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Firmware and Software

Software

Gigabyte includes a few applications designed for various functions, including RGB lighting control, audio, system monitoring, and overclocking. Below, we’ve captured several screenshots of the App Center, @BIOS, SIV, RGB Fusion and Easy Tune.

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Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro — (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

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Firmware

To give you a sense of the Firmware, we’ve gathered screenshots showing most BIOS screens.

The BIOS on Gigabyte’s Z490 boards has worked well for me. The format of headings across the top, with most details on a single page or one level down, makes for easy navigation. We haven’t run into any issues so far with the BIOS.

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Test System / Comparison Products

As of late November 2020, we’ve updated our test system to Windows 10 64-bit OS (20H2) with all threat mitigations applied. We also upgraded our video card driver to 457.30 and reran all the game tests moving to the new 5000 series CPU. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware used is as follows:

CPU	AMD Ryzen R9 5950X
Memory	GSkill Trident Z Neo 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (F4-3600C16Q-32GTZN)
GPU	Asus ROG Strix RTX 2070
CPU Cooler	Corsair H150i
PSU	Corsair AX1200i
Software	Windows 10 64-bit 20H2
Graphics Driver	NVIDIA Driver 457.30
Sound	Integrated HD audio
Network	Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE)

Benchmark Settings

Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
PCMark 10	Version 2.1.2177 64
	Essentials, Productivity, Digital Content Creation, MS Office
3DMark	Version 2.11.6866 64
	Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets
Cinebench R20	Version RBBENCHMARK271150
	Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded
Application Tests and Settings
LAME MP3	Version SSE2_2019
	Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLI	Version: 1.2.2
	Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX)
Corona 1.4	Version 1.4
	Custom benchmark
7-Zip	Version 19.00
	Integrated benchmark
Game Tests and Settings
The Division 2	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080
Forza Horizon 4	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080

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7 Comments Comment from the forums

kyuuketsuki

Not sure why the author beats on the "no integrated wi-fi" drum. Desktop systems are largely stationary, and many certainly use ethernet for the network connection rather than wi-fi, as they should. Having the option to purchase a board without a wi-fi chipset, which would be a useless component (and therefore expense), is appreciated. For those do want wi-fi, they can use an add-in card (as noted) or find one of the multitude of boards that does have wi-fi.

Also, having a smaller number of SATA and M.2 slots is par for the course for mATX and mITX boards, isn't it? Not sure that's really a legitimate knock against the board either.

Should also note that there is an updated version of this board, denoted with a -P, that upgrades the ethernet to 2.5Gb and ups the supported RAM speed to DDR4-4400. The audio solution may or may not be different (different model numbers are shown in the Newegg listings). Otherwise it seems identical.
Reply
JamesSneed

kyuuketsuki said:
Not sure why the author beats on the "no integrated wi-fi" drum. Desktop systems are largely stationary, and many certainly use ethernet for the network connection rather than wi-fi, as they should. Having the option to purchase a board without a wi-fi chipset, which would be a useless component (and therefore expense), is appreciated. For those do want wi-fi, they can use an add-in card (as noted) or find one of the multitude of boards that does have wi-fi.

Also, having a smaller number of SATA and M.2 slots is par for the course for mATX and mITX boards, isn't it? Not sure that's really a legitimate knock against the board either.

Should also note that there is an updated version of this board, denoted with a -P, that upgrades the ethernet to 2.5Gb and ups the supported RAM speed to DDR4-4400. The audio solution may or may not be different (different model numbers are shown in the Newegg listings). Otherwise it seems identical.

This was a very lazy review. All of the cons really are not cons for 99% of the people building a mATX build.
Reply
kaalus

Why would you want more than 4 SATA ports? 4 is too many already, 2 would be perfectly fine. SATA is legacy anyway, and most people should have their harddrives in a server, not in their desktop. No WiFI? That's a plus. And who needs so many USB ports?
The real minus is lack of 2.5GBps Ethernet - that's rules it out for me.
Reply
agabriel

kaalus said:
Why would you want more than 4 SATA ports? 4 is too many already, 2 would be perfectly fine. SATA is legacy anyway, and most people should have their harddrives in a server, not in their desktop. No WiFI? That's a plus. And who needs so many USB ports?
The real minus is lack of 2.5GBps Ethernet - that's rules it out for me.
There's a new one with 2.5GBs B550M AORUS PRO-P
Reply
Rookie_MIB

kaalus said:
Why would you want more than 4 SATA ports? 4 is too many already, 2 would be perfectly fine. SATA is legacy anyway, and most people should have their harddrives in a server, not in their desktop. No WiFI? That's a plus. And who needs so many USB ports?
The real minus is lack of 2.5GBps Ethernet - that's rules it out for me.

Well, with the amount of cores that these higher end builds may have, setting up a small VM for a server is a piece of cake. Why have the expense of a completely separate machine when you can take the one you have, allocate 2 out of 16 cores to it, some ram, and then just add 3 or 4 large HDDs for your server.

Personally, 4 SATA ports is just about perfect. 1 NVME M.2 port for the boot drive, 1 SATA for large storage for the main machine and 3 SATA for the VM server. Or, just put all 4 SATAs to the VM and map the large storage for the main system to the server. It would almost be as fast as local storage.

And yes, I do agree with the 2.5G ethernet. These days many people are looking for more than your typical 1Gb networking. Still, the board looks pretty solid otherwise.
Reply
Late_Apex

Admin said:
The MicroATX B550M Aorus Pro performed well in our tests and even managed to overclock the Ryzen 9 5950X. The $129.99 board is a step up from the DS3H, including more robust power delivery, improved audio, a heatsink for an M.2 module, and more.

Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro Review: Reasonably Priced, Capable MicroATX : Read more

why no comments about the b550 usb bug that is particularly bad with gigabyte b550 boards? Having your USB port drop out randomly is somewhat of a major con. Did gigabyte manage to fix that for this board? Last I looked yesterday they were still waiting for a fix from amd (for a similar board).
Reply
neojack

kyuuketsuki said:
Not sure why the author beats on the "no integrated wi-fi" drum. Desktop systems are largely stationary, and many certainly use ethernet for the network connection rather than wi-fi, as they should.

You are right, but integrated wifi comes with integrated bluetooth, Wich is needed for VR.
Since VR already uses a lot of USB ports, and this motherboard has limited PCIe extentions, that make sense to mention it, but not the way it was in the article.
Reply

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Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro Review: Reasonably Priced, Capable Micro ATX

A reasonably priced Micro ATX board that’s flagship-CPU capable.

Software

Firmware

Test System / Comparison Products

Benchmark Settings