Would it be worth it to upgrade to a B550/X570 motherboard from a B450 motherboard?

[Kodehawa]

Hi.

Currently I have a B450M-PLUS GAMING from ASUS. Kind of a low/mid-end B450 board from back in 2018, running my 5700X and RX 6700.
Would it be worth it to upgrade to a B550/X570 motherboard from this?

Was mostly thinking about the 2 NVMe slots, as one of my drives is currently running in an adapter, but that's more of an aesthetic choice than anything. The other thing making me think on jumping on the upgrade is just getting a better motherboard and to be able to plug my USB-C port into the motherboard, but besides those I don't know if I'm losing on any performance here, or it's just gonna be a "well, get rid of the last old part remaining on this computer" kind of thing.

Thanks you.

 

[kapone32]

If you want you want a USB C and also want 4.0 PCIe then you could do that. Don't overspend, even something like the MSI X570 Pro would be great the B550 F is not a good chipset from Asus as all the PCie slots except the x16 share bandwidth. If you want uber M2 the X570S Ace Max or X570 Unify from MSI come with adapters for 2 NVME on the 2nd slot and X570E from Asus supports that. Some of those boards are currently on sale too but you have a 65 watt chip and don't need a 18 phase VRM. I can't say Gigabyte because I do not recommend them. As Rock has seriously gimped it's PCIe offerings unless you want to pay Taichi money but the B550 Taichi does not follow that in terms of lane allocation. The Best B550 board for that is the B550XE from Asus but that has Limited rear USB ports.

 

[potsdaman]

For me I have no problems with current B450, even Pci-e 3 NVME is enough, and we have only 1st time see game with direct storage support(Forespoken). And no difference in such game , 1 sec loading of level or 0.8 sec. I think only if you editing video or somethink like that and you need to transfer fast a lot of files - it is profit. So better to keep money for next generation of PC.

 

[Ownedtbh]

Keep it and upgrade your pc for DDR5 when you are able, i personally would buy a used x570 mainboard if i really would want to upgrade.

 

[ir_cow]

Keep it and upgrade your pc for DDR5 when you are able, i personally would buy a used x570 mainboard if i really would want to upgrade.

DDR5 is for the next socket AM5. It wouldn't be just a ram upgrade. Need a new motherboard and CPU as well.

The only reason I see to upgrade from B450 to B550 / X570 is more USB ports, more M2 sockets and PCIe gen 4 support.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Take it from me who did the jump. Dont bother. Save it for a more modern platform or use the budget spent towards something else

 

[kapone32]

For me I have no problems with current B450, even Pci-e 3 NVME is enough, and we have only 1st time see game with direct storage support(Forespoken). And no difference in such game , 1 sec loading of level or 0.8 sec. I think only if you editing video or somethink like that and you need to transfer fast a lot of files - it is profit. So better to keep money for next generation of PC.

I have yet to do it but I am planning on benching Forspoken for each of my arrays to see if there is a difference between SATA, RAID 0 SATA, NVME and RAID 0 NVME. Regardless the narrative around load times will inspire people to adopt NVME anyway.

 

[Vya Domus]

Not worth it in my opinion, save your money for AM5.

 

[ir_cow]

Pretty much unless you like new toys, there isn't a big reason to upgrade yet. You probably won't see a frame rate increase over what you currently have.

 

[Kodehawa]

So I guess there's no real point to it. ty all

 

[Chrispy_]

Not worth it.

You'll get slightly higher scores in Crystal Diskmark because of the reduced sharing of the PCH PCIe lanes, but your PC won't actually load anything noticeably faster - so unless you have a specific use case for sequential storage speed improvements on two drives at once, it's just a waste.

As for USB-C - your board already has a USB-C port at the rear, and you also already have another USB-A 10Gb port. What exactly is it you want to plug in that these ports won't handle?
If you just want the convenience of an internal USB-C header, there are $5 solutions rather than buying a whole new motherboard:

 

[Gmr_Chick]

I was going to suggest to OP the ASRock B550 PG Velocita since it's definitely on the higher end of ASRock's B550 offerings, 2nd only to the B550 Taichi but I guess they ultimately felt it wouldn't be worth it...

 

[AleXXX666]

Not worth it.

You'll get slightly higher scores in Crystal Diskmark because of the reduced sharing of the PCH PCIe lanes, but your PC won't actually load anything noticeably faster - so unless you have a specific use case for sequential storage speed improvements on two drives at once, it's just a waste.

