The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTASRock B550 Extreme4
The ASRock B550 Extreme4 was one of the motherboards highlighted at the beginning of this article as one to look out for. We picked this one out not so much for the hardware or the price, but because of the styling. ASRock has had the Extreme line of motherboards for longer than I’ve been testing motherboards, but with this generation it seems to have had a very striking visual update. We now have an epic blue streak morphing into purple across the box, the heatsinks, and even the PCB. I think it looks neat. Ian
This is another board showing a 45-degree diagonal left-to-right downward slope, but this time ASRock has added a bit more color to the system. There are some LEDs on here, most noticeably on that power delivery heatsink on the top left, next to the IO shield, but the design here seems very visually clear.
As for features, the socket is powered by an 8-pin and a 4-pin, and while the power delivery heatsinks are not connected via a heatpipe, the appear to be substantial enough for the builds this board should be going into. The socket has access to five 4-pin fan headers in easy reach, and next to the socket are the four DRAM slots, using single sided latch designs.
On the right hand side we have RGB LED headers, a 24-pin ATX connector, a Type-C header, a USB 3.0 header, six SATA ports, a two-digit debug display, and power/reset buttons. Along the bottom is another RGB LED header, two more fan headers, two USB 2.0 headers, and front panel connectors.
The PCIe area has a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot at the top, connected via the CPU, but also with its own heatsink on top. Beneath this is a full-length reinforced PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, and the next full-length slot is a reinforced PCIe 3.0 x4 design. The bottom M.2, a PCIe 3.0 x2, has a heatsink connected to the chipset heatsink. On the left is the upgraded Realtek ALC1220 audio, which also uses an NE5532 amp.
The rear IO panel starts with a HDMI output, a combination PS/2 connector, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, a Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, a Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, a Realtek RTL8125GB 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port, a space for Wi-Fi antenna, and the audio jacks.
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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.