Best Motherboard CPU Combo 2020 – Intel & AMD Bundles For Gaming & Work

Buying the best Motherboard CPU combo 2020 for your build can be difficult especially considering the number of options that we get on the market. You cannot afford to invest your hard-earned money on a crappy little piece of hardware. Most people consider that the costliest are always the best and the cheaper aren’t which isn’t always the case. Then there are a few who invest a lot from their budget on a beasty CPU and settle when it comes to buying a decent graphics card.

Throwing in a high-end CPU in your build isn’t alone going to give you the speed you deserve. Pairing it with an equally potent GPU and a capable motherboard that can best squeeze the performance and features out of your processor is what it takes to get you the power you need for you to run your tasks.

Best Motherboard CPU Combo 2020 for Gaming, Video Editing, Productivity

The irony about building a custom computer is, most people lack the expertise to decide on the best motherboard CPU combo. If you are among the most people, we have your back. We at CPUsage have done the hard work to curate a list of the best motherboard CPU combos 2020 that can help you build the PC of your dream. And also listed out a few considerations at the end of this post, that you should be looking into while getting to choose a good motherboard CPU combo for your custom build.

Don’t buy stuff that you don’t need –

The very purpose of the custom CPU build is to customize it according to your needs. It is pointless to invest in a super sophisticated build especially if you are not going to use all of its features. Before you research about the best CPU or motherboard in the market, it is very important to know what you are going to use it for. To ease your toil, we have done the hard work on your behalf. Check our detailed guide at the end of this post.

List of Top Motherboard CPU Combo in 2020
Motherboard	CPU(Processor)	Combo Verdict
1. Gigabyte B450M DS3H WiFi Motherboard	AMD Ryzen 5 3600	Budget yet Best Motherboard CPU combo 2020
2. Asus AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi) ATX motherboard	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X	Best value for money motherboard processor combo 2020
3. ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Z490 (WiFi 6)	Intel Core i9-10900X	Most powerful motherboard CPU combo 2020
4. MSI MPG X570 GAMING PLUS Motherboard	AMD Ryzen 3 3300X	Best cheap overall AMD motherboard CPU combo
5. ASRock B450 Steel Legend Socket AM4 ATX Motherboard	AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 4-core	Best budget gaming motherboard CPU combo

Enough said! It’s time, you walk through our top motherboard CPU combo 2020 picks.

1. AMD Ryzen 5 3600 + Gigabyte B450M DS3H WiFi Motherboard – Budget yet Best Motherboard CPU combo 2020

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and the Gigabyte B450M DS3H, if paired with a decent GPU, can be a powerful machine to handle all your workloads with ease.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 – Processor

The Ryzen 5 3600 comes with a decent form factor and 65W TDP and is priced really well to stand the competition. This little monster can be a go-to option for those looking to build a budget yet powerful CPU for their daily chores. When paired with a capable GPU, the Ryzen 3600 can handle most games at ease while fetching you decent frame rates when gaming at 1080p resolution, thanks to those 6 cores and threads.

Like any other 3rd generation Ryzen CPUs, the Ryzen 5 3600 also shares support for PCIe 4.0. Unlike, most Intel processors, AMD processors come bundled with an in-box cooler, and the Ryzen 5 3600 isn’t an exception here. Like the other Ryzen 3000 chips, the Ryzen 5 3600 also comes with a 7nm computer die paired with a 12nm I/O die. AMD also released an advanced version to this, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600X which has a slightly more clock speed.

AMD has drastically improved its instructions per cycle (IPC) throughput with the 3rd generation CPUs which can yield better performance, especially in heavy workloads. The Ryzen 5 3600 beats the Intel’s Core i5-9400F by a fair margin. However, the Intel processors have an advantage with the integrated graphics while most AMD processors require a discrete graphics card.

Gigabyte B450M DS3H WiFi – Motherboard

The Gigabyte B450M DS3H is a beauty with a black PCB base with a grey striped circuit-like pattern emanating from the corners of the board towards the socket. This board comes equipped with the AM4 socket. The Gigabyte DS3H is the best choice for those who are on a tighter budget yet aiming at a decent motherboard to squeeze the performance juice out the build. It has four memory slots that can accommodate DDR4-3200 memory sticks with the maximum support for 64 GB.

