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 B550 Steel Legend
The Steel Legend series of motherboards has been around for a couple of generations now, focusing more on an aesthetic more towards white and greys, as if the motherboards themselves were using stainless steel on the heatsinks. The B550 Steel Legend in this case uses heatsinks on the power delivery but they do not have a heatpipe at this price point, but we do get some extended M.2 armor from the chipset. The motherboard PCB looks very busy in this styling.
There is some RGB LEDs, on the rear panel cover and on the chipset, and there are two RGB headers on the board in the top right and bottom middle. The socket area has access to five 4-pin headers in easy reach, and like the B550 Taichi, we have four DDR4 slots with single sided latches.
On the right hand side of the board is a USB 3.0 header, a Type-C header, six SATA ports from the chipset, and a two-digit debug. On the bottom there are more fan headers, two USB 2.0 headers, and pads where power/reset buttons should be, perhaps on a different variant of this motherboard.
The B550 Steel Legend only has a single main PCIe 4.0 x16 slot from the CPU, with additional reinforcement, and there is an additional PCIe 3.0 x4 slot from the chipset. The audio for this board is beefed up, with the Realtek ALC1220 codec being paired with an NE5532 amp. The M.2 slots on this board are for one PCIe 4.0 x4 drive and one PCIe 3.0 x2 drive – there is an additional M.2 Wi-Fi slot in the middle.
From left to right, on the rear panel we get a DisplayPort, HDMI, a combination PS/2 port, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports in blue, four USB 2.0 ports, a Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, a Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, a Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port, spaces for the Wi-Fi antenna, 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.