MSI B350 TOMAHAWK: A Capable AMD Ryzen Motherboard For $110

[koschi]

http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1...TA-1703086RI77

I have benchmarked my R7 1700 on the ASUS PRIME X370-PRO against your results. Its Ubuntu 16.04 with 4.10.2 mainline kernel. It comes in second or third in most tests. I do like its blender scores though :-D

Whats making the difference here, the old compiler? My system runs without boost as far as I can tell, at least no sign of >3GHz under /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq...

edit:
regarding the SATA port discussion. I do consider myself a PC enthusiast, but utilize just 3 SATA ports. I wanted the X370 because it had no retro PCI, more VRMs and most likely better BIOS. The lesser ASUS B350-PLUS is pretty ugly, the decision was easy...

[chithanh]

Most folks

But Ryzen R7 isn't a CPU for "most folks".It is a CPU for enthusiast gamers, semi-professional and power users.

While only 4 SATA ports can be forgiven (more than 4 hard disks is not really common, and you can use SATA PMP or PCIe adapters if needed), the number of PCIe lanes is already today barely enough. I mean, there is not even one AM4 mobo where you can operate an M.2 RAID 0 at full speed.

This totally reminds me of R9 Fury launch. AMD back then justified the lack of HDMI 2.0 with not many people wanting to connect 4K TVs, but they apparently didn't talk to actual high-end gamers who did that pretty often.

AMD said they want to stick with socket AM4 for a long time, so I hope for them that future CPUs can come with more PCIe lanes on that socket.

[Techwolf]

Lets see, on my system:
1. bootstrap and home drive
2. SSD for compiling/building
3. CD ROM drive, rarly used, but it perfect read only boot device for system resque or maintaince.
4. laptop size removiable drive bay.
5. 3 1\4 removiable drive bay. Good for backups thats faster then USB.

So yea, I use more then four without using a RAID setup.

For PCIe\x
1. Nvidia card that covers a second PCI slot. I hate that.
3. wifi card
4. ATSC TV card
5. Decklink capture card
6. NTSC captue card in real PCI slot, often called legisty now a days.
7. NVME SSD drive mounted as /

I have no spare slot to add sata. So haveing lots of sata on MB is a good thing.

[chithanh]

Techwolf
Use SATA PMP.
Use USB->SATA converter for the CD-ROM drive (a cheap one is totally sufficient).
With USB3 + UAS there is no performance difference even for hard disks.

[andresdju]

Someone should shoot them a mail to ask if with that they mean ECC or if they mean "ECC bank in non-ECC mode". Because unbuffered ECC rams can also be used fine in PCs, in non-ECC mode.

Gigabyte clear says that their X370 boards support ECC modules but their B350 ones support ECC modules in non-ECC mode:

http://www.gigabyte.com/Comparison/Result/2?pids=6167,6225,6227,6229,6242

[Geopirate]

But Ryzen R7 isn't a CPU for "most folks".It is a CPU for enthusiast gamers, semi-professional and power users.

While only 4 SATA ports can be forgiven (more than 4 hard disks is not really common, and you can use SATA PMP or PCIe adapters if needed), the number of PCIe lanes is already today barely enough. I mean, there is not even one AM4 mobo where you can operate an M.2 RAID 0 at full speed.

This totally reminds me of R9 Fury launch. AMD back then justified the lack of HDMI 2.0 with not many people wanting to connect 4K TVs, but they apparently didn't talk to actual high-end gamers who did that pretty often.

AMD said they want to stick with socket AM4 for a long time, so I hope for them that future CPUs can come with more PCIe lanes on that socket.

It seems Naples will also drop into AM4, so I'm sure they will have more robust boards for real workstation use. The launch lineup of motherboards is overwhelmingly x270 and x99 board models remixed for AM4. I've not seen anything like a c236 board yet, but I'm sure they are coming. What is the use case for M.2 RAID0 right now for gamers or power users? AMD has explicitly said their goal with this first batch of motherboards at least was to deliver things the majority of people would use without a lot of the bloat that doesn't get used.

What are the frame rates for high end 4k gaming on a R9 Fury now, even after all the driver revisions?

[Brane215]

It seems Naples will also drop into AM4, so I'm sure they will have more robust boards for real workstation use.

Where have you heard that ? WHole point of Naples is having multiple 8-core/2MCM packages interconnected on one interposer, with multiple sets of memory controllers.
Why would anyone try to cram that on AM4 socket, which was meant for a single CPU package with optional GPU+HBM ?

Only configuration that could be considered is perhaps 2 packages with one memory controller each, but that would be kind of overcrowded.

[chithanh]

From what I have heard, Naples will use up to 8-channel memory. I doubt that AM4 supports that.
According to unconfirmed reports, Naples will come in SP3 LGA socket.

[Geopirate]

Where have you heard that ? WHole point of Naples is having multiple 8-core/2MCM packages interconnected on one interposer, with multiple sets of memory controllers.
Why would anyone try to cram that on AM4 socket, which was meant for a single CPU package with optional GPU+HBM ?

Only configuration that could be considered is perhaps 2 packages with one memory controller each, but that would be kind of overcrowded.

There are already rumored leaks of a 16 core Ryzen chip coming out. It's quite possible that this is an entirely different thing from Naples but how likely is that really? I know traditionally there has been a lot of market segmentation, but is it really still necessary? They have announced the consumer AM4 chipsets, but who not make enterprise chipsets on the same platform? If you can purchase the highest end Naples chip and drop it into a $80 motherboard or at the other end get a low power R3 and drop that into a $1000 server board that you can plug 30 drives into that will open up a lot of options that don't exist now. I know a lot of people in this community particularly straddle that line where consumer grade hardware isn't quite enough, but the expense of enterprise hardware isn't quite justified.

PS: EATX is still a thing

[Brane215]

There are already rumored leaks of a 16 core Ryzen chip coming out. It's quite possible that this is an entirely different thing from Naples but how likely is that really?

If it exists, actually it is very likely that it has its own socket. No one sane would use whole socket for 4 dies and 8-channel RAM only to utilize 50% of it. If nothing else, such arrangement would screw up board layout and probably demand more layers than optimally needed.