AMD B550 Motherboards Now Available For Preorder Starting at $115

By Zhiye Liu
published

Time to break your piggy bank.

B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax

B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax (Image credit: ASRock)

AMD's B550 motherboards (opens in new tab) are officially due on June 16, however, you can start to preorder them at major retailers. With AMD previously stating that over 60 designs were in development, Newegg's listings are just a partial portion of a bigger list of motherboards that you can expect when launch date comes.

Newegg has posted 25 different AMD B550 motherboards, spanning from big-name vendors, such as Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte and MSI. The plethora of offerings include form factors that start from mini-ITX to the conventional ATX sizes. There are RGB-infested motherboards as well as more discrete options. 

In regards to pricing, the accessible B550 models cost $114.99 with the high-end B550 models topping out at $299.99, which steps dangerously into X570 pricing territory. For a bit of context, budget X570 motherboards start at $159.99 so it would worthwhile to give X570 a look if the B550 motherboard that you have in mind surpasses that price point.

AMD B550 Motherboard Pricing

Swipe to scroll horizontally
ModelPricingForm FactorPower Delivery SubsystemMemory Slots / CapacityPCIe x16 SlotsSATA PortsM.2 SlotsEthernetWi-Fi
ASRock B550 Taichi$299.99ATX16 Phases4 / 128GB3821 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master$279.99ATX16 Phases4 / 128GB3621 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming$279.99ATX16 Phases4 / 128GB3621 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
Asus ROG Strix B550-I Gaming$229.99Mini-ITX8 Phases2 / 64GB1421 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
ASRock Phantom Gaming B550 PG Velocita$219.99ATX14 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)No
Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (Wi-Fi)$209.99ATX14 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax$199.99Mini-ITX8 Phases2 / 64GB1421 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming$189.99ATX14 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)No
Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC$189.99ATX12 Phases4 / 128GB3621 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
ASRock B550 Extreme4$184.99ATX14 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)No
Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus WiFi$179.99microATX10 Phases4 / 128GB2421 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
ASRock B550 Steel Legend$179.99ATX14 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)No
Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro$179.99ATX12 Phases4 / 128GB3621 (2.5G)No
MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk$179.99ATX12 Phases4 / 128GB2622 ( 2.5G & 1G)No
Asus TUF Gaming B550-Plus$169.99ATX10 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)No
MSI MAG B550M Mortar WiFi$169.99microATX10 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)WiFi 802.11ax
MSI MAG B550M Mortar$159.99microATX10 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)No
Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus$159.99microATX10 Phases4 / 128GB2421 (2.5G)No
Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite$159.99ATX12 Phases4 / 128GB3421 (2.5G)No
ASRock B550M Steel Legend$154.99microATX10 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (2.5G)No
Asus Prime B550M-A WiFi$149.99microATX8 Phases4 / 128GB1421 (1G)WiFi 802.11ax
ASRock B550 Pro4$134.99ATX8 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (1G)No
ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4/ac$124.99ATX8 Phases4 / 128GB2421 (1G)WiFi 802.11ac
ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4$114.99ATX8 Phases4 / 128GB2421 (1G)No
ASRock B550M Pro4$114.99microATX8 Phases4 / 128GB2621 (1G)No

Not that it's a contest, but ASRock sells the most expensive B550 motherboard at Newegg's online store. The B550 Taichi, which comes in at $299.99, boasts a power delivery subsystem that features a 16-phase design. The B550 motherboard provides four DDR4 memory slots for up to 128GB of memory and three PCIe x16 slots to setup a three-way CrossFire configuration.

ASRock's over-engineered B550 motherboard sports eight SATA III ports and two M.2 ports for storage. You also get to take advantage of 2.5G Ethernet networking and WiFi 802.11ax  and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity as well.

Mini-ITX options arrive in form of the Asus ROG Strix B550-I Gaming and ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax that carry price tags of $229.99 and $199.99, respectively. Given the reduce landscape, both motherboards share similar characteristics. You receive a 8-phase power delivery subsystem, two DDR4 memory slots for uo to 64GB and a single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot.

