If you're seriously that worried about power delivery, you should consider a larger board to start with. It's not just about theoretical capacity either, there's also benefits in terms of thermal dissipation of said VRMs, and then you have to look at system cooling. If you're running a high-end powerhouse that needs all that power, you're gonna want more fans anyway. If you've got 3-4 large fans and a peppy PSU, you're at LEAST in mATX territory already.
5 fans as standard, easy fits 750W of SFF PSU, tower coolers up to fuma 2/mugen, hell even some of the larger noctuas fit with the vented panel, you should look at whats going on in the SFF space right now. You may be surprised.
Sure if you aren't running fairly large radiators and 140mm fans all around... but again if you don't need serious cooling you don't need serious power delivery either. That was my point. If you're not going beyond a mild OC, it doesn't matter.
The existence of larger boards doesnt mean we shouldnt be interested in powerful small boards. It's not a zero sum game, and this isnt 2005, there are plenty of enthusiast mini ITX cases and have been for years.
Yeah they've gotten better, but so have larger boards. I would like to see an OC shootout across board sizes, but that would probably be even more useful to do with 14nm Intel chips that can run crazy hungry even at board defaults, let alone deliberately trying to push them.
You'll note I did point out an mITX board below with decent PD below. Not as good as its larger counterparts, but not bad. The extra cooling for the VRMs sits directly atop the M.2 slots though... space constraints :P
With that being said, I meant to point towards the Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX as probably the best option for PD I can recall looking at in mITX. But again if you're really taxing the VRMs they're going to need airflow.
But why tho? SATA is perfectly fine, games still dont take advantage of NVMe speeds, and for things like media playback and general usage, SATA is still perfectly acceptable. And big sata SSDs tend to be cheaper then their M.2 brothers.
For example, a 4TB NVMe SSD as of writing will cost you at least $800, while sata 4TB SSDs are running about $410-430. You can get gen 3 NVMe 4TB drives for about $600, or drives using QLC, but the SATA versions use the superior TLC and are still notably cheaper.
SATA isn't perfectly fine, at least not on a new build with other modern components. SATA will generally do the job well enough on current games, but try running something like Forza Horizon 3 or 4 on a SATA drive on a high-refresh monitor and watch the game constantly freeze as it loads assets. Once direct storage makes its way into gaming and we see more console ports from the current generation, SATA will likely only fall further behind.
Forza 3 and 4 run perfectly fine on sata SSDs. You have any sources for your claims? And you do realize those games were made to run on the slow OG xbox one and its 5400rpm disk, right?
You're going to say they run fine just off the top of your head without any sources of your own, eh? You could easily do a search for SSD utilization and stuttering with Forza 3/4, and pretty quickly see that SATA is not fine. I was constantly at 100% SSD utilization once I upgraded to a 144hz monitor, and the game would freeze repeatedly to load assets. No such problem when I moved to an NVME.
Also, I'm running at maximum PC settings. Not Xbox One settings. You might be surprised that higher settings have higher hardware requirements.
They dont, he's just trying to find a reason to whine about SATA. Running at higher settings wouldnt matter either, the method of loading textures he's talking about sounds like DirectStorage, which is not used in any games yet.
You made the claim they didnt run correctly, you provide the source. No review of those games mentioned SSD limitations, so again, provide your sources for your claim.
You're not paying me, so why would you expect somebody to do your work for you? Oh right, because you're just generally insufferable on this site, so of course you think everyone owes you labour. This isn't a scientific journal, so do the bare minimum of legwork to type something into Google if you actually care that much (it would've taken you less time than your obnoxious replies).
I mean yeah SATA isn't the best but its fine for most things and SATA ssds are really cheap for the most part meaning a lower entry cost compared to if the connecter switched to something like u.3 which would be the only reasonable new connecter for storage other than m.2 imo
Have you looked at the board? Deleting SATA isn't going to buy you enough space. It's the rest of the layout that's the issue. If you absolutely must have two m.2's on an mITX board, there are a couple of B550 mITX models that look decent. Being B550 means the second one is limited to 3.0, although that isn't likely to make much difference unless you have a top-tier drive and games start really using DirectStorage.
