Russia's First Domestically-Produced AMD B450 Motherboard Debuts

B450 Motherboard
B450 Motherboard (Image credit: GS Group & Philax)

GS Group Holding and Philax have started manufacturing Russia's first domestically-produced B450 motherboard. Philax plans to release at least 40,000 motherboards to the Russian market.

Philax specifically chose the B450M Pro4 because of the possibility to add a TPM module, which is important for government agencies. GS Group Holding and Philax's partnership doesn't just stop with motherboards, though. The duo also has plans to produce up to 50,000 monitors. There's also an 18-month project to develop and produce motherboards for Russia's homemade Elbrus and Baikal processors.

Avid enthusiasts will probably find Philax's B450 motherboard very familiar. That's because the design is based on ASRock's B450M Pro4. Philax and ASRock probably reached an agreement for the latter to use the design, probably under a licensing agreement of some sort. Obviously, Philax's rendition doesn't carry the ASRock brand. In fact, it doesn't even sport the model name.

Although the B450 chipset is a bit outdated, it's compatible with a wide range of Ryzen processors and APUs, including the latest Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) and Ryzen 4000 (Renoir) lineups. Adhering to the micro-ATX form factor, the motherboard comes with four DDR4 memory slots. It supports DDR4-3200 and above memory modules.

While not generous, the AM4 motherboard does come with the necessities. It provides four SATA III ports for standard hard drives and SSDs and up to two M.2 slots for high-speed drives. The expansion options on the B450 motherboard consist of two PCIe 3.0 x16 slots and one PCIe 2.0 x1 slot. The speed varies depending on the processor choice.

Ryzen APUs will be able to take advantage of the motherboard's D-Sub, DVI-D, or HDMI port. Connectivity-wise, the B450 motherboard offers a PS/2 combo port, two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, and even USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A and Type-C ports.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • velocityg4
    I'll bet people will be flocking to buy a Russian made, outdated, knockoff motherboard. /jk
    Reply
  • Krotow
    velocityg4 said:
    I'll bet people will be flocking to buy a Russian made, outdated, knockoff motherboard. /jk

    It is anothew way of money laundering for Russian government officials.
    Reply
  • sonofjesse
    We need a US ally to make these products, Cananda, South Korea, Mexcio............were way too dependent on foreign powers that may or may not have our best interest at heart.
    Reply
  • mitch074
    Good choice for a ripoff! I've been using this motherboard on projects for years, I have yet to find anything wrong with any of them.
    Reply
  • drea.drechsler
    "Philax and ASRock probably reached an agreement for the latter to use the design, probably under a licensing agreement of some sort. "

    Yeah, one would hope so. But that blistering piece of expose journalism does leave us with an impression that Philax possibly ripped off Asrock's design and copied it for their domestic market, doesn't it?

    Couldn't we at least get a comment from someone at Asrock?
    Reply