MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX Motherboard 'mATX, AM4, DDR4, LAN, USB 3.2 Gen1, M.2, VGA, DVI-D, HDMI, AMD RYZEN 1st, 2nd and 3rd Gen Ready'

My teenage sons first pc build needed to be simple, reliable & powerful enough to handle his (xbox series x comparable) gaming and digital art.This MSI am4 board paired nicely with a Ryzen 5 cpu, an MSI Radeon 8gb gpu & an MSI 600W bronze psu. Yes it's basically an MSI pc... That though is advanta as everything fits together perfectly.Note it only has 2 ram slots but the 8gb x 2 Kingston Fury Beast my son installed are plenty to start with.The board is simple and square with mounting points in all the right places.It has an m.2 ssd port which my son used with a 256gb ssd & paired it with a 1tb 2.5 sata.It is fast and smooth for most games. Yes there are better, more expen ones of course, but for a total cost of around €500 all in it's a good starter build that he is very happy with!Remember to buy an am4 cpu cooler!

CaseiONZ KZ-32V PC Gaming/Office Case - Mini Tower Micro ATXNice cheap Case well made,No cable management as such but easy to tuck any cables to the right.2 x ssd/hdd mounting (from below)MotherboardMSI A520M-A PRO Motherboard mATX - Supports AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen Processors, AM4, DDR4 Cheapest motherboard but works really well for my needs. SSD and m.2MemoryCorsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 3600MHz CL18 AMD Ryzen Computer MemoryProcessorAMD Ryzen 5 5500GT Retail Wraith Stealth - (AM4/6 Core/3.6GHz/19MB/65W/Radeon)Cheap Killer ProcessorAdditional Hardware neededI had an old PSU but Corsair CV550, CV Series, 80 PLUS Bronze Certified, 550 Watt Non-Modular Power Supply Would work wellA SSD such as Crucial BX500 SATA SSD 480GB, 2.5" Internal SSD, Up to 540MB/s, Solid State Drive - CT480BX500SSD1M.2 This one works well Fanxiang M.2 SSD - 512GB SSD PCIe Gen3x4 2280, Up To 3500MB/s, NVMe SSD with Graphene Cooling Sticker, 3D NAND TLC,

I had to watch a YouTube video on how the processor went in. The processor only fits one way but I had to be sure. The instructions for this weren't very clear. The pins for the power cable, reset switch were in an awkward place for my build.All in all it works fine and I updated the firmware using a USB stick. It was easy through the bios but took some hunting on the website. Remember to enter the exact model number as some are very similar.

This is a decent little mobo, and will get you on the AM5 platform at a fraction of the cost of its bigger brothers, of course at this price point there are some compromises, only one full size PCIe port, only 2 ram slots, no onboard Wi-Fi (despite the amazon listing saying otherwise) there is also the bare minimum of fan headers, and no usb type c support, so you are probably thinking why 5stars with all these shortcomings? The simple answer is value for money, this motherboard is literally half the price of its cheapest full size equivalent, and you can get round many of these issues, as it’s AM5 you will be installing 32gb of ram anyway which will be plenty for the majority of users, USB wifi adapters as cheap as chips, and give pretty good speeds, a lot of modern cases have fan headers built in, so you can get along with this cut down spec if you plan carefully. If this sounds like too much of a sacrifice then you will probably be better of going for a more fully featured motherboard, but for the budget conscious gamer you can absolutely get away with this board.

Bought as part of my budget friendly PC build. Was my first time building my own computer. Found it incredibly simple with the motherboard clearly labelled as it is. Has multiple USB ports, all of which work. Looks good in my case. Can’t complain at all about the quality as my PC is up and running without a fault. Have run system checks and all components are running smoothly and staying cool. Would recommend to anyone trying build a custom PC on a budget

This is a great motherboard for if you want to get into the market for the ryzen CPU's.When I purchased this board it was already updated so there was no need to try and flash the BIOS to the latest version which saved me a lot of headaches and the like.But if your board does require for you to flash it does come with the option to flash it with only a USB which means that you will not need a previous generation ryzen chip to be able to flash it.(if that doesn't work I think AMD is still lending CPU's so you can flash it)Everything on the board was clearly labeled and was easy to use to I was able to get my rig up and running very relative ease, although I did have some issue with my PCI wifi adapter not staying in the slot. this was for testing before I finally screwed it all down so shouldn't be an issue or deal breaker. The placement of all other ports such as fan headers or usb headers were all placed in ergonomic locations so cable management was easy enough though your results may vary.The I/O was more than enough as it came with4 USB 3.2 slots;2 USB 2.0 slots;Audio in and out jacksGigabit lan portThese were all I needed as I dont have too many peripherals that I use with my pc anyway.I would definetely recommend this board if your pockets aren't all that deep but you still want a reliable product.