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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sh009vf5ik1a - Saturday, January 18, 2020 - link
Heads up on the Gigabyte B450 DS3H...This article pretty clearly states ECC memory is supported on this board, and so does Gigabyte's product page, however it fails to mention that 'supported' means just boot support. The actual Error Checking and Correction features are missing and unable to be leveraged.
I purchased this board purely based on this article for the sole reason of having a cheap ECC setup. Combined it with a Ryzen 2600 and Unbuffered Kingston ECC memory, and found that its impossible to get ECC working.
The system boots and works, but you do not get ECC functionality.
chrcoluk - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
I read on reddit someone wrongfully stated the 2nd 16x slot is only pci gen 2. I wondered how they got this info, I then came across this review, which also states the 2nd 16x slow is gen 2.According to the manual both slots are gen 3 and both are hooked to the cpu.
I have confirmed this as I now use an asmedia 1604 sata card, on post it reports what pci-e mode its in, if I use any of the x1 slots it reports gen 2 x1, if I use either of the x16 slots it reports gen 3 x1 (its limited to one lane). I actually have even moved the gpu to the second x16 slot as its easier to plug in cables to the sata card when its in a higher slot and even gpuz reports the gpu is on pcie gen 3.
Whats the lesson? read the manual, test and dont take what a media rep tells you for gospel ;)