Which B550 board?

ned911

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 30, 2000
Messages
161
id say spend the extra 20bucks and get the MSI. looks a bit better featured. unless you have a need for the 3rd x16 sized pcie slot the aorus has. 6sata ports VS 4sata ports. the MSI board has debug LEDs incase you have boot problems, makes life alot easier when you are trying to trouble shoot something oneday. i dont see them on the gigabyte board i could be wrong tho. the debug LEDs alone would be worth the extra money to me. the heatsink on the msi looks a bit better for disappating heat, more fins and slots cut into it for it to bleed off the heat it will soak up. both have bios flashback, excellent feature on a board that price range. really they arent too different. id get the tomohawk. and pay close attention to reviews tomorow morning and change or modify your preorder early if need be. i would think right about 9am est embargo will lift and youtube will flood with day1 reviews.
 
these 550 boards look close to or higher priced then their respective X570 counterparts...in that case it just makes more sense to get the X570...the only reason to consider B550 is the fact that it no longer has the chipset fan...
 
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these 550 boards look close to or higher priced then their respective X770 counterparts...in that case it just makes more sense to get the X770...the only reason to consider B550 is the fact that it no longer has the chipset fan...

That's a good point, B550 is more expensive than B450. But you hit on a very important part. Chipset fan is loud and will go bad. B550 removes that.

So why not go with B550 instead if you don't need any of the few X570 features?

Personally. @ned911

I would wait for reviews before buying either. We have seen 4 phase VRM designs (MSI B450 range) that were far better than 8-10 phase designs.

There was also that famous '8 phase' VRM from ASUS that was just a 4 phase with all doubled parts with no doubler.

Phases are good, but quality of phases is what we need to look at.

Hardware Unboxed has some really good info on the B550 Tomahawk, may be worth a look in your search

 
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Try to find a b450 Tomahawk for $100-130 for 3300x.
You're gonna get gouged on the PSU so why throw more $ at a mobo that's got capability for a 16c you may never consider for gaming?

Put the $ towards a more suitable gpu.

Pcie 4.0 has no benefit to gaming, you'll spend more $ for nvme or ssd storage than 6 months ago.

Me, I want a more capable cooler so the stock wraith doesn't throttle me or whine under load. That's an easy $50+ well spent right there shifted if you went b450.
 
I would wait for reviews before buying either. We have seen 4 phase VRM designs (MSI B550 range) that were far better than 8-10 phase designs.

There was also that famous '8 phase' VRM from ASUS that was just a 4 phase with all doubled parts with no doubler.

Phases are good, but quality of phases is what we need to look at.

Hardware Unboxed has some really good info on the B550 Tomahawk, may be worth a look in your search

I agree...if you're going with B550 wait for reviews...there were some really bad Ryzen motherboards...the MSI boards prior to the Tomahawk were really bad in terms of VRM and Asus also had issues with one of their boards
 
You are better off with a B450 for a 3300X, heck I would even get a 3600 with the money saved...
 
I kinda like the B550M Steel Legend. The lane spilt is better for my use than my crosshair VI:

x16/x4 (1080Ti, 10Gbit pci-e 3.0 network card)
2 * m.2
2.5Gbit ethernet. $155 @ MC with $20 off w/ cpu.
 
Thats actually a good motherboard, but all depends what CPU and what you are looking for on the mobo.
 
I kinda like the B550M Steel Legend. The lane spilt is better for my use than my crosshair VI:

x16/x4 (1080Ti, 10Gbit pci-e 3.0 network card)
2 * m.2
2.5Gbit ethernet. $155 @ MC with $20 off w/ cpu.
I run the x570 Steel Legend ..though I like the board and it's been rock solid for me ..there is one caveat to consider .. because of placement of PCIe vidcard slot (at the top) ..it makes it a reeeeeeal tight fit if you're gonna run a monster air cooled heatsink.

I run the Noctua NH-D15 with dual fans .. and it literally sits on top of the metal backplate of my 5700xt .. if my video card didn't have a back plate, I wouldn't be able to run this heatsink without covering the offending side with electrical tape or something so it didn't short anything out ..

If you are running stock fan or water cooling or "normal" sized heat sink on the CPU ..then it's a non-issue
 
Starting a new build soon and was trying to see any major differences between the ASRock x570 Taichi and the ASRock B550 EXTREME4

https://www.newegg.com/asrock-x570-taichi/p/N82E16813157883?Item=N82E16813157883

https://www.newegg.com/asrock-b550-extreme4/p/N82E16813157933

Pros

Price is $184.99 b550 Extreme vs $299.99 x570 Taichi

2.5G Realtek Lan vs 1G Intel Lan

No chipset fan vs chipset fan on x570

Cons

No wireless vs Wifi 6 on Taichi

Only 2 m.2 slots vs 3 m.2 slots Taichi



What's confusing me is the whole m.2 stuff. I know certain boards disable sata ports and others do weird things. If thats my only real issue, I think I might save some money and go with the b550. Is there any other big pros that I might be missing out on?
 
I just installed a Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC yesterday, with a 3700X, and into a new model Define 7 Compact case. Everything on the motherboard appears to work fine. I like the BIOS layout. The built in IO panel cover arrive a little bit cockeyed. I had to grab the whole thing and pull it back towards the back of the motherboard to seat it properly. I little disconcerting, but it was just the plastic cover that wasn't fully seated.

This motherboard doesn't have a header for the USB 3.2 Type C port on the motherboard. But I don't think that's uncommon at this motherboard price point.

Also, of the 2 M.2 slots, only one supports SATA; they both support NVMe. I don't think that's uncommon either. Though would have been nice to install 2 M2 SATA storage drives, since all my M.2 drives are SATA currently.

Plenty of fan headers, and the motherboard layout didn't give me any issues.

I like the subdued Gigabyte aesthetics, even though it's not in a windowed case.

I love the Define 7 Compact, btw. The way you can remove the top panel of case makes cabling up the motherboad super easy.

One reason I wanted a new motherboard is because kept having to ration my USB ports. Between the motherboard and this case, I now have 14 USB ports to work with. I should be good until at least September :)

I haven't used a Gigabyte motherboard in quite a while, but I'm pleased with this one so far.
 
I ended up with a white Define 7. Still waiting on my X570 board and 3600 to arrive, should have been delivered last week but UPS is blaming cold.

v0TjsDh.jpg
 
so which are the best price/performance B550 boards?...I'm getting tired of waiting for the MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk to get in stock
 
According to Buidzoid, Asus and Asrock did pretty good this time around and the Gigabyte a bit more disappointing, but obviously you have good and bad models on any brand, but for me I decided to go with the Extreme 4, solid VRM, great features and really sweet price for the specs.
Now just waiting for the board to arrive :)
 
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