Although most manufacturers have a primary focus on X470 chipset motherboards, AMD has made it clear that the B350 chipset will be sticking around for a long time. The MSI B350M Gaming Pro aims to offer gamers a low-cost option on the smaller mATX form factor, without all the glitz and glamour of RGB LEDs and over zealous power delivery configurations.

Recommended Reading on AMD Ryzen
2700X and 2600X CPU Review	2400G and 2200G APU Review	Threadripper 2 2990WX Review	Best CPUs
ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate	GIGABYTE X470 Aorus Gaming 7	Biostar X370GTN	MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium

The MSI B350M Gaming Pro Motherboard Overview

The MSI B350M Gaming Pro targets the more budget conscientious gamer looking to use the B350 chipset, not just for an entry-level price, but also with a mATX form factor. While the appeal of the mATX form factor offers a smaller alternative to the regular ATX sized boards, the form factor usually allows for up to two graphics cards to be installed on the more premium boards; the MSI B350M Gaming Pro omits a secondary full-length PCIe x16 slot for a less bandwidth hungry and small PCIe x1 slot. Given the price point of around $80 at Newegg, the B350M Gaming Pro sits as not only one of the cheapest AM4 socketed mATX motherboards on the market, but as one of the cheapest AM4 offerings completely.

With its low price, MSI has gone with a relatively basic layout across the majority of the PCB, which is inline with it being a budget board with a ‘less is more’ mantra; this is especially attributed to this particular model primarily due to the price. The heatsinks feature a stylish and futuristic looking pattern with a red and black design, with silver accents around the edging. Another important aesthetic feature is the all-black PCB with a red pattern predominantly located around the socket; this pattern largely resembles circuit traces and tracks.

When motherboards get labeled up as gaming, this can usually signify multiple things such as the color scheme, usually red or with red accented heatsinks, as well as featuring high-end features such as uprated audio codecs and networking capabilities. This can also includes software marketed to give an advantage during gaming. In order to keep down costs, the B350M Pro Gaming makes use of the Realtek ALC887 audio codec which is commonly featured on boards in this price range. The codec is complimented by a quadruplet of Nippon Chemicon audio capacitors as well as featuring a degree of PCB separation. The networking is driven by a Realtek RTL8111H which consists of a single Ethernet port located on the rear panel.

The storage options consist of four SATA 6GBs ports controlled by the AMD B350 chipset with RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays being supported. Also included is a single M.2 slot located directly below the single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot which does itself feature the MSI Steel Armor slot protection. The M.2 slot supports PCIe 3.0 x4 capable drives, as well as SATA; a maximum of M.2 2280 (22 x 80 mm) are officially supported.

The board has a single DVI-D port, an HDMI 1.4 port and a VGA port giving users the facility to use older monitors. The rest of the rear panel houses the boards USB capabilities with a total of six. These are split into two USB 2.0 and four Type-A USB 3.0 ports; due to the budget nature of this board, there are no Type-C or USB 3.1 Gen2 ports present. The rest of the rear panel consists of a single PS2 keyboard/mouse combo port, a single LAN port and three 3.5mm audio jacks for the onboard audio.

Just like with mITX motherboards, the B350 Pro Gaming has two RAM slots with dual channel DDR4 support, with a maximum capacity of up to 32GB installed. While X470 does have improved memory compatibility with faster modules over the first generation AM4 motherboards such as this one, the B350M Pro Gaming does offer support for DDR4-3200 (OC) which is good for a board at the entry level price point.

The B350M Pro Gaming has a modest power delivery setup consisting of a 3+2 phase configuration with a Richtek RT8894A PWM controller leading the charge of the components. The VRM cooling comes via a single heatsink which is rather unassuming for users wanting to do run higher levels of voltage for overclocking on the AMD Ryzen processors such as the Ryzen 7 1700 ($220) used in our test bed, or the newer second-generation Ryzen 7 2700 $299 which with an updated BIOS, does support the newer chips.

With the performance, the results given in comparison to other boards on test were to be expected, with the weakest showing coming from the audio testing; a case of a Realtek ALC887 versus the ALC892/1220 offerings on the other boards being a stretch too far to compete with. The strongest aspect of performance on the B350M Gaming Pro came in our 3D point movement calculations test, 3DPM, with further strong showings in our Handbrake encoding tests. The board also displays good figures in power consumption for both idle, and our long idle tests, only with this coming undone at full load to produce one of the highest results seen on an AM4 motherboard.

