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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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.