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-E Gaming
Out of ASUS’ three main sub-brands for B550, the Strix is aimed at the higher end, and we get a range of options to play with. The B550-E Gaming is the more expensive of the bunch, at $280, although it is one of the few boards to offer x8/x8 functionality with its PCIe slots. The use of this configuration isn’t so much for gaming (despite the name), due to lack of SLI support, but it does enable a good setup for a machine based around GPU compute or add-in cards, like RAID cards, or additional PCIe x4 NVMe drives.
ASUS’ design philosophy this time around involves a similar corner to corner 45-degree line scheme to a lot of other different brands, however in parts ASUS pushes this to a more dot-matrix style design. We still get that ROG font on all the words though.
For features, the B550-E Gaming has a large rear panel cover that covers only the rear panel rather than the full audio section, and this covers over the heatsink for the power delivery. There are two heatsinks here, like most boards with high-end power delivery, but there does not seem to be a heatpipe between them for this board.
The socket area has access to four 4-pin fan headers within easy reach, three of which are just above and to the right of the socket. The CPU is powered by an 8-pin and a 4-pin, and the board has four memory slots with single sided latch arrangements. Down the right hand side of the board is a 4-pin LED header, a 24-pin ATX power connector, a USB 3.0 header, a Type-C header, and six SATA ports.
For the PCIe area, as mentioned the two main PCIe slots both come from the CPU, with x16 or x8/x8 connectivity at PCIe 4.0 bandwidth, due to the use of PCIe switches. Both of the main PCIe slots have extra reinforcement, and above the first PCIe slot is a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, with its own heatsink. This isn’t connected directly to the chipset heatsink, however the second M.2 slot (a PCIe 3.0 x4 from the chipset) is connected. The final full-length PCIe slot is a PCIe 3.0 x4 from the chipset as well.
Along the bottom of the board is a 2-digit debug, two 4-pin fan headers, two RGB LED headers, two USB 2.0 headers, and the front panel headers. The audio codec on the left, ASUS’ custom S1200A codec, gets the SupremeFX treatment.
On the rear panel there is a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port (Intel I225-V), a DisplayPort, a HDMI video output, two Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, one USB 2.0 Type-C port for audio, audio jacks, a BIOS Flashback button, and an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 module.
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Operandi - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Looks like some nice mATX versions this round, nice!YB1064 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
I was hoping to see a $75-$90 board.kenjiwing - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Fortunately, this component is a unique motherboard among B550 and well worth reading up on [add link].Needs to be edited.
anirudhs - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
There's a noise sensor which can adjust fan speed for maximum quietness with good thermals. Saw it on the KitGuruTech video. The noise sensor isn't there to spy on you though.PeterCollier - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
The quality of the editing here is shit tier. Seriously, just run the articles through Grammarly before publication. It's free and it spots plenty of errors.Heavenly71 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Sadly none of the mITX boards have more than 6 external USB ports. My old ASUS mITX has 8! And in really small mITX cases you can't add a bracket with more USB, because the two brackets are already used by the gfx card. Guess I have to wait for an enthusiast mITX board )-:damianrobertjones - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Or, just maybe, get a usb dongle with 4 ports?Mr Perfect - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
That is disappointing. The number of USB devices people need to plug in can't be dropping, surely? I know I've got more now then even a year ago.rrinker - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Are they really going up? I have 2 USB devices plugged in to my system - a keyboard and a mouse. I occasionally plug a USB stick in one of the front ports to transfer files. My phone and tablet sync over wifi, they don't get plugged in. I have a charger behind my desk and a cable to charge them. My printer is on the network.The one place I DO need lots of USB ports is also the place where I have a small cube case machine, with no discreete GPU, because it doesn;t need one. On that one I added a USB PCI card to get enough ports. In addition to the keyboard and mouse, that machine is on my workbench where it connects to several electronic test instruments and I have multiple cabled for programming microcontrollers. I also have a USB microscope for board inspection. And then I have 3 more USB devices connected for my other hobby that shares the bench. Plus a front port kept free for USB sticks.
So the use case I have for more USB has the PCI slots open to add expansion cards, the use case where I have a discrete GPU eating up the slot space doesn't need an excess of USB ports.
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
I use 3 USB 3.0 ports just for my Oculus Rift