Hell , even the asrock x300 can shoehorn in TWO m.2 slots and thats smaller than mitx . I do feel two slots should be the minimum, regardless of whther Gen3 or gen4. Im a bit worried about BioStars reputation as being the ass scrapings of MB's. Sound output is a bit feeble too
What do you mean? Are there certain things that are option in 2.1? I haven't followed it closely. Or do you just mean it won't be able to display playable framerates at the highest resolution settings 2.1 allows?
As far as I know, AMD APUs top out at 4K resolution. So HDMI2.1 is certainly not useless, as you can drive more Hz that way, but you still need a dedicated GPU for anything more demanding. Also, you are most likely not playing 4K@144Hz games on an APU. But feel free to correct me if that resolution limit has been lifted.
HDMI 2.1 is useful for playing 4K HDR 120 Hz video on a HTPC. The general lack of HDMI 2.1 ports with 300 and 400 series mITX boards is what drove me to pick up an A520 board for my latest HTPC build.
Is it just me or are the rear IO ports almost comically out of square with the board, which is also bowed? Weird thing to see in a press photo.
Assuming the thing fits into the IO shield this could be nice to go along with a 5000-series APU like the 5300G to upgrade the heck out of my i3-2100 HTPC. It's too bad they'll probably be out of stock for the next two years.
It looks like they took the picture too close and then cropped out the rest of the board.
Usually what you are supposed to do, is zoom in from a distance, so that you reduce parallax effect. (I'm not a photographer so I don't know the correct terminology)
No SPDIF output to get around the weak DAC, either. You're stuck with BT and HDMI. If your speakers don't support BT or if you don't have an easy way to break audio out of HDMI, you might as well spend a bit more and get a nicer board than go for an HDMI breakout box or USB DAC.
But hey, it includes a couple of LED headers, which are so much more important. /s
It's a damn shame the best CPU you will be able to buy until next year will be the 2019-era 3400G, currently selling at 50%+ over MSRP.
It's great to see a variety of AMD platforms (and dropping platform cost compared to Intel) but AMD needs a legitimate quad core $99 APU so people can build simple systems like HTPC's, light business systems, or a basic family\kids PC. Because as it stands, Intel has modern 11th gen CPU's like the i5-11400 that completely obliterates the retail-available AMD APU's in performance and price while having a lower platform cost.
I thought I'd never see the day when AMD was only competitive once you started spending over $200 on a CPU as has been the case for Intel for a decade.
I’ve noticed that some B550 boards do support the 3200/3400G, even though AMD officially doesn’t certify the chipset as compatible. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information out there about this other than Reddit threads and it would be cool for AT do consider a testing review of boards with chipsets operating outside of their compatibility.
Hrm, I have the same motherboard and last I checked the CPU support list, the 3000 APUs were not there. I can't check now as their website serves a 502 bad gateway error.
Looks like they added more CPU support to the GB B550I __ up to 13 "G" APUs at BIOS F12 (?). The GB B450I Pro ITX is around 3 dozen Gs with F61 (w/AMD Athlon 3000G _ maybe a 35w Bristol Ridge rebrand for Bid'ness machines ?) ...
It obliterates them in CPU performance, but the GPU performance on RL is inferior to even a lightly overclocked 2200G. If you want a balance of the two, there just isn't a very good option out there right now.
I'm hoping that Van Gogh (or something like it) shows up on a desktop board - 4 decent cores and a solid GPU cluster. I've been waiting to rebuild my HTPC for a while now, and I'd pounce on something like that.
drool worthy for me but my existing atx is still useful. i don't know why recent AMD APUs are not available in our country and AMD should upgrade their iGPU asap.