It's clear that the primary use for this board comes through budget gamers looking to shave off unnessacary features and overzealous packages to drive the overall price down. Where the Realtek ALC887 and Realtek RTL8111H controllers are more than ample for anyone looking to do general computing related tasks and gaming, they don't exude the level of premium other boards ingest into their lower tier offerings. The mATX form factor segment is rather crowded on the B350, B450, X370, and X470 chipsets.

Ryzen 7 1700 Overclocking

Whilst the stripped-down versions of the cheaper chipsets on Intel motherboards such as B360 features a lockdown on overclocking, AMDs B350 is fully unlocked to support overclocking on the Ryzen range of processors. Focusing on the MSI B350M Pro Gaming motherboard, it does have a rather unadorned power delivery consisting of a 3+2 phase setup, which in turn wouldn’t make this as suitable for higher voltages than perhaps other models of a more premium nature than this. The MSI Click BIOS 5 resembles most other MSI BIOS versions of recent times and although the B350M Pro Gaming sits at the lower end of the market in terms of price, all the relevant and core settings are available to do some overclocking. The BIOS itself is easy to navigate around, with a simple press of F7 allowing for switching between the basic and advanced BIOS screens. The OC section has all the core settings for changing CPU core frequency, various voltage settings and memory too, including DRAM latency timings, as well as the ability to enable compatible memory’s XMP profiles. The CPU Core Voltage within the BIOS is hard locked to a maximum of 1.4 V; I am assuming this is to not overload the power delivery and at the end of the day, 1.4 V is more than enough for most overclocks without going overboard which will result in considerably higher power consumption and thermals. Users looking to go past 1.4 V on this board will have to resort to the AMD Ryzen Master Overclocking Utility which will allow for a maximum of 1.55 V, but this is not recommended at all.  

The best Ryzen 7 processors on ambient cooling can hit around 4.2 GHz while our sample can hit around 4.0 to 4.1 GHz depending on the quality of the board with between 1.375 and 1.40 volts.

Methodology

Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.

For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (100ºC+). Our test bed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.

Overclocking Results

Although our Ryzen 7 1700 test bed sample has a limitation of around 3.9 and 4.0 GHz on all but the most overkill of boards, the B350M Gaming Pro performs as expected given the relatively inexpensive cost of $80. An overclock of 3.9 GHz was achieved with the boards allowed maximum of 1.4 V on the CPU voltage core and even though the load voltage jumped up to 1.44 V, it remained unstable during our POV-Ray testing. Users looking to overclock their Ryzen 7 processors whether that be the first or second iteration of the chips should only expect to apply overclocks with moderate voltages as the power delivery cooling on this particular model is somewhat poor for overclocking and during the testing, the svelte heatsink did warm up considerably. I am not confident the heatsink would hold up over long durations and with higher ambient room temperatures, there could be overheating problems down the line.

Board Features

The B350M Gaming Pro focuses on offering reliable and respectable components, such as a pairing of Realtek controllers for the audio (Realtek ALC887) and networking capabilities (Realtek 8111H) in a comparatively small and low-cost package. The main and only full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 on the board is equipped with MSI's Steel Armor to offer rigidity to the slot to prevent damage when heavy graphics cards are installed. The single PCIe 3.0 x4 capable M.2 slot allows for drives up to 22 mm in width and 80 mm in length (M.2 2280) to be installed, and the slot itself remains independent from the rest of the board which also includes two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots.

MSI B350M Gaming Pro mATX Motherboard
Warranty Period	3 Years
Product Page	Link
Price	$80
Size	mATX
CPU Interface	AM4
Chipset	AMD B350
Memory Slots (DDR4)	Two DDR4 Supporting 32GB Dual Channel Up to DDR4-3200+
Video Outputs	1 x HDMI 1.4 1 x VGA 1 x DVI-D
Network Connectivity	Realtek 8111H Gigabit LAN
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC887
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU)	1 x PCIe 3.0 x16
PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH)	2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
Onboard SATA	Four, RAID 0/1/10
Onboard M.2	1 x PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA
USB 3.1 (10 Gbps)	N/A
USB 3.0 (5 Gbps)	4 x Type-A Rear Panel 2 x Header (four ports)
USB 2.0	2 x Rear Panel 2 x Header (four ports)
Power Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8pin CPU
Fan Headers	1 x CPU (4-pin) 2 x System (4-pin)
IO Panel	4 x USB 3.0 Type-A 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A 1 x Network RJ45 (Realtek 8111H) 1 x HDMI 1.4 1 x VGA 1 x DVI-D 1 x Combo PS/2 3 x 3.5mm Audio Jacks (Realtek)

