A320M-A Pro Max Compatibility w/ AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

First off, thanks you to anyone that takes a minute to read this and especially those that can help

I just got a AMD ryzen 9 5900X and with the new bio (2b5) it should be compatible but im having issues. I have the Bio updated and everything, however, it doesnt want to POST. it will power. The fans will spin, my gpu will run + get RBG, ECT. That said, i get no display.
Any ideas? Its listed as a compatible CPU.
As of now i put my AMD Ryzen 5 1600 back in and it boots up fine. So im pretty lost.

I have system details below.
Thanks for your time!

 

[citay]

Regrettably, i don't think it's even worth solving, because this is not the right board for a 5900X. Please note that the CPU compatibility that MSI state is only about the BIOS (or more specifically, the AGESA in the BIOS, i.e. the BIOS having the right microcode available for this CPU model). It does not say anything about the practicability of putting certain CPUs into this board. The A320M-A PRO MAX is an extremely budget, entry-level board model, with a very weak VRM - only three CPU VRM phases made up of cheap discrete MOSFETs - and no VRM heatsinks. So it would be unwise to put something like a 3900X/3950X or 5900X/5950X on there, even though they are "compatible". It would completely overwhelm the VRM.

When getting a 5900X, i would assume that you want to use its impressive multithreaded performance sometime. For example, you have things to encode or to process, causing prolonged fully multithreaded load. You will definitely get throttling, either CPU or VRM throttling or both, probably even a shutdown from some board protection. But at the very least, decreased performance from having to clock lower.

The A3xx/5xx boards can be completely disregarded for a high-end CPU, as they are very cut-down in features and component quality, only suitable for entry-level CPU models and very humble needs. The higher the CPU model, the more current it draws, and the higher the transient load, meaning it can suddenly draw lots of power. And under sustained full load, the VRM has to be up to the task and not be too inefficient and overheat.

If you want a proper µATX board for the 5900X, forget all the A320M/A520M models and look at the MSI MAG B550M Mortar (WIFI). It's pretty much the only microATX-sized AMD board from MSI that uses powerstages for its VRM and is therefore suitable. Heck, even the most entry-level X570 boards are not really suited for the highest-end CPUs, read here for example. And that board is better than yours already (one more CPU VRM phase and VRM heatsinks), but still too weak/cheap components.

Hopefully your CPU cooler and PSU are of a higher caliber than your board, otherwise you might run into some more problems. You can tell me the models if you want, then i can tell you about that.
Maybe the PSU even has a part in this problem you have. But once you solve that, the next problem would be the board under CPU load.

 

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

Yeah thats what im starting to realize, (with out understanding 99% of what you just told me), im coming to terms that no matter what, even if i get it to work it wont be optimized and i should just get a new MOBO that natively supports it

 

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

Regrettably, i don't think it's even worth solving, because this is not the right board for a 5900X. Please note that the CPU compatibility that MSI state is only about the BIOS (or more specifically, the AGESA in the BIOS, i.e. the BIOS having the right microcode available for this CPU model). It does not say anything about the practicability of putting certain CPUs into this board. The A320M-A PRO MAX is an extremely budget, entry-level board model, with a very weak VRM - only three CPU VRM phases made up of cheap discrete MOSFETs - and no VRM heatsinks. So it would be unwise to put something like a 3900X/3950X or 5900X/5950X on there, even though they are "compatible". It would completely overwhelm the VRM.

When getting a 5900X, i would assume that you want to use its impressive multithreaded performance sometime. For example, you have things to encode or to process, causing prolonged fully multithreaded load. You will definitely get throttling, either CPU or VRM throttling or both, probably even a shutdown from some board protection. But at the very least, decreased performance from having to clock lower.

The A3xx/5xx boards can be completely disregarded for a high-end CPU, as they are very cut-down in features and component quality, only suitable for entry-level CPU models and very humble needs. The higher the CPU model, the more current it draws, and the higher the transient load, meaning it can suddenly draw lots of power. And under sustained full load, the VRM has to be up to the task and not be too inefficient and overheat.

