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 Prime B550-Plus
The Prime line of motherboards now sits as ASUS’ budget line, as an entry point into the market. The focus of Prime is on a simple polished aesthetic, which is why we’re going to see a good amount of polished metal designs, and in the case of the ASUS Prime B550-Plus, the white lines on the motherboard this time go from top right to bottom left.
It’s good to see we still have multiple power delivery heatsinks here, even if they’re not connected by a heatpipe, but the design across the PCB carries over across the heatsink in order to keep the continuity. The CPU is powered by a single 8-pin to the top left, and the socket has access to four 4-pin headers within easy reach.
The memory slots are again single sided latch designs, despite the main PCIe slot being further way than usual. On the right hand side of the board is a 24-pin ATX power connector, a USB 3.0 header, and six SATA ports.
For the PCIe layout, at the top is the PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, without a heatsink cover. Next is the PCIe 4.0 x16 full-length slot, with additional reinforcement. The board also has a full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot from the chipset, and below the chipset heatsink is a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot, also without a heatsink.
ASUS’ Prime boards use ALC887 audio codecs rather than the S1200A custom ones, but here we get some PCB separation in built in LEDs as well. Along the bottom of the board there is a Thunderbolt header, a COM header, RGB LED headers, a Clear CMOS header, a thermocouple header, two additional 4-pin fan headers, and two USB 2.0 headers.
On the rear panel there is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a gigabit Ethernet port (Realtek RTL8111H), four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a DisplayPort, a HDMI video output, 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".