IDK if this is 8 phase. To me it looks like there are 8x thingamajigs under the heatsink and 10x 470 J07. And since this has to handle APUs, I am thinking it is 6 phase VRM for CPU and 2 phase VRM with doubling for the GPU.
So a 6+2x2 VRM design. Which should be good enough for an 8 core, if the power stages are of higher amperage.
I believe you are correct with the 6+2, the power stage is very similar to other B550 ITX boards with a 6+2 (though most of them cover it up with ridiculous cooling which for a 6+2 is mostly unnecessary.)
Based on the target market for this board, the vast majority of users will likely run a 65W chip anyway, and if they were actually retail available this would be ideal for an APU.
RGB can be disabled easily. Most of the B550 ITX boards cooling designs look fine, and you're not really going to see them anyway with the CPU cooler and GPU obscuring the board. The VRM design looks pretty weak compared to the other boards.
'With both NVIDIA and AMD moving quickly away from multi-graphics card setups to single card powerhouses, the mini-ITX form factor has become as potent as as it's ever been for gaming systems.'
Oh, so the newish trend away from multi-GPU hasn't resulted in an increase in the perceived value of mini-ITX.
Well, yeah. There are many market overlaps that mITX has to compete with, and, IMO, the cost premium of mITX parts is a bit much. The case is not as much of a problem, as the NR200 exists, but the cost of decent SFX PSUs and mITX mobos was enough to buy a higher performance GPU or CPU.
I say "was", only because of the current silicon shortage.
And if you don't need a powerful gaming GPU, there are currently plenty of NUC, and ryzen 4000/5000 mini PCs on the market right now. These have surprisingly good APU performance, as well as price/performance ratio, and, most importantly, you can actually buy them.
The MSI B550i Gaming WiFi board is a much more interesting choice. It’s still got the usefulness of the SFF but has two M.2 slots, onboard USB-C for front case connection and gaming industry VRM phases and cooling. And I forgot to mention 2.5Gb LAN, useful PS2 mouse port and WiFi 6.
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Smell This - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
VRM'age ?
shabby - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
Here comes the "it's a great board but it's missing..." crowd.Marlin1975 - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
Only thing I see is lack of VRM information. If the VRM system uses good components it looks like a really nice m-itx board.Alexvrb - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
If you're seriously that worried about power delivery, you should consider a larger board to start with. It's not just about theoretical capacity either, there's also benefits in terms of thermal dissipation of said VRMs, and then you have to look at system cooling. If you're running a high-end powerhouse that needs all that power, you're gonna want more fans anyway. If you've got 3-4 large fans and a peppy PSU, you're at LEAST in mATX territory already.MadAd - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
Cooler Master NR200?5 fans as standard, easy fits 750W of SFF PSU, tower coolers up to fuma 2/mugen, hell even some of the larger noctuas fit with the vented panel, you should look at whats going on in the SFF space right now. You may be surprised.
Alexvrb - Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - link
Sure if you aren't running fairly large radiators and 140mm fans all around... but again if you don't need serious cooling you don't need serious power delivery either. That was my point. If you're not going beyond a mild OC, it doesn't matter.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
The existence of larger boards doesnt mean we shouldnt be interested in powerful small boards. It's not a zero sum game, and this isnt 2005, there are plenty of enthusiast mini ITX cases and have been for years.Alexvrb - Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - link
Yeah they've gotten better, but so have larger boards. I would like to see an OC shootout across board sizes, but that would probably be even more useful to do with 14nm Intel chips that can run crazy hungry even at board defaults, let alone deliberately trying to push them.You'll note I did point out an mITX board below with decent PD below. Not as good as its larger counterparts, but not bad. The extra cooling for the VRMs sits directly atop the M.2 slots though... space constraints :P
Alexvrb - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
With that being said, I meant to point towards the Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX as probably the best option for PD I can recall looking at in mITX. But again if you're really taxing the VRMs they're going to need airflow.Alistair - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
why not? i personally don't want a MB without 2 x m.2 slots, lets put the nail in the coffin for SATA alreadyTheinsanegamerN - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
But why tho? SATA is perfectly fine, games still dont take advantage of NVMe speeds, and for things like media playback and general usage, SATA is still perfectly acceptable. And big sata SSDs tend to be cheaper then their M.2 brothers.For example, a 4TB NVMe SSD as of writing will cost you at least $800, while sata 4TB SSDs are running about $410-430. You can get gen 3 NVMe 4TB drives for about $600, or drives using QLC, but the SATA versions use the superior TLC and are still notably cheaper.