If you want a proper µATX board for the 5900X, forget all the A320M/A520M models and look at the MSI MAG B550M Mortar (WIFI). It's pretty much the only microATX-sized AMD board from MSI that uses powerstages for its VRM and is therefore suitable. Heck, even the most entry-level X570 boards are not really suited for the highest-end CPUs, read here for example. And that board is better than yours already (one more CPU VRM phase and VRM heatsinks), but still too weak/cheap components.

Hopefully your CPU cooler and PSU are of a higher caliber than your board, otherwise you might run into some more problems. You can tell me the models if you want, then i can tell you about that.
Maybe the PSU even has a part in this problem you have. But once you solve that, the next problem would be the board under CPU load.

Thanks for the quick response and detailed thoughts! very appreciative, you've helped me come to terms that i should just wait

 

[citay]

You're welcome. Yes, sorry, it may have been a bit hard to understand if you don't know the technical terms or how it all works together.

I'll try to make an analogy, maybe this is easier to grasp. Let's say you bought a small city car. When you spec'd the car (let's say a VW Up!, if you know this one), you chose a small engine. The car/chassis is your A320M-A PRO MAX, and the small engine is the Ryzen 5 1600. This is exactly what this car has been designed for. Everything about the car, from the brakes to the gearbox to the starter motor, is completely matching with this engine.

Now some years later you get an idea: Wouldn't it be nice to put an engine from a Porsche 911 in there? You go to a dealership and you say you have a car from the Volkswagen group, and you want to buy a new Porsche engine. Sure, they say, Porsche belongs to Volkswagen. They sell you the engine without asking questions. As luck would have it (now you have to use your imagination), the engine even fits into the VW Up!. But you turn the key and... nothing.

Now, this could be because the starter motor (this is your PSU in the PC) is way too weak or cheap to even start this new engine. But even if you get the engine started, what would happen if you go even slightly fast? The rest of the car would scream for mercy, and the engine would be choked and go out. You don't have the proper supply lines, you can't get enough fuel into the engine, and this engine would completely overwhelm all the rest of the car if it were to run at full power.

Maybe it becomes clearer now why you need a better motherboard than an A320M-A PRO MAX. My recommendation, as i said, is the MAG B550M Mortar.
You also need a good PSU, and good CPU cooler. Again, tell me your models that you have now, i will look it up for you if they're suitable.
I hope it all became a bit clearer now.

 

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

I upgraded to a corshair RMX850 W 80+ gold PSU
And yeah, ill definetly have to get a new CPU cooler, as i just had the stock cooler.
IMO i should have just waited and built a whole new pc, because at this point the only part ill be keeping is my case

Im thinking of gettting a Gigabyte B550 AORUS Pro AC (AM4 Amd/B550...) Motherboard (amazon link included)
And a
CPU cooler like this (new egg link)
I want to try to stay away from liquid coolers if i can.

Would do you think about those two for the cpu?
0

 

[citay]

The board is ok. I was under the impression that you need a microATX-sized model. Otherwise, if you have a full-sized ATX case, why would you go for a microATX board with your A320M-A PRO MAX in the first place? Or did you just go for the cheapest board available then, without considering other factors?

With a full-sized ATX board, there's more choice of decent boards from MSI as well:
MAG B550 Tomahawk
MAG B550 Torpedo
MPG B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi
MPG B550 Gaming Edge Wifi

The cooler, naaah. That's some no-name "brand", and for that, they ask way too much money.
My recommendations are the "be quiet! Dark Rock 4" or a Noctua NH-U12S chromax.black, both are available on Amazon.

 

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

The board is ok. I was under the impression that you need a microATX-sized model. Otherwise, if you have a full-sized ATX case, why would you go for a microATX board with your A320M-A PRO MAX in the first place? Or did you just go for the cheapest board available then, without considering other factors?

