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 MPG B550 Gaming Plus
The MPG series represents its gaming-centric range, and the MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus sits at the bottom of its performance gaming-inspired series. The design follows a simple sleek all-black aesthetic, with integrated RGB LED lighting underneath the chipset heat sink. Included in the core feature set is a pair of M.2 slots, a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec and a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet controller.
The MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus includes two full-length PCIe slots with the top slot capable of supporting up to PCIe 4.0 x16, and the second slot is locked at PCIe 3.0 x4. In addition to this is two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Making up the board’s storage is six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, while MSI also includes two M.2 slots. These consist of a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot which includes a heatsink, and a second PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot which does not. There are four memory slots which can accommodate up to 128 GB, with speeds of up to DDR4-4400 officially supported.
On the rear panel are a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1, and four USB 2.0 ports, with a pair of video outputs including an HDMI and DisplayPort. There is five 3.5 mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF optical output which is powered by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec, while a single RJ45 is driven by a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit Ethernet controller. Finishing off the rear panel is a small BIOS Flashback button and a PS/2 keyboard and mouse combo port.
The MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus is one of its more affordable B550 models with an MSRP of $150. This price point represents a highly competitive space for MSI to duel it out with other vendors, and the inclusion of a budget Realtek RTL811H and ALC892 controller pairing is what is expected at this price point. It does, however, include some USB 3.2 G2 connectivity which is a huge plus point.
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Lucky Stripes 99 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I've read elsewhere that Zen1 processors supposedly had a 128 Mb address limit for UEFI firmware. It sounds suspect, but looking back at early AM4 boards, I don't recall any with either 256 Mb chips or striped 128 Mb chips, so maybe it wasn't simply due to the significant jump in price for 256 Mb chips over 128 Mb ones.Redstorm - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Likewise, looking to replace my aging 7 year old HTPC with a mATX B550 and a Ryzen 4700G but radio silence from AMD on releasing compatiable APU's for the B550's, We now have the long overdue Budget motherboards but no APU's. Dissapointed.alufan - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I understand the frustration however if your buying a Budget Board then surely a budget CPU is the best fit, also new APUs are inbound according to all the rumours, meanwhile your older APU will fit just fine I believe, I expect the new APUs will have Navi cores as per the Xbox and PS5 but of course they probably cannot be released until the new Navi cards and consoles are out, think about it though what a sea chamge folks are now waiting eagerly for a new release from AMD because they know it will kick ass not close the gap to Intel, its a good time to be a customer!Gigaplex - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Older APUs aren't supported on B550DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I think you forgot something... :-)Fortunately, this component is a unique motherboard among B550 and well worth reading up on [add link].
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Interesting that the GIGABYTE B550 Vision D board's Type-C ports don't have the Thunderbolt logo next to them. I wonder if Intel won't all the logo to be use on AMD systems.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
*allowDigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
"Although on paper, there isn't much difference between B450 and B550 with slightly more SATA available due to the removable of eSATA support, both remain PCIe 3.0 bound."The B450 only had PCIe 2.0 lanes. Huge difference from the B550 IMO
Lucky Stripes 99 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Agreed. That's going to make a huge difference for boards with secondary or tertiary M.2 or U.2 ports that hangs off the chipset. That goes double if they only get 2 PCIe lanes instead of the full 4.a5cent - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Yup, exactly what I thought.Equally "BIG" is that B550 finally has more PCIe lanes, so adding more NVMe drives doesn't require downgrading other ports like it always did on B450.
B450 was a firmware upgrade for the budget B350 chipset. B550 is the first time this tier of AMD chipset doesn't suck.