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  • Marlin1975 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    But why? Just get a x570 board with more features.
    The b550 is supposed to be a cheaper board to the x570s.
  • 29a - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    I ask the same thing, why? Why didn't they just use the 570?
  • peevee - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    $300 board, why? I have bought $50 boards, and it was at the time when north bridge was still on a separate chip. Admittedly, my last build is from 2011... with 2600k... still works, only Ethernet has died (and was replaced with a cheap card, as it should have been).
  • Samus - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link

    Premium boards generally do pay off. Every premium board I've purchased lasted over a decade with 0 issues. Every cheap board I bought had at least 1 issue within a few years.

    Example: Asus P6X58D ($300 in 2008, retired LAST YEAR)
    Example Asrock H87M-ITX ($120 in 2013, the cheapest H87 ITX board, retired 3 years later when it wouldn't POST half the time during a reboot\cold boot)
  • Gigaplex - Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - link

    Where I live, the Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX is 20% cheaper than the Gigabyte X570 I Pro Wifi, and includes 2.5Gbit ethernet which the X570 doesn't have. It's a no-brainer for me, B550 it is.
  • desii - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    >why?

    Chipset fan.
  • bananaforscale - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    Chipset fan, that
    1) doesn't even come on unless required and
    2) is required only if you stress test PCIe 4 drives.

    The fan is not an issue.
  • WaltC - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    Doesn't make any noise, either...;) The chipset fan nonsense has always been a red herring, imo.
  • Spunjji - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    I understood the trepidation from some people, but it's clear that most of it was FUD from Intel stans.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - link

    Not really nonsense when it's been demonstrated that 570 can easily be cooled by passive heatsinks and there is a very good reason people loathe those tiny fans. Tiny fans didnt become super reliable overnight.
  • Gigaplex - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    B550 supports PCIe 4 drives and doesn't need a fan.
  • AlB80 - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    Literally,
    B550 chipset doesn't support PCIe 4 and doesn't need a fan.
  • Gigaplex - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    Maybe I should clarify. B550 boards supports PCIe 4 drives. The CPU has PCIe 4 lanes available.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - link

    So the chipset doesnt support PCIE 4.0. The CPU does. None of the 4.0 is going through the chipset itself.

    Not that makes it OK for 570 to have a fan, but still.
  • Gigaplex - Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - link

    The point is you can use a B550 board with a PCIe 4 drive, stress the drive, and still not have a chipset fan.
  • Ken_g6 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    I'm guessing this is the board for government types who need to burn through their budget quota. "But, see, it's a 'B' board, so it's for business!"
  • antonkochubey - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    Government types don't DIY their PCs lmao
  • MrVibrato - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    I would rather ask the question: Why an ATX board with a B550? What's the point of it? Any I/O configuration possible with the B550 would comfortably fit on a mATX. I am just joking, of course. I know that an mATX board would not fit in an ATX case.
  • JfromImaginstuff - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    Theoretically, an mATX mobi would fit in an Atx case(you know, due to being smaller)
  • MrVibrato - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    But only theoretically. Practically, i forgot to include a /sarcasm tag in my previous comment ;-P
  • Gigaplex - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    I just bought a B550 motherboard. It was 30% cheaper and had features that the X570 version didn't have (eg 2.5Gbit ethernet, better accoustics due to lack of a chipset fan).
  • WaltC - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    $360 x570 Aorus Master is a far better buy. BTW, I've never heard the chipset fan even once. Got a lot more features than this B550 mboard. Had my x570 AM over a year and its doing great--and I still haven't seen anything better on the market--other than the Xtreme--which for me would be overkill and cost 2x as much.
  • kkilobyte - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    Except when the Aorus Master suddenly refuses to boot, requiring you to remove the CMOS battery to revive it. Which is something that happens a bit too often - and Gigabyte still unable to solve the issue.
  • Showtime - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    When going AMD, they get you on the motherboards. You also need more expensive ram to maximize performance. I was interested in AMD this round, but the Intel non k chips give the same,or better gaming performance, and actually come out to the same or less depending on motherboard, and ram. $200+ b series mobo's are just bad investments IMO.
  • yannigr2 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    Would you please check something about B550 X570 boards?

    Here the Taichi has the option to drive both top PCIe x16 slots from the CPU. IF I am not mistaken.

    On the other hand the majority of B550 AND X570 boards seems to connect only the first PCIe x16 slot on the CPU and EVERYTHING ELSE on the chipset. Even if they have 2 or 3 PCIe x16 slots. That means that in many cases ports get disabled when other ports are populated.
  • hetzbh - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    No AM4 based can drive 2 PCIe X16 from the CPU (I wish..) since the Ryzen 2xxx/3xxx has 24 PCIe lanes out from the CPU. 4 goes to the chipset, 4 goes to NVME M.2, and the last 16 goes to the first PCIe slot and can be shared (X8/X8) between 2 slots, but no X16/X16.
  • yannigr2 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    I wasn't talking about driving two PCIe x16 ports. I was talking about splitting those 16 lanes to a typical x8 / x8 configuration.