Given the relatively low-cost nature of the B350M Gaming Pro ($80), some of the more premium features have been omitted to cut costs such as a secondary full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot that mATX boards such as the GIGABYTE AB350M DS3H ($65), which even sports four RAM slots whereas the MSI B350M Gaming Pro only has two. Another skipped feature purely due to the board's price point is any USB 3.1 10 Gbps capability, as well as no Type-C connections to be found.

Visual Inspection

With the B350M Gaming Pro sitting towards the cheaper end of the B350 market and being of a smaller mATX form factor (244 x 210 mm), the PCB in itself is somewhat bare. The PCB is all-black while MSI has implemented a red pattern resembling circuitry and tracks which is predominately featured around the CPU socket. This adds an extra level of contrast to the black PCB and ties in nicely with the modern styled power delivery and chipset heatsinks. The full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot underneath the Steel Armor and two RAM slots are also red in color. There is no RGB, but MSI has equipped the B350M Gaming Pro motherboard with red LEDs instead which illuminates from the four corners at the rear, as well as along the PCB separation line from the audio components to the rest of the board. The rest of the single red LEDs can be found around the PCH or chipset heatsink towards the bottom right-hand side of the board.

As with all AM4 desktop motherboards, the B350M Gaming Pro has a single 24-pin ATX power connector to provide power to the motherboard, whereas the power to the CPU is delivered by a single 8-pin ATX 12 V connector. In regards to cooling options, there are three available 4-pin fan headers to use which includes one dedicated to the CPU fan, with the remaining two being dedicated to case fans. The rear panel doesn’t feature a clear CMOS button, so the header to jump the BIOS can be found just above the chipset heatsink; a single 4-pin LED header to extend upon the built-in red LEDs can also be found to the bottom right-hand corner of the chipset heatsink as well.

Although roughly half of the current B350 mATX line-up has four RAM slots, the B350M Gaming Pro is one of the models which has only two. The two RAM slots offer support for DDR4-3200+ kits and with two sticks installed, will operate in dual channel mode. The increase in supported speeds over launch day boards in 2017 is thanks to a wave of AGESA firmware updates which addressed numerous issues in regards to supported memory speeds.

While the power delivery is a fairly basic one, the immediate thing I noticed was how keen MSI is on using the Nikos PK616BA MOSFETs across their AM4 range of motherboards. The B350M Gaming Pro makes use of ten of the PK616BAs, as well as ten Nikos PK632 MOSFETs with them being split into pairings for each of the five power stages on the board. The configuration of the power delivery is split into a 3+2 configuration with three specifically for the CPU and the remaining two for the SoC. What’s interesting is that MSI has chosen to use the same MOSFETs across three different AM4 boards ranging from this one at $80, all the way to the X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium whose review was published back in April of this year. Controlling the 3+2 power delivery is a Richtek RT8894A PWM controller with an R22 solid choke for each of the VRMs. We believe that each choke is rated for 60A, but specs are very vague and this needs to be confirmed.  The small red and black heat sink only manages to cover the CPU area of the VRM while the SoC area contains no cooling whatsoever; this means there is a reliance on passive airflow within the case when memory is overclocked and/or if a compatible Raven Ridge APUs such as the Ryzen 3 2200G ($99) and Ryzen 5 2400G ($169) is used.

Regarding storage, the B350M Gaming Pro has four SATA 6 Gbps ports which are controlled from the B350 chipset with RAID 0/1 and 10 arrays being supported. Two of the SATA 6 Gbps ports are right-angled whereas the other two ports are angled up straight. A single PCIe 3.0 x4 which is located just below the full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot has support for drives up to M.2 2280 (22 x 80 mm) and also supports SATA drives too, without removing bandwidth or capabilities from the existing ports.