The pair of mini-ITX motherboards supply four SATA III ports and two M.2 slots for storage. In addition to the 2.5G Ethernet port, they also boast a combination of WiFi 802.11ax and Bluetooth 5.1.

When it comes to entry-level models, Newegg sells the ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4 and ASRock B550M Pro4 for $114.99 each. The first comes in an ATX form factor, while the latter is a microATX motherboard. Both equally leverage a 8-phase power delivery system, four DDR4 memory slots, two PCIe x16 slots and Gigabit Ethernet networking. The two ASRock B550 motherboard are equipped with two M.2 ports, but the B550M Pro4 does come with two additional SATA III ports, increasing the total to six.

Don't be despaired if you didn't find a B550 motherboard that satisfies your needs and/or budget. More B550 offerings should be on the way.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

Topics
Motherboards
11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • InvalidError
    Wonder what those will settle down to, MSRPs look ridiculous. Eight phases appears to have become baseline, I bet a lot of these are going to fare worse than well-designed 4-6 phases. ASROCK's Phantom is getting roasted by reviewers for having one of the worst VRMs ever on the Intel side of thing, might establish the low watermark for B550 too.
    Reply
  • vinay2070
    InvalidError said:
    Wonder what those will settle down to, MSRPs look ridiculous. Eight phases appears to have become baseline, I bet a lot of these are going to fare worse than well-designed 4-6 phases. ASROCK's Phantom is getting roasted by reviewers for having one of the worst VRMs ever on the Intel side of thing, might establish the low watermark for B550 too.
    IIRC, the asrock X570 boards were fine, the MSI X570 were worse. MSI improved and in the Z490, it fared better and Asrock became worse. So its better wait for reviews rather than pre order.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    InvalidError said:
    ASROCK's Phantom is getting roasted by reviewers for having one of the worst VRMs ever on the Intel side of thing, might establish the low watermark for B550 too.
    Yeah, Asrock's lower-end boards this generation look pretty weak. VRM performance might not be as bad as it is on the Intel boards though, since the power draw for Ryzen 3000 processors should be lower. So at the very least, we might not see the higher-end parts VRM-throttling down to base-clocks. Even if they manage to perform okay now though, it's hard to say how they will cope with future processors.

    Back-panel connectivity on a lot of these lower-priced boards looks a bit bare-bones too though, considering the starting prices relative to B450. B550 boards don't really look particularly great until you get around the $160 price range, which is moving into X570 territory. The difference in pricing between B550 and X570 doesn't seem particularly large for a given feature-set. I kind of get the impression that manufacturers might have hiked launch prices a bit due to the current B450 shortages.
    Reply
  • escksu
    cryoburner said:
    Yeah, Asrock's lower-end boards this generation look pretty weak. VRM performance might not be as bad as it is on the Intel boards though, since the power draw for Ryzen 3000 processors should be lower. So at the very least, we might not see the higher-end parts VRM-throttling down to base-clocks. Even if they manage to perform okay now though, it's hard to say how they will cope with future processors.

    Back-panel connectivity on a lot of these lower-priced boards looks a bit bare-bones too though, considering the starting prices relative to B450. B550 boards don't really look particularly great until you get around the $160 price range, which is moving into X570 territory. The difference in pricing between B550 and X570 doesn't seem particularly large for a given feature-set. I kind of get the impression that manufacturers might have hiked launch prices a bit due to the current B450 shortages.

    There isn't that big of a difference between B550 and X570 to begin with. This is because the PCIE 4.0 comes from the CPU. The main difference is just the uplink (pcie 3.0 vs 4.0). Although you get more SATA, USB etc.... I wouldn't consider them major differences.

    Although x570 chipset also provides you with 16 PCIE 4.0 lanes, but the extra bandwidth from PCIE 4.0 cannot be fully utilised. This is because the uplink is just 4 lanes.

