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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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