refined package deal. Importantly, not like early X570 boards, the Dark Hero was designed with Zen 3 processors truly available throughout the design section. 

The Dark Hero encompasses a moderately delicate design. Some may even say it’s a bit of bland. Perhaps we now have reached ‘Peak RGB’ with latest motherboards being a bit of extra discrete with their RGB implementations. It’s additionally uncommon that there’s not a Crosshair VIII Apex or Extreme, particularly when Gigabyte and MSI have boards priced properly above the Dark Hero. 

A $400 USD motherboard can by no means be described as low-cost, however in comparison with the exorbitant costs of the MSI Godlike and Gigabyte Aorus Extreme, it definitely feels extra inexpensive.

The structure of recent ATX boards tends to not differ an excessive amount of nowadays. The major M.2 slot is sensibly situated above the PCIe slot. The second slot on the backside additionally encompasses a heatsink. The sockets are straightforward to entry with out having to take away your complete heatsink meeting. Also notable: No chipset cooling fan! Hooray! 

The rear IO is packed out. If you want further USB ports for that head massager or plasma ball, there are few higher outfitted boards. There are a minimum of eight USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, considered one of which is Type-C. These are joined by 4 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. There are additionally BIOS clear and flashback buttons, the LAN and WiFi antenna ports, and the standard set of audio ports together with S/PDIF. The IO protect is preinstalled, which is blessedly now changing into commonplace observe on first rate motherboards.

The VRM has been upgraded over that of the common Hero. The energy phases at the moment are rated for 90a, up from 60a which deliver it in keeping with a number of the different premium X570 boards. Even if you happen to’re into smashing out benchmarks on LN2 (and this board will see loads of that within the fingers of overclockers), it is going to deal with the punishment with ease. The heatsinks are huge and chunky affairs.

Motherboard testing is usually one of the crucial painful issues a tech journalist has to do. With some boards, you need to combat it to get it to do what you need, or anticipate it to, or need to or crank up some voltage setting to a stage you do not need to, however the Dark Hero boots the primary time, whilst we performed with the reminiscence clocks and timings and the Infinity Fabric.

The efficiency variations between boards with in any other case similar partnering elements is normally very small. That’s significantly true as we’re now a number of generations in and any BIOS niggles within the X570 chipset have been properly and really tuned out. Quite a lot of the time variability can merely come all the way down to a margin of error.

That mentioned, we had been in a position to attain an Infinity Fabric clock of two,066MHz, which mixed with a 1:1 reminiscence clock leads to DDR4-4133 with tight timings. That’s not one thing we have been in a position to obtain with different Ryzen 5000 silicon or different boards to date. The Dark Hero was bootable with further SoC and CCD voltage even larger than this.

The Crosshair VIII Dark Hero may not be the very best AM4 motherboard ever made, we might need to overview a number of hundred others to make that declare, but it surely’s a straightforward declare to make that the Dark Hero is undoubtedly probably the greatest AM4 motherboards we have ever used. Time and months of person suggestions will decide if the Dark Hero assumes a place as one of many really legendary ROG motherboards, however we would not guess towards that taking place.

Read our full Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero overview.

The MSI MPG X570 represents an amalgamation of bleeding-edge motherboard tech, constructed that can assist you get essentially the most out of AMD’s high-end Ryzen 5000 processors, such because the Ryzen 9 5900X or Ryzen 9 5950X. Of course, you might choose up one thing cheaper and nonetheless unlock most of these chips efficiency, however MSI can be throwing in a classy look, loads of connectivity, and rock-solid VRM.

The MSI MPG X570 has 4 DIMM slots that may deal with speeds as much as 4,400MHz (though there’s not a lot level going past DDR4-4000) and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots—MSI’s MPG X570 is all about getting essentially the most out of the very best elements, be that high-end DDR4 RAM or NVMe SSD.

The rear I/O panel options seven USB Type-A ports for peripherals, in addition to a single USB Type-C port for connectivity and high-speed knowledge switch. So you will not go with out valuable ports for not less than, er, every week. 

The MPG X570 helps Wi-Fi 6, and whereas that does necessitate a Wi-Fi 6 suitable router for the quickest speeds, it is going to additionally work with present Wi-Fi 4/5 routers (previously 802.11n and 802.11ac). Also of notice is the HDMI port, which many X570 boards omit (not that we might advocate utilizing an AMD APU with built-in graphics in a high-end board like this).