The B350M Gaming Pro has a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 which has a coating of MSIs Steel Armor slot protection which gives the slot a more stringent construction - it essentially an extra layer of protection to the slot to avoid unwanted damage from heavier graphics cards. Sandwiching the full-length slot is a pairing of PCIe 2.0 x1 slots with one directly above and one further below to allow room for the installation of a single M.2 drive.

On the rear panel is a standard set of USB connections including four USB 3.0 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports; the low-cost nature of this board prunes off any Type-C capability and USB 3.1 10 Gbps ports which are to be expected of a board at this price point ($80). The back panel also has video outputs which consist of a DVI-D port, a VGA port and an HDMI 1.4 port. This allows for support for the Ryzen 3 2200G ($99) and Ryzen 5 2400G ($169) APUs and with low budget users in mind, it could make for a great pairing with minimal cost for the performance offered. Also present is a single PS/2 combo port, a LAN port controlled by the Realtek 8111H Gigabit controller and three 3.5mm audio jacks to allow use with the implemented Realtek ALC887 audio codec.

In The Box

Inside the box, MSI has included a standard set of accessories which consists of two SATA cables, cable stickers, an IO shield, a driver installation DVD, an instruction manual marked B350M/A320M Gaming Pro and a thank you for purchasing this product card.

• Driver Disk
• Quick Start & Motherboard Manual
• Rear I/O Plate
• Two SATA Cables
• Thank You Post Card
• Cable Stickers

BIOS

Every AM4 motherboard that MSI has released so far uses the Click BIOS 5 UEFI BIOS. The general design consists of a red and black contrasting theme with a white text and resembles the typical ‘gaming theme’ across its entirety. The Click BIOS 5 GUI is very well laid out with an easy to navigate entry splash screen, and a neatly laid out advanced BIOS screen which can be switched to by pressing the F7 key. The BIOS is also generally responsive, although it did stutter a little when collecting the screenshots for the gallery.

The basic splash screen after entering the BIOS has plenty to offer including information pertaining the installed processor and current set voltages on the right-hand side of the center screen. To the left is a list of options allowing users to navigate between CPU, memory, storage and fan information screens. At the top of the screen users can enable MSIs Game Boost which dependent on the model of Ryzen processor installed, will apply a CPU core frequency bump as well as additional voltage to support this. For reference with Game Boost enabled, our Ryzen 1700 would apply a 400 MHz increase, disable AMDs Cool’n’Quiet feature, ramp up the CPU fan speed and a completely unnecessary 1.45 V.

At the bottom, there are options to enable or disable the HD Audio controller, switch between AHCI and RAID mode and also menus to enter the M-Flash BIOS flasher mode, as well as the hardware monitor. There is also a button next to the Game Boost switch for enabling XMP 2.0 memory profiles. Just to the right of this along the top is the ability to change the Boot Priority of installed storage drives and even when flicking between the basic and advanced modes, the panel along the top remains the same throughout the BIOS.

After pressing the F7 key, it opens up the advanced BIOS mode with menus ranging from settings, overclocking setting, the M-Flash flashing utility, OC profile banking area, hardware monitor and the board explorer.

The first port of call when installing a new system is generally the overclocking settings and as we have seen with the X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium and B350 Tomahawk, the options available don’t differ much. All the general CPU frequency overclocking related options such as CPU ratio and CPU Core voltage are present along with options to enable the XMP 2.0 profile on installed and supported memory; this also includes plenty of options to manually tweak the memory latency timings in the advanced DRAM Configuration menu and also the ability to set your own memory strap as well as the DRAM voltage.

Whereas other manufacturers have a dedicated fan tuning utility build in within the BIOS, MSI has combined this function with their hardware monitor. Within the menu brings up the ability to enable Smart Fan Mode with either PWM, DC or auto fans, with the option to ramp up all the fans to full speed with a click of a button. Along the bottom is a handy bar which displays different voltages ranging from CPU Core, to DRAM, even to the voltages being rallied along through the system 12, 5 and 3.3 V rails. There is also the ability to set a custom fan curve dependent on current temperature in relation to fan percentages, with full speed being 100% and half speed being 50% etc.