As for USB-C - your board already has a USB-C port at the rear, and you also already have another USB-A 10Gb port. What exactly is it you want to plug in that these ports won't handle?
If you just want the convenience of an internal USB-C header, there are $5 solutions rather than buying a whole new motherboard:
View attachment 281399View attachment 281396

USB-C port with USB 1.1 speeds?

I was going to suggest to OP the ASRock B550 PG Velocita since it's definitely on the higher end of ASRock's B550 offerings, 2nd only to the B550 Taichi but I guess they ultimately felt it wouldn't be worth it...

for THAT money I'd choose AM5 board any day lmfao

 

[Gmr_Chick]

USB-C port with USB 1.1 speeds?


for THAT money I'd choose AM5 board any day lmfao

Ok, but show me an AM5 board you can get for $140 (current USD price for the Velocita on Newegg) that isn't a total POS. Oh, and you also have to buy DDR5 RAM for AM5, so there's yet more cost.

I'll wait.

 

[Kodehawa]

Ok, but show me an AM5 board you can get for $140 (current USD price for the Velocita on Newegg) that isn't a total POS. Oh, and you also have to buy DDR5 RAM for AM5, so there's yet more cost.

I'll wait.

True. Anyway, that board is not sold on my country (nor will Amazon ship it here lol) so kind of out of the question.

Though besides the USB-C and NVMe slot matters, for what people say here I guess it makes no real difference.

 

[ir_cow]

5700X + RX 6700 is already a good balance.

 

[Chrispy_]

USB-C port with USB 1.1 speeds?

Why on earth are you talking about USB 1.1? That 12Mb/s junk was phased out over 20 years ago now - the slowest port on a modern motherboard is 480Mb/s...
That first adapter is to convert his NZXT H510's single front-panel USB-A port to a 480Mb/s USB 2.0 header so that his 5GB/s USB 3.2 header is available for the USB-C port via the second adapter.

Yes, USB 2.0 will bottleneck an external SSD, but most of those come with USB-C now, and OP has a 10Gb/s USB-A port at the back if he actually needs it. For the typical flash drives/dongles/peripherals/headsets etc that a front-panel USB-A is most commonly used for, 480Mb/s is plenty.

 

[Kodehawa]

Why on earth are you talking about USB 1.1? That 12Mb/s junk was phased out over 20 years ago now - the slowest port on a modern motherboard is 480Mb/s...
That first adapter is to convert his NZXT H510's single front-panel USB-A port to a 480Mb/s USB 2.0 header so that his 5GB/s USB 3.2 header is available for the USB-C port via the second adapter.

Yes, USB 2.0 will bottleneck an external SSD, but most of those come with USB-C now, and OP has a 10Gb/s USB-A port at the back if he actually needs it. For the typical flash drives/dongles/peripherals/headsets etc that a front-panel USB-A is most commonly used for, 480Mb/s is plenty.

I'll get one of those adapters then. I should have imagined there's adapters for everything, lol.

 

[Chrispy_]

I'll get one of those adapters then. I should have imagined there's adapters for everything, lol.

The faster (but uglier) option is to just convert the front panel USB-C cable to USB-A and run it through an expansion slot directly to the 10Gb/s port on the back of your motherboard. You can get $2 adapters that convert the case's type-E cable into regular USB-A male. After that you just need an extension cable - 50cm would probably be enough....

 

[Lei]

@Kodehawa
PCIe4 is not faster than PCIe3
Full stop

 

[ir_cow]

@Kodehawa
PCIe4 is not faster than PCIe3
Full stop

It is though.

 

[Lei]

It is though.

Yeah, sun is bigger than the moon. Not from the perspective of an observant on earth

 

[Selaya]

speed delta being imperceptible/irrelevant for (daily) use != it isnt faster tho :thinking:

 

[Vya Domus]

Ok, but show me an AM5 board you can get for $140 (current USD price for the Velocita on Newegg) that isn't a total POS. Oh, and you also have to buy DDR5 RAM for AM5, so there's yet more cost.

That board is AM4 not AM5. People forget that while AM5 boards are much more expensive they also have much better VRMs and more features compared to the cheaper AM4 boards.

 

[Mussels]

Only if you get one of the "second generation" x570 or B550 boards that came with 2.5Gb ethernet, wifi AX and the passively cooled chipsets
As someone who's moved parts between all the gens, other than my second NVME being at x4 2.0 on my x370, it performs exactly like it did on my x570 and B450 boards

Yes, a truly terrible board with the garbage fake VRM's could hurt performance - but if it's not one of them, go for a feature upgrade because compatibility and speed dont really change