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 Prime B550-Plus
The Prime line of motherboards now sits as ASUS’ budget line, as an entry point into the market. The focus of Prime is on a simple polished aesthetic, which is why we’re going to see a good amount of polished metal designs, and in the case of the ASUS Prime B550-Plus, the white lines on the motherboard this time go from top right to bottom left.
It’s good to see we still have multiple power delivery heatsinks here, even if they’re not connected by a heatpipe, but the design across the PCB carries over across the heatsink in order to keep the continuity. The CPU is powered by a single 8-pin to the top left, and the socket has access to four 4-pin headers within easy reach.
The memory slots are again single sided latch designs, despite the main PCIe slot being further way than usual. On the right hand side of the board is a 24-pin ATX power connector, a USB 3.0 header, and six SATA ports.
For the PCIe layout, at the top is the PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, without a heatsink cover. Next is the PCIe 4.0 x16 full-length slot, with additional reinforcement. The board also has a full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot from the chipset, and below the chipset heatsink is a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot, also without a heatsink.
ASUS’ Prime boards use ALC887 audio codecs rather than the S1200A custom ones, but here we get some PCB separation in built in LEDs as well. Along the bottom of the board there is a Thunderbolt header, a COM header, RGB LED headers, a Clear CMOS header, a thermocouple header, two additional 4-pin fan headers, and two USB 2.0 headers.
On the rear panel there is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a gigabit Ethernet port (Realtek RTL8111H), four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a DisplayPort, a HDMI video output, two USB 2.0 ports, and the audio jacks.
101 Comments
View All Comments
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 !