Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards
by Gavin Bonshor on July 31, 2018 8:00 AM ESTMSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
The MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC sits as MSI’s premier and flagship B450 chipset motherboard and has a strong focus on gaming but moves away from the conventional MSI Gaming red and black theme. The B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC also uses a variety of premium controllers and chips including the Realtek ALC1220 audio codec, an Intel 9260 dual-band 802.11ac 2T2R Wi-Fi adapter and an Intel I211-AT Gigabit LAN networking chip.
As mentioned, the B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC moves away from the traditional gaming theme usually seen from MSI, and instead the carbon namesake features an all-black PCB with the bottom left quadrant having a grey lined pattern rising towards the heatsinks and passed the PCIe slots. Both the power delivery and chipset heatsink have a definitive carbon themed styling which blends in with the rest of the board to create a stylish look. The board also has two dedicated RGB zones with the first emanating from the right and side behind the 24-pin ATX power connector, with the second coming from the chipset heatsink. To expand on this, MSI has included a total of three RGB headers with two having support for 5050 RGB LED strips with a maximum power of 12 V, and the last supporting addressable RGB strips up to a power of 5 V.
The board conforms to the standard ATX form factor and has a full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, a full-length PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and three PCIe 2.0 1x slots. The B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC has a total of four memory slots supporting up to DDR4-3466 with a total of 64 GB system memory supported. A total of six SATA right angled ports and two M.2 slots with one offering PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA support, and the other allowing for just PCIe 2.0 x4 supported drives.
On the rear panel, the B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC has one USB 3.1 10 Gbps Type-C, one USB 3.1 10 Gbps Type-A, two USB 3.1 5 Gbps Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports. Delivering audio through the six 3.5mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output is the Realtek ALC1220 audio codec, with the single LAN port taking direction from an Intel I211-AT Gigabit chip and the Wi-Fi featuring Wave 2 2T2R capability due to the Intel 9260 Wi-Fi module. Finishing off the rear panel is a clear CMOS switch and a P/S2 keyboard and mouse combo port.
While none of the pricing on MSI B450 models has been announced prior to launch, the B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC is expected to retail for around $149.99.
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theanalyzer - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Signed up to point that out. Needs to be fixed. It’s the only ITX board supporting 2x which sets it’s apart form the competitionDeath666Angel - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Glad to see more options in the mATX range with two M.2 slots, not just from AsRock this time around. My next rig will either be based on the AsRock B450M Pro4 or one of the MSI B450M Mortar boards. Will wait for actual VRM setup and overclocking results / general tests to see which one will be it. I had motherboards from both manufacturers and was pleased with both. MSI has the advantage of offering PCIe M.2 options for both slots as well as SATA. One question regarding that: if I install a 3.0 PCIe x2 M.2 SSD into a 2.0 PCIe x4 slot, what will be the speed ramifications? Can it only use 2.0 PCIe x2 or can it use the full x4, thus being similar in speed to a native 3.0 PCIe x2 setup? :) Still waiting on mATX x470 mainboards.Outlander_04 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
.3.0 x 2 is the same speed as 2.0 x 4DanNeely - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Except that a 3.0 x2 drive is almost certainly x2 because it only has 2 PCIe lanes (cutting down on them is one of the ways the cheaper drives pinch pennies), which means it will be connected at 2.0 x2; at that point you might as well just use a SATA drive and save a bit more money.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Thanks for providing an answer to my actual question. :)AdrianB1 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
You will get a 2 lane PCIe 2.0 connection, that means 1 GB/s. This is 1/4 of a PCIe 3.0 4-lane usual NVME drive, but real life you may get closer to 80% of the performance.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Thanks!Outlander_04 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Finally some budget boards with solid VRMs.skpetic - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
There are some seriously shady stuff going on with VRMS om X470 og B450. Check out Buildzoid on youtube. Asus B450 STRIX ITX board is single phase for SoC. Several of the Gigabyte B450 and X470 boards in reality have half the advertised amount of phases or are using doublers:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IjWCOXSuKU
meacupla - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
hahaha... noAsus with the absolute trash tier VRM heatsinks
AsRock with fake phases
Gigabyte with fake phases and trash VRM heatsinks
MSI with no Vcore offset