With a full-sized ATX board, there's more choice of decent boards from MSI as well:

You know what?? Im dumb as heck. I didn't consider that i need a microATX board :/

I bought the computer as a prebuilt from a guy off craigslist. I got it for a decent price (600$) dollars and the most intensive stuff i was doing at the time was school work, hobbyist music production and minecraft. As the years have gone on, ive gotten slightly more into gaming, so i initially wanted to upgrade because of that (so i was just going to upgrade my PSU + GPU). However, in the past year ive gotten really into graphic design, Video editing, and motion graphics. So i figured a cpu and maybe more ram would be worth it to cut down on video rendering time. Maybe im going about the order of upgrades that ive done all wrong, as at this point i wont be keeping a single component.

That said, all i know is i know have a 400$ dollar CPU i cant use just laying around LMAO. And i really appreciate your help thank you so much. Hopefully with all that said you can help me make some better build decisions, and recommendations.

 

[citay]

No worries. So let's look at what you got now.

PSU - Corsair RM850x 850W - good.
CPU - Ryzen 5900X - good.
CPU cooler - Some stock cooler? - need a proper one. Told you two good options.
Board - MSI A320M-A PRO MAX - too weak for the CPU. Told you some options for both µATX and full-sized ATX.
Case - some old microATX one - probably time for a more modern case?
RAM - ?
GPU - ?
Drives - ?

For the case, i would recommend something like the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX:

Up to full ATX, solid build quality, good open front panel design that doesn't obstruct the airflow.

For the RAM, you have to check that it doesn't create a bottleneck. DDR4-3200 or faster would be good. If you have some old RAM like DDR4-2400/2666, maybe time to upgrade.

Lastly, your drives, should be SSD already, but maybe you want to transition to an M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD like the Samsung 970 EVO PLUS or 980.

 

[laurence1211]

You know what?? Im dumb as heck. I didn't consider that i need a microATX board :/

I bought the computer as a prebuilt from a guy off craigslist. I got it for a decent price (600$) dollars and the most intensive stuff i was doing at the time was school work, hobbyist music production and minecraft. As the years have gone on, ive gotten slightly more into gaming, so i initially wanted to upgrade because of that (so i was just going to upgrade my PSU + GPU). However, in the past year ive gotten really into graphic design, Video editing, and motion graphics. So i figured a cpu and maybe more ram would be worth it to cut down on video rendering time. Maybe im going about the order of upgrades that ive done all wrong, as at this point i wont be keeping a single component.

That said, all i know is i know have a 400$ dollar CPU i cant use just laying around LMAO. And i really appreciate your help thank you so much. Hopefully with all that said you can help me make some better build decisions, and recommendations.

Do you have a budget you need to stick to?

 

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

Sorry i forget (because ive been jumping around forums) what all i havent posted yet... and i also never intended this to be a BuildAPc style thread.

-I have actually a decent case already. Its a Sama Mid tower (link provided) Its not flashy or anything but does the job well...
-I have ddr 4 (16Bgs /8 per channel) 3000 Ram... so id like to upgrade to help better rendering processes and workflow related processes while editing
-I have a 512Gb sata drive at the moment. But i also run an external 2tb drive for projects that im finished with, and likely wont edit again... or for games that i might play once a month. I happy with this at the time being. I know at some point i should make the switch to a good SSD

-Case: wouldnt mind upgrading...
-Ram: Would like to upgrade
-Drives: Im going to wait
Budget: ~600$

What ive already upgraded
My PSU: Seagate 500W --> Corshair RMX850 W
GPU: nvidia 1070 --> 3060ti RTX
(to be installed) CPU: AMD R5 1600 --> AMD R9 5600x

As far as my budget, im going to be selling off a guitar in the near future. I dont ever play it as i have others that i just prefer to play more, and ive been wanting it to go to a good home. So im hoping to get 600 from it but it might waiver +/- 100$ in price.

