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 B550I Aorus Pro AX
The GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX is the brands premium mini-ITX model, and has a strong feature set for an mITX B550 board. Interestingly, the B550I Aorus Pro AX supports up to DDR4-5330 which is impressive, while the larger ATX sized versions support up to DDR4-5200. Some of the boards notable features include two M.2 slots, one PCIe 4.0 x4 on the front. and one PCIe 3.0 x4 on the rear, with a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller and an Intel Wi-Fi 6 interface.
Following a simple black and grey aesthetic, the GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX has a single full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. On the front of the board is a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot which is cooled by an amalgamated chipset and M.2 heatsink, while a second M.2 slot is located on the rear which supports PCIe 3.0 x4 drives. There are also four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. For memory, there are two memory slots with support for up to DDR4-5300, with a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB. The B550I Aorus Pro AX also boasts a direct 8-phase power delivery, with a large heatsink which moulds into the design of the rear panel cover. The power delivery consists of six Intersil ISL99390 90 A power stages for the CPU, and two ISL99390 90 A power stages for the SoC, which is controlled by an Intersil ISL229004 PWM controller.
Looking at what's on the rear panel, there is a pair of video outputs including an HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4, while the three 3.5 mm audio jacks are controlled by a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec. In regards to USB, there's a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. A Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller provides wired networking, while an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 interface provides wireless as well as support for BT 5.0 devices. Finishing off the rear panel is a Q-Flash Plus button which allows users to update the firmware at the click of a button.
It feels as though the form factor has limited the board's rear panel USB, but it's still a good array and there are two video outputs for users looking to leverage AMD's Ryzen APUs. If that's not enough USB for users, there is a single USB 3.2 G1 Type-A header which adds two additional ports. while a single USB 2.0 header also adds two ports. It's the quintessential mini-ITX motherboard, with a solid feature set, a capable-looking power delivery, and GIGABYTE has a good record of late delivering a good price to features ratio.
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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.