Dizoja86 - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
SATA isn't perfectly fine, at least not on a new build with other modern components. SATA will generally do the job well enough on current games, but try running something like Forza Horizon 3 or 4 on a SATA drive on a high-refresh monitor and watch the game constantly freeze as it loads assets. Once direct storage makes its way into gaming and we see more console ports from the current generation, SATA will likely only fall further behind.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
Forza 3 and 4 run perfectly fine on sata SSDs. You have any sources for your claims? And you do realize those games were made to run on the slow OG xbox one and its 5400rpm disk, right?Dizoja86 - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
You're going to say they run fine just off the top of your head without any sources of your own, eh? You could easily do a search for SSD utilization and stuttering with Forza 3/4, and pretty quickly see that SATA is not fine. I was constantly at 100% SSD utilization once I upgraded to a 144hz monitor, and the game would freeze repeatedly to load assets. No such problem when I moved to an NVME.Also, I'm running at maximum PC settings. Not Xbox One settings. You might be surprised that higher settings have higher hardware requirements.
tim851 - Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - link
Why would the game need to load more assets at 144 Hz? You're not increasing draw distance or moving through the level faster.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - link
They dont, he's just trying to find a reason to whine about SATA. Running at higher settings wouldnt matter either, the method of loading textures he's talking about sounds like DirectStorage, which is not used in any games yet.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - link
You made the claim they didnt run correctly, you provide the source. No review of those games mentioned SSD limitations, so again, provide your sources for your claim.Dizoja86 - Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - link
You're not paying me, so why would you expect somebody to do your work for you? Oh right, because you're just generally insufferable on this site, so of course you think everyone owes you labour. This isn't a scientific journal, so do the bare minimum of legwork to type something into Google if you actually care that much (it would've taken you less time than your obnoxious replies).RSAUser - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link
@Dizoja86 you made the claim, you need to back it up.Forza 3 runs fine on a SATA SSD, on a HDD there's stuttering here and there but usually runs fine.
Linustechtips12#6900xt - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
I mean yeah SATA isn't the best but its fine for most things and SATA ssds are really cheap for the most part meaning a lower entry cost compared to if the connecter switched to something like u.3 which would be the only reasonable new connecter for storage other than m.2 imoAlexvrb - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
Have you looked at the board? Deleting SATA isn't going to buy you enough space. It's the rest of the layout that's the issue. If you absolutely must have two m.2's on an mITX board, there are a couple of B550 mITX models that look decent. Being B550 means the second one is limited to 3.0, although that isn't likely to make much difference unless you have a top-tier drive and games start really using DirectStorage.dromoxen - Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - link
Hell , even the asrock x300 can shoehorn in TWO m.2 slots and thats smaller than mitx . I do feel two slots should be the minimum, regardless of whther Gen3 or gen4. Im a bit worried about BioStars reputation as being the ass scrapings of MB's. Sound output is a bit feeble too29a - Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - link
Every Biostar board I've ever used worked great for me.mooninite - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
HDMI 2.1 + 2.5GbE... what a time to be alive.raystriker - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
Doubt it can do the upper end of what HDMI 2.1 actually promises :|Death666Angel - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
What do you mean? Are there certain things that are option in 2.1? I haven't followed it closely. Or do you just mean it won't be able to display playable framerates at the highest resolution settings 2.1 allows?daemontus - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
As far as I know, AMD APUs top out at 4K resolution. So HDMI2.1 is certainly not useless, as you can drive more Hz that way, but you still need a dedicated GPU for anything more demanding. Also, you are most likely not playing 4K@144Hz games on an APU. But feel free to correct me if that resolution limit has been lifted.Lucky Stripes 99 - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
HDMI 2.1 is useful for playing 4K HDR 120 Hz video on a HTPC. The general lack of HDMI 2.1 ports with 300 and 400 series mITX boards is what drove me to pick up an A520 board for my latest HTPC build.evilspoons - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
Is it just me or are the rear IO ports almost comically out of square with the board, which is also bowed? Weird thing to see in a press photo.Assuming the thing fits into the IO shield this could be nice to go along with a 5000-series APU like the 5300G to upgrade the heck out of my i3-2100 HTPC. It's too bad they'll probably be out of stock for the next two years.