Now for the fun bit:
Citkay has kindly recommended

for a micro-atx build
Mobo: MSI MAG B550M Mortar (WIFI) (amazon link) ~220 USD
CPU Cooler: Be quiet! Dark 4 Or the Noctura (amazon Link) ~75$

For a full atx build
Case: Be quiet case ~110

So if i kept my case id be looking at spending about 300$
If i bought a new case about 410$

 

[laurence1211]

Sorry i forget (because ive been jumping around forums) what all i havent posted yet... and i also never intended this to be a BuildAPc style thread.

-I have actually a decent case already. Its a Sama Mid tower (link provided) Its not flashy or anything but does the job well...
-I have ddr 4 (16Bgs /8 per channel) 3000 Ram... so id like to upgrade to help better rendering processes and workflow related processes while editing
-I have a 512Gb sata drive at the moment. But i also run an external 2tb drive for projects that im finished with, and likely wont edit again... or for games that i might play once a month. I happy with this at the time being. I know at some point i should make the switch to a good SSD

-Case: wouldnt mind upgrading...
-Ram: Would like to upgrade
-Drives: Im going to wait
Budget: ~600$

What ive already upgraded
My PSU: Seagate 500W --> Corshair RMX850 W
GPU: nvidia 1070 --> 3060ti RTX
(to be installed) CPU: AMD R5 1600 --> AMD R9 5600x

As far as my budget, im going to be selling off a guitar in the near future. I dont ever play it as i have others that i just prefer to play more, and ive been wanting it to go to a good home. So im hoping to get 600 from it but it might waiver +/- 100$ in price.

Now for the fun bit:
Citkay has kindly recommended

for a micro-atx build
Mobo: MSI MAG B550M Mortar (WIFI) (amazon link) ~220 USD
CPU Cooler: Be quiet! Dark 4 Or the Noctura (amazon Link) ~75$

For a full atx build
Case: Be quiet case ~110

So if i kept my case id be looking at spending about 300$
If i bought a new case about 410$

Ok so the main thing left then is ram. Just for gaming you don't need any more than 32gb, but for work stuff 64gb and up is wise. Anything from 3200mhz CL16 made by one of the main brands. Two matched sticks of 32gb for 64gb total or four if you are going to push the boat out with 128gb. However im not sure whether you need that much ram, depends on the software you use. Also there is a speed penalty for maxing out the ram. An example kit: https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-64gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820232943 There are lots of options, just look for good timings from a good brand.

 

[citay]

Yeah it depends very much on your specific rendering/editing software if you benefit from more RAM or not. Check the RAM utilization while you are running the most RAM-hungry things and see if it comes close to maxing out your 16 GB. If not, you don't actually need more. DDR4-3000 is actually not too bad. Ideal would be DDR4-3600. For that, i would go for 2x 16 GB DDR4-3600. From 2x 32GB on, it might become trickier to run DDR4-3600 with decent timings, because the most high-density modules are more demanding. Not to mention four modules, which really stresses the memory system. I wrote a thread RAM explained: Why two modules are better than four / single- vs. dual-rank / stability testing

Your Sama case might be a no-name generic budget case with no reviews to be found, but it doesn't seem to be too bad at first glance. One thing i can't make out, can you mount front case fans?
Just one rear exhaust fan isn't very much. I would normally use at least one front intake and one rear exhaust fan, but better would be two front intake and one rear exhaust fan. This way you can run them at relatively low rpm.

 

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

Yeah it depends very much on your specific rendering/editing software if you benefit from more RAM or not. Check the RAM utilization while you are running the most RAM-hungry things and see if it comes close to maxing out your 16 GB. If not, you don't actually need more. DDR4-3000 is actually not too bad. Ideal would be DDR4-3600. For that, i would go for 2x 16 GB DDR4-3600. From 2x 32GB on, it might become trickier to run DDR4-3600 with decent timings, because the most high-density modules are more demanding. Not to mention four modules, which really stresses the memory system. I wrote a thread RAM explained: Why two modules are better than four / single- vs. dual-rank / stability testing

Your Sama case might be a no-name generic budget case with no reviews to be found, but it doesn't seem to be too bad at first glance. One thing i can't make out, can you mount front case fans?
Just one rear exhaust fan isn't very much. I would normally use at least one front intake and one rear exhaust fan, but better would be two front intake and one rear exhaust fan. This way you can run them at relatively low rpm.