The pair of M.2 slots every have devoted warmth shields and followers, and whereas this does assist stop potential thermal throttling, it makes putting in or changing them a extra delicate course of than with their more-exposed counterparts. 

The MPG X570 options sufficient compatibility to get essentially the most out of your {hardware} now and sooner or later, supplied you are keen to pay a premium for it. While it is a wonderful motherboard, if you happen to aren’t already dedicated to a purchasing listing of top-of-the-line elements, it’s possible you’ll need to contemplate a barely inexpensive board in your wants. The MSI X570-A Pro omits some extras like Wi-Fi and the M.2 shields, but it surely nonetheless runs tremendous and prices practically $100 much less.

If you are searching for a sub $200 AMD motherboard, the standard recommendation could be to have a look at one of many many high quality B550 choices. It’s essential to not overlook the brand new X570 variations, although. The primary chipset is a number of years outdated, however with the newly launched X570S fashions, perhaps it is time to take a extra critical take a look at AMD’s prime boards. 

Notably, the ‘S’ within the new X570S nomenclature denotes silence. Early era X570 boards, with just a few exceptions, all got here with pesky, whiny chipset followers. As properly as passive chipset cooling, the brand new X570S boards allow upgraded connectivity choices, together with quicker than Gigabit LAN or WiFi 6E. Sadly the ASRock X570S Riptide does not have WiFi 6E, but it surely does have a wonderful value for a prime chipset board.

The X570S Riptide might not be what you’ll name a feature-packed board, but it surely does have a lot of the essential options you’ll must run a prime spec gaming rig. Only one of many two M.2 slots is roofed by a heatsink, although in equity, an growing variety of high-performance SSD fashions are being shipped with non-compulsory heatsinks nowadays in any case. 

The rear I/O is affordable for a board on this value vary. There’s an empty bracket reserved for Wi-Fi antennas, plus a PS/2 combo port, CMOS clear button, and a welcome HDMI 2.1 port to be used with considered one of AMD upcoming 5000-series APUs. 

There’s additionally a normal set of audio ports together with S/PDIF, however sadly, its pushed by the ageing ALC897 codec. It’s outdated in 2021 and doesn’t belong on something aside from finances metropolis boards. Network duties are dealt with by a Killer E3100 2.5G controller. Pure Gigabit is disappearing quick, and never a second too quickly. There are eight USB ports, made up of Type-A and C USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, 4 Gen 1 ports and two 2.0 ports. All in all, it is a wide selection of ports.

The ASRock Riptide tended to be a bit of slower in productivity-based duties throughout our benchmarking, however proved itself to be good beneath gaming hundreds. Our latest experiences with ASRock boards sometimes show them to supply superb reminiscence bandwidth, so maybe that closing 0.1% of BIOS polish is but to return. Overall, there may be little to complain about and, if you happen to’re a gamer, you’ll be very completely satisfied. As ever, our X570-based motherboards carry out inside one or two p.c of one another, or inside a margin of error.

The X570S Riptide is a strong finances providing that can fortunately happen on the coronary heart of a top-spec PCIe 4.0 system. It will not win the characteristic showdown battle with dearer boards, nevertheless. Ultimately, there are two faculties of although when evaluating the X570S Riptide. And all of it depends upon what elements you’re working. As talked about above, in case you have two PCIe 4.0 drives and need to use them to their full capacity, with or with out different PCIe 4.0 growth playing cards, then the X570 chipset is for you. 

On the opposite hand, if you happen to’ve acquired only one drive and a single PCIe 4.0 GPU, then a B550 board is price a glance, significantly fashions like ASRock’s personal B550 PG Velocita or the MSI MAG B550M Mortar listed under, each of which supply a worthwhile different.

Read our full ASRock X570S PG Riptide overview.

The X570 chipset may be a few years outdated, however that does not imply it is time to put it out to pasture simply but. That’s exactly what Gigabyte has executed with the X570S Aorus Master. It shares rather a lot in frequent with its already extremely regarded 2019 predecessor. With the inclusion of some crucial characteristic updates and design tweaks, the X570S Aorus Master ought to stay a best-in-class contender for AMD motherboards. 

When we first noticed X570 boards en masse at Computex in 2019, one of many issues that involved us was the virtually common presence of chipset followers. A 15W TDP mixed with the warmth of a number of PCIe 4.0 drives meant that lively cooling was required in lots of circumstances, although fortunately not on a regular basis. The S in X570S denotes silence. The base chipset design hasn’t modified, however Gigabyte has added numerous floor space to the cooling meeting, with nearly your complete backside half of the board now coated with heatsinks.

