The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTIn regards to product stack size, MSI has quite a varied range of B550 models set for launch, with many of its series making a reappearance. This includes the Gaming Carbon with a premium controller set for a budget-focused chipset, and the Unify series known for its sleek all-black aesthetic makes its B series debut. Quite a few of MSI's models include 2.5 GbE Ethernet controllers, more so than it did with its X570 models, and makes it for a competitive selection for users to choose from.
MSI MPG B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi
Focusing on its premium B550 model, the MSI MPG B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi, it's very similar in design to the X570 Gaming Pro Carbon. Underneath the carbon inspired heatsinks is an advertised 12+2 power delivery, with dual 12 V ATX CPU power inputs including an 8-pin and 4-pin pairing. The most notable features include support for DDR4-5100 memory, dual M.2 slots, a Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec and a Realtek 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller.
Looking at PCIe support, the B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi includes two full-length slots including a PCIe 4.0 x16 and PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, with three additional PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. MSI includes four memory slots with support for up to DDR4-5100, with a combined total of up to 128 GB. For storage, there are two M.2 slots with the top slot supporting up to PCIe 4.0 x4 drives, while the second slot which is driven by the chipset and as a consequence, is limited to PCIe 3.0 x4. This is in additional six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. MSI has included support for up to DDR4-5100 memory, with a combined total of up to 128 GB across four memory slots.
On the rear panel is a whole host of connectivity real estate which includes a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports. A pair of video outputs including a DisplayPort and HDMI output, although MSI doesn't go into detail on the specifications. In regards to networking, the board is equipped with a Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller and an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 interface which also includes support for BT 5.0 devices. Also on the rear panel is a handily located BIOS Flashback button, with the board five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output which are controlled by a Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec.
The MSI MPG B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi directly replaces the previous B450 Gaming Carbon Max Wifi and has an MSRP of $220. This makes it the most expensive of MSI's B550 models and it looks to come with a solid design, 2.5 GbE Ethernet and Wi-Fi wireless networking. MSI has stuck to a design it knows and implements it all on a solid looking board if RGB enabled carbon inspired styling is the desired theme.
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kpb321 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I'm kinda disappointed they ended up missing the opportunity to go PCI-E 4 for the CPU to GPU link. With 2 10gbs USB ports, 2 5gbs USB ports, 10 flexible PCI-E lanes that can be NVME/ Sata ports or add on controllers on the chipset there's plenty of bandwidth there to be bottlenecked by a 4x PCI-E 3 link to the CPU. Going PCI-E 4 would make this somewhat less of a bottleneck and could support for example 2 NVME PCI-E 3.0 4X drives at full speed. The B350 more balanced in this way but sadly it was because the PCI-E off the chipset was only PCI-E 2. Hanging 16x lanes worth of things off a 4x link isn't great when they could have doubled that link bandwidth pretty easily.kpb321 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Edit 'm kinda disappointed they ended up missing the opportunity to go PCI-E 4 for the CPU to chipset linkIrata - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
That‘s X570. If you need the additional storage bandwidth, this is what you should go for.Alternatively there is the Aorus board that offers the 8x CPU plus 2x 4x PCIe 4 lanes for nVMe drives plus the PCIe 3 lanes from the chipset. That could be an alternative and eight PCIe 4 lanes for the GPU should be fine with the next gen GPU, except perhaps for the top of the line models.
On the plus side, with Ryzen you have four dedicated PCIe lanes from the CPU for nVMe (16+4+4 vs. 16+4 on Intel).
kpb321 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
The X570 goes whole hog on PCI-E 4 with PCI-4 hanging off the chipset too and it supports more PCI-E and SATA and USB devices hanging off the chipset so while the CPU to Chipset bandwidth is higher it's actually even more imbalanced between the combine possible bandwidth of devices possible off the chipset and the CPU to Chipset bandwidth.Going PCI-E 4 for just the CPU to Chipset on the B550 would have given the option to decrease that imbalance and one PCI-E 4x link shouldn't have driven the power up too high.
romrunning - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Then most people wouldn't buy X570 and get B550 instead as there wouldn't be much of a difference. That, and having less PCIe 4.0 stuff lowers the power requirements a bit.I personally held off on X570 because I knew I basically only needed the GPU and NVMe drive to be PCIe 4.0 for the most future-proof setup. I figure I'll buy new again when the new AM5 socket is released with Zen 4. Plus, some of the B550 boards have a Type-C front connector, which will go with the new ITX case I'm getting that has one on the front.
PixyMisa - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Yes, but then you need to add a separate PCIe controller on the chipset to handle just those 4 lanes. The market probably isn't big enough to make it worthwhile.Irata - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
The CPU to GPU link is 16x PCIe 4.0 - that has nothing to do with the chipset.Or did you mean something else?
a5cent - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
True, but would that not have brought back the requirement for an actively cooled chipset? That definitely contributes to cost, so it makes sense to cut that from the package.Personally, I'm happy that we've finally left PCIe 2.0 behind. Such chipsets still being sold in 2020 is horrific.
Lucky Stripes 99 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I was hoping to build several B550 APU mITX systems this week, but the lack of a compatible APU has stopped those plans. AMD's decision regarding to use a prior generation micro-architecture for its APUs in addition to their decision regarding AM4 firmware size limits are really colliding to create a missed opportunity here. If the iGPU in the Comet Lake processors was better, I'd be picking up H460 or Q470 boards right now instead.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
My understanding is that the firmware size limit wasn't created by AMD. The motherboard makers could always use firmware chips with a larger capacity. Intel doesn't have this problem since they only support one or two CPU generations per motherboard :-)