Lots of motherboard content this month, thanks for staying tuned so far, going to get back to the usual used goodness soon! *EDIT the ASUS b550 e ROG is working perfectly after the retail bios update!* *
Yeah. It's too early for any B550 accordingly to their current prices. If they drop over 30% after a month i will give them a shot. For such money you will take X570...
We love all of your content Bryan! Of course, the used stuff has a special place in our heart, but the new stuff is what keeps the used market healthy!
Nice overview. Would like to see content on the Aorus B550 Pro, as this is a lot more affordable than the Master, and still has a very good VRM Cooling Solution.
Nice video, thanks for all this info. One thing: when testing onboard Audio noise levels do that within gaming where you have some level of coil whine from the GPU! That is really important cause normally it renders every onboard chip useless in my opinion.
steel legend and tuf plus have better memory t-top (see no capacitor next to DIMM slot), so if you like memory OC, get these. Gigabyte board suck this time tho.
Really strong review. Very insightful measurements and well presented. Seems like the B550 Tomahawk would be a lock for a gaming centric build with a new 5000 series processor outside of the the obviously weaker audio section.
Love my MSI B550M Mortar. Unbeatable for the price. The VRM is ridiculously cool with my Ryzen 3600 @4400mhz and it has no problem running my dark pro 8pack 3600mhz cl14-15-15 ram.
@13:51 The B550 MAG Mortar may only have the one RGB strip on the board but it has 1 x 12v 4 pin RBG and 2 x 3 pin JRAINBOW connectors so you can have unicorn sick colours with LED strips and fans to your heart's content. I may buy this when the price drops a bit.
Started watching your videos recently. Thank you for the amazing content. I'd love to see a test with some of the cheaper B550. The models you showed are great but I don't think they are priced fairly. You recommend the B550 Tomahawk over the B550M Mortar for just 20 bucks more but I think it's better to spend a bit more and go with the X570 Tomahawk. It's similar with many more expensive B550 when it might be better to go with a good entry X570 like the ASUS X570-P. Thanks once again, keep up the great work.
Me and my Wife bought the B550 Taichi a Store listed it for 189 bucks on accident soooo we got it for way cheaper . They fixed the pricing right after . got to say I love how the Taichi looks
I actually preordered the B550 Steel Legend, not mATX. It's just been shipped. I'm excited to build my first Ryzen PC and upgrade from a Dell Optiplex motherboard and i5 2400.
I'm moving from the msi B450 to the 550M Motor running AMD 3600 with 2x8 G. Skills and the XPG M. 2.... I found that the B450 did great and just ate up games so I'm stepping it up a little with the 550M Mortar by adding cooling system and learning how to over clock and your vid kind of made me feel a little better about my budget build. Thanks Brotha man
Brian, I think you are the first reviewer I've heard that has mentioned the the MSI B550 Tomahawk uses a 6-layer PCB with 2 ounces of copper to strengthen it. One thing no one mentions is whether or not these motherboards have a 20-pin connector for front panel USB 3.2 Type C. My latest build, the case has a front Type C port but the MB lacked the 20-pin connector (had to buy an add-in card). For people like myself that use the Type C port, this could be a consideration when deciding between two MBs. All things considered, the MSI B550 Tomahawk appears to have a lot of bang for the buck. If you can find it in stock!
I ultimately went with the steel legend as I don’t plan to OC my 5600x. I love the amount of USB ports available. I’ll be using an external sound card so the audio isn’t of concern for me. Only bummer is no usb c front panel header.
@@giandeguzman8198 Well that definitely applies for the cpus that require a lot of power and generate a lot of heat. A 65w TDP that I don’t plan overclocking is going to be of zero issue.
Never been an early adopter - best wait till end of year (if you can) to see how they perform with the Zen 3's/Zen2 APUs and hopefully price drops on these first B550's, also the full budget entry price boards will be out and reviewed by then.
Great video. I just finished installing the Asus and after flashing to the latest bios I have no issues. The board is actually a revised x570 Strix with a few components swapped out.
