Wanted a mainboard for Ryzen CPU? What to look out for

AMD's Ryzen family is really shaking up the CPU market. Necessary when buying is always the right motherboard and the choice is large. Our guide shows what is important and helps with the overview.

The mainboard purchase is about sockets and also chipsets.

As the home of the processor, a suitable mainboard is indispensable. The ideal product depends on what your requirements are.

These motherboard types are available for Ryzen CPUs

The first step is quite simple: Ryzen CPUs require socket AM4. Consequently, you can focus on motherboards with this socket. The second step is about the chipsets. Namely, there are differences here and they can sometimes even be very important:

• A320 makes the beginning and attracts with very low prices. In contrast, no CPU overclocking is possible, there are only a few connectors - in addition, CPUs of the Ryzen 3000 generation are not compatible.
• The B350 chipset guarantees the really recommendable entry for inexpensive motherboards. Overclocking is possible, the number of ports is sufficiently large for most users.
• B450 is the upgrade, since higher RAM clock rates are possible.
• According to AMD, it goes into the enthusiast class from X370. The chipset namely allows the installation of two graphics cards.
• X470 allows a higher RAM clock rate and further optimization options.
• X570 is the current top class among AM4 chipsets. The highlight is the PCIe-4 support, which enables extreme graphics performance.

Fortunately, the chipsets are easy to recognize because they are always included in the product name, for example in this Asus mainboard or in this MSI model.By the way: According to many users, B450 represents the golden mean, the reason given is the price-performance ratio. Thus, this chipset should be completely sufficient for most buyers.