AMD launches B550 motherboards

Elevon said:
Happened to me with an old MSI VIA Chipset board, I could not get my standard Crucial ram stable while gaming, MSI new BIOS fixed it and it was like out within a day or two, nowadays the first thing I do with a new board regardless of brand is flash to the latest BIOS and take it from there before OS is installed.

I also keep the motherboard CD drivers/ultilities in the box and download latest ones from my other PC so ready for install on my new build etc...
Great thing about MSI, Asus, Asrock etc is they have frequent BIOS updates when issues are found so good support, hard to have a perfect BIOS with hundreds of different hardware configs out there with new boards/chipsets etc...

You want things simple get a console ;) .
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Exactly my approach. Lots of scare stories about BIOS updating but I've never had one fail. I never use the included software either as it's usually very outdated.

Update the BIOS, Windows, chipset drivers and graphics drivers all from the manufacturers website. I rarely have many issues doing this.
 
PeegeeTips said:
Is there much difference between the 1200 (as used on my x570 toma) and the 1220?

I know to avoid the alc887, but I thought all the 1xxx stuff was pretty good as far as on-board audio goes...
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1200 is ok to good but 1220 is better and latest, really down to your own ears and speaker/headphone setup IMHO.
 
Elevon said:
Happened to me with an old MSI VIA Chipset board, I could not get my standard Crucial ram stable while gaming, MSI new BIOS fixed it and it was like out within a day or two, nowadays the first thing I do with a new board regardless of brand is flash to the latest BIOS and take it from there before OS is installed.

I also keep the motherboard CD drivers/ultilities in the box and download latest ones from my other PC so ready for install on my new build etc...
Great thing about MSI, Asus, Asrock etc is they have frequent BIOS updates when issues are found so good support, hard to have a perfect BIOS with hundreds of different hardware configs out there with new boards/chipsets etc...

You want things simple get a console ;) .
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Overclock now nice and stable, just took a little while playing with the LLC settings to get the same amount of droop as before where it seemed to be happy.

Funny you should mention RAM stability as mine is only able to run a a very loose XMP profile @ 3600 MHz on this board, it will just throw up loads of errors when I try and run my previous timings from the ryzen calculator which were stable for a couple of months before which is very annoying. Tried tweaking SOC/CDDP/VDDG's voltages but no luck at all yet. Looks like I will stick with XMP/Auto Secondaries for now
 
Elevon said:
I would go B550, has new features that are not on the B450 and you know 100% it will take the next gen Ryzen down the road,yes I know the new MSI Max B450 will support it but very few B450s will officially, as to Wifi, you know there are plenty of good B550 boards with Wifi built-in.
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Pretty much as I figured then! Would have been a great board 12-18 months ago, but pretty pointless now...
 
having looked at a few reviews now it seems some of these boards will push a 3900x to 4.4g and some to 4.35g but really seem limited by the silicon - I struggle with the idea of plumping for something "expensive" when the MSI B550 tomahawk seems to manage 4.4g just fine. Other than maybe some more fan headers, different USB options and SLI/xfire capabilities I don't get the massive range in pricing. Am i missing something? You can pay near £300 for some of these boards and I don't feel the top-end really represents good value.

I'm starting to wonder if any of the more budget boards will manage to hit that 4.4g figure. Maybe there's a diamond in the rough somewhere. Realistically I only want 3/4 fan headers, some USB 3 connectivity, a single GPU and single PCIe 4 slot - maybe 6 SATA but i could probably get by with 4 at a push. I feel weird about going mATX, as i have an ATX size case, but ultimately i can't see what i might be plugging into any of the expansion slots anymore. Another SATA controller perhaps? Wifi? I use SPDIF and a receiver so i don't have to consider sound quality.

Seeing as there's a question hanging over what's to be gained by overclocking these Ryzen CPUs are the VRMS/power such a significant concern in any case? Is this something that Ryzen 4000 is likely to be able to take better advantage of?

B@
 
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Elevon said:
I would go B550, has new features that are not on the B450 and you know 100% it will take the next gen Ryzen down the road,yes I know the new MSI Max B450 will support it but very few B450s will officially, as to Wifi, you know there are plenty of good B550 boards with Wifi built-in.

Side Note: funny how MSI dropped the ball on B550 with onboard sound, they all have ALC1200 or lower unlike other brands that do have a few models with ALC1220 onboard sound listed, just look at Gigabyte,Asus,Asrock etc...
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MSI does have the SPDIF optical output though ironically.

I think I'll get the MSI M-ITX. The Asus has an active VRM cooler fan hidden away and the same X570 setup, which wasn't the best when it came to cooling (although the VRM is very nice otherwise). I'm hoping that MSI have learnt lessons from the awful X570 VRM cooler (Throttled the CPU). The cooling on the Gigabyte looks very good, but I hear bad things about their customer service and software. Feedback that I'm wrong would be welcome as the board looks very nice and I like the top and bottom heatsink for the M2, although the fact it sits so closely to the chipset is a little worrying.
 
Moonrock said:
MSI does have the SPDIF optical output though ironically.

