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 Elite
Moving down the product stack is the GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Elite which represents the entry-level to its Aorus series of gaming-focused boards. Some of the most notable features include a 12+2 power delivery, dual PCIe x4 M.2 slots with one Gen 4 and one Gen 3, as well as a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller which is becoming more the norm now.
Focusing on the aesthetic, it features a black and grey patterned PCB with black and grey heatsinks, with the chipset heatsink featuring the Aorus falcon logo. Adding a little contrast to the design is a set of orange WIMA audio capacitors, as well as some LEDs within the audio PCB separation line. For expansion cards such as VGA, there is a single full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, with two other full-length slots which operate at PCIe 3.0 x+2/x+1 which is a little odd. There is also a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, while the board does include dual M.2 slots. The top M.2 slot operates at PCIe 4.0 x4 and comes with an M.2 heatshield, while the second M.2 slot operates at PCIe 3.0 x4. There are also four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. The Aorus Elite includes four memory slots with support for up to 128 GB of DDR4-4733 memory.
The rear panel includes two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. while omitting any form of Type-C connectivity. Controlling the single RJ45 port is a Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 G Ethernet controller, while a Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec powers the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output. For users looking to use Ryzen based APUs, the B550 Aorus Master includes two video outputs including a DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1. Finishing off the rear panel is a Q-Flash Plus button.
The GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Elite is a more modest offering which keeps some of the style of the more premium Aorus models but cuts back on some features including Wi-Fi and a second M.2 heatsink. This Elite also lacks any Type-C connectivity, but it does offer a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller which is more future proof than Gigabit; there aren't many X570 models with 2.5 G and beyond so it’s refreshing to see a model like this at a lower entry price point that features it.
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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.