The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTASUS ROG Strix B550-I Gaming
The sole entrant into the mini-ITX sphere from ASUS, at least at the time of writing, will be the B550-I Gaming. In true ASUS fashion, this motherboard does things a little differently than most. One of the biggest differences is the use of a separate audio daughter board for 3.5mm jacks. This daughter board combines onto one add-in with the M.2 slot, but the motherboard also has a Type-C audio port on the rear panel, and bundles in a Type-C to 3.5mm converter.
ASUS is again going for an angled mesh look, with there being a sizeable heatsink over the power delivery that morphs into the rear IO cover, as well as what seems like the M.2 heatsink. The 8-pin power connector is in the top left corner, sufficiently out of the way (a common problem on ITX boards).
The board has three 4-pin fan headers at the top, next to RGB headers, followed by two single-sided latch DDR4 slots. Along the right hand edge of the board are a 24-pin ATX connector, a USB 3.2 header, a USB 3.0 header, and four SATA ports all angled outwards. This makes the first two easy to remove when locking connectors are used, but the two inside will be hard to remove.
The single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot is reinforced at the bottom, and above this is the add-in audio board and M.2 heatsink combination. There is an additional PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot on the rear of the motherboard.
On the back panel there is a DisplayPort, a HDMI port, a USB 2.0 port, a BIOS Flashback button, three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port (I225-V), Wi-Fi 6 (AX200), audio from the S1200A custom codec with SupremeFX trimmings, and a Type-C audio output.
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Makaveli - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Replace AMD in your sentence with motherboard makers AMD it not setting the price for them. Looking at list of boards here is seems most of them added features just to jack the prices up.WaltC - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Yep, price is all down to the mboard OEMs.sing_electric - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
On one hand, you're right, on the other, AMD provides the chipset and specifications, and the fact that NO OEMs seem to be able to make cheap boards suggests that there's challenges with meeting the spec at a certain budget._cracken - Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - link
No you are wrong on both hands. AMD does not deliver chipsets for B550, it is made by asmedia.Irata - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Well, the cheapest board starts at $95, there are still plenty cheap B450 boards around and there will be B520 soon.As for OEM, I am sure they will have boards built based on their requirements.
I am curious to see what will happen to mainboard prices in a few months and if there will be additional / improved entry level options like for X570.
Chaitanya - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
B550 has better connectivity than X470 with excellent VRM to boot._espo - Wednesday, July 1, 2020 - link
U have to understand amd didnt fuck up.motherboard companys didnt too because theres thing like covid and mb are made in china soIts more expensive to them now.And they have less stock and they still have to make money
Desierz - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Article refers to AMD's SMT as hyperthreading. I think hyperthreading is an Intel specific term.WaltC - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Intel has no objection to AMD using the phrase...;)MB-Guru - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I would like to purchase this MB. Which Reputable Vendor is selling this Gigabyte B550 vision D right now? Does anyone know? Thanks !