Gigabyte deserves credit score for persevering with to make use of finned VRM heatsinks, which add numerous floor space. They’re proof that it is doable to mix operate with kind. A 14 section VRM with 70a MOSFETS is sufficient to energy a 5950X cooled by LN2 with headroom to spare, which suggests customers of ambient cooling will not face any subject. We’re not solely impressed by how the VRM cooling seems on the X570S Master, it confirmed in testing. With PBO enabled on our 5800X processor, we noticed a peak VRM temperature of simply 48°C. That’s a full 5°C cooler than our latest take a look at with an ASRock X570S PG Riptide.

The rear I/O is totally featured, significantly in relation to USB connectivity. Twelve ports consist of 4 USB 2.0, two USB 3.1 Gen 1, 5 USB 3.2 Gen 2, and a single Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port. Something needs to be executed about that ridiculous USB naming scheme, however that is a narrative for an additional day. You get clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons, antenna connectors, the usual audio ports with S/PDIF, and at last, a single Intel i225-V 2.5G LAN port. 

When it involves efficiency, as soon as once more there’s not a lot in it between X570 motherboards. However, the X570S Master proved to be fairly robust beneath multi-threaded hundreds whereas its single threaded efficiency is about common. Gaming efficiency is bang on where we anticipate it to be, with margin of error variations. It additionally confirmed itself to have robust M.2 SSD efficiency.

The Aorus Master is full of options that preserve AM4 and X570 related and updated. It’s acquired a great deal of USB ports and storage choices. It seems good too. A board across the $400 mark cannot ever be thought-about inexpensive, however we really feel it gives a very good characteristic set at this value.

Read our full Gigabyte X570S Aorus Master overview.

This motherboard is small and mighty. Just take a look at it, there’s a lot stuffed onto the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3’s tiny PCB—I dread to suppose how the PCB design and routing course of went. That effort hasn’t been wasted, although. This is a wonderful motherboard that followers of small kind issue PC builds are going to like.

ASRock has made some nice AMD Ryzen motherboards over time, and this one packs within the newest high-end X570 chipset, forward-looking options, and critical efficiency. The $200+ value level may be a bit powerful to swallow, however that is usually the worth you pay for cleverly compact machines. It additionally have to be mentioned that loads of X570 motherboards sit at round that type of value, even full-size ATX ones. 

The truth there’s nearly no Mini-ITX premium connected makes the Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 much more tempting. It additionally means you may doubtlessly create a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 3950X or AMD Ryzen 9 5950X machine that appears about the identical type of measurement as an Xbox Series X.

The PCIe 4.0 help is not the one superior connection on provide with this wee ASRock AMD motherboard both; there’s additionally Thunderbolt 3 connectivity from the built-in I/O protect of the again panel. That’s a formidable little added further from what’s an already particular board.

It is price noting that it’ll require an Intel-based CPU cooling bracket. To match all of the options into the mini-ITX kind issue, ASRock did not have area for the cumbersome AMD becoming. That’s solely a problem if you wish to use the inventory AMD coolers, however in any other case, any third-party cooler will include Intel brackets in any case.

While you’ll have to sacrifice a number of ports and slots for the compact design of the Phantom Gaming, that is to be anticipated at its measurement. All the important thing stuff is current and accounted for: Wi-Fi, Thunderbolt, Gigabit LAN, PCIe 4.0, and help for the most recent and biggest AMD chips. Everything you want for a severely highly effective but compact mini PC.

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When it involves gaming efficiency above all else, MSI’s micro-ATX MAG B550M Mortar is your finest guess for an inexpensive next-gen Ryzen machine. It is available in across the $160 mark, making it cheaper than a fantastic many X570 and different B550 motherboards in the marketplace without delay. 

At this value level one thing has to provide, in fact, and the MAG B550M Mortar is conspicuously quick on luxuries. There’s no debug show, no bodily energy or reset buttons, no RGB lighting. Of course, none of these issues make any distinction in-game and it’s straightforward to argue the £100 / $100 saving over a premium B550 board just like the Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming can due to this fact be invested where it actually counts: in a greater graphics card.

Other economics embody particulars like only one warmth spreader provided for the 2 M.2 slots and arguably the final air of outdated fashionedness. That consists of reminiscence DIMM slots with clips at each ends and a person guide that feels a bit of dated and clunky in comparison with the relative polish of Asus. You can’t say that, nevertheless, of the MAG B550M Mortar BIOS menu, which is slick, pleasant and full-featured.