The Board Explorer has a static image of the B350M Gaming Pro, with key areas shaded in red to provide information on installed components. This also includes USB devices plugged into the rear panel with the board explorer even being able to detect the CM Storm QuickFire Rapid-i keyboard used on the test bench.

MSI tend to do a good job with their UEFI BIOS and as seen throughout our MSI AM4 socketed motherboard reviews, they keep things fairly consistent throughout their range, which is a good thing for familiarity reasons. Even without this, Click BIOS 5 is easy to navigate around and is responsive throughout with all the options you would expect from an AM4 motherboard, surpassing what I would expect from a board at its current price point. 

Software

While MSI are well known for offering customers with copious amounts of software and utilities, but what is on offer to owners of the B350M Gaming Pro has been reduced compared to the Tomahawk etc. The included software includes the MSI Command Center utility, the MSI Gaming app, MSI Gaming LAN Manager and the MSI Live Update 6 tool. There is also an MSI Gaming themed CPU-Z available, although it’s advisable to download the latest version directly from the product page.

The MSI Command Center gives users a wide host of information regarding CPU, memory and even integrated graphics, with options for overclocking the processor through the ratio. The ability to overclock through the Base Clock has been disabled as none of B350 / X370 motherboards that MSI produces features an external clock generator. Even MSIs X470 range is thin with only the flagship X470 M7 AC model being reported to feature an external clock generator.

The options available for overclocking include CPU multiplier tweaking, the ability to change the CPU Core voltage with a limitation of 1.4 V maximum, SoC voltage with a maximum of 1.3 V being allowed and DRAM voltage which is a maximum of 1.5 V. There is the option to tweak memory slightly with limited options allowed for changing DRAM latency timings. I still recommend all overclocking is done through the BIOS for maximum stability and peace of mind.

While the MSI Gaming App does offer different modes designed to enhance the performance of the processor, when enabling the different modes consisting of OC Mode, Gaming mode and Silent, there wasn’t any fluctuation in CPU Frequency or CPU Voltage when monitoring within CPU-Z. The most useful function of the Gaming App is the LED customization options. If there B350M Gaming Pro had RGB enabled LEDs, this would be the place to make the board glow like a rainbow. Due to the price and cost-cutting measures MSI has gone with for this model, the LED choice is locked down to red.

MSI Live Update 6 is a handy application which allows users to update and download things like chipset drivers and MSI applications to enhance the overall user experience. The application scans the latest version direct from the MSI servers and can install every available piece of software for the B350M Gaming Pro by simply clicking the check box next to type and selecting total installer in the bottom right corner. The information panel at the bottom of the panel has vital information on vital things such as the currently installed operating system, the firmware version installed onto the BIOS chip and even the motherboards serial number.

One thing to note about the software available for the B350M Gaming Pro - there is a lack if software to control the audio. Usually, with Realtek based audio codecs, at least some form of software is available for download, but it wasn't included in this board.

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Test Setup
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 1700, 65W 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo)
Motherboard	MSI B350M Gaming Pro (BIOS v2G)
Cooling	Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB 360
Power Supply	Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Gold PSU
Memory	2x16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2400
Video Card	ASUS GTX 980 STRIX (1178/1279 Boost)
Hard Drive	Crucial MX300 1TB
Case	Open Test Bed
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Many thanks to...

Thank you to ASUS for providing us with GTX 980 Strix GPUs. At the time of release, the STRIX brand from ASUS was aimed at silent running, or to use the marketing term: '0dB Silent Gaming'. This enables the card to disable the fans when the GPU is dealing with low loads well within temperature specifications. These cards equip the GTX 980 silicon with ASUS' Direct CU II cooler and 10-phase digital VRMs, aimed at high-efficiency conversion. Along with the card, ASUS bundles GPU Tweak software for overclocking and streaming assistance.

The GTX 980 uses NVIDIA's GM204 silicon die, built upon their Maxwell architecture. This die is 5.2 billion transistors for a die size of 298 mm2, built on TMSC's 28nm process. A GTX 980 uses the full GM204 core, with 2048 CUDA Cores and 64 ROPs with a 256-bit memory bus to GDDR5. The official power rating for the GTX 980 is 165W.

The ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB (or the full name of STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5) runs a reasonable overclock over a reference GTX 980 card, with frequencies in the range of 1178-1279 MHz. The memory runs at stock, in this case 7010 MHz. Video outputs include three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI 2.0 connector and a DVI-I.

