I'm an amateur myself and only just recently looked into MBs for my own build, but this is how I picked mine:
¥ Decide for CPU and RAM first, thus already knowing what socket / DDR support / memory support to look for¥ Decide for a specific graphics card (actual full model) and find out its height to keep in mind if it might cover a PCIe slot later and if I would care about that¥ Compare high-end MBs from the usual manufacturers and note down all the ones that meet my minimum criteria (Potential CPU upgrades for the slot; 4x RAM slots that offer acceptable performance if I ever want to use all slots (might lower performance); 1x PCIe 5.0 x16 (full speed for GPU); at least 2 more PCIe slots that don't share bandwidth with my GPU slot and meet the requirements for my other cards, even if they share bandwidth + enough M.2 slots that don't compromise the rest + making sure that everything fits according to my CPU model's maximum usable PCIe lanes (these only apply to the PCIe / M.2 slots that are powered by the CPU and marked "_CPU", the others get taken care of by the chipset); enough SATA slots)
¥ Compare the very few boards that are left and go with the one that has the most extras¥ Now do the exact same thing for mid-range MBs from the usual manufacturers, then compare my final high-end and mid-range pick and decide if the bonuses are worth the extra money to me or not¥ Perhaps repeat the same for budget MBs, though at this point you usually can't even get your minimum requirements met anymore¥ Put everything into PCPartPicker for a rough overview of the complete build, then double-check compatibility for the hardware on the manufacturer sitesI probably overcomplicated this whole post, but maybe the details will help to at least see how certain things interact with each other and what one might want to look out for. Someone more experienced might want to correct any wrong information, that also counts for the following part!
>>4429>>4430>>4431From what I think to be able to tell between these two:
>MASTER¥ For audio, 7.1 channel but no DTS:X® Ultra¥ 1 more RGB Gen2 header¥ Additional TPM support shenanigans¥ 8 USB 3.2 ports in total, but 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports less¥ Slightly less horizontal length¥ 3x PCIe slots (CPU(1): 5.0 x16, Chipset(2): 4.0 x4; 3.0 x4)¥ 4x M.2 slots (CPU(3): 5.0 x4/x2; 5.0 x4/x2; 5.0 x4/x2, Chipset(1): 4.0 x4)You can freely use all 3x PCIe slots with no compromises, but you can only use 2x M.2 slots (1x CPU, 1x Chipset) if you don't want the lanes for your GPU slot to get split in half. Seems fine if you only use one GPU and need to make use of all PCIe slots.
>XTREME AI TOP¥ Marginally higher DDR5 OC (4800 - 8800 MT/s instead of 4400 - 8600 MT/s)¥ For audio, DTS:X® Ultra but no 7.1 channel¥ 2x 10 Gb/s LAN ports instead of 1x 5 Gb/s port¥ 2 more universal fan headers¥ 2 more USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, but only 6 USB 3.2 ports in total¥ 3x PCIe slots (CPU(2): 5.0 x16/x8; 5.0 x8, Chipset(1): 4.0 x2)¥ 4x M.2 slots (CPU(1): 5.0 x4/x2, Chipset(3): 4.0 x4/x2; 4.0 x4/x2; 4.0 x2)You can only use 1x PCIe slot with no compromises: Using the second slot will split the lanes for the first one in half; using the third slot will deactivate the 1x M.2 4.0 x2 slot and vice versa. Seems fine if you want to use two GPUs and only need one additional PCIe slot.
>BothCompared with the maximum stated support for Ryzen 9000 / 7000 CPUs. It seems to say that specific 8000 CPUs not only don't support PCIe 5.0, but will also only run the best slot at x8 or x4 instead of x16. I can't say for sure because I'm not experienced with AMD at all.
You might want to research your CPU model's maximum usable PCIe lanes to check if you're fine with the slots you wanna use. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D seems to have 24, 16 of which will typically be used by the GPU, meaning with that one you'd have 8 more points left to use for the other CPU-powered PCIe slots (you will see that some can run at x4 or x2, so keep that in mind if you're using things like capture cards that you might want to have running at x4).
Make sure the M.2 slots you want to use for your SSDs support them. PCPartPicker makes this easy, but I mention it in case you'd want to use a different slot than what it automatically gives you the go for compatibility for.