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 B550M-K
ASUS’s cheapest B550 board is the B550M-K, which is almost identical to the B550M-A, with just fewer parts. The biggest visual difference is that the B550M-K does not come with a power delivery heatsink, with a simple 4+2 power delivery design.
This does make the board look a lot cleaner with its straight lines, however this isn’t going to be a board for pushing the boundaries. It has only two fan headers around the socket, has a smaller chipset heatsink, and is missing some of the headers on the bottom of the board, such as the one for Thunderbolt or RGB. The latter might be a good thing.
Users will still have a USB 3.0 header, two USB 2.0 headers, four SATA ports, a full PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot for fast storage, and a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot from the chipset. Audio is the same ALC887 codec with some PCB separation.
On the rear panel the user will get a combination PS/2 port, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, an analog D-Sub video output, a DVI-D video output, a HDMI video output, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a gigabit Ethernet port (Realtek RTL8111H), and the audio jacks.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
101 Comments
View All Comments
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.