The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 16, 2020 11:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE B550M Aorus Pro
The GIGABYTE B550M Aorus Pro is a micro-ATX motherboard and is the condensed version of the ATX B550 Aorus Pro model. Following a similar design to its larger counterpart, the B550M Aorus Pro is decked out with black heatsinks on a black PCB, with a silver Aorus falcon logo on the chipset heatsink. It is advertised as featuring a 10+3 phase power delivery, two M.2 slots, and a Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec.
Despite including a similar aesthetic and sharing the same core naming scheme, the GIGABYTE B550M Aorus Pro is micro-ATX and as such, includes fewer expansion slots. It includes two full-length PCIe slots including a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, and one PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, with a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot sandwiched in-between. For storage, there are two M.2 slots with the top slot allowing support for PCIe 4.0 x4 drives and comes provided with an M.2 heatsink, while the second slot is controlled by the chipset and can support up to PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs. Also present are four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. The board includes four memory slots with support for up to DDR4-4733, with up to a maximum capacity of 128 GB.
Underneath the chunky looking power delivery heatsink is a 5+3 phase power delivery which is driven by an Intersil ISL229004 PWM controller with five high-side phases and ten low-side phases, with three high and low-side phases for the SoC.
Included on the rear panel is one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports. A Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec powers the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output, while a Realtek RTL8118 GbE Ethernet controller handles the single RJ45 port. GIGABYTE has included a pair of video outputs for users planning to use Ryzen APUs including a DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI output, while a Q-Flash button finishes off what is a bountiful rear panel for the price.
The GIGABYTE B550M Aorus Pro has an MSRP of $130 which represents good value for money considering the price hike in B550 models over the previous generation B450 models. A Realtek ALC1200 HD audio codec is still favorable and GIGABYTE opts for a Gigabit Ethernet controller which ultimately brings the cost down. The B550M Aorus Pro is one of five micro-ATX models from GIGABYTE’s product stack, which is the most from any vendor for B550 at present.
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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