    While this was the obvious case in most AM3 motherboards for example, in many cases, even with x570 boards with two or three PCIe X16 slots, only the first slot is connected to the CPU. The second (and third is their is one) PCIe x16 together with the couple x1 ports are connected in the Chipset. So you read. If you connected something in the second M2, you lose that PCIe slot. If you connect something in that PCIe slot, you lose the other PCIe slot and etc.
  • yannigr2 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    One example of a 570 that does this

    ASUS PRIME-X570-P
    https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/PRIME-X570-P/spe...

    1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x16 mode)

    AMD X570 chipset
    1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 (max at x4 mode)
    3 x PCIe 4.0 x1

    So, form the two PCIe x16, only the first is connected to the CPU. The second is connected on the chipset.

    You have a microATX motherboard disguised as a full ATX.
  • Hyoyeon - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    In order to bifurcate the x16, boards need some logic to mux/demux the lanes. Switching up to nearly 32 GB/s of traffic is quite hard, and so the IC's are surprisingly expensive (especially when you get into the really fast things like PCIe 5/6).
  • eddman - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    That information can be gathered from the product's page on their website. The following is from this board's page:

    "single at Gen4x16 (PCIE1)
    dual at Gen4x8 (PCIE1) / Gen4x8 (PCIE3)
    triple at Gen4x8 (PCIE1) / Gen4x8 (PCIE3) / Gen3x4 (PCIE5)"

    They don't specifically mention exactly which slot is connected to what, but from the above info it's apparent that the first two x16 slots are connected to the processor, because the lanes are split when two cards are inserted. The third slot is obviously connected to the chipset.

    The Asus example you posted below clearly states the second slot is connected to the chipset.
  • Irata - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    You also have x4 PCIe 4.0 plus several USB ports connected directly to the CPU with Ryzen. There is an Aorus board that allows the x8 plus three times x4 for nVME connection all directly from the CPU.

    If the Ampere and RDNA2 only need the bandwidth provider by 8x PCIe 4 / 16x PCIe 3, you can run the GPU and three nVME at full speed that way, plus USB devices connected to the CPU *and* still have the x4 PCIe 3 lanes for the chipset to CPU connection for everything else on B550.

    I'd say this is where Ryzen 2 and 3 shine vs the competition that is much more limited with PCIe 3 and four fewer lanes from the CPU.
  • Death666Angel - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    I'm curious, what would be your use case for two x8 slots? Multi GPU is dead and are there any peripheral cards that need an x8 slot from the CPU? :)
  • MrVibrato - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    There are x8 HBAs / RAID controllers.So, if one wants to use a GPU and such a HBA / RAID controller, two available x8 slots can make sense...
  • sandtitz - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    "...and the slightly older Intel AX200 [vs AX201]"

    According to Intel ARK, they're both the same product, released at the same time. Only the system connectivity differs.

    No reason to prefer either.
  • invinciblegod - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    What does system connectivity mean?
  • dotes12 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    I think that Intel's AX200 does Wi-Fi through PCI-E and Bluetooth through USB, while Intel's AX201 uses CNVi for both in one CNVio link. I might have the 200/201 numbers reversed, but that's the idea as far as I understand it.
  • Hyoyeon - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link

    CNVi (intel proprietary) modules are often soldered, so I prefer the AX200.
  • jabber - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    I must admit for me the PCIe slot setup I'd prefer is

    1 x 16
    4 x 4

    More practical for my use. Boards come with way too many 16 and 1 slots for my liking. The x4 slot is underappreciated.
  • Gigaplex - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    x4 cards fit in an x16 slot. There's not really much benefit in putting a physical x4 slot on the board - may as well just put an x16 slot and have it share lanes with some of the other slots, dropping down to x4 active.
  • jabber - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    Ahhh well you see I want to just have SET slots. I don't want that "if X is in Y then V is x4 or disabled and if Y is in V then C is X16 and if X is in V then its x8 but if you have NVMe in Slot B its disabled" nonsense.
  • Gigaplex - Wednesday, August 26, 2020 - link

    The uncertainty certainly is annoying, but if I bought that board and then some time later had a need to install a PCIe x8 card, I'd be a bit frustrated.

    (I installed an LSI 9207-8i about a month ago on a motherboard I've had for >8 years, it was lucky I had an x16 slot free)
  • Tpoking - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    What's that old saying "Intel tax"? Try AMD tax only your getting less for more with this abomination and any AMD it's build over the past two months. Excuses with current event don't stick comparing the other way around. AMD is not value when considering anything but budget Matx boards and last Feb choosers.
  • antonkochubey - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    Yeaaaah because Z490 boards (B550 is equivalent to Z490 - allows x8/x8 split, has PCIe 3.0, allows overclocking) can be found for $42 or for free on the side of the road /s
  • Spunjji - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    Great post, next time try adding some facts.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link

    Let's see...

