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 Elite
Moving down the product stack is the GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Elite which represents the entry-level to its Aorus series of gaming-focused boards. Some of the most notable features include a 12+2 power delivery, dual PCIe x4 M.2 slots with one Gen 4 and one Gen 3, as well as a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller which is becoming more the norm now.
Focusing on the aesthetic, it features a black and grey patterned PCB with black and grey heatsinks, with the chipset heatsink featuring the Aorus falcon logo. Adding a little contrast to the design is a set of orange WIMA audio capacitors, as well as some LEDs within the audio PCB separation line. For expansion cards such as VGA, there is a single full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, with two other full-length slots which operate at PCIe 3.0 x+2/x+1 which is a little odd. There is also a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, while the board does include dual M.2 slots. The top M.2 slot operates at PCIe 4.0 x4 and comes with an M.2 heatshield, while the second M.2 slot operates at PCIe 3.0 x4. There are also four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. The Aorus Elite includes four memory slots with support for up to 128 GB of DDR4-4733 memory.
The rear panel includes two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. while omitting any form of Type-C connectivity. Controlling the single RJ45 port is a Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 G Ethernet controller, while a Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec powers the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output. For users looking to use Ryzen based APUs, the B550 Aorus Master includes two video outputs including a DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1. Finishing off the rear panel is a Q-Flash Plus button.
The GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Elite is a more modest offering which keeps some of the style of the more premium Aorus models but cuts back on some features including Wi-Fi and a second M.2 heatsink. This Elite also lacks any Type-C connectivity, but it does offer a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller which is more future proof than Gigabit; there aren't many X570 models with 2.5 G and beyond so it’s refreshing to see a model like this at a lower entry price point that features it.
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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.