So I decided to use the Ryzen 5 3600 and RX580 I upgraded from a year ago in a homelab build.

I bought this motherboard for the build: MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi

When I built my main PC I just got advice on what to buy and didn’t do a deep dive into motherboard design, hence why I thought the above motherboard would suit my needs. Since getting the motherboard I’ve learned about VRMs and how they dictate the amount of power that can be supplied to the processor and decided this motherboard isn’t sufficient for the Ryzen 5 3600 and what I want to use this homelab for. I want it to run cool and not have anything fail for years to come and may swap in my Ryzen 7 5800X3D, if and when I upgrade that in my main PC.

My plan now is to use this motherboard in an old case as a media PC and buy a processor with integrated graphics for the job.

In the page linked above it has the following:

The MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi has a basic VRM configuration, delivering 50 A across 5 phases. Best for low-power CPUs (≤65 W TDP). Using high-wattage chips or overclocking could cause severe thermal issues and instability. Recommended for budget builds, office workstations, and media PCs.

I’m having trouble determining a good AM4 processor for this budget motherboard given it’s VRM limitations. I’d like it to be able to output 4k video, run a handful of browser tabs, a VPN client, and maybe a torrent client.

Is there an AM4 processor with integrated graphics that fits the bill?

Should I consider getting a processor without integrated graphics and a cheap GPU instead?

Am I overthinking things?

Any advice welcome, cheers.

  • 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒆𝒍@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    5·
    5 days ago

    5700G has Vega8 iGPU, not sure how it’s relevant as in desktop uses every modern iGPU should handle 4k, you might be overthinking indeed, i’d just buy anything that has iGPU

    • el_eh_chase@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      Thanks for the input. I guess putting aside the intended use case, my thinking was getting the best processor the VRM situation would comfortably allow to account for all the unlikely what-if scenarios I might come up with lol. This seems like a case of not letting perfection be the enemy of good enough. Cheers.