B550 Recommendations, please?

Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2011
Posts
3,267
Location
Portsmouth
Recently updated my son's rig from the following:

2600X
Scythe Mugen 5 PCGH edition
B450M Steel Legend
2x 8Gb Corsair 3000mhz
Sabrent Rocket 1Tb PCi-E 3.0 M.2 drive
5700XT Red Devil
Superflower Leadex iii 650W
Jonsbo C3 Plus TG (with 4x cheap 120mm ARGB fans)
EG 27" 144hz 1440p screen.
"Santa" (and 18 months worth of pocket/birthday/exam performance bonus money) upgraded to the following:
3800X
ID Cooling Zoomflow AIO 240mm White
B550 Tomahawk
4x 8Gb Corsair Vengeance RGB 3600mhz White
Western Digital Black SN770 2 TB
Sapphire Nitro+ 7800XT
MSI Mag A850L
(Custom white cable extensions by ShakkMods)
Lian Li Lancool 2 Mesh RGB in white
Dell S3222DGM 32" Curved 1440p 165hz

With the exception of the Sabrent Rocket (used purely for downloading stuff to create his YouTube videos), it was an entirely new system (the older parts were used to build his younger sister's first rig).

We've had nothing but issues - abysmal performance in Rocket League/Fortnite (struggling above 60fps, even at the lowest "competitive" settings).
I've RMA'd the RAM, the GPU, PSU and the NVME drive, effectively replacing everything again with all new components, with the exception of the motherboard.

I've finally got through to an "Amazong" agent who understood what I meant by "Distance Selling Regs" and didn't just repeatedly type "Contact MSI", so the motherboard is now working it's way back to the big river for a refund, at which point I'll be able to order it's replacement.

My question is, should I take the chance on another MSI B550 Tomahawk, or consider alternatives such as:

Asrock B550 Phantom Gaming Velocita

ASROCK B550 PHANTOM GAMING RIPTIDE (daughter has the B550M version which I'm impressed by)

ASROCK B550 STEEL LEGEND
(B450M version was rock solid)

ASROCK B550 EXTREME4 (seems to be a budget version of the previous three)

MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI

Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2

Asus ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING WIFI II
(I'm concerned by the lack of USB3.2 Gen2 internal headers on what appears to be every Asus AM4 board)

I'm spoiled for choice, which doesn't help my autistic brain when it comes to making a decision, so I'd be grateful for any input...
 
Any of the B550 boards will be fine for your use case - VRM performance won’t be an issue.

If you liked the Asrock board then go for it again.

I might suggest looking for a cheap AMD 5600X or 5700X CPU as that’ll improve performance a lot given the IPC improvements with Ryzen 5000 series.

The Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2 is also a good choice.
 
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