# Is b550 Motherboards enough with a R7?



## Ricgus3 (Sep 6, 2020)

Hi! I am looking to build a new PC that can handle sample production and a big template for orchestral compositions.

I have a budget at around 1000€ (no new GPU)

I am current looking to get: 

Ryzen 7 3700x
32gb RAM (2stacks so i can expand to 64 later) 3200mhz/3600mhz 16CL
Corsair MP600 1TB (gen4)
RM750 PSU

Already have another EVO 970 SSD at 1tb and a SSHD at 2TB (Firecuda) for storage
I already have a 1060 gtx so I am gonna stick with that, no new GPU.

What I am unsure of is what motherboard I would buy. It is such a jungle with motherboards as of now.

What I first boiled it down to was the X570 Tomahawk, seemed like a really good price for a high end MB. But then I also learned that It is only really needed if I want to overclock and such, which I do not. 

So i Started looking at the B550 motherboards instead. And looked at the Strix b550-f, B550a-pro, b550 Tomahawk.


Do uyou have any recommendations? Is b550 enough=


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Sep 6, 2020)

If it's for orchestral music, I would make sure the motherboard can take 128GB ram.


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## Pictus (Sep 6, 2020)

B550 is the way to go!

Why you want the more expensive MP600?
PCIe gen 4 makes no difference for audio workloads and sometimes
with X570 motherboards, not sure if still the case for B550, we have
to set the PCIe to gen3 to avoid some bugs...
The ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro is *excellent *for a second drive(*read data*) and good price


https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/zR3H99/adata-sx8200-1-tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-asx8200pnp-1tt-c



In your budget with 64GB RAM


https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/zDK2tp



BTW, if want a more silent and efficient cooler for the 3700X


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## Ricgus3 (Sep 6, 2020)

Pictus said:


> B550 is the way to go!
> 
> Why you want the more expensive MP600?
> PCIe gen 4 makes no difference for audio workloads and sometimes
> ...



Thank you so much! I was actually looking for a new main drive. So i thought a m.2 would be nice! Would you recommend going with m.2 as a main drive? I thought I use my 970 evo as a second drive and my HDD for storage


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## Pictus (Sep 6, 2020)

You are welcome!
NVMe drives are sooo fast you can go with just one drive
and install everything there without performance loss for
audio workloads...
For just one drive config(boot and all) I prefer Samsung 970 EVO or Corsair MP510
For a second NVMe drive I like ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro, HP EX950 or ADATA XPG GAMMIX S11 Pro


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## Ricgus3 (Sep 6, 2020)

Ok! So you use 2 NVME drives then? I'm gonna use just 1 nvme and 1 SSD. Notied that ADATA was hard to find in my Country (sweden). How is Gigabyte Bios?

Thanks again for taking your time and really giving me a Pc part picker link aswell!


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## Pictus (Sep 6, 2020)

Ricgus3 said:


> Ok! So you use 2 NVME drives then?



In my PC now it is one NVMe SSD, one SATA SSD and a hard disk...
But I would change for one BIG NVMe ssd like the Corsair MP510 4TB or a Sabrent 8TB 




> I'm gonna use just 1 nvme and 1 SSD. Notied that ADATA was hard to find in my Country (sweden). How is Gigabyte Bios?


For me it is OK, but the Asus and MSI BIOS are better...


> Thanks again for taking your time and really giving me a Pc part picker link as well!



I am glad to help.


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## LinearZero (Sep 10, 2020)

Ricgus3 said:


> Hi! I am looking to build a new PC that can handle sample production and a big template for orchestral compositions.
> 
> I have a budget at around 1000€ (no new GPU)
> 
> ...



I have a similar setup which I built as an "all in one" for both gaming and music production and everything else in between:


Ryzen 5 3600x

Aorus b550m pro https://pcpartpicker.com/product/39...pro-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-b550m-aorus-pro

8x4 3200mhz ddr 4 ram
Thermalcake 750w smart PSU
256gb NVME SSD
500gb samsung evo 860 SSD
2tb Crucial BX500 SSD


I'm no hardware expert but so far I have been able to run FL studio 20 and Cubase 10.5 each with 50 vst instrument tracks and several third party plugins on each track(EQ, Reverb and a compressor). I've had no issues (e.g playback delays, or controller latency) and my PC build is for a micro mobo. Based on that and our similar specs I'm sure a b550 will be sufficient. Being a gigabyte mobo and only released 3 months ago I haven't had any BIOS issues either. There are "full size" versions of my mobo available too if you're interested.


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