Further Reading: AnandTech's NVIDIA GTX 980 Review

Thank you to Crucial for providing us with MX200/MX300 SSDs. Crucial stepped up to the plate as our benchmark list grows larger with newer benchmarks and titles, and the 1TB units are strong performers. The MX200s are based on Marvell's 88SS9189 controller and using Micron's 16nm 128Gbit MLC flash, these are 7mm high, 2.5-inch drives rated for 100K random read IOPs and 555/500 MB/s sequential read and write speeds. The 1TB models we are using here support TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 (eDrive) encryption and have a 320TB rated endurance with a three-year warranty.

Further Reading: AnandTech's Crucial MX200 (250 GB, 500 GB & 1TB) Review

Thank you to Corsair for providing us with Vengeance LPX DDR4 Memory

Corsair kindly sent a set of their Vengeance LPX low profile, high-performance memory. The heatsink is made of pure aluminum to help remove heat from the sticks and has an eight-layer PCB. The heatsink is a low profile design to help fit in spaces where there may not be room for a tall heat spreader; think a SFF case or using a large heatsink.

System Performance

Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single ASUS GTX 980 GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Thermaltake 1200W power supply. This power supply has ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.

While the B350M Gaming Pro has good power consumption readings in our idle and long idle tests, it managed to draw more power under load than MSI's own flagship X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium ATX board. 

Non-UEFI POST Time

Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.)

The B350M Gaming Pro POST'ed some respectable times with the only boards going better costing more than double the price. There wasn't much difference between the default and stripped versions which signal a consistent and optimized boot order; users may find the boot times are even faster with Windows 10 WHQL support enabled in the BIOS.

Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5

Rightmark:AA indicates how well the sound system is built and isolated from electrical interference (either internally or externally). For this test we connect the Line Out to the Line In using a short six inch 3.5mm to 3.5mm high-quality jack, turn the OS speaker volume to 100%, and run the Rightmark default test suite at 192 kHz, 24-bit. The OS is tuned to 192 kHz/24-bit input and output, and the Line-In volume is adjusted until we have the best RMAA value in the mini-pretest. We look specifically at the Dynamic Range of the audio codec used on the rear panel of the board.

The B350M Gaming Pro displayed the worst Dynamic Range performance so far from an AM4 motherboard, which is to be expected given the board is the lowest priced out of all the ones on test. The Realtek ALC887 is the slightly lower spec sibling of the Realtek ALC892 and it clearly shows in our testing.

DPC Latency

Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.

If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.

While none of the AM4 motherboards tested so far have been optimized for DPC Latency, the B350M Gaming Pro puts in a decent showing with a middle of the road scoring between the premium X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium and the more comparable ATX offering, the B350 Tomahawk.

CPU Performance, Short Form

For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.

Video Conversion – Handbrake v1.0.2: link

Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. For HandBrake, we take two videos and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container: a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short. We also take the third video and transcode it to HEVC. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.

Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link

Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2017. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.

Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test v2.1: link

3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here. We are using the latest version of 3DPM, which has a significant number of tweaks over the original version to avoid issues with cache management and speeding up some of the algorithms.

Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: link

The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.

Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link

As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.

Gaming Performance

Ashes of the Singularity

Seen as the holy child of DirectX12, Ashes of the Singularity (AoTS, or just Ashes) has been the first title to actively go explore as many of DirectX12s features as it possibly can. Stardock, the developer behind the Nitrous engine which powers the game, has ensured that the real-time strategy title takes advantage of multiple cores and multiple graphics cards, in as many configurations as possible.

Rise Of The Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.

One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.

Thief

Thief has been a long-standing title in PC gamers hearts since the introduction of the very first iteration which was released back in 1998 (Thief: The Dark Project). Thief as it is simply known rebooted the long-standing series and renowned publisher Square Enix took over the task from where Eidos Interactive left off back in 2004. The game itself utilises the fluid Unreal Engine 3 engine and is known for optimised and improved destructible environments, large crowd simulation and soft body dynamics.

Total War: WARHAMMER

Not only is the Total War franchise one of the most popular real-time tactical strategy titles of all time, but Sega delve into multiple worlds such as the Roman Empire, Napoleonic era and even Attila the Hun, but more recently they nosedived into the world of Games Workshop via the WARHAMMER series. Developers Creative Assembly have used their latest RTS battle title with the much talked about DirectX 12 API so that this title can benefit from all the associated features that comes with it. The game itself is very CPU intensive and is capable of pushing any top end system to their limits.

