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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Ghan - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Right now, it seems more like B for Backordered. They may be priced a bit high, but the demand still seems to be there.yannigr2 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
This is a great article but it needs a follow up with a table for every motherboard explaining how they use the PCIe lanes in conjunction with M2 and SATA slots. It seems that motherboard makers are totally f up(sorry for the expression) the more reasonably priced models in that area.romrunning - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Does anyone know if the boards that have the Intel i225-V are shipping with the fixed hardware (v2)?R3MF - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
+1mooninite - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Wow, another broken Intel NIC? I wish motherboards would stop using Intel NICs.mooninite - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
After Googling it looks like v2 is not fixed either... a v3 is coming out. Time to buy Realtek.romrunning - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Which is hilarious - I remember when Realtek was the worst when it came to NICs, and Intel/3Com was the standard. :)WaltC - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Yes, indeed...;) My x570 Master has an Intel gigabit & a realtek 2.5gb. It's amusing because my interface is an EWAN that tops out at 1Gb, but I thought I'd try the realtek just to see and then I forgot about it...;)...Seems every bit as stable as the Intel--still on it, lol...;) Six of one, half-dozen of another.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Thanks Ian and Gavin! One question, related to a likely use case for B550 mini ITX or mATX Boards: is it true that AMD will, at least initially, limit Ryzen 4000 APUs to OEMs? If that is so, I am definitely not interested in a B550 board in those form factors, and I don't think I am alone here. An answer is appreciated - thanks!mrvco - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I'm just here for the Next mini-ITX boards. I'm liking the Aorus Pro AX quite a bit.