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 Pro & Aorus Pro AC
Moving down the product stack and onto a pair of more affordable, albeit it still impressive models is the B550 Aorus Pro AC and non-Wi-Fi variant. The only difference is the Pro AC version comes an Intel Wi-Fi 5 interface, although both share the same core feature set. The most notable inclusions are two PCIe M.2 slots with one PCIe 4.0 x4 and one PCIe 3.0 x4 slots, with a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller, and three full-length PCIe slots which operate at x16 and x16/x+4/x+2.
Focusing on the board’s aesthetic, the GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Pro AC and B550 Aorus Pro feature an all-black PCB, with black and grey heatsinks. GIGABYTE is advertising a 12+2 power delivery with a single 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input which delivers power directly to the processor. For storage there two M.2 slots with the top slot powered by the processor and supports up to PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 SSDs, while the second slot is controlled by the chipset and as a consequence, supports up to PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 drives. There are also six SATA ports which support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. One thing we’ve seen from B550 is vendors are QVL’ing even fast memory as the B550 Aorus Pro supports up to DDR4-5200 with a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB across four memory slots.
The B550 Aorus Pro AC and B550 Aorus Pro are using a 12+2 phase power delivery, with twelve Vishay SiC651C 50 A power stages for the CPU, and two SiC651AD 50 A power stages for the SoC. It is using an Intersil ISL229004 in a 6+2 configuration, with six ISL6617A doublers for the CPU section.
On the rear panel of both B550 Aorus Pro models is a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, three USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and six USB 2.0 ports. Also present is a Q-Flash Plus button and a single Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 G Ethernet port. On the Pro AC model is two antenna ports for the Intel AC3168 Wi-Fi 5 adapter. Finishing off the rear panel is a single HDMI 2.1 video output for users looking to use Ryzen based APUs, while the 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are powered by a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec.
The GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Pro AC and B550 Aorus Pro represent a more modest price point, with an MSRP of $189 for the Pro AC, and $179 without the Wi-Fi 6 adapter. For the price, both models are still stacked and offer users PCIe 4.0 capability in both the top full-length slot and the top M.2 slot. There is also 2.5 G Ethernet which is something X570 models doesn’t offer at this price point, making B550 an attractive alternative, not to forget the boards large 12+2 advertised power delivery too.
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althaz - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Hmm, these seem mostly...pointless? More expensive than B450 by a lot, barely cheaper than the superior X570 boards (which have more PCIe lanes, more USB ports, etc)...these really need to be $50 cheaper across the (mother)board to make sense, IMO.sing_electric - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
It is interesting comparing similar X570 and B550 models within the same brand (or subbrand like Asus ROG or Gigabyte Aorus). It really seems like pricing is VERY close between them.Of course, if the VRMs are comparable, then for 90%+ of users, a X570 and a B550 are basically equivalent. In some cases it's almost like you're giving the user a choice between a newer B550 board with WiFi 6 and an older X570 board with AX but more USB ports or something, for within a few bucks of the same price (if you can find them at MSRP and in stock, which really has been an issue of late.)
jrbales@outlook.com - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I was looking at the boards on morning of Jun 16th. Very few B550 boards in stock (not too unusual so soon to release) and prices were high, in the range there just a few months ago I could have bought an X570 board. However, X570s were mostly out of stock everywhere I looked, and those in stick were generally pushing $300 USD or more. I suspect either manufacturing has not completely ramped up after COVID-19 in Asia, or that there is still a shipping back-load via ocean freight bearing ships between Asia and North America. Maybe if we ever see a return to a semblance.nce of normal, prices might lower and parts return to stock,
romrunning - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Shipping is main culprit here - big problem, including extra time spent in customs at ports (like LA in the US).sing_electric - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Right - In February I picked up an X570 board for ~$30 under MSRP, so equivalent B550 board (same OEM, same 'line') would actually be a few bucks more... but adds a Thunderbolt header, WiFi 6 and 2.5 gig Ethernet (in exchange for PCIe lanes/slots and USB ports, and a 2nd m.2 connector). In the end, I think the X570 was a perfectly good choice on sale.willis936 - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I love that summary table. I wish it had an entry for “8 or more USB-A ports”. I actively use 15 on my desktop. The fewer PCIe cards and hubs needed, the better imo.GNUminex_l_cowsay - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Thanks for giving detailed and, hopefully, correct information about the PCIe configurations on these boards. Unfortunately many of the motherboard manufacturers don't give that information, make the information hard to find, give wrong information, or some combination of the above with regards to PCIe configuration.Out of curiosity, what happens when you put a pcie 3.0 x4 ssd in an x2 slot when the ssd's maximum read and write rates don't fully saturate x4? Is it just limited to the ~2GB/s bandwidth of the slot or does the ssd do something worse?
Lucky Stripes 99 - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Yeah, it will transfer just a bit under 2 GB/s due to overhead. I had this same issue with my H97 board and my Samsung 970, so I opted to purchase a cheap M.2 PCIe 3.0x4 card. HD Tune showed an improvement, but not by much to notice much real world difference.Allan_Hundeboll - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
What about the Gigabyte 550M s2h?It's 12$ cheaper than the ds3h, so I would like to know what gigabyte did to lower the cost.
xenol - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
A complaint I had in previous AMD boards was how prevalent VGA ports were. I'm glad to see they're not so prevalent this time around.