The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE B550 Aorus Master
With similar sized product stacks to the other major motherboard vendors, GIGABYTE has more than ten B550 models ready for. Some of these cater to B550’s budget which is the chipsets core target market, but some do push the boat out in terms of features and quality. GIGABYTE’s premier B550 model is the B550 Aorus Master, and it has a very premium controller set for what is considered a ‘budget’ platform. Some of the B550 Aorus Master’s standout features include three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller, an Intel Wi-Fi 6 interface, and support for up to DDR4-5200 memory.
The GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Master follows a similar design to previous iterations of its Master series with a black cut black and silver aesthetic, with integrated RGB LED lighting within the rear panel cover. The chipset heatsink includes the Aorus Falcon logo, while the boards power delivery heatsink looks large, which is designed to keep the boards 16-phase configuration cool during operation. The B550 Aorus Master uses fourteen Infineon TDA21472 70 A power stages for the CPU section, with two TDA21472 70 A power stages for the SoC, with an Infineon XDPE132G5C PWM controller.
The Master includes three full-length PCIe slots, with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x16, and two full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slots which is a very interesting design choice. There is also three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots which include their own individual M.2 heatsink, and six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. The board has four memory slots which support up to DDR4-5200 which is higher than any X570 board prior to launch, with a maximum supported capacity of up to 128 GB.
On the rear panel is a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, five USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and six USB 2.0 ports which is stacked for B series model. Included is a single Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 G Ethernet controller, with and two antenna adaptors for the Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 interface which also supports BT 5.0 devices. The board includes a Q-Flash Plus button which allows users to flash the firmware at the click of a button, a single HDMI 2.1 video output, and 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec.
Aside from the PCIe slot layout, looking at the GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Master on paper, it could easily be forgotten that this is a model on what is considered a budget-friendly chipset, or is supposed to be. The B550 Aorus Master is as premium as a motherboard comes with support for three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives, support for up to 128 GB of DDR4-5200, and a premium networking controller pairing that is seen only on mid-range X570 models. With all this comes a large price tag with an MSRP of $280, which is encroaching on mid-range X570 territory.
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Savikid - Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - link
But the new oculus stuff only uses 1 usb port, so that right there is a drop. I use 2 for keyboard and mouse, one for a wireless controller, and one for my HMD.Gigaplex - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
"On that one I added a USB PCI card to get enough ports."That's not really helpful to the user who said they can't add in a card on their mITX system.
eye4bear - Wednesday, July 1, 2020 - link
Must be nice to have no external hard-drives, I have 3 all needing their own USB 3 port, along with a Logitech dongle that runs both my mouse and keyboard, finally a Bluethooth dongle as my computer has none built-in. Yes I would need 6 USB ports (one open for USB sticks) just to keep even.consolessuck - Friday, November 6, 2020 - link
No, I have 3 usb ports on my laptop and i only use 1 for my mouse. As it turns out, the most amount of usb ports i use at once is two when i am making a wired data transfer with my mouse plugged in. Actually, I almost never transfer data to my phone with a wire, instead just sharing them via bluetooth. and considering i never make large data transfers to my phone, this works out just fine. as for a desktop, however, i'd like a minimum of 3 as i'll always have not only a mouse, but a keyboard plugged in all the time.taz-nz - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
The Asrock B550M Steel Legend has 8 port on the back:4x USB-A 3.1 ports
1x USB-A 3.2 port
1x USB-C 3.2 port
2x USB-A 2.0 ports
And you still have two USB 2.0 internal header, plus two USB 3.1 internal headers.
So that allows you to have another
4x USB-A 3.1
4x USB-A 2.0 ports.
so that's 16 Ports
Now if you like me and need Internal USB 3.2 USB-C header, you can use the PCIe 3.0 x2 m.2 slot to add one of these:
https://www.delock.de/produkte/S_63998/merkmale.ht...
or if you want two more USB 3.1 internal header you could add one of these:
https://www.delock.de/produkte/G_62843/merkmale.ht...
So if you can live without a second m.2 slot you have four more USB-A 3.0 ports.
That gives you 20 USB ports without giving up a PCIe slot.
taz-nz - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
oops, just noticed you said mITX not mATXdesii - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Do any of these motherboards support ECC RAM (either buffered or unbuffered)?drSeehas - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Socket AM4 CPUs support only unbuffered RAM.PixyMisa - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I did a quick look on ASRock's site, since they're pretty good on ECC support, and every B550 board I checked lists ECC as supported.Samus - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I think AMD screwed up here with pricing their platforms appropriately. I understand the push for PCIe 4 but they can't have average motherboard prices hovering between $200-$300. There has to be $100 motherboards to be taken seriously especially by OEM's if they want 4000 parts to become mainstream.But maybe they don't...maybe they plan to milk the 3000 parts for a few years. After all, there isn't much reason not too. They have no competition from Intel in the budget segment right now.