Conclusions

The intended audience for the  MSI B350M Gaming Pro is a world of gamers on a budget, who are looking for a no frills mATX offering as a smaller alternative to a full-sized system. While there are enough core features and elements to put this board into the gamer friendly category, it has to be remembered that this is an entry level B350 chipset offering. While comparisons will be made in the performance figures against much more expensive boards, premium controllers simply cost more. That being said, the B350M Gaming Pro is compatible with the Ryzen 5 2400G ($169) and Ryzen 3 2200G ($99) so pairing up with some DDR4-2666 with this board could be a budget gamers delight.

As would be expected with a lower cost option, the B350M Gaming Pro puts in a decent showing in relation to the price and in certain aspects such as idle power consumption. The most negative element to the performance testing came in the gaming, where the board managed to perform over a frame lower than the ASRock X370 Pro Gaming in Rise of the Tomb Raider. A single frame isn’t likely to hinder the gaming experience too much, and the performance overall isn’t of any concern especially considering what’s on offer for the asking price of $80. Where the board truly lags behind the rest of the pack in relation to the AM4 boards on test is the audio - the B350M Gaming Pro scored the lowest dBA in our Rightmark Audio Analyzer Dynamic range testing. This is due to the board being equipped with a lower grade and more budget focused Realtek ALC887 which was implemented on a lot mid-range Z170 motherboards, and that was around 3 years ago now. That being said, the performance isn’t far off the Realtek ALC892 codec and given the $80 price tag and mATX form factor, this can be pardoned.

The board has four SATA 6 Gbps ports available with the option to use RAID 0/1 and 10 arrays. The layout of the ports consists of two separate pairings, two right angled connectors and two straight angled connectors which MSI has impleemented to shave as much off the manufacturing costs as possible. There is also a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot with support for drives with a size no greater than M.2 2280 - this slot is also compatible with SATA based M.2 drives and the slot doesn’t share bandwidth with any other slot. The full length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot has an added layer of physical protection due to MSI's Steel Armor coating and the board also has a further two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots which can be used for compatible expansion cards to enhance the networking, or even install a dedicated sound card.

For the memory, MSI has gone with two RAM slots rather than four which isn’t due to a size limitation, but more one of shaving expense once again. This means the B350M Gaming Pro has a support for a maximum capacity of 32 GB of DDR4 memory, with supported speeds of up to DDR4-3200. Users looking for an option with four slots would need to look at boards such as MSIs own B350M Bazooka ($89).

The B350M Gaming Pro ($80) doesn’t quite offer the value I would expect for a board targeted towards gamers, and the disregard to bundle any form of audio software is a downside. With the budget gaming marketing being dominated by the Ryzen based APUs, these are fully supported as MSI has implemented HDMI 1.4, DVI-D and VGA ports on this board. Another questionable element is MSIs insistence on using the same MOSFETs on their bottom end boards, as they do on the top end models such as the X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium. This can be construed as a plus or negative, but in this case it’s a positive as the NIKOS PK616BA MOSFETs and PK632 are combined with the Richtek RT8894A PWM controlled 3+2 power delivery. While the B350 chipset does support overclocking, MSI has put a limit on the CPU and RAM core voltages to 1.4 V and 1.5 V respectively, with these limits being to protect the components on the board. Despite this, we still managed 3.9 GHz all-core in our testing.

With respectable performance which is consistent and expected from a board of this pedigree, the B350M Gaming Pro gives basic and budget friendly features for gamers, with everything rolled into the smaller mATX form factor. The price difference between this and the B350 Tomahawk being is so little, the beefier power delivery, the USB Type-C connectivity and better onboard audio (Realtek ALC892) offered on the Tomahawk make it a more worthwhile purchase in the long term; the main pitfall over the Tomahawk would be one fewer USB Type-A connection on the rear panel which given the variance between both these sub $90 models, gives the Tomahawk the primarily advantage. The B350M Tomahawk has four available RAM slots with the same DDR4-3200 support as the B350M Gaming Pro, making it the better purchase if it is available in your region.