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The 3000XT series of CPUs isn’t much of an improvement over the regular models. They offer about a five percent increase in performance thanks to higher clocks. The 3600XT is the cheapest of the bunch, and thanks to its excellent power efficiency, you can use it on most AM4 motherboards. If your interests go beyond AM4 boards, check out our motherboards section and find out a ton of informative articles on motherboards.
With the arrival of the B550 chipset, B450 boards are trickier to find than ever, and X570 boards aren’t keeping the same value they had before. This makes finding the best motherboard for Ryzen 3600 XT as hard as ever. With three chipsets to choose from, it’s hard to recommend just a handful of boards. But this is exactly what we’re doing today. Let’s check out the best motherboards for Ryzen 5 3600XT.
Before we list our pick for the best budget 3600XT motherboard, take a couple of minutes and visit our list of the best air coolers for Ryzen CPUs and find out the best coolers to use with the 3600 XT. If you like water more than the air, we have a guide for the best 240mm AIO liquid coolers you can read.
MSI B450 Tomahawk Max: Best budget motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600XT
The MSI B450 Tomahawk Max still is the best budget board for the Ryzen 5 3600XT. This board has it all, and while its B550 successor offers improved VRM and PCIe 4.0 support, it’s also noticeably more expensive. The B450 Tomahawk, on the other hand, offers a solid suite of features along with pretty good VRM for an amazing price.
If you can find this board at its regular price, you should get it. It will have no issues running the Ryzen 5 3600XT, and it costs much lower than even the cheapest B550 motherboards. For the money, you get support for up to 4133MHz DDR4 memory along with one M.2 slot and six SATA III ports.
There are two PCIe x16 slots, out of which one works at full x16 while the other works at x4. The board also includes three PCIe x1 ports. The rear hides a solid selection of USB 3.2 ports along with a couple of USB 2.0 ports, audio jacks, and one gigabit LAN port. Oh, and you also get the BIOS Flashback button.
Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC: Best mid-range motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600XT
The mid-range price point contains a lot of interesting choices. Most of the newly released B550 boards sell at this price point, and those offer a pretty solid bang for the back. This is why we placed the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC as the best mid-range board for the Ryzen 5 3600XT.
The board costs the same as the X570 Aorus Pro but offers better VRM. It also supports faster memory (up to 5200 MT/s DDR4) and comes with two M.2 slots, out of which only one is PCIe 4.0. You get three PCIe 4.0 x16 slots. Out of those three, two are PCIe 3.0 slots that work at x4 speed, with only one being PCIe 4.0 and working at x16 speed. There are also two PCIe x1 slots.
The board includes six SATA III ports and offers 2.5Gb LAN, which is an improvement over the X570 model. There’s also a Wi-Fi 6 chip that includes Bluetooth 5.0. On the rear, you have six USB 3.2 and six USB 2.0 ports, along with a selection of audio jacks and a BIOS Flashback button. Design is signature Aorus; orange, dark grey, and black, with the board looking great.
Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master: Best high-end motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600XT
By high-end, we don’t mean ultra-expensive boards such as the MSI MEG X570 Godlike. If you want to pair a board that expensive with the Ryzen 5 3600XT, get a better CPU or think again about what you’re doing. Our pick for the best high-end 3600 XT motherboard is the B550 Aorus Master.
The board supports fast memory – DDR4 5200 MT/s – and comes with three M.2 slots. Expansion slots include three PCIe x16 slots. The primary slot works in x16 mode, while the two secondary slots work at x4 speed.
The B550 Aorus master features a top-notch VRM. The board also includes an excellent audio section along with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 connectivity options. You also get a 2.5Gb LAN port.
You get lots of USB 3.2 ports on this model, along with a bunch of USB 2.0 ports, if you need those. When it comes to OC-friendly features, you get BIOS flashback, POST code, and debug LEDs along with a Clear CMOS button on the rear panel.
Visually the B550 Aorus Master is a very attractive motherboard. It’s got huge heatsinks combined with M.2 slot heatsinks and Lots of RGB. The VRM cooling solution is also top-notch. If you want an RGB case to accompany this beautiful board check out our list of the best RGB PC cases.
MSI MAG B550M Mortar WiFi: Best mATX motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600XT
Up until the B550 chipset, the mATX market for Ryzen CPUs was horrendous. You either had boards with solid VRMs and weak feature sets, such as the MSI B450M Gaming Plus. On the other hand, we’d had a solid board with a not-so-good VRM, such as the ASRock X570M Pro4. But now we have the MSI MAG B550M Mortar WiFi, which is the best Micro ATX board for the Ryzen 5 3600 XT.
This board has an excellent VRM unit that can tackle any Ryzen CPU, even when overclocked. Further, this board offers a lot for the money. It comes with support for 4400 MT/s DDR4 memory, and it has two M.2 slots. Just one of those two M.2 slots is PCIe 4.0 compatible, but you get two M.2 slots on an mATX board, which is always nice to see.
You also get six SATA III ports and two PCIe x16 ports. Just one of those two is a PCIe 4.0. The second PCIe x16 slot is a regular PCIe 3.0 slot that works in x4 mode. There are also two PCIe x1 slots, which is another great feature to find on an mATX board.
MSI B550m Mortar Wi-Fi comes with a Wi-Fi 6 card, Bluetooth 5, and a solid audio section. It isn’t as good as those found on mid-range and high-end boards we’ve recommended, but it’s okay for most users. Finally, the rear panel hides four USB 3.2 ports, a 2.5Gb LAN port, and a suite of audio jacks.
MSI MPG B550I Gaming Edge WiFi: Best Mini-ITX motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600XT
With the release of the B550 chipset, we’ve finally been granted a nice lineup of Mini-ITX boards. The models from Gigabyte, ASUS, and MSI are very similar when it comes to specs and VRM. But since there can be only one best Mini-ITX motherboard for the 3600 XT, we chose the MSI B550I Gaming Edge.
The board has an amazing VRM as long as Mini-ITX motherboards go. It also comes with dual M.2 slots, four SATA III ports, and support for ultra-fast DDR4 memory – up to 4600 MT/s.
You’ve got Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, and 2.5Gb LAN ports, as well as a nice assortment of ports available on rear panels. To be more precise, the B550I Gaming Edge features two 10Gbps USB ports (one is USB-C), two 5Gbps ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. Overall, this is a tiny yet powerful board that is a perfect match for the 3600 XT.
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