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 Gaming X
Moving away from the Aorus branded models, we go down the product to the GIGABYTE B550 Gaming X which follows a simplistic all-black aesthetic, with some grey patterning on the PCB to add contrast. The main features include a 10+3 phase power delivery, two M.2 slots, a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet controller and a Realtek ALC887 HD audio codec.
The GIGABYTE B550 Gaming X is an ATX sized model with two full-length PCIe slots with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x16, and the bottom slot at PCIe 3.0 x4. For storage, there is a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, with a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. Up to 128 GB of system memory can be installed across four available memory slots, with memory with speeds of up DDR4-4733 officially supported. Delivering power to the CPU is a single 8-pin 12 V ATX power input, while GIGABYTE advertises the board to feature a 10+3 phase design.
On the rear panel is a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, with there USB 3.2 G1 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports. There is a PS/2 combo keyboard and mouse port for users with legacy peripherals, while a Realtek ALC887 HD audio codec powers the boards three 3.5 mm audio jacks. A Realtek 8111 Gigabit Ethernet controller controls a single RJ45 port, while a handy Q-Flash Plus button is located on the rear to allow users to update the board's firmware easily.
The GIGABYTE B550 Gaming X is targeted towards entry-level gamers looking to harness the power of AMD's 7nm Ryzen processors while offering all the basics expected from a PCIe 4.0 enabled motherboard. This model has an MSRP of $139, which does seem expensive given the use of budget controllers, nor does it include any M.2 heatsinks which would have made it slightly more favorable.
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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.