ASUS ROG Strix B550-A Gaming vs. TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi)

[SpongeBob]

I know they are different chipsets but I've been eyeing these on my short list. Which is the better board overall in terms of quality, and reliability? Will be used with a 3800X for primarily a gaming system. I was looking at a but ruled it out due to a number of reviews. Honorable mention to the B550 AORUS PRO it looks like a good board too.

p.s. is there any real difference between the ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming and the ASUS ROG Strix B550-A Gaming or just colors?

 

[mda]

The Strix 550A and the X570 TUF seem to be using the same SIC639 VRMs.

Reliabilitywise should be the same. Featureset and price will be differentiating factors here I guess.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

the 550a and 550f are pretty much the same board, just different colors. as far as the x570 plus vs 550a/f it really comes down to the price and features you want and what you're willing to compromise for that each might not have over the other. about the only major features the 550f have over it is likely better memory trace shielding(all the manufactures did this with B550) and 2.5g lan. they have the same exact VRM + configuration.

on a personal side note, i hate the TUF x570 plus because of the old style sata ports on the bottom of the board where has the b550F has all 6 ports side facing. along with the fact that asus did some weird cost cutting on the board just to add the S1220a audio chipset.

 

[thesmokingman]

I'd always choose the x570 for the Gen4 link. B550 boards should be a bit cheaper but they are not because they are almost always laden down with more add-ons. They're adding in more crap so they can make more off the buyer.

 

[SpongeBob]

You know I was going to pull the trigger today on the X570 but then I was looking and it seems like B550 on average if you look at Amazon or newegg or wherever reviews and it seems like the B550's on average have better user reviews. I really don't want to deal with any quirks this time around. I've been tinkering with hardware for 20 years and this time I just want as little as BS as possible. I'm leaning to B550's now, I don't require two M.2 4.0 slots. I don't even really require one and I hate chipset fans, I had a EVGA one crap out before. Funny when you go from 90% yep to nope!

 

[doubletake]

I'm leaning to B550's now, I don't require two M.2 4.0 slots. I don't even really require one and I hate chipset fans, I had a EVGA one crap out before. Funny when you go from 90% yep to nope!

For what it's worth, this board's fan doesn't even run 99% of the time unless you are doing one of the following:

1) Booting
2) Running an nvme ssd benchmark (from the bottom m2 slot) on permanent loop while simultaneously using every SATA and USB port that's running off of the chipset
3) Running furmark on permanent loop on a 250W+ open-air GPU while living in a tropical climate with ambient temps above 30c

So I'm just saying that to let you know that the fan is a complete non-issue on this board for the vast majority of people. You can safely ignore that and instead focus on weighing the pros/cons of the rest of the board's feature set against the 550 boards you're looking at. 2.5G ethernet alone could be a major selling point if you can actually make use of it, but other than that, there's really very little other than price to set these boards apart in terms of functionality.