9:23 ASRock Steel Legend does have an M.2 socket that supports PCIe Gen4 x4 while the other M.2_2 socket is capable of running PCIe Gen3 x2 and SATA3 mode. Which is close to 2000MB/s
Building in an older Corsair Carbide Air 240 Case so I need a mATX board. Thanks for cementing my choice on the Mortar. Seems to be a very solid board from all the reviews
(chart 5:33) it's not all wasted - 380W from wall at let's say PSU with 95% efficiency means 361W out the back of the PSU, with a power loss of 38W. That 361W is all the components in the case - subtract 260W for CPU usage (95% VRM conversion efficiency ends up at 240W used by CPU), that leaves 101W for mb, ram, ssd, fans, rgb, etc.
@@soupwizard of course wasted. As my electronics teacher said - computers are glorified space heaters. Sure, the energy waste has its reasons, as you said very well, but it still is waste. Still impressive how far DC/DC conversion has come. 95% for a ~10/1 conversion is not bad at all
The power draw of the Taichi, Aorus Master, Strix E-gaming were 298, 302, 307. With the test system being the same, the Tomahawk's 386 watts is wasting at least 80 watts of power.
My opinion is that the Asrock B550 Taichi is the best mainboard in the category of features, sadly it is the most expensiv B550 board in Germany (around 300 Euro that's 353 US-Dollars). The second is the Asus ROG STRIX B550-E Gaming, but it has a few weaknesses, there's only 2 USB 3.0 ports at the I/O bracket and 4 USB 2.0, finally only 6 normal USB-ports (USB-Type -C is very special I think so). And there's an audio USB 2.0 Type -C port, who need this kind of port? I'm sure much more people wants a optical S/PDF out than an audio USB-Type-C port! And the Asus Strix B550-E Gaming is expensiv (around 250 Euro) too. Finally I think the Asus ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming Wifi is the best premium B550 mainboard, the list of features are good, the VRM's are good too and the layout/design is fantastic. The price around 210 EURO or 247 US-Dollars in Germany is OK yet. Excuse me for my worst english, i haven't often the possbility to use it.
*ASRock just rocks ! As an audio engineer , I really love my ASRock B450 Steel Legend board !* I'm pretty sure i would love the B550 Steel Legend also , but i'm skipping Zen3 ! Because next year , we will have AM5 motherboards with DDR5 ram , Pcie5 , and Ryzen 5000 series on 5Nm ! 2021 is the year of Nr. 5 ;-)
Bought a MSI Mortar for a future upgrade to the new 5900x when it's out. Coming from i7 3770k so yeah... Thank you ! Very nice informative video with a nice pace and quality!
Great content as always, thank you. I subbed today for your audio analysis of these boards. There is a problem with the audio cross talk graph at 7:50. The units should be labeled as -92dB etc and graphed with -90 as a smaller bar than -82. The legend says that smaller is better but shows the higher numbers with the smaller bars which will confuse many viewers. Please keep up the audio analysis but correct these flaws.
Yeah it was hard to graph this one lol, it's mainly because I can't graph negative numbers in excel (or I just don't know how to yet), but you have to think of it in an inverse sense, -92 is lower than -83, making it higher on the chart, only because it should be read in a negative sense... I don't know ultimately as I can see where you are coming from too, lower is better so the graph size should be lower is better too. definitely a weird one!
Thanks for the Steel Legend 2nd M.2 x2 speed mention, hadn't noticed that That's a no go, it's same speed as any B450 then, so pointless. Currently already bottle necked with my 970 EVO on the PCI-E 2.0 4x slot for 2000mb/s and PCI-E 3.0 2x will be exact same bandwith. Part of the reason my wanting to upgrade from B450->B550 is I'll get full speed of my 2nd M.2 as well, granted it's only on OS duty, so not a big deal, but other motherboards give you x4. Funny thing is I had ASRock Z270 mATX before going B450 and that board already had two 3.0 4x M.2 slots.. :) Still can't get all the features from B550 matx boards that I already had early 2017. That Mortar and ASUS TUF mATX only ones left to