B850 vs B840: Which chipset should you choose?

The arrival of more affordable motherboards from AMD is likely to raise several questions when it comes to choosing a new configuration. We have already compared the X870E/X870 chipset, so check that out if you're chipset-agnostic.

Let's now compare the B850 and B840 chipsets to see the differences on paper.

The first thing to note is the loss of PCIe 5.0 support for the GPU on both chipsets, which could be a limitation when using a high-end GPU, but this choice is understandable as this chipset is not intended for the largest configurations. For example, you wouldn't want to use a 50-Series GPU with this chipsets as while it would work, the performance would be diminished as these cards use the PCIe 5.0 standard.

In terms of storage, the two chipsets will differ: the B850 will retain support for 4 PCIe 5.0 lanes, while the B840 will only support 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes. However, in current use, this difference is barely noticeable, but it could be a limitation in the future as Direct Storage technology becomes more widespread.

The B840 is aimed at office configurations with only 4 native USB ports: 2 USB 5Gbps and 2 USB 10Gbps. Whereas the B850 could be a very good partner for affordable gaming configurations with a total of 8 USB ports, including one USB 20Gbps, 6 USB 10Gbps and 1 USB 5Gbps for the rest. USB 4 support remains optional and requires the addition of an extra chip.

To complete the relegation of the B840 to desktop configurations, it loses support for CPU overclocking, so if you're a really keen PC enthusiast, the B840 is to be avoided.

The B840 is therefore the successor to the A620 chipset, that will make a great chipset for any office PC user who needs a powerful CPU and DDR5 RAM, but who doesn't need the latest GPUs or the capability to overclock

The B850 takes the place of the B650 chipset by adding native PCIe 5.0 support for NVME drives, which is critical if you need the fastest possible storage.