The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTMSI B550-A Pro
The last in an interesting B550 product stack from MSI is the brands professional-focused budget model, the B550-A Pro. In recent years, the A-Pro model has been one of MSI’s most basic designs and cheapest with the B450-A Pro costing just $90 at launch. The MSI B550-A Pro builds upon a basic all-black design with some notable inclusions including two M.2 slots, six SATA ports, a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet controller and a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec.
The MSI B550-A Pro is an all-black ATX sized model which sits as the brands entry-level B550 model. Included in the feature set are two full-length PCIe slots which operate at PCIe 4.0 x16, and PCIe 3.0 x4, with two additional PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. The A-Pro has support for up to DDR4-4400 memory, with a total of four memory slots which allow users to install up to 128 GB. Looking at storage capability, there is a pair of M.2 slots with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x4, and the second slot at PCIe 3.0 x4, with six SATA ports for conventional the installation of conventional SATA devices.
Focusing on the rear panel of the B550-A Pro, MSI includes two USB 3.2 G2 ports including a Type-A and Type-C, with two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A and four USB 2.0 ports. For users looking to pair this model up with a Ryzen APU, there is a pair of video outputs including a DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI output, with a small BIOS Flashback button. A budget-focused Realtek controller pairing including a Realtek RTL811H Gigabit Ethernet controller and Realtek ALC892 are preset, with the latter which spawns five 3.5 mm audio jacks and a S/PDIF optical output on the rear panel.
Out of MSI’s B550 product stack and where pricing seems to be going currently on budget motherboards, the B550-A Pro has an MSRP of $140. If compared directly against the B450-A Pro this replaces, there is a stark difference in price point and feature set, with the only real upgrades in specifications coming through PCIe 4.0 support via the CPU, an extra M.2 slot and through better memory capability. This model above most others paints the discrepancy between what an entry-level board cost 2-years ago compared to what actually one costs currently.
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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.