Talking about the storage, the DS3H boasts 3 SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. Also present is a single PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slot with support for up to M.2 22110 (22 x 110 mm) SSDs.

The device comes with a small and lightweight looking heatsink across the CPU section of the VRM. It offers two full-length PCIe slots; the top slot is PCIe 3.0 x16 while the bottom slot is PCIe 2.0 x4. At the back, you will find USB 3.1 5 Gbps ports, four additional USB 2.0 Type-A ports, a single GbE port, 3 3.5mm audio jacks, and video outputs with both DVI-D and HDMI 2.0 ports.

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2. AMD Ryzen 7 3700X + Asus AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi) ATX motherboard – Best value for money CPU motherboard combo 2020

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X – Processor

AMD is ahead in the race when it comes to handling multithreaded workloads, thanks to the number of threads. If you are more into productivity, the rule of thumb is to choose a CPU with more number of threads and cores. More thread count equals better multitasking capability for accomplishing challenging jobs like video editing and streaming that requires a lot of CPU power. When it comes to gaming, the AMD Ryzen 7 3700 can handle most AAA-rated games with ease. However, you need to invest in a potent GPU for fetching those fancy frame rates.

The 7nm Ryzen 7 3700X features a total of 8 cores and 16 threads and has a base clock of 3.6 GHz and a boost clock of 4.4 GHz. This is known to produce better performance and lower power consumption compared to its predecessors. AMD claims to have increased the IPC (instructions per clock) to over 15% on this CPU when compared to a 2nd gen processor when measured at the same clock speed.

Cooling the processor is no hassle, thanks to the thermal management on the chip. However, if overclocking is your thing, it is advised to invest in a decent cooling solution instead of using the one that comes bundled with this processor. Like any other 3rd gen CPU, the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X also has support for the PCIe 4.0. However, if you wish to put the support to good use, you should invest in an expensive X570 motherboard which isn’t worth it if you are not planning to invest on a graphics card that supports PCIe 4.0 like the Radeon RX 5700 XT or RX 5700.

Asus AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi) ATX – motherboard

Asus AM4 TUF Gaming is one of the most affordable motherboards available on the X570 platform. Despite being least expensive, Asus hadn’t dropped down on its specifications. It has everything that you would find in most expensive motherboards on the X570 platform. Surprisingly, this motherboard also features a USB Type-C port, onboard dual-band Wi-Fi and an RGB LED illumination near the chipset heatsink.

It has support for PCIe 4.0 with dual PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, and USB 3.1. Like every other motherboard in the TUF line-up, the Asus AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus is equipped with military-grade components and offers additional surge protection for added safety. The device boasts a 12+2 VRM setup which comes with a decent-sized heatsink which does an excellent job in cooling.

Overclocking your CPU is a cakewalk with the Asus TUF Gaming motherboards. The device is equipped with a total of eight SATA ports and four DIMM slots which can accommodate a maximum of 128GB DDR4 RAM. As far as the looks are concerned, the X570-Plus Wi-Fi is built-in jet-black with lined patterns. Asus kept the RGB LED lighting minimal to cut down on the price. However, you can find a few LEDs lined near the SATA that shine through the lined pattern making oozing out colors. These LEDs can be controlled by Asus’s dedicated Aura Sync software tool.

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3. Intel Core i9-10900X + ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Z490 (WIFI 6) – Most powerful Motherboard Processor combo 2020

Intel Core i9-10900X – Processor

Intel has been the most reliable option for ages now. The one area where Intel is way ahead of AMD is its single-core performance which is very essential for obtaining better gaming performance. This 14nm chip offers a base frequency of 3.7 GHz and a single-core turbo of 5.3 GHz. As far as the thermal management is concerned, the Intel Core i9-10900X performed surprisingly well for a 14nm form factor. Intel claims that better thermal management is due to its clever engineering where it thinned down the die and implemented a much thicker heat spreader. However, the device has a higher TPD of 125W with its predecessor having 95W.