meacupla - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
It looks like they took the picture too close and then cropped out the rest of the board.Usually what you are supposed to do, is zoom in from a distance, so that you reduce parallax effect.
(I'm not a photographer so I don't know the correct terminology)
Assimilator87 - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
That's a very useful technique that no one has ever told me. Thanks, meacupla!HideOut - Friday, April 16, 2021 - link
Can become a great HTPC setup. Anyone know if its got a decent sound codec, hopefully a realtek 1200 or better?Gigaplex - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
The article mentions Realtek ALC897TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
Pretty generic sound card honestly,.Lucky Stripes 99 - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
No SPDIF output to get around the weak DAC, either. You're stuck with BT and HDMI. If your speakers don't support BT or if you don't have an easy way to break audio out of HDMI, you might as well spend a bit more and get a nicer board than go for an HDMI breakout box or USB DAC.But hey, it includes a couple of LED headers, which are so much more important. /s
TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
You'd probably be better off with a USB DAC for better sound on a board like this.Samus - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
It's a damn shame the best CPU you will be able to buy until next year will be the 2019-era 3400G, currently selling at 50%+ over MSRP.It's great to see a variety of AMD platforms (and dropping platform cost compared to Intel) but AMD needs a legitimate quad core $99 APU so people can build simple systems like HTPC's, light business systems, or a basic family\kids PC. Because as it stands, Intel has modern 11th gen CPU's like the i5-11400 that completely obliterates the retail-available AMD APU's in performance and price while having a lower platform cost.
I thought I'd never see the day when AMD was only competitive once you started spending over $200 on a CPU as has been the case for Intel for a decade.
Gigaplex - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
The 3400G isn't compatible with B550.Samus - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
That makes the situation even worse...Gigaplex - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
Yes, yes it does. There's no APU on the open market supported by this or any B550 board. Only the OEM-only 4000 APUs will work at this time.Smell This - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
Under CPU Support there are a minimum *11* 'G' flavored APUs on my GB B550I Aorus Pro AX ITX, including the 3400G.
Samus - Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - link
I’ve noticed that some B550 boards do support the 3200/3400G, even though AMD officially doesn’t certify the chipset as compatible. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information out there about this other than Reddit threads and it would be cool for AT do consider a testing review of boards with chipsets operating outside of their compatibility.Gigaplex - Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - link
Hrm, I have the same motherboard and last I checked the CPU support list, the 3000 APUs were not there. I can't check now as their website serves a 502 bad gateway error.Smell This - Friday, April 23, 2021 - link
Looks like they added more CPU support to the GB B550I __ up to 13 "G" APUs at BIOS F12 (?). The GB B450I Pro ITX is around 3 dozen Gs with F61 (w/AMD Athlon 3000G _ maybe a 35w Bristol Ridge rebrand for Bid'ness machines ?) ...