    Midrange chipset at premium price, for no justifiable reason? Check.

    Tons of VRM phases for CPUs that shouldn't even be overclocked? Check.

    Excuses? Hmm...
  • antonkochubey - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    This midrange chipset matches Intel's highest-end chipset in it's feature set, and exceeds in some (PCIe 4.0 and CPU-direct first M.2).
  • MrVibrato - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    I think it will be easier for you to use your fingers when counting PCI lanes.
  • Spunjji - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    The VRM thing really bugs me.
  • lorribot - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    Why?
    Why 2.5GbE? No routers supplied by ISPs support this so yuo would need to spend a stack on a seperate switch. I am not entirely sure what the use case would be for 2.GbE and what sort of data would need to be transferred over that link. When there is also a top end WiFi 6 built in as well. One or other of these expensive features will be unused.
    This board, like many of the B550 boards, makes no sense except in very few use cases, noise or heat, over an X570 based board that brings more future proofed support for PCI 4.
    the top price for a B550 board should be around £/$70-100 and no more but there is massive shortage of boards in that price bracket.
    A £/$75 board would give a good entry in to AM4 for those still on old Haswell/Broadwell CPUs still looking for a value upgrade path in the AMD productstack.
  • Gigaplex - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    I use 2.5GbE. Gigabit is the single biggest bottleneck for NAS speeds. I use a single SSD in my system, mass storage is on the NAS. I don't want a loud mechanical drive sitting right next to me. I also don't even have a switch, I connect the two endpoints directly.

    Switches aren't going to be commonly available at a low price until 2.5GbE is ubiquitous. For that to happen there's going to be a period of time where some people like you keep complaining about having faster ports with nothing to plug in to.

    You want the cheap motherboards you're asking for? A520 is for you.
  • dromoxen - Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - link

    How do you connect your endpoints directly ? I would like 2.5gb for my next purch but lack of cheapish switches is a stumbling block ... 2500K needs retiring ..Or do I wait for ??
  • Gigaplex - Wednesday, August 26, 2020 - link

    My file server has 2 ethernet ports. I connect my desktop to my file server directly with an ethernet cable using the 2.5G port, and use the other ethernet port on the server to the rest of my network. The network connections are bridged on the server, so the desktop can see the rest of the network.
  • Spunjji - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    "Why 2.5GbE" - because some people keep their boards a long time, 1GbE is pretty slow for NAS storage needs and the kind of person spending $300 on a motherboard probably isn't going to use their ISP's router as their main switch?

    Most ISP routers aren't WiFi 6 yet either, so it's weird that you think *that* makes sense but not the 2.5GbE.

    You've arbitrarily stated a "maximum price" for B550 that seems more appropriate for B520.
  • xrror - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link

    Of all of the possible things to complain about, you pick having onboard 2.5GB NIC?

    I mean, it just seems a strange choice as a complaint?
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - link

    By that argument most motherboards shouldnt even have gigabit, but rather fast ethernet 100 Mbps.
  • seamonkey79 - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link

    This is as stupid as paying $100 extra for a AIO with a screen on the waterblock.
  • Greys - Wednesday, August 26, 2020 - link

    Cool
  • Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 26, 2020 - link

    Yes, it’s cool to parlay a midrange chipset at a premium price point.

    Why? Who knows!
  • Everett F Sargent - Thursday, August 27, 2020 - link

    "Yes, it’s cool to parlay a midrange chipset at a premium price point.

    Why? Who knows!"

    Try this B550 board ...
    https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-AORUS-MA...

    If I wanted a 16-phase Voltage Regulator AND an MSRP below $300US ($280US) this looks like a pretty good option. I also am not into OC or gaming, so that I am fine with a very cheap graphics card running 8X and three M.2 PCIE 4.0 SSD's in RAID0 and a 3950X running stock. I'll also use ECC memory as this thing will be running all 32-threads 247 for weeks on end.

    Plugin two (or one) additional PCIE 4.0 M.2's, the GPU is set to x8 instead of x16

    So the question is, is there anything out there (AMD) that is available for a lower MSRP cost that has, at a minimum, a 16-phase Voltage Regulator? TIA

    Oh and if you have a better solution for whatever reason(s) that would also be most useful.

    I think the MB vendors know what they are doing, there appears to be no MSRP price overlap for comparable feature sets. Still trying to find an X570 that will do all that this MB can do at a lower MSRP price point.

    I'm thinking of using this MB as a sort of test bed for my own numerical modelling codes (do I really need RAID 0 for I/O, RAM requirements and possibly some OC (depends on % improvement and temperatures, but gaining only a few percent seems to be rather pointless. which appears to be the current situation, I need more threads not a small % MHz improvement).
  • Oxford Guy - Tuesday, September 1, 2020 - link

    I already said the VRM marketing pitch falls flat because these CPUs shouldn't even be overclocked.

    It's a gimmick and it flunks.
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