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Date:      Sat, 22 Sep 2018 21:44:31 +0300
From:      Greg V <greg@unrelenting.technology>
To:        Eric van Gyzen <eric@vangyzen.net>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Good motherboard for Ryzen (first-gen)
Message-ID:  <1537641871.2008.0@hraggstad.unrelenting.technology>
In-Reply-To: <205656c3-52a5-a75f-c352-8bf923b47b1f@vangyzen.net>
References:  <205656c3-52a5-a75f-c352-8bf923b47b1f@vangyzen.net>

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On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 5:53 AM, Eric van Gyzen <eric@vangyzen.net>=20
wrote:
> I would like to build a Ryzen desktop.  Can anyone recommend a good=20
> motherboard?
>=20
> I'm planning on a first-gen, because the second-gen has similar=20
> stability problems as the first-gen had, and AMD hasn't released=20
> errata for the second-gen yet (as far as I know...I would love to be=20
> wrong).

IIRC the weird freeze/segfault bugs were only in the early batches of=20
1st gen. If you get 2nd gen, you're *definitely* getting a stable chip.=20
My R7 1700 is from Aug 2017, never had any issues. So a 1st gen bought=20
today should be fine too of course, unless *somehow* you get very very=20
very old stock.

> I would like to be a cool kid with a Threadripper, but I can't=20
> justify the cost, so I'm thinking maybe a Ryzen 7 with /only/ 8=20
> cores.  :)
Yeah, yeah. Good discounts on 1st gen Threadripper can be found these=20
days though=E2=80=A6 but still there's board cost + RAM cost (you have to=20
fill up 4 memory channels on TR if you want performance to not suck).

> Ideally, I want an Intel NIC, ECC memory support, and a 3-year=20
> warranty.

For ECC, you can google board name + ecc ram. You can often find=20
reports on forums/subreddits/whatever.

Since you care about warranty, you probably don't care about=20
overclocking, so do not watch the following videos: B450 boards =E2=80=94=20
https://youtu.be/yWAwOH-egFs X470 =E2=80=94 https://youtu.be/L8T2gzIkw78 :)

But still, good power delivery is important for an 8-core even at stock=20
settings, so avoid the latest ASUS TUF board, and super cheap boards in=20
general.

I have an MSI X370 SLI PLUS. The firmware is good, RGB lighting support=20
is good (most important thing! lol. controllable under FreeBSD with=20
https://github.com/nagisa/msi-rgb), the VRM is okay but not super great=20
(8-core @ 1.39V 3.95GHz =E2=86=92 ~100 =E2=84=83 without any direct airflow=
 over=20
the VRM heatsink). NIC is Realtek, recognized by re(4), I never tried=20
it (I use a Mellanox card). Audio is Realtek, works fine 99% of the=20
time (very occasionally sound stops working, sysctl=20
dev.hdac.0.polling=3D1 brings it back). There is a pin header for the SPI=20
flash chip  to recover a failed firmware update (I actually did this=20
once :D), but the pins are tiny (2mm instead of the usual 2.54).
=




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