Spunjji - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
It obliterates them in CPU performance, but the GPU performance on RL is inferior to even a lightly overclocked 2200G. If you want a balance of the two, there just isn't a very good option out there right now.I'm hoping that Van Gogh (or something like it) shows up on a desktop board - 4 decent cores and a solid GPU cluster. I've been waiting to rebuild my HTPC for a while now, and I'd pounce on something like that.
zodiacfml - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
drool worthy for me but my existing atx is still useful. i don't know why recent AMD APUs are not available in our country and AMD should upgrade their iGPU asap.Gigaplex - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
"I don't know why recent AMD APUs are not available in our country"They're technically not available anywhere. They're OEM only. You'd need to pick one up off the grey market if you really want one.
Samus - Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - link
AMD doesn't care about mah freedoms!Gigaplex - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
What advantage does this board have over the existing B550 ITX boards? It's so late to the market that it has to offer something to make it relevant.TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
The lack of RGB, garish heat spreader design, and lack of general overdesign along with what looks like a 8 phase VRM are all good selling points.Lucky Stripes 99 - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
I see two 4-pin LED headers just right of the diagnostic LEDs.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
Headeres are fine, the board itself doesnt have any. I can ignore headers.meacupla - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
IDK if this is 8 phase.To me it looks like there are 8x thingamajigs under the heatsink and 10x 470 J07.
And since this has to handle APUs, I am thinking it is 6 phase VRM for CPU and 2 phase VRM with doubling for the GPU.
So a 6+2x2 VRM design.
Which should be good enough for an 8 core, if the power stages are of higher amperage.
Samus - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
I believe you are correct with the 6+2, the power stage is very similar to other B550 ITX boards with a 6+2 (though most of them cover it up with ridiculous cooling which for a 6+2 is mostly unnecessary.)Based on the target market for this board, the vast majority of users will likely run a 65W chip anyway, and if they were actually retail available this would be ideal for an APU.
TheinsanegamerN - Monday, April 19, 2021 - link
True, but thena gain 6 phase is plenty, even the 5950x only peaks at 147 watts. 6-8 cores wont come close to straining it.Gigaplex - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
RGB can be disabled easily. Most of the B550 ITX boards cooling designs look fine, and you're not really going to see them anyway with the CPU cooler and GPU obscuring the board. The VRM design looks pretty weak compared to the other boards.Rudde - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
Is the m.2 slot under one of the heatsinks? Because I can't find it.Tomatotech - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
I think it's under the silver module that has 'Silver' written on it.Oxford Guy - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
'With both NVIDIA and AMD moving quickly away from multi-graphics card setups to single card powerhouses, the mini-ITX form factor has become as potent as as it's ever been for gaming systems.'Oh, so the newish trend away from multi-GPU hasn't resulted in an increase in the perceived value of mini-ITX.
meacupla - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
Well, yeah.There are many market overlaps that mITX has to compete with, and, IMO, the cost premium of mITX parts is a bit much.
The case is not as much of a problem, as the NR200 exists, but the cost of decent SFX PSUs and mITX mobos was enough to buy a higher performance GPU or CPU.
I say "was", only because of the current silicon shortage.
And if you don't need a powerful gaming GPU, there are currently plenty of NUC, and ryzen 4000/5000 mini PCs on the market right now. These have surprisingly good APU performance, as well as price/performance ratio, and, most importantly, you can actually buy them.
Agent Smith - Thursday, April 22, 2021 - link
The MSI B550i Gaming WiFi board is a much more interesting choice. It’s still got the usefulness of the SFF but has two M.2 slots, onboard USB-C for front case connection and gaming industry VRM phases and cooling. And I forgot to mention 2.5Gb LAN, useful PS2 mouse port and WiFi 6.Ghostline91 - Wednesday, April 28, 2021 - link
biostar are doing pretty well lately and even latest valkyrie series has better vrms too