Question 1

I have very little knowledge of PCs. Is this only a motherboard, or does it also come with a CPU?

Accepted Answer

It does NOT come with a CPU.

Also, this is a small form factor you might wanted to look into other form factors, such as ATX and Micro ATX, if you don't care about the size of the motherboard as they will likely offer better value.

Question 2

is this ryzen 2000 ready? or do i need the boot kit?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this mb will work with Ryzen 2000 series processors out of the box with no bios update needed. Only previous gen boards like the b350 and x370 would need a bios update.

Question 3

Does this board support Zen 2? If I need a BIOS update, can I do that with the Ryzen 3000 cpu or do I need another cpu?

Accepted Answer

It will most likely need a bios update out of the box. Asus may at some point start shipping them with the latest bios but I wouldn’t count on it. Even if they do, it’d be impossible to ensure you get one with the updated bios since you have no way of knowing if you’re buying older stock with an old bios. You would need a supported CPU to be able to update the bios.

Question 4

is this mobo intel optane compatible?

Accepted Answer

It can't use Optane, but using AMD's "StoreMi" program suite you can use NVME drives as ram disks, or to speed up regular HDD's by combining it with a NVME drive. This mother board has two M.2 slots so you can have both a NVME ram disk, and speed up a hard drive or just use the other drive as a regular NVME drive.

Question 5

bios is upgraded for supporting Ryzen 3000 series?

Accepted Answer

Hello Taewoo Kim,

Unfortunately there is no way for us to confirm which BIOS version is shipped with the board we send you.  You will likely need to update it yourself I'm afraid... Sorry for the inconvenience.

Newegg Support

Question 6

What Ram Can I put in?

Accepted Answer

basically any, but if you really want to make sure, you can look at the qualified vendor list (QVL) on the ASUS website

Question 7

What would be a good budget cpu to go with this specific motherboard?

Accepted Answer

The cheapest option would be the AMD Athlon 200GE. It has 2 cores, and 4 threads, so it basically acts like a quad-core. It has an integrated Vega 3 GPU so you won't have to buy a video card. It's running at $60 atm.

For $100, the Ryzen 3 2200G is about 50% better as a CPU, and has a much better integrated Vega 8 GPU. This has 4 cores, so it's your standard quad core. This is probably the sweet spot for a great CPU/GPU combo.

For $160, the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G is far better. It has 4 cores, and 8 threads, so it will be performing like an eight-core. It also has a much better integrated Vega 11 GPU. The Vega 11 is comparable to GTX 960m, or RX 540.

Question 8

How good is the wifi on this motherboard? For gaming?

Accepted Answer

I can't speak to the technical specs of the wifi module bit I have used the wifi for gaming and haven't noticed any latency spikes or other anomalies compared to a wired connection, I think it would depends more on the wifi source rather than the wifi on the mb

Question 9

Does this motherboard support USB flashback at all?  Or is the only way to update the BIOS to support the new generation of AMD CPUs is by using an older gen CPU?

Accepted Answer

You must a gen 1 or 2 ryzen chip, it does not have flashback, it has "EZ Flash 3" which is bios updates via the internet, but you would need at least a cpu, psu, and ram to reflash the bios. I haven't seen any AM4 mini-itx motherboard that has USB flashback to be honest.

Question 10

In terms of overclocking, how good is this thing?  Will it  overclock a Ryzen 7 2700x to 4.3 GHz easily or a Ryzen 5 2600x to 4.2 GHz easily?

Accepted Answer

Not sure. Has some trouble running a full 2700x stock to be honest. The vrms dont seem that good.

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