GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX

The GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX is the brands premium mini-ITX model, and has a strong feature set for an mITX B550 board. Interestingly, the B550I Aorus Pro AX supports up to DDR4-5330 which is impressive, while the larger ATX sized versions support up to DDR4-5200. Some of the boards notable features include two M.2 slots, one PCIe 4.0 x4 on the front. and one PCIe 3.0 x4 on the rear, with a Realtek 2.5 G Ethernet controller and an Intel Wi-Fi 6 interface.

Following a simple black and grey aesthetic, the GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX has a single full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. On the front of the board is a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot which is cooled by an amalgamated chipset and M.2 heatsink, while a second M.2 slot is located on the rear which supports PCIe 3.0 x4 drives. There are also four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. For memory, there are two memory slots with support for up to DDR4-5300, with a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB. The B550I Aorus Pro AX also boasts a direct 8-phase power delivery, with a large heatsink which moulds into the design of the rear panel cover. The power delivery consists of six Intersil ISL99390 90 A power stages for the CPU, and two ISL99390 90 A power stages for the SoC, which is controlled by an Intersil ISL229004 PWM controller.

Looking at what's on the rear panel, there is a pair of video outputs including an HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4, while the three 3.5 mm audio jacks are controlled by a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec. In regards to USB, there's a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. A Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller provides wired networking, while an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 interface provides wireless as well as support for BT 5.0 devices. Finishing off the rear panel is a Q-Flash Plus button which allows users to update the firmware at the click of a button.

 It feels as though the form factor has limited the board's rear panel USB, but it's still a good array and there are two video outputs for users looking to leverage AMD's Ryzen APUs. If that's not enough USB for users, there is a single USB 3.2 G1 Type-A header which adds two additional ports. while a single USB 2.0 header also adds two ports. It's the quintessential mini-ITX motherboard, with a solid feature set, a capable-looking power delivery, and GIGABYTE has a good record of late delivering a good price to features ratio.

GIGABYTE B550M Aorus Pro GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Elite
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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.

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