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 B550M-HDV
Nearer the bottom of the ASRock product stack we get to the B550M-HDV, which is aimed at the more commercial pre-build markets and aims to offer what these markets might need. As a result it does away with the fancy styling and aims to give the bare essentials. That means no power delivery heatsinks, only two DRAM slots, no extra M.2, and only a 4-pin CPU power connector is needed.
The idea for these boards is that they will be put into systems that might be found in commercial units, like libraries, medical facilities, youth centers, that sort of thing. So there are only two fan headers around the socket for example. The power delivery is basic, we get a 4 phase design, and the two DRAM slots are still single side latched.
Moving clockwise around the board we get the 24-pin ATX power connector, a USB 3.0 header, and four SATA ports. The bottom of the board is the audio front panel header, a Clear CMOS header, a TPM header, a COM header, two USB 2.0 headers, another 4-pin fan header, and the front panel header.
The PCIe area consists of a single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, without extra reinforcement. Beneath this is the PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot from the processor, and underneath this is the chipset heatsink, which is the smallest chipset heatsink I’ve seen on B550 so far. On the left hand side of the board is the audio, where we have an updated ALC887 solution using PCB separation.
On the rear panel, we get two USB 2.0 ports, a combination PS/2 port, HDMI output, an analog D-sub video output, DVI-D, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a single gigabit Ethernet from a Realtek RTL8111H controller, and the audio jacks.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
101 Comments
View All Comments
Lucky Stripes 99 - Sunday, June 21, 2020 - link
Same here. Both DVI and DP can be converted to VGA using an inexpensive passive dongle. I'd much rather see either of those ports over VGA.Gigaplex - Saturday, August 1, 2020 - link
DVI-I can be converted easily. DVI-D (which most of the modern boards have) need a more complex adapter.iranterres - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Why so expensive...cybersirf - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
more expensive, less features. what happened to x2 slots?miss5tability - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
whata abiut VRM the biggest issue on b450 MOBOs, i dont see any single word about that ? wtfMem - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
I believe you will find Asus use S1220A so not S1200A , it's custom version of ALC1220, when you go by Asus website for their B550 boards.awonglk - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
There seems to be no mentions of Thunderbolt 3 header that apparently comes with this motherboard according to Asia’s own website:https://edgeup.asus.com/2020/b550-motherboard-guid...
Does anyone know how or what this connects to on a mITX motherboard?
blakflag - Monday, June 22, 2020 - link
Does "USB 3.2 G2 Type-C" imply Thunderbolt 3 support?dennphill - Friday, June 26, 2020 - link
And here it is a couple of weeks after the 'release' and there are no boards (well, no mATX versions) to buy...unless you want to deal with the scalpers on NewEgg asking $25 to 35 over the regular price - oh, and BTW, they will ship/deliver in mid-July - AND I see no reviews or comparisons other than manufacturers' sites advertising for the B550 boards. The few articles I see are all based on the pre-release data and not from actual delivered, installed and tested MBs. Poor AMD hardware release, as far as I am concerned.dennphill - Friday, June 26, 2020 - link
Oh, and the listing is incomplete with a couple of manufacturer-advertised versions od mATX boards not listed in this article.