I think I'll get the MSI M-ITX. The Asus has an active VRM cooler fan hidden away and the same X570 setup, which wasn't the best when it came to cooling (although the VRM is very nice otherwise). I'm hoping that MSI have learnt lessons from the awful X570 VRM cooler (Throttled the CPU). The cooling on the Gigabyte looks very good, but I hear bad things about their customer service and software. Feedback that I'm wrong would be welcome as the board looks very nice and I like the top and bottom heatsink for the M2, although the fact it sits so closely to the chipset is a little worrying.
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Ironically MSI had better onboard sound on the B450 range over the B550, anyway get what you're happy with ;) .
 
Some of the B550m boards got 2 m.2 slots with a support PCIe4x4 and the other PCIe3x4 whilst also have PCIe4x16 and PCIe3x16 (x4 speed) slots.

that’s a pretty decent set of expansion slots. Only wished the PCIe3x16 slot can run at full speed then can get a m.2 adaptor can plug more SSD to it.

gigabyte got one at 100, ASRock got one at £115.

hmmm...
 
robfosters said:
Bit stupid making a budget board that doesn’t work with two popular budget CPU’s :confused:
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B550 is not a budget board.

If we use Intel's board line ups as a comparison. What AMD have basically done is release B550, rather than as a B450 replacement, as a slightly cut down version of X570. They are not trying to replace B450 yet.

Previously

X470 = Z390
B450 = B360
A320 = H310

Now

X570 = Z490
B550 = H470 (but better IMO)
B450 = B460

In a couple of months A520 joins the party and, I'm guessing, will line up much more as the B450 replacement.

As for your specific comment, the compatibility issue is because 3200G & 3400G aren't really third gen, they are still based on second gen architecture (which B550 doesn't support). To be frank, anyone buying a cheap CPU would be stupid to pay for B550 over B450. There's no PCI-E Gen4 support on those chips so there's absolutely no advantage to B550.
 
ScottiB said:
B550 is not a budget board.

If we use Intel's board line ups as a comparison. What AMD have basically done is release B550, rather than as a B450 replacement, as a slightly cut down version of X570. They are not trying to replace B450 yet.

Previously

X470 = Z390
B450 = B360
A320 = H310

Now

X570 = Z490
B550 = H470 (but better IMO)
B450 = B460

In a couple of months A520 joins the party and, I'm guessing, will line up much more as the B450 replacement.

As for your specific comment, the compatibility issue is because 3200G & 3400G aren't really third gen, they are still based on second gen architecture (which B550 doesn't support). To be frank, anyone buying a cheap CPU would be stupid to pay for B550 over B450.
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Thanks for clarifying.

I can see where I was wrong, it’s not a budget board, it’s mainstream, and X570 is enthusiast.
 
I think I'm going to hold fire on buying anything for now. I'm not really getting that itch to buy any B550 boards at the moment, they all seem a little too expensive and as someone who hasn't done a very good job of keeping up with the technologies and features offered, I find it all slightly bewildering at the moment trying to compare boards, within the B550 range and between chipsets. Today I'm going to swap my 3600 back into my tower case on a B350 board and see how much better my temps are coming from my MITX. I'll just hold out for a few months until the new CPU's launch and see what is going on with boards then.
 
Been having a look at boards and I'm off next week so would have time to build a new PC. Think I might go for mATX rather than ITX? Liking the look of the NZXT H510 case.

Will probably grab a Ryzen 3600 to go with it. Any Micro-ATX B550 Motherboard recommendations?
 
Residem said:
I think I'm going to hold fire on buying anything for now. I'm not really getting that itch to buy any B550 boards at the moment, they all seem a little too expensive and as someone who hasn't done a very good job of keeping up with the technologies and features offered, I find it all slightly bewildering at the moment trying to compare boards, within the B550 range and between chipsets. Today I'm going to swap my 3600 back into my tower case on a B350 board and see how much better my temps are coming from my MITX. I'll just hold out for a few months until the new CPU's launch and see what is going on with boards then.
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Looks like next gen Ryzen will be delayed until next year,


https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7322...riginally meant to,that out until early 2021.


AMD was originally meant to launch its next-gen Zen 3-based Ryzen 4000 series processors in September 2020, but now DigiTimes is reporting that Team Red has pushed that out until early 2021. There is zero competition from Intel that is hurting AMD, and Ryzen 3000 chips are pretty damn kick ass right now -- so there's kind of no reason to launch the Ryzen 4000 series just yet.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7322...en-ryzen-4000-cos-3000-is-too-good/index.html
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Elevon said:
Looks like next gen Ryzen will be delayed until next year,


https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7322...riginally meant to,that out until early 2021.
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Either way I'll be fine for the time being. I'm just in an odd place computer wise. I built my first new gaming pc for years when 1st gen ryzen released with a b350 strix f gaming board, a 1600 cpu and a gtx 1060 6gb. Then I upgraded my monitor to 1440 and got a vega 64. I then arranged to sell that and built myself another new build in a MITX case with a b450i gaming, 3600 and a 5700xt. The sale of my other pc fell through so now I have 2 gaming pc's. The temps on the 3600 in the MITX build are much higher than I'd like so I'll swap that for the 1600 and hopefully being in the bigger case will help. Might swap the GPU's too....

I know it's not a bad situation to be in but I've got a lot of money tied up in 2 computers. I was looking at getting a new board ready for next year and then I could try to sell off a lot of parts while they are still worth something. I'll just keep my 2 computers for now and find something useful to do with the MITX build!
 
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