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 Edge Wifi
Moving a step down MSI's B550 models, we come to the MSI MPG B550 Gaming Edge Wifi which opts for a design consistent with its MPG series. Focusing its attention at gamers, the B550 Gaming Edge Wifi includes a near-identical feature set to the more expensive B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi with two M.2 slots, a Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec, an Intel Wi-Fi 6 interface and a Realtek 2.5 Gbe Ethernet controller.
The MSI MPG B550 Gaming Edge Wifi is an ATX motherboard with a simplistic primarily black aesthetic with silver accents on the heatsinks, with integrated RGB LEDs within the chipset heatsink. Dominating the lower portion of the board is the expansion slots which consists of a single full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, a full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. For storage, the B550 Gaming Edge Wifi includes two M.2 slots with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x4, and the second slot limited to PCIe 3.0 x4, while six SATA ports are present which support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. MSI includes official QVL support for DDR4-5100 memory and allows users to install up to 128 GB of system memory across four memory slots.
Looking at the rear panel, the B550 Gaming Edge Wifi includes one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. For networking, it is using a Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller and Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 pairing, while the onboard audio which consists of five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are controlled by a Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec. Users looking to use legacy peripherals will find a single PS/2 combo keyboard and mouse port, while Ryzen APU's are supported and a pair of video outputs are present including an HDMI and DisplayPort 1.4. Finishing off the rear panel is a small BIOS Flashback button.
The MSI MPG B550 Gaming Edge Wifi has an MSRP of $190 and represents its mid-range AM4 series aimed at gamers. MSI has included some premium components including a Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller, with an assisting Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 interface and offers users with support for BT 5.0 devices. From the storage, only the top PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot includes a heatsink, and looking at the who B550 product stack across multiple vendors, it seems to lose out a little in terms of overall features compared to some. An example of this comes via the use of a slightly lower grade Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec.
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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.