    Depending on board design, manufacturers may utilise the chipset for additional M.2 slots. So, where you install your M.2 drive may have an effect on performance. If you utilise all the slots for RAID, then you may face bottleneck.
    Reply
  • SysBuff
    cryoburner said:
    I kind of get the impression that manufacturers might have hiked launch prices a bit due to the current B450 shortages.
    There's a shortage of many components, not just B450 boards. I also think that one of the reasons for the inflated B550 prices is the imminent arrival of A520 boards, that will be the true entry level models.
    Reply
  • nofanneeded
    escksu said:
    There isn't that big of a difference between B550 and X570 to begin with. This is because the PCIE 4.0 comes from the CPU. The main difference is just the uplink (pcie 3.0 vs 4.0). Although you get more SATA, USB etc.... I wouldn't consider them major differences.

    Although x570 chipset also provides you with 16 PCIE 4.0 lanes, but the extra bandwidth from PCIE 4.0 cannot be fully utilised. This is because the uplink is just 4 lanes.

    Depending on board design, manufacturers may utilise the chipset for additional M.2 slots. So, where you install your M.2 drive may have an effect on performance. If you utilise all the slots for RAID, then you may face bottleneck.

    People tend to think that the extra chipset lanes are bad because of the 4 lanes only to CPU , well they miss the point , it is not about the total lanes bandwidth , it is about having the ability to add more hardware to they system and thats it , and 99% of use you will not use them together .. you will never see the bottleneck at all ..
    Reply
  • escksu
    nofanneeded said:
    People tend to think that the extra chipset lanes are bad because of the 4 lanes only to CPU , well they miss the point , it is not about the total lanes bandwidth , it is about having the ability to add more hardware to they system and thats it , and 99% of use you will not use them together .. you will never see the bottleneck at all ..

    If the purpose is just about adding more hardware, then pcie 4.0 serves no purpose since 3.0 can do everything. Cost less and runs cooler too.

    Yes, its sufficient if you run only 1 ssd on the chipset. But if you runs 2, then no.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    escksu said:
    If the purpose is just about adding more hardware, then pcie 4.0 serves no purpose since 3.0 can do everything.
    While PCIe 3.0 may be enough for most stuff available today, systems new enough to have PCIe 4.0 today will likely still be powerful enough to be useful 5-10 years from now and it is extremely likely that PCIe 4.0 will be necessary to get the most out of new stuff at some point between now and then.

    PCIe 3.0 was good enough for everyone... until NVMe SSDs came about and almost immediately made 3.0 seem no longer adequate and 4.0 SSDs are about to make even 4.0 look uncomfortably tight.
    Reply
  • nofanneeded
    escksu said:
    If the purpose is just about adding more hardware, then pcie 4.0 serves no purpose since 3.0 can do everything. Cost less and runs cooler too.

    Yes, its sufficient if you run only 1 ssd on the chipset. But if you runs 2, then no.

    actually you can run 3 M2 on chipset if the motherboard connects all the lanes and this is very useful , in case you want more space and your M2 drives are full you will need to add another one for more storage , not for more performance ...

    and PCIe 4.0 came with Gen4 link between the CPU and Chipset , so it is still useful and can give you full speed as well .
    Reply
  • escksu
    nofanneeded said:
    actually you can run 3 M2 on chipset if the motherboard connects all the lanes and this is very useful , in case you want more space and your M2 drives are full you will need to add another one for more storage , not for more performance ...

    and PCIe 4.0 came with Gen4 link between the CPU and Chipset , so it is still useful and can give you full speed as well .

    Yes, you can connect 3 x M.2 PCIE 4.0 SSDs on x570 chipset.
    However, the bandwidth you have is ~8GB/s. As long you don't try to run them in RAID 0, you are fine. Single PCIE 4.0 SSD can hit 5GB/s transfer rate. So 3 of them is max 15GB/s. Sequential read/write is very close to max in benchmarks. OF course, this is not real world performance but it definitely will saturate the 8GB/s link.

    Also take note that this 8GB/s link is used by USB, SATA, NIC, audio etc. It may also be used by other PCIE Slots, depending on how its implemented. x570 chipset allows up to 16 lanes on the chipset.
    Reply