The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4 + 4ac
For this segment, we’re covering two motherboards: the ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4, and the ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4ac. The difference between the two, you would think given the name, is that the AC model has Wi-Fi 5 installed. There is another subtle difference, in that the standard PG4 has six SATA ports, whereas the PG4ac model only has four. This is despite both models still having the same PCIe layout, so we’re unsure why there is a difference. Nonetheless the rest of the boards are the same.
As we move to the cheaper end of the B550 range, we move to the motherboards that do not have rear-IO covers, and more limited power delivery and chipset cooling. Despite the PG4 box being red, the board itself is a lot more silver, playing into the Phantom Gaming theme, but with fewer heatsinks there is less to actually cover. For the power delivery here, for example, there is a single heatsink on the left hand side where all six phases for the CPU are. The chipset heatsink is a lot smaller, and neither of the M.2 slots have heatsinks either.
The CPU is powered by an 8-pin and a 4-pin, and the socket area has easy access to three 4-pin fan headers as needed. The motherboard still has a full complement of DDR4 slots, and these are single sided latch variants.
On the right hand side of the motherboard there is a USB 3.0 header, SATA ports, but no power/reset buttons. On the bottom there is an audio header, a COM header, a TPM header, RGB LED headers, three more 4-pin fan headers, two USB 2.0 headers, and a front panel header.
The PCIe layout puts a full PCIe 4.0 x16 slot at the top with additional reinforcement, directly above the PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot for storage. There is an M.2 Wi-Fi slot underneath this, which with the PG4ac is filled with an Intel AC3168 1x1 solution, one of the cheapest 802.11ac modules you can get. There is a full length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot from the chipset, and underneath this is another M.2 slot, this time PCIe 3.0 x2 from the chipset.
The audio section on the right hand side is using an upgraded ALC1200 audio codec, with PCB separation and filter caps. Unlike the other ALC1200 variants we’ve seen from ASRock, this board only has three audio outputs.
On the rear panel we have a combination PS/2 port, six USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a HDMI output, and a single Realtek RTL8111H gigabit Ethernet port. There are no USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports on this motherboard.
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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.