Good but cheap B550 boards for Ryzen 5600X?

[MR.B]

Requirements are: Under £150, with at least one NVMe slot and Ryzen 5xxx support.

But do any B550 boards even work out of the box with the new 5xxx CPU's? Or do they all require BIOS updates? If the BIOS needs updating then obviously my only options are boards with the ability to update the BIOS without a CPU in it.

 

[pcfarrar]

I got a MSI Tomahawk B550 for £150 to replace a 6 month old ROG Strix X570-F that failed (OcUK sent it back to ASUS for replacement). I had to do a BIOS flashback to get my 5800X working, but it was straightforward. It’s a decent board and should meet your needs. I’m quite happy with it and will probably sell my Strix when it returns instead of swapping back.

 

[TheReflex]

Requirements are: Under £150, with at least one NVMe slot and Ryzen 5xxx support.

But do any B550 boards even work out of the box with the new 5xxx CPU's? Or do they all require BIOS updates? If the BIOS needs updating then obviously my only options are boards with the ability to update the BIOS without a CPU in it.

So there are mobos that need a CPU to flash, and mobos that don't?

 

[Minibiker]

The MSI MPG B550 is on OFFER at OCUK... £149.99 that would be a great choice

 

[mickyflinn]

So there are mobos that need a CPU to flash, and mobos that don't?

No all motherboards at the moment will need a bios update to take a 5000 cpu so get one with bios flashback.

@Minibiker suggestion has bios flashback.

 

[TheReflex]

No all motherboards at the moment will need a bios update to take a 5000 cpu so get one with bios flashback.

@Minibiker suggestion has bios flashback.

How do I know if a B550 board has bios flashback? Been eyeing the Gigabyte B550 S2H which I believe needs a BIOS upgrade for a 5xxx, but I'm afraid of the hassle to upgrade it

 

[VaderDSL]

How do I know if a B550 board has bios flashback? Been eyeing the Gigabyte B550 S2H which I believe needs a BIOS upgrade for a 5xxx, but I'm afraid of the hassle to upgrade it

On the Gigabyte website it lists

• Q-Flash Plus Update BIOS without Installing the CPU, Memory and Graphics Card

for that motherboard, so ther implementation of BIOS flashback looks like it woiuld work.

 

[Minibiker]

How do I know if a B550 board has bios flashback? Been eyeing the Gigabyte B550 S2H which I believe needs a BIOS upgrade for a 5xxx, but I'm afraid of the hassle to upgrade it

It has Q Flash which enables you to update BIOS without installing the CPU in the board, you just need to download the latest BIOS and flash it that way

 

[mickyflinn]

How do I know if a B550 board has bios flashback? Been eyeing the Gigabyte B550 S2H which I believe needs a BIOS upgrade for a 5xxx, but I'm afraid of the hassle to upgrade it

It will say in the description and yhere will bd a button on the back or on ghe motherboard.

The Gigabyte B550 S2H does not have this feature

[USER=183234]@Minibiker[/USER] it does not have q flash plus.

The GIGABYTE B550M AORUS ELITE does have this feature called q flash plus.

 

[TheReflex]

It will say in the description and yhere will bd a button on the back or on ghe motherboard.

The Gigabyte B550 S2H does not have this feature

[USER=183234]@Minibiker[/USER] it does not have q flash plus.

The GIGABYTE B550M AORUS ELITE does have this feature called q flash plus.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550M-S2H-rev-10/sp#sp literally says "Support for Q-Flash Plus"

 

[mickyflinn]

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550M-S2H-rev-10/sp#sp literally says "Support for Q-Flash Plus"

So it does but if you check the internal and external connectors theres no mention of a q flash button. Just checked key features and its there

Appologies.

 

[VonScar]

Asus Tuf motherboard? £149.99 ATX. Its got yellow on it....but.

▷ Asus TUF Gaming B550-Plus (AMD AM4) B550 ATX … | OcUK (overclockers.co.uk)

 

[MR.B]

After giving it some more thought and considering it's looking like Zen 4 will need a new socket, that will mean these AM4 socket boards basically have no future upgrade potential, so might as well just get a proper cheap board. There might a Zen 3+ refresh later in 2021 but i'm sure that wont be worthwhile upgrade for anyone with a Ryzen 5xxx CPU.

So i was also looking at the Gigabyte B550 S2H that @TheReflex mentioned because it's really cheap, or the Gigabyte AMD B550M DS3H because it's almost the same price (~£90 but OCUK don't sell it) and both have Q-Flash Plus, so the BIOS can be updated without a CPU. The main difference with the DS3H is that it has 4 RAM slots and 2 NVMe slots instead of 2 and 1 respectively on the S2H.

The VRM's are pretty poor on both these cheap Gigabyte boards, and their heatsinks are far from great, but this is for a friend who just needs a 5600X and wont be doing any overclocking. Should be totally fine. Think i'll tell them to go for the DS3H.

but I'm afraid of the hassle to upgrade it

Don't be afraid, it's very easy. Here's a video showing exactly what you'll need to do. It's for a different Gigabyte board but the steps are identical.

 

[TheReflex]

Brilliant video, saving it for future reference - thanks!