The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTASUS TUF Gaming B550-Plus
In days of old, ASUS’ TUF ‘The Ultimate Force’ motherboards were a byword for rigidity, offering five years warranty over the standard three, and the more premium models were built with full scale motherboard armor and dust covers to survive harsh environments. In recent generations, the TUF brand has been whittled down to a logo and some yellow stripes, and sits below the Strix brand, which itself used to be the budget brand.
For the TUF Gaming B550-Plus, we get an above average motherboard on the specifications. The power delivery heatsink is spread across two sides of the socket, but there isn’t really a rear IO cover of sorts. There is a single 8-pin power socket at the top, and these is where the aesthetic starts – a series of grey lines going from one corner of the motherboard PCB to the other, with some hellow thrown in for TUF.
The socket area has access to four 4-pin fan headers, two above and two below the socket. There are four DRAM slots in alternating colors, each with single side latches despite the first PCIe slot being quite a distance away. On the right hand side of the board there is an RGB header, a 24-pin ATX connector, a USB 3.0 header, and six SATA ports.
For the PCIe area, we start with the PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, which doesn’t have a heatsink (presumably so users can have their own). Underneath is the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot from the CPU. The other full length slot is a PCIe 3.0 x4 from the chipset, which is just above the PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot from the chipset as well. The chipset heatsink isn’t anything substantial, but certainly enough for the job.
At the bottom of the board we have the audio subsystem (S1200A without additional amps), a Thunderbolt header, a COM port, RGB headers, a Clear CMOS header, a thermocouple header, two 4-pin fan headers, and two USB 2.0 headers.
On the rear panel we have a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, a USB Flashback button, a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port (Realtek RTL8125B), four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a DisplayPort, a HDMI port, two USB 2.0 ports, and the audio jacks.
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kerwyn - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
The second M.2 slot for the Aorus Elite seems to support PCIE3.0x2 instead of x4 stated in the review unless I read wrong. Could anyone else confirm? This is the swaying factor for me to lean towards the Mortar. Specs from Gigabyte website below:Storage Interface
1 x M.2 connector (M2A_CPU), integrated in the CPU, supporting Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SSDs:
3rd Generation AMD Ryzen™ processors support SATA and PCIe 4.0 x4/x2 SSDs
3rd Generation AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Graphics processors support SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4/x2 SSDs
1 x M.2 connector (M2B_SB), integrated in the Chipset, supporting Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SSDs:
Supporting SATA and PCIe 3.0 x2 SSDs
sd7832kjd3bcds - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Almost all of the boards include PS/2 connector. Why they put it in 2020? They stopped making PS/2 devices 15 years ago. Better would be to have an empty space there.Ethos Evoss - Sunday, July 5, 2020 - link
I ordered this then I quickly cancelled and ordered B550I AORUS PRO AXQuestor - Sunday, July 12, 2020 - link
"One of the main complaints about the AMD X570 motherboard line was the wide variation in pricing."This can't be said of Intel based motherboards? Yes it can and accurately so. What is the point with this pointless statement?
Cards_ - Sunday, July 26, 2020 - link
Does the WiFi module connect to any WiFi Network, or is it only ASUS Networks if so would I need to buy a WiFi adapter?CamoGeko - Sunday, August 30, 2020 - link
Hey, so is there any cheaper alternative to the Aorus 550M Pro with similar or better feature set? I'm in the middle of building a Ryzen system with 3300X and motherboard is the last thing I need to decide on. Other mATX at the same price or cheaper just don't look as good as the B550M Aorus Pro.Iqbalusamah - Sunday, October 25, 2020 - link
I need help..the mob manual says the m.2 slot for the chipset suport sata n pcie 3.0x2..but this review says it suport pci3.0x4..i bought a samsung 970 evo with a pcie 3.0x4..can it be used in the slotIqbalusamah - Sunday, October 25, 2020 - link
Help me..i cant understand which one is true..the 2nd m.2 slot for chipset runs at pci3.0x4 or pcie 3.0x2(mob manual).and can a pcie3.0x4 be used in the slotZwirley - Sunday, July 18, 2021 - link
Question, is this board capable of overclocking and does it have a good power phase design? I was wondering because I want to build an all-white system but then came across another concern of this motherboard and that is if this supports BIOS Flashback feature so that I don't have to go out of my way to purchase an older gen CPU for it to support my 5900xcharlesa365 - Tuesday, August 3, 2021 - link
My personal computer running Debian has had four GIGABYTE B550 Vision D motherboards. The first and fourth had NIC initialisation on power up problems. The second one's NICs died after ~6 months. The third did not show voltage/temperature values properly. GIGABYTE warranty agents wrote "We do not give support to Debian OS".