Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards
by Gavin Bonshor on July 31, 2018 8:00 AM ESTASRock B450 Pro4 and B450M Pro4
The ASRock Professional series drop the gaming-themed stylings the gaming range, with both the B450 Pro4 and B450M Pro4 featuring a subtler black PCB, with a grey contrasting pattern printed on. The Pro4 models are aimed at professional users looking for a solid foundation to build a system without sacrificing quality, but without encumbering budget away on unnecessary componentry and features.
While the primary difference between the B450 Pro4 and B450M Pro4 is form factor, the larger and ATX sized Pro4 model has a full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, a secondary full-length PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and a total of four PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. The smaller B450M Pro4 is of the microATX standard, but also features two full-length slots with the top slot operating at PCIe 3.0 x16 and the bottom one running at PCIe 2.0 x4; a single PCIe 2.0 x1 slot is also present. The similarities don’t just stretch to design, but they look to share identical power deliveries with a 9-phase offering running in a 6+3 configuration; even the power delivery heatsinks are identical, with the chipset heatsink on the B450M Pro4 model being smaller due to size constraints.
Both B450/B450M Pro4 motherboards have a total of four DRAM slots with a supported capacity of up to 64 GB of system memory. Support for up to DDR4-3200 is featured with both models offering support for ECC and non-ECC unbuffered DDR4 memory.
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Storage wise, the ATX sized B450 Pro4 has a total of six SATA 6 Gbps ports offering support for RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays; the smaller microATX B450M Pro4 has a total of four SATA 6 Gbps. The Pro4 pairing also feature two M.2 slots each with the best slot operating at PCIe 3.0 x4, while the second M.2 slot on the ATX B450 Pro4 has support for both SATA and PCIe 3.0 x2 drives. Due to space constraints on the microATX B450M Pro4, the second M.2 slot is located on the rear of the PCB and only supports SATA 6 Gbps SSDs; this slot shares bandwidth with the SATA port number 3 meaning only one can be used at any one time.
On the rear panels. Both the B450 Pro4 and B450M Pro4 share near identical connections with the biggest difference being that the B450 Pro4 has a DisplayPort 1.2 video output, while the B450M Pro4 has a DVI-D instead. Both models feature a single HDMI port and a legacy D-sub output. On the rear panel for both are a single USB 3.1 10 Gbps Type-A port, a single USB 3.1 10 Gbps Type-C port, four USB 3.1 5 Gbps Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 combo port, a single LAN port powered by a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit controller and three 3.5mm audio jacks which are controlled by a Realtek ALC892 audio codec.
Both B450 and the B450M Pro4 are designed for professional and regular system users, although gaming on either model wouldn’t have any detrimental effect on performance other than the lack of RGB lighting which seems to be the most popular feature on gaming branded boards. The B450 Pro4 is set to retail for around $89.99, with the microATX sized B450M Pro4 coming in at a slightly cheaper $79.99.
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bi0logic - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
It looks like the price link to the "TUF B450-Plus Gaming" is going to an amazon search for "ASRock B450M Pro4"eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Thanks Gavin, I know this is a lot of information to go through and present. I would love to see a follow-up on these questions:1. Especially for these compact boards, any problems with stock processor heat sinks blocking DIMM slots, i.e. do DIMMs with heat spreaders still fit with a Wraith or Spire cooler, respectively?
2. I have my eye on the Aorus Pro WiFi or something similar, but am wary of the placement of the WiFi antenna connectors right next to two of the USB 3 connectors. I frequently use 3-4 USB 3 devices at the same time frequently, and am wary of the USB 3 - WiFi interference with that placement. Any chance Gigabyte could state if/that they got that taken care of?
Thanks!
Also, still looking forward to your Ryzen 2200/2400 GPU overclock chapter on that duo. Any chance we'll see it soon?
sonofgodfrey - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Second to last table is labeled X470 Motherboards.PingSpike - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
It looks like the ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING inherits some of the layout features of the (much more expensive) x470 Crosshair 7 in that it steals some of the CPU lanes to get a second full PCI-e 3.0 M.2 slot. Then 8x goes to PCI-e 16 1, the remaining 4x to PCI-e 16 2 and finally a chipset PCI-e 2.0On the surface, this seems like it has totally ignored the bifrucation limitations that supposedly are inherent to the B450 chipset.
In other words, I thought you couldn't get that on this chipset.
Dragonstongue - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
well at least the pricing is "more inline" with the pricing they should be, newer boards, better componentes that actually save the maker a bit of coin per board made, so they keep the same "launch price" is acceptable in my books coming from gen 1 (I so hate the naming AMD used for Ryzen 1xxx and 2xxx needless confusion for nothing)x3xx to x4xx same concept, reduced price to produce so they save some money, but the vast majority of vendors used these "savings" to cram more disco light show RGB on the boards to jack the price up some instead.
seems at least with the B4xx boards the vendors took a "better" approach beyond a few more "premium" boards which rightfully have an increased price (justifiable, maybe, but I myself have zero need of RGB and would only buy a more expensive board that offered them at the increased price if they were WORTH it as far as just overall better then lower cost boards, sadly, there seems to be little difference in more "premium" beyond a butt load of extra RGB little better in VRM etc which are much more useful and required IMO)
they could almost have a market for the premium boards RGB free, so pay a bit less for people like me who do not want all the RGB crud but still get the increased premium sound/VRM/BIOS etc ^.^
WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
Nice review. Good work.Im amazed that almost every comment is a nitpick. Rough life, Ian.
Flappergast - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
Nice overview on the last page. I’m looking for mITX WiFi - nice to see some good boardsSakkura - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
As documented by Buildzoid, the Asrock B450 Pro4 does not have the claimed 6+3-phase VRM. It is a pure 3+3-phase. Same probably applies for the B450M Pro4.https://youtu.be/yWAwOH-egFs?t=2104
JohanPirlouit - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
Hi everyone,Am I the only one to see that on the AMD picture:
- CPU: 2x SATA 3Gbps
- Chipset: 6x SATA 3Gbps
What do AMD talks about: SATA "3" (known as "6Gbps") or SATA 3Gbps (aka SATA II)?
Sakkura - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
They mean SATA3 = SATA 6Gbps. Annoying that we keep running into these easily confused naming schemes (see also: USB 3.1 Gen1 and Gen2). At least SATA is getting old enough that we should soon be able to just drop the version number (unlike USB 2.0 there's really no reason to make modern hardware with SATA2).