Manufacturers Announce AMD B550 Motherboards
Multiple motherboard manufacturers have announced B550 motherboards for AMD’s AM4 platform. ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI, among others, are releasing motherboards with the new chipset.
The B550 motherboards ship with socket AM4, and will only work with current Ryzen 3000 desktop processors or newer. For example, support for the upcoming Renoir APUs and future Ryzen CPUs is confirmed by Gigabyte. The new chipset includes support for PCI-e 4.0.
B550 supports current Ryzen 3000 CPUs and newer
ASRock comes with twelve different B550 motherboards in multiple price segments. The B550 Taichi is the company’s most high-end model, with a 16-phase VRM design and three PCI-E 4.0 x16 slots. Users can place up to three video cards in this, with the top two slots working in x8 mode, while the bottom connection then has 4 lanes.
The company is also launching the B550 Extreme4, Steel Legend and PG Velocita, each of which has a 14-phase power supply. All four motherboards have 2.5 gigabit Ethernet. The manufacturer also shows two mini-itx motherboards: the B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax and B550M-ITX/ac. The former is equipped with a WiFi 6 radio and Bluetooth 5.1 support.
B550 motherboards from ASRock
Asus, in turn, comes with motherboards in the Strix series. This lineup consists of the ROG Strix B550-E Gaming, B550-F Gaming and B550-I Gaming. The former is the most expensive motherboard in the B550 lineup with a 16-phase VRM design. The B550-I Gaming is an itx model with 10-phase power supply and two m2 slots. All Strix models have 2.5 gigabit Ethernet.
The manufacturer also comes with two more affordable motherboards under the TUF name. The company shows in this series an atx motherboard and a variant with micro-atx form factor. Both motherboards have 2.5 gigabit Ethernet and the micro-ATX version can optionally be supplied with WiFi 6. Furthermore, Asus comes with four Prime motherboards: an atx motherboard and three micro-atx variants. These motherboards have Gigabit Ethernet and a relatively simple design with less extensive VRM cooling.
Some Asus B550 motherboards
Biostar is releasing two B550 motherboards: the B550GTA and B550GTQ, which have an atx and micro-atx form factor respectively. The two models show many similarities, although the atx variant is equipped with 2.5 gigabit Ethernet. The smaller product has Gigabit Ethernet. Both motherboards also have two M2 slots with PCI-e 4.0 support and have eight USB connections on the back of the motherboard.
The B550 motherboards from Biostar
Gigabyte has six different B550 motherboards in the pipeline, five of which will be released in the Aorus series. The highest positioned variant is the B550 Aorus Master, with a sixteen-phase power supply, three m2 slots that support PCI-e 4.0 and twelve USB connections. Gigabyte also comes with a mini-itx variant with WiFi 6 and two m2 slots. All Aorus motherboards support 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet and have an integrated I/O panel.
The B550M DS3H, in turn, is a relatively simple micro-atx motherboard. For example, the motherboard has gigabit Ethernet and no integrated I/O panel. However, the bios of this motherboard can be updated without installed processor, GPU or memory, Gigabyte reports. The DS3H also has two m2 slots, one of which supports PCI-e 4.0. When users install a Renoir apu, it rolls back to pci-e 3.0.
Some B550 variants of Gigabyte
MSI also releases multiple motherboards. The Gaming Pro Carbon seems to be the most high-end variant of MSI. It features a VRM design with a total of 14 phases. The motherboard is also equipped with WiFi 6 and an Ethernet port with speeds of up to 2.5 Gbit/s. The B550 Tomahawk and B550M Mortar, among others, are positioned lower, but do have 2.5 gigabit Ethernet and a pre-installed I/O panel.
The company also releases two ‘Pro’ motherboards, which, according to MSI, are more intended for workstations. The manufacturer also shows a mini-itx motherboard with HDMI 2.1 connection, writes Hardware.info. The m2 connection on this motherboard is also equipped with a small fan. However, MSI has not yet published an image of this motherboard.
Part of MSI .’s B550 lineup