Best mATX Board for Ryzen 5 1600X at 4GHz

[trainut]

Hi all,

I am currently rocking an i5-2400, and I feel the need for an upgrade. My plan is to build a Ryzen system inside an old PowerMac G4 Quicksilver case I have modded to accept mATX. I have chosen a Ryzen 5 1600X, and I will be cooling it with a Corsair H80i v2 more out of space requirements than a need for liquid cooling. However, since I am getting a processor that (hopefully) is good for 4GHz, and an AIO, I would like to use a motheroard that can handle such an overclock. Unfortunately, since I need mATX or smaller, my options are somewhat limited.

From what I can gather, the mATX AM4 boards with the best VRMs/power phase setups are the ASRock AB350M Pro4 and the MSI B350M Mortar. I have read, however, that the Mortar suffers from serious VRM overheating and throttling, and that the AB350M Pro4 suffers from significant vdroop, possibly because of its 3+3 power phases. Does anyone know if either of these are true, or which mATX or smaller board (even if it’s not these two) is the best for 4GHz on a 1600X?

I am aware of the two X370 ITX options, but neither seem meaningfully better than these two B350 mATX boards, and if at all possible I would like a mATX board, as I do have a PCIe wireless card I can use.

Thanks for any information.

 

[madmatt30]

I've pulled 4.1 on a ryzen 1700 on the full size pro 4 (same vrm setup) so quality wise its not going to be an issue for a 1600/x.

Vdroop - 1.3925v drops to 1.3875 under load for me & is stable at that so not something I'm personally going to worry about.

But yeah there's is no llc option on this board so if you don't get a good chip that will overclock at conservative voltage I could see it possibly being an issue.

 

[LilDog1291]

Careful with the 1600x. Mine with the MSI Arctic Mortar B350M still has BIOS issues with keeping the CPU overclocked while trying to get the RAM above 2133. My server build with the 1800x overclocked on the MSI Mortar B350M (Non arctic) just fine and from my research seems to be just a problem with the 1600x's. If I could go back in time I would have gotten a 1600 over the 1600x.

 

[trainut]

I've pulled 4.1 on a ryzen 1700 on the full size pro 4 (same vrm setup) so quality wise its not going to be an issue for a 1600/x.

Vdroop - 1.3925v drops to 1.3875 under load for me & is stable at that so not something I'm personally going to worry about.

But yeah there's is no llc option on this board so if you don't get a good chip that will overclock at conservative voltage I could see it possibly being an issue.

Well I am looking to get a 1600x, which in theory should be the higher binned part. I’ve read about .500v vdroop on this board, so that’s good to hear that you have very little. Are you able to do a P-state (or similar) overclocking with the Pro4 or are you stuck at 4.1GHz all the time?

Also, does anyone know about the Biostar X370 GT3? Apparently it’s a mATX board. I know it’s not the best company, but would that board give me a better chance at 4GHz?