The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTASUS ROG Strix B550-I Gaming
The sole entrant into the mini-ITX sphere from ASUS, at least at the time of writing, will be the B550-I Gaming. In true ASUS fashion, this motherboard does things a little differently than most. One of the biggest differences is the use of a separate audio daughter board for 3.5mm jacks. This daughter board combines onto one add-in with the M.2 slot, but the motherboard also has a Type-C audio port on the rear panel, and bundles in a Type-C to 3.5mm converter.
ASUS is again going for an angled mesh look, with there being a sizeable heatsink over the power delivery that morphs into the rear IO cover, as well as what seems like the M.2 heatsink. The 8-pin power connector is in the top left corner, sufficiently out of the way (a common problem on ITX boards).
The board has three 4-pin fan headers at the top, next to RGB headers, followed by two single-sided latch DDR4 slots. Along the right hand edge of the board are a 24-pin ATX connector, a USB 3.2 header, a USB 3.0 header, and four SATA ports all angled outwards. This makes the first two easy to remove when locking connectors are used, but the two inside will be hard to remove.
The single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot is reinforced at the bottom, and above this is the add-in audio board and M.2 heatsink combination. There is an additional PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot on the rear of the motherboard.
On the back panel there is a DisplayPort, a HDMI port, a USB 2.0 port, a BIOS Flashback button, three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port (I225-V), Wi-Fi 6 (AX200), audio from the S1200A custom codec with SupremeFX trimmings, and a Type-C audio output.
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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.