When the most budget AMD processors are sharing their support for the PCIe 4.0, even the flagships from the Intel line-up are still confined to PCIe 3.0. This is the biggest bummer with the Intel processors. The Intel Core i9-10900X offers an extra two cores compared to its predecessor Core. Therefore the 10900X has a total of 10 cores and 20 threads. Another laid down with the Intel Core i9-10900X is its migration to a new chipset family, the z490, and a new CPU socket. The latest processors from Intel only support the new LGA1200 Cpu socket which technically means that there is no support for the older motherboards. While AMD, on the other hand, supports backward compatibility with the older motherboards.

Intel has done the hard work in significantly increasing the cache on this CPU with L3 cache being 20MB while its predecessor the Intel 9900K has only 16MB. Intel’s proprietary Intel Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB).

ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Z490 (Wi-Fi 6) – Motherboard

The ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero is one of the most expensive motherboards in the Z490 motherboard landscape. However, this is totally worth the price with premium features including three heatsink-covered M.2 slots, 14-phase VRMs, SupremeFX audio solution. Apart from these, there are a few other cutting edge features like Marvell-based 5 Gigabit Ethernet, 60A power stages, DDR4 4800+(OC) RAM support, six SATA3 6 Gbps ports, SupremeFX S1220 audio codec, the latest Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 5.1, USB 3.2 Gen2 (20 Gbps) Type-C etcetera.

You should see its design over anything. It has got a stunning black detailing all over the board with heatsinks and shrouds that cover most of the circuit board, should fit well with most build themes. The heatsink on the chipset has a ROG branding which glows in RGB. It has a 16 phase VRM in a 14+2 configuration and is covered in three heatsinks which are fairly large. There is a debug code display situated near the DIMM slots.

The ASUS ROG Maximum XII Hero boasts three full-length slots and three x1 slots in the PCIe section. There are three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots located between the full-length PCIe slots. M2_1 supports both SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4 modules while M2_2 supports PCIe 3.0 x4 only. M2_3 on the other hand supports 110mm drives as well as SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4 modules. Talking about the IO ports, it has a total of 10 USB ports with the rear Type-C port is the ultra-fast USB 3.2 Gen2 (20 Gbps), while three 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gbps), four 3.2 Gen1 ports and two USB 2.0 ports.

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4. AMD Ryzen 3 3300X + MSI MPG X570 GAMING PLUS Motherboard – Best cheap overall AMD motherboard CPU combo

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X – Processor

The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X is one of the cheap yet powerful gaming processors that you can afford. Considering the price at which this little beast is offered, this CPU can be a great deal for many mid-range gaming enthusiasts. Apart from gaming, this CPU can also be used to accomplish multithreaded workloads like streaming and video editing. This versatility will help content creators and moderate gamers to build a pc without having to shell out much on the components.

With the third generation CPUs, AMD has improved significantly on the IPC (instructions per cycle) and extended the support for PCIe 4.0 to help future proof your build. AMD has cleverly engineered this chip for better thermal management with its 7nm lithography. The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X has four cores and eight threads with a base frequency of 3.8 GHz and 4.3 GHz boost clock. AMD claims that this chip performs 20% better than the Intel’s i5-9400F and beats the core i3-9100 with over a margin of 20% in threaded productivity work.

The best thing about AMD processors is that they come bundled with the Wraith Stealth cooler and unlocked multipliers which enable overclocking on almost all AM4 chipsets (with an exception for A329). However, you will have to equip a beefier cooling solution if you’re planning on overclocking this little monster. The four cores and eight threads offered by this CPU are sufficient enough for handling decent workloads. However, if you’re looking for intense multithreaded performance, you should invest in a better CPU with better counts, something like a six-core and 12-threaded Ryzen 5 3600. But if gaming is your only interest, pairing the 3300X with a capable GPU will drive the performance you deserve.

MSI MPG X570 GAMING PLUS – Motherboard

This is the cheapest yet the best in the X570 lineup offering most features that the costlier options offer. It feels like this motherboard is designed especially keeping the AMD Ryzen 3000 series CPUs in mind. Speaking of aesthetics, the entire board is built on a black and red theme. A cooling fan can be seen on the X570 chip with a fairly large heatsink to ensure optimal performance. The processor is powered through the 8-pin and 4-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs present on the motherboard. There is an 8+2 VRM design equipped with an IR35201 PWM controller.

