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 Plus
The MPG series represents its gaming-centric range, and the MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus sits at the bottom of its performance gaming-inspired series. The design follows a simple sleek all-black aesthetic, with integrated RGB LED lighting underneath the chipset heat sink. Included in the core feature set is a pair of M.2 slots, a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec and a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet controller.
The MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus includes two full-length PCIe slots with the top slot capable of supporting up to PCIe 4.0 x16, and the second slot is locked at PCIe 3.0 x4. In addition to this is two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Making up the board’s storage is six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, while MSI also includes two M.2 slots. These consist of a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot which includes a heatsink, and a second PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot which does not. There are four memory slots which can accommodate up to 128 GB, with speeds of up to DDR4-4400 officially supported.
On the rear panel are a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1, and four USB 2.0 ports, with a pair of video outputs including an HDMI and DisplayPort. There is five 3.5 mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF optical output which is powered by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec, while a single RJ45 is driven by a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit Ethernet controller. Finishing off the rear panel is a small BIOS Flashback button and a PS/2 keyboard and mouse combo port.
The MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus is one of its more affordable B550 models with an MSRP of $150. This price point represents a highly competitive space for MSI to duel it out with other vendors, and the inclusion of a budget Realtek RTL811H and ALC892 controller pairing is what is expected at this price point. It does, however, include some USB 3.2 G2 connectivity which is a huge plus point.
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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.