The Intel B560 Motherboard Overview: 30+ Budget Models Starting from $75
by Gavin Bonshor on March 29, 2021 7:00 AM ESTASUS Prime B560M-A AC & B560M-A
Moving down the Prime series of models from ASUS, the Prime B560M-A AC and B560M-A are essentially smaller (micro-ATX) versions of the Prime B560M-Plus. The other difference between the two B560M-A models is the AC variant includes a Wi-Fi 5 CNVi. Both models include a black and silver patterned PCB, with silver heatsinks covering the CPU section of the power delivery. Providing power to the advertised 8-phase power delivery is a single 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input.
ASUS includes two full-length PCIe slots including one operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and the other at PCIe 3.0 x4, with one PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. For storage, there are two M.2 slots, one operating at PCIe 4.0 x4 with its own M.2 heatsink, and a second bare slot operating at PCIe 3.0 x4 with support for SATA drives. Towards the bottom right-hand corner of the boards is four SATA ports, two with straight angled and two with right-angled ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. The ASUS Prime B560M-A AC and B560M-A both have four memory slots, with support for up to DDR4-5000 and a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB.
The ASUS Prime B560M-A AC includes an unspecified Wi-Fi 5 CNVi, which the regular B560M-A model doesn't include. Everything else on the rear panel is the same including one Intel I219-A GigabitEthernet port, a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec that powers three 3.5 mm audio jacks, and a PS/2 combo port. USB connectivity includes one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports. Finishing off the rear panel is a trio of video outputs including two HDMI and one DisplayPort.
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limitedaccess - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
Rocket Lake CPUs have 20 PCIe (4.0) lanes off the CPU. This a departure from previous generations in terms of lane count. Comet Lake (and older) for Intel have 16 lanes off the CPU.4 of those lanes are connected to the "first" m.2 slot of B560/Z590 motherboards. 10th gen CPUs don't have those lanes even as PCIe 3.0. Previous generation motherboards have all their m.2 slots using lanes connected to the chipset.
jrbales@outlook.com - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
Thanks for the explanation. My AMD X570 has PCIE 4 lanes from both CPU and chipset, so this is my first build wheres I'm running up against this limitation. Now it all makes sense and fortunately, I did place my Samsung 970 EVO into the 2nd M.2 slot. Thanks again! And old dog CAN learn something new!ScottSoapbox - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
There are three typos in the first paragraph that Word or a browser would catch if you took 10 seconds to check. Hint: words need spaces between them.Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, April 8, 2021 - link
am I the only one who noticed the CMOS battery on the wifi thing in the asrock board?? lolutmode - Saturday, April 10, 2021 - link
has reaktek fixed speed dropping issue in their RTL8125B 2.5G NICmammuthus - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - link
Guys, witch one I should choose between ASUS ROG Strix B560-I Gaming WIFI and MSI MPG B560I Gaming Edge Wi-Fi?aigo - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
There is no sound through HDMI ports regardless of the OS; Linux, Windows. Definitely not a multimedia board, and neither it is for gaming.dwoodcock - Friday, August 13, 2021 - link
After messing about with this board all day trying to get RAID working I find out it doesn't support RAID at all!!!BadConfiguration - Thursday, October 28, 2021 - link
Hi Gavin, will the M.2_2 (marked ultra m2) use the pcie lanes from chipset ? Or would it use the pcie lanes from cpu ?