So i mostly use Adobe After effects and illustrator. If already looked at how a procedural project, effects both cpu, and ram usage. It does put a lot of load on my ram, upwards of 90 to 100% strain when I'm rendering. Adobe does allow GPU Acceleration which helps a lot to drastically helps keep my cpu usage down. This cut down one specific project i tested on from a 2 hour rendering time to just 30 minutes. Most projects i do however, aren't that procedural. So on average my ram idles around 60%. Thus, I'm thinking just 32Gbs (2X 16 ddr4 3200) Should do the trick. And i highly doubt ill branch into 3d rendering in the near future as well

As far as my case, I have been planning on replacing the fans anyways, but i should be able to mount two in the front. i was thinking of getting a 3 pack of BE queit / or noctura fans. also noise of the fans is never an issue for me. i live in a loud part of a downtown area, and constantly have fans going to reduce the ambient temp in my room

However, i forgot to suggest this
If i buy a a full atx case:
I could use the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite V2 (110)
Case (110)
Cpu cooler (75)

Meaning keeping both my case now / buying a new case will be about 300$
Giving me more headroom for ram: 32 Gbs DDR4 (2X 16 3600mhz): G.Skill Trident (ive heard a lot of good things about this model in particular) ~140$ (full price ~ 460)
Or
32 Gbs DDR4 (2x16 3200Mhz) G.skill tridents ~135 (full price ~450)

I guess it depends on if you two think if the extra 400 Mhz is worth possibly the hassle (i dont know much [***CENSORED***] about ram) or the extra 10$. As well as that if you recommend just going ahead and buying a ATX tower. The possibly extra 150 saved is a nice comfort for smaller things i may need, such as shipping cost, Thermal compound and any additional fans i may need/want

What do you guys think of this plan??

 

[colereisdorf30158002e2]

Also big thanks too the both of you for helping me along, and draft up a solid plan. Id be pretty lost at the moment, so cheers!

 

[citay]

That board model is ok too. The procedure is much the same as with any other brand: I'd update the BIOS first thing after getting the board.
In case of the Gigabyte, the downloads are here, https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-AORUS-ELITE-V2-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios
Extract to USB stick and somewhere in the BIOS there's the updater.

As for the RAM, considering they cost pretty much the same, i'd go for the DDR4-3600. The latencies are comparable (if you factor in that one clock cycle takes less time at 3600 vs. at 3200 MHz - may be a bit hard to understand, but trust me on that one). A better kit of RAM to consider would be the F4-3600C16D-32GVKC. The Ripjaws V are exactly like the Trident Z, but without the bling, and thus cheaper. This kit is actually better because of the tighter latencies CL16-19-19-39, vs. CL18-22-22-42 on the almost similarly priced Trident Z kit. If you want a Trident Z with RGB, check for similar specs, DDR4-3600 CL16-19-19-39.

Should you get any problems at DDR4-3600, you can always lower DRAM Frequency manually to DDR4-3200 and it should work fine. But if it works fine at DDR4-3600 as well (and there's a decent chance), then you benefit from the higher RAM transfer speeds / thruput.

As for the fans, if you buy a new case, at least one fan should be included (usually some be quiet! fan). Those aren't bad. You can then just get one or two more of those. Front ones have to pull air in, back one(s) push air out. That's in line with the fan(s) on the CPU cooler, which push towards the rear as well. The Gigabyte BIOS usually has two or three fan profiles you can choose from, like performance or silent. Even if you don't care about noise, there's an argument of running the fans on a fan curve according to the temperature. It makes no sense for the fans to run at full speed while there's little heat generated inside the case, it will just get dusty sooner.