The gaming body charges of the MSI B550 Mortar put it above the remainder of the B550 crew we have examined to date, nevertheless. So all that penny-pinching does not hit where it counts. Indeed its straight CPU efficiency places it up there with a number of the finest X570s. That bodes properly if you happen to’re searching for an inexpensive dwelling in your AMD Zen 3 CPU; this B550 has a fantastic likelihood to make sure it performs to its fullest stock-clocked potential with out breaking the financial institution.

Predictably there’s a catch. The MSI MAG B550M Mortar’s Achilles’ heel is overclocking. The 8+2+1 energy section design leads to a board that is not going to spark any overclocking pleasure in your coronary heart. Where the 2 Asus boards simply achieved 4.2GHz on all cores with our AMD Ryzen 3100 quad-core take a look at chip, the B550M Mortar solely manages 4GHz, a paltry 100MHz above the three.9GHz all-core Turbo ranking of the 3100.

If you do not care about overclocking facility, then simply remember that you may be lacking out on further PCIe 4.0 M.2 and x16 graphics slots if these extras imply rather a lot to you. You may also choose to ditch wi-fi networking, relying on whether or not you choose the straight Mortar or the dearer Mortar Wi-Fi 6 model.

But, as an inexpensive gaming board with out OC pretensions, it is a fantastic shout.

Read our full MSI MAG B550M Mortar overview.

Look at it, it is so little! The ITX kind issue has a devoted following, and the ASRock A520M ITC/ac undoubtedly appears to thinks so. With the ever growing integration of performance into the chipset, there actually isn’t a necessity for a number of PCIe slots like there was in years previous. Does a typical gamer want multiple slot for a graphics card? If the board has WiFi, LAN, USB 3.0 and first rate audio, a lot of the core bases are coated.

AMD’s finances Ryzen motherboard chipset, the A520, has largely slipped beneath the radar. While B350 and B450 motherboards had been primarily thought to be entry-level, A320 was strictly seen as resolutely low-end. The introduction of B550 motherboards, and their related move upward in value, left an enormous gap within the sub-$100 market. Enter the A520. If you are on a tighter finances and do not care about PCIe 4.0 or the overclocking help provided by B550, then the A520 motherboards may be precisely what you want. 

There’s low-cost, and there is low-cost, however an honest A520 board can kind of do all the pieces a board at double the worth can. 

Then there’s the cherry on prime, help for AMD Ryzen 5000 sequence CPUs and Ryzen 4000 and 5000 APUs. Combine a Zen 3 CPU with a motherboard resembling this ASRock A520M ITX/ac, and you can construct an inexpensive and compact system that may beat a comparable Intel in any workload.

The ASRock A520M ITX/ac is likely one of the costliest A520 boards at $105. In truth in lots of markets it may be the most costly.  That could be a bit of uncommon for ASRock which is generally identified for its extremely aggressive bang for buck choices. It’s considered one of few A520 boards to incorporate Wi-Fi although, in order that alone provides an excessive amount of usefulness. It helps a pace of 433 Mbps, not precisely the Usain Bolt of Wi-Fi speeds when Wi-Fi 6 is the norm, but it surely’s sufficient for prime pace web.

The rear I/O is pretty commonplace, with six USB ports consisting of two 2.0 ports and 4 3.1 Gen 1 ports. We’d wish to see eight on all however the very most cost-effective boards however the little ASRock is hardly alone there. We are happy to see each HDMI 2.1 and Display Port 1.4 that means that correct 4K/60Hz with a Renoir APU will probably be doable. 

The ASRock A520M’s audio is a little bit of a let-down, however that is one thing that finances boards usually compromise on. A gamer listening to compressed audio belongings in-game in all probability will not be any much less immersed, however you may go for an exterior DAC if you happen to need one later in life, in any case. 

As we frequently say, the efficiency of recent motherboards normally falls inside a normal margin of error. If we see an outlier, it may usually be attributed an aggressive multi core turbo mode and even ambient temperatures affecting GPU increase clocks. The ASRock carried out as anticipated. We did notice that its storage efficiency with a Samsung 970 Pro was robust. 

The little ASRock A520M ITX/ac has it where it counts and can serve you properly on the coronary heart of a finances gaming system. It advantages from the strengths of the Ryzen platform and provides some future-proofing into the combination. ITX followers searching for a succesful finances AMD Ryzen possibility ought to have this one on their shortlist.

Read our full ASRock A520M ITX/ac overview.

Best AMD motherboard FAQ