So, it's pretty obvious that Ryzen CPUs completely destroys all Intel CPUs when it comes to rendering and various other non-gaming functions. It's not even a contest. Which I really need because I use Maya a lot.

And all of that for 3-4 times less price.

But, not a single ASUS mATX board has more than 1 chassis fan headers, there is some weird notes about DDR4 RAM frequency not being supported for Ryzen CPUs, and I'm not even sure about the M.2 standard.


Is this not a good time to switch, or...?

Probaly not the best time, lots of updates are coming, from bios to software even windows, it does look bright the future for it though, i would wait two months more at least so most of the bugs are settle, none the less, for pure rendering purposes, it seems a winner.

The X370 seems only available on ATX atm, i think we will see in time come to micro atx, but seems the options atm are B350. If i were to move to Ryzen right now, i would go with ASRock X370 Taichi AM4 , recently reviewed by Techpowerup ASRock X370 Taichi (AMD AM4) and got a prefect 10, also reviewed by other sites with very good feedback, even newegg user reviews almost perfect scores. If you are not into ATX, and want to stay mAtx, look into ASRock AB350M Pro4 AM4 it has 2 4pin headers, CPU_FAN1 and CHA_FAN1, that should be autodetect, can do either pwm or voltage control, the third header CHA_FAN2 seems 3pin, this if its like mine, should be a pure 12V header and no control is available.

There are lots of bios updates being released for AM4, memory compatibility is one of the most comon updates on bios revisions, but my recommendations is search for the QVL list, or memory that has been tested and buy that, its much easier and safer. For example here is a QLV for the Taichi and for the AB350M Pro4.

I haven't seen any issues with m.2, but check user reviews i bet you can find one that work out fine with the motherboard you chose.

I'm not sure if I understand the RAM situation correctly, it says here that it supports 3200GHz DDR4, yet in the table there is no mention of that frequency.

Also, SR just means that you can put just a single stick RAM?


Just checked here, 8GB 3200 DDR4 sticks don't even exist.

Not many mATX boards yet, but there are some decent full ATX boards, e.g. I have the ASRock X370 Taichi that Abula mentioned, and it pleasingly has 5 fan headers that all support PWM.

I think that buying a Ryzen system right now is likely to be fine for most people. Now that there have been a few BIOS updates, trouble seems to be mostly limited to those who are trying to overclock, or are otherwise pushing the limits.


The table tells you what is officially supported; 3200 is considered overclocking. Support for higher RAM frequencies is spotty at the moment, but is expected to improve with future BIOS releases.

SR (single rank) refers to how the memory is logically organized. You can usually tell whether a given DIMM is single or dual rank by looking at where the memory chips are - if they are all on one side then it is probably SR; if they are on both sides then it is probably DR. SR DIMMs are slightly slower than DR DIMMs at the same frequency, but as you can tell from the table, they will work at higher frequencies.

So that's what it means! I thought it was more like Intel's single/dual channel that has a huge influence on bandwidth.
How does Ryzen handle multiple RAM sticks in terms of parallelism?

Found some interesting links recently that might be useful to you,

Reddit orlfman Tips about Ryzen and memory compatibility!

TechPowerUp AMD Ryzen Memory Analysis: 20 Apps & 17 Games, up to 4K

LinusTechTips Does RAM speed REALLY matter?

Thank you mate!

So, a safe bet would be to just get that 3000GHz model from that official list I linked.

AMD Ryzen series' lack of motherboard choices is its greatest weakness. At the moment, very few Mini ITX boards exist. And none of the Micro ATX or ATX boards have built-in Wifi.

In the near future Coffee Lake seems to be in an even worse spot, with only a single (and expensive!) chipset to pick from.
As for built-in WiFi it's a nice feature if you want it, but not a deal breaker for me since separate WiFi is so cheap.

Did you really mean ATX? There are plenty of AM4 ATX motherboards with built-in WiFi.

Yes, you are right. There are ATX boards with Wifi (albeit not many) but Micro ATX boards do not. For Intel's Kaby Lake CPU's there are at least a dozen viable options in each form factor.

To an extent, a motherboard is really just a motherboard, but I hope AMD gets around to ensuring that there is at least 1 well-rounded motherboard at each form factor (i.e. AC Wifi, USB-C, overclocking and a user-friendly BIOS)

Could someone tell me what the status of ECC RAM is on chips and boards for AMD?

I've read in a couple of places that all Ryzen procs have ECC enabled, but not sure if this is true. Or is it only Ryzen Pro series?

Thanks

As I've understood it it's up to the motherboard manufacturers to decide wether to support ECC or not.
Seems like the vast majority, if not every single one, has opted to not support ECC.