The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE B550 Aorus Master
With similar sized product stacks to the other major motherboard vendors, GIGABYTE has more than ten B550 models ready for. Some of these cater to B550’s budget which is the chipsets core target market, but some do push the boat out in terms of features and quality. GIGABYTE’s premier B550 model is the B550 Aorus Master, and it has a very premium controller set for what is considered a ‘budget’ platform. Some of the B550 Aorus Master’s standout features include three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller, an Intel Wi-Fi 6 interface, and support for up to DDR4-5200 memory.
The GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Master follows a similar design to previous iterations of its Master series with a black cut black and silver aesthetic, with integrated RGB LED lighting within the rear panel cover. The chipset heatsink includes the Aorus Falcon logo, while the boards power delivery heatsink looks large, which is designed to keep the boards 16-phase configuration cool during operation. The B550 Aorus Master uses fourteen Infineon TDA21472 70 A power stages for the CPU section, with two TDA21472 70 A power stages for the SoC, with an Infineon XDPE132G5C PWM controller.
The Master includes three full-length PCIe slots, with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x16, and two full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slots which is a very interesting design choice. There is also three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots which include their own individual M.2 heatsink, and six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. The board has four memory slots which support up to DDR4-5200 which is higher than any X570 board prior to launch, with a maximum supported capacity of up to 128 GB.
On the rear panel is a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, five USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and six USB 2.0 ports which is stacked for B series model. Included is a single Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 G Ethernet controller, with and two antenna adaptors for the Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 interface which also supports BT 5.0 devices. The board includes a Q-Flash Plus button which allows users to flash the firmware at the click of a button, a single HDMI 2.1 video output, and 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec.
Aside from the PCIe slot layout, looking at the GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Master on paper, it could easily be forgotten that this is a model on what is considered a budget-friendly chipset, or is supposed to be. The B550 Aorus Master is as premium as a motherboard comes with support for three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives, support for up to 128 GB of DDR4-5200, and a premium networking controller pairing that is seen only on mid-range X570 models. With all this comes a large price tag with an MSRP of $280, which is encroaching on mid-range X570 territory.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
101 Comments
View All Comments
Kougar - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Most of these boards are a serious VRM upgrade over the B450 boards. If I was buying Ryzen right now I'd easily go B550 over X570.So, only the ASUS boards offer bios flashback? Seems like a cheaper, just as userful version of dual BIOS anyway.
Brane2 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Finally ONE mini-ITX board with 3-monitor output.Gigaplex - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Colour me disappointed. I was hoping to do a mATX file server build using an APU. No support for existing APUs, no ETA on when consumers can buy the newer APUs, and most of these boards only have 4 SATA ports.I really don't want to have to buy a crappy NVIDIA 710 just to get it running.
mm0zct - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
If you're booting Linux, you might be able to get away with either a good old fashioned serial cable (a lot of boards still have a serial port header) or a USB-HDMI/VGA dongle, since these are supported by the mainline kernel. The main issue might jus tbe getting the BIOS to boot your install media, but a serial port might work still here.You could also just borrow a graphics card from any other system you own to do the initial install, and then let it run headlessly once it's up and running.
Gigaplex - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I am booting Linux, and have tried completely headless in the past. It's not really worth the trouble (especially if I need to quickly diagnose issues), I'd rather just buy the crappy GPU.IBM760XL - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I'm probably missing something, but what's the point of including HDMI/DP/DVI outputs if the boards don't support APUs? Aren't you going to need to use the output on your dGPU anyway?I appreciate the summaries on the last page, but wish it could be enhanced a bit. E.g. what's the cheapest board with 2.5G Ethernet? What are the cheapest boards in general? I probably wouldn't go with the cheapest one, but given the prices on a lot of these, it's likely I would choose one of the less expensive ones.
Gigaplex - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
They will support the Zen 2 APUs, which aren't out yet.IBM760XL - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
So checking my local store's inventory, they have 25 B550 boards in stock, of all varieties, but are completely sold out of both B450 and X570 (there are a few cheap A320 boards available as well, and nine TRX40 boards that start at $450).Something tells me Ryzen 3000 chips have been selling quicker than the motherboard manufacturers can keep up, and maybe that's part of the reason B550 prices are starting out high. If they're selling out, it makes sense for them to start with a higher MSRP, which they can always lower if demand falls.
Unfortunately for AMD, if B450 doesn't come back in stock, that's going to hurt Ryzen 3000 sales. Intel mobo inventory is also a bit limited, but about half of the Intel models they offer are available, including some in that $75-$125 range, versus about 15% of the AMD models being in stock currently.
romrunning - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I think the delays are all shipping-related. It's affecting all computer parts, like power supplies, motherboards, and the like. I wish a bunch of the mfgs would just pool resources to buy dedicated air cargo flights; maybe pooling will mitigate some of the losses on the lower margin items.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
"Most of these boards are a serious VRM upgrade over the B450 boards. If I was buying Ryzen right now I'd easily go B550 over X570."Why does that matter? Overclocking died with Zen, especially Zen 2.
As long as it doesn't throttle, you're good.