Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards
by Gavin Bonshor on July 31, 2018 8:00 AM ESTMSI B450-A Pro
MSI’s Pro series of motherboards are designed with professionals in mind, without sacrificing in performance, quality and offers a blend of modest and classic aesthetics. MSI has announced three Pro series boards for the AMD B450 chipset launch, the ATX sized B450-A Pro and a pair of microATX options, the B450M Pro-M2 and B450M Pro-VDH.
Starting with the MSI B450-A Pro motherboard, the design is pretty simplistic with plenty of PCIe connectivity available. MSI markets this particular model as being optimized and suitable for cryptocurrency mining and has a full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, a full-length PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and a total of four PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. Up to DDR4-3466 memory is supported with a supported maximum of up to 64 GB can be installed across the four RAM slots. Both the use of non-ECC and ECC memory is permitted, although installed ECC memory will operate in non-ECC mode.
The B450-A Pro has a total of six SATA 6 Gbps which support RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays. A single M.2 slot is present with support for drives up to M.2 22110 (22 x 110 mm) and has support for both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA capable devices; using this slot disables two SATA ports.
Stylistically, the B450-A Pro has a black PCB with dark grey metallic heatsinks across the power delivery and chipset. The board looks to be running a 6-phase power delivery running in a 4+2 configuration. A single 8-pin ATX 12 V CPU input and 24-pin ATX motherboard input are there to provide power to the board.
On the rear panel the B450-A Pro has two USB 3.1 10 Gbps Type-A ports, two USB 3.1 5 Gbps Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports. Also featured is a BIOS Flashback+ button, with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse port. Natively supporting the Ryzen APUs, the board makes use of a single HDMI 1.4 port, a DisplayPort and a legacy VGA port. The RJ45 LAN port is powered by a Realtek 8111H Gigabit controller and the six 3.5mm audio jacks take orders from the Realtek ALC892 audio codec.
With MSI focusing on a mixture of subtle aesthetics, good quality componentry and with cryptocurrency mining support, there isn’t a lot of bells and whistles when compared to the Gaming Series models, but what is on offer is more than enough for professional users. The MSI B450-A Pro is expected retail for $89.99 which makes this one of the most cost-effective full-sized ATX models without Gaming branding and fancy gaming themed software factored in.
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tonecas1 - Tuesday, October 30, 2018 - link
Asus Prime 450M-K has only 4 Sata ports, audio is Realtek’s ALC887 only, and memory support goes to 3466 (OC)tonecas1 - Tuesday, October 30, 2018 - link
Asus Prime 450M-K has 2 PCIe 2.0x1 and 1 PCIe 3.0 x16 by CPU supporttonecas1 - Tuesday, October 30, 2018 - link
MSI B450M Pro-M2 only supports 2x DIMM slotstonecas1 - Wednesday, October 31, 2018 - link
ASRock B450M Pro4 is not a 6+3 power system but a 3+3. You have to remove the heat sink to see the MOSFET Hi and Lo combos and IC controlersQuarterPunder - Tuesday, March 5, 2019 - link
So if i buy this motherboard do i still need to buy a wifi card/Bluetooth receptor???msroadkill612 - Wednesday, March 20, 2019 - link
"Strix B450-F Gaming ..... Also present is a duo of M.2 slots with both having support for PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 drives, while the top slot which supports both PCIe and SATA drives up to a size of M.2 2280 (22 x 80 mm), the bottom slot only supports PCIe 3.0 x4 drives with a sizing up to M.2 22110 (22 x 110 mm)."ALARMINGLY WRONG!
Newegg:
"AMD Ryzen 2nd Generation / Ryzen 1st Generation Processors: *
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x4 mode)**
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (PCIE 3.0 x4 mode)***"
msroadkill612 - Wednesday, March 20, 2019 - link
edit - to remove any doubt - in full, the specs are:"AMD Ryzen 2nd Generation / Ryzen 1st Generation Processors: *
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x4 mode)**
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (PCIE 3.0 x4 mode)***
AMD Ryzen with Radeon Vega Graphics Processor: *
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x4 mode)**
* Support StoreMI and NVMe RAID.
** When the M.2_1 Socket 3 is operating in SATA or PCIE mode, SATA6G_5/6 ports will be disabled.
*** When the M.2_2 is occupied by M.2 device, PCIe x16_1 will run at x8 mode."
g0rnex - Sunday, June 23, 2019 - link
I run windows from external SSD so I need fast USB ports for it to run smooth. Can I replace the USB ports by 3.2 gen2 when needed?g0rnex - Sunday, June 23, 2019 - link
I run win10 from an external SSD. for that I need a fast USB connection for windows to run smooth.Would it be possible to change the USB ports in the future? OR even now already by a 3.2 gen2. Or wouldn't replacing the ports speed up my connection with the external SSD?
Also I would like a good bluetooth connection. Do I need to use an adapter?
looking into making this build:
https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/hXzKHx/entry-level-...
GayCock69 - Monday, August 19, 2019 - link
ryzen 3700x + aorus pro wifi b450 + radeon rx5700xt, will it work optimally?