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 Prime B550M-A + Wi-Fi
One of the trends that motherboard makers are going to have to get in the mood for is putting which brand of Wi-Fi is being used on their Wi-Fi enabled boards. Some vendors still call their hardware AC or AX, which is an easy identification, but because we are in a situation where there’s a mix of Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 modules out there, we should be asking for clarity within the product name. For the ASUS Prime B550M-A Wi-Fi, the added cost of the Wi-Fi 6 module comes to +$15 over the base version, and aside from the Wi-Fi model only supporting HDMI 2.0 rather than 2.1 on the non-Wi-Fi model, the two are identical.
The board uses the similar white stripes as the Prime B550-Plus, although this is a smaller cost down model, so we get smaller heatsinks and a few different design features here. The CPU has an 8-pin power connector to the top left, and the socket has access to three 4-pin fan headers within easy reach. Above the two fan headers above the socket is an RGB header. On the right hand side of the motherboard there are four memory slots, with single side latches, along with a 24-pin ATX connector and a USB 3.0 header. Like the Prime B550-Plus, the SATA ports are located on the bottom of the board.
In the PCIe area, ASUS has the standard arrangement of a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot followed by a PCIe 4.0 x16 main full-length slot, however the full-length slot doesn’t have additional reinforcement here. There is no secondary full-length slot from the chipset, although there is a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot for a second storage device.
On the far left, the audio subsystem is a slightly upgraded ALC887 arrangement, and along the bottom of the board we have a COM header, more RGB LED headers, another 4-pin fan header, two USB headers, and the SATA ports.
For the rear panel we get a combination PS/2 port, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, an analog D-Sub video output, a DVI-D video output, a HDMI video output, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, an AX200 Wi-Fi module (for the Wi-Fi version), a gigabit Ethernet port (Realtek RTL8111H), and the audio jacks.
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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.