The MSI MPG X570 can accommodate a total of 128 GB of memory across its four DDR4-4400 DIMM slots. Coming to the PCIe support, it has two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that can operate at x16, and x16/x4, with an additional three PCIe 4.0 x1 slots. In addition to this, there are two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, with one of the slots coming with a heatsink. The device also boasts 4x SATA 6Gb/s ports(SATA3-SATA6). On the rear panel, you get to see one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.1 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports.

It comes equipped with the Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec providing five 3.5 mm audio jacks and an S/PDIF optical output while the Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit NIC controls the single Ethernet port. However, the MSI MPG X570 being the entry-level model to the X570 chipset family, the board comes with a few bummers to cut down on the cost. The first being the absence of integrated RGB and the second is with its power delivery. Though the power delivery is adequate for normal usage, you might face a hard time especially if you plan to overclock the processor to its limits.

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5. AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 4-core + ASRock B450 Steel Legend Socket AM4 ATX Motherboard – Best budget gaming motherboard CPU combo

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G – Processor

Unlike Intel, most AMD CPUs do not come bundled with integrated graphics. However, AMD might have felt the heat from Intel to develop a gaming CPU with graphics integrated and you know the outcome. The AMD Ryzen 5 3400G comes paired with AMD’s RX Vega integrated graphics engine which lets the 3400G stand a chance to enroll itself in the best gaming CPUs list. It comes with four cores and eight threads and offers a base clock frequency of 3.7 GHz which can be boosted up to 4.2 GHz.

The chip has a TDP of 65W and comes with a wraith spire cooling system. It comes with a built-in AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 GPU with 11 graphics cores of its own running at up to a 1,400MHz clock speed. Compared to the Intel’s UHD Graphics 630 found in most of its mainstream CPUs, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 is way ahead in terms of performance. The chip offers 6 MB of combined L2 and L3 cache and is built on a 12nm microarchitecture.

Like any other third-generation chips, the AMD Ryzen 5 3400G also comes with a wraith cooler which is adequate for cooling the CPU. If you are thinking of building an entry-level PC, the motherboard isn’t a weigh down as the Ryzen 3400G is compatible with most motherboards with the AM4 socket. The AMD’s third-gen CPUs are backward compatible. That means you can technically use an existing CPU with an AM4 socket without having to upgrade to a new one. However, you may have to upgrade the BIOS manually. AMD also offers the free Ryzen Master which is a software that helps to have granular control over clock-speeds, memory profiles, and even overclocking. However, if gaming isn’t your concern, the Core i3-9100 seems more promising than the 3400G for running everyday applications. But its integrated graphics don’t even come near to that of AMD’s, making it useless for gaming.

ASRock B450 Steel Legend Socket AM4 ATX – Motherboard

The ASRock B450 Steel Legend is an ideal choice for those who are looking for an economical yet aesthetically pleasing motherboard that features the Ryzen AM4 socket. Do not let your opinion on this motherboard shrink specifically looking at the price tag at which this is being offered. It has every feature that a modern motherboard has to offer. Talking about the connectivity, it has an ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3x4), a SATA M.2 slot, and four SATA 3 ports. There are two USB 3.1 Gen2 on the rear I/O plate (Type A and C) and six total USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, two via internal headers and four on the back I/O. It has a Realtek ALC892 chip that can deliver 7.1 audio. However, most expensive boards come with the ALC1220 which is way more capable.

The build quality is top-notch for a budget motherboard with gold plated audio jacks and steel slot protection on the PCIe slots ensures durability and prevents the PCIe slots from damage while equipping heavy graphics cards. As a measure of safety, all USB, audio, and the LAN ports are guarded with ASRock Full Spike Protection. It also features an HDMI and a DisplayPort for use with any AMD AM4 APU that comes with embedded Radeon/Vega graphics.

Speaking of aesthetics, the ASRock B450 Steel Legend Socket AM4 has stunning looks that match with most themes. It comes in black, white, and grey digital camouflage-style patterns, stainless steel looking finish on the heat sinks, and LED lighting on the board around the chipset heat sink. The LEDs can be controlled using the ASRock RGB PolyChrome LED software. It offers a 6 phase VRM, which isn’t great. ASRock could have thought of incorporating at least a 9 phase like it did on its B450M Pro4. Because of the low power potential, overclocking can be a challenge.

How to Choose Good Motherboard CPU Combo 2020 – Buying Guide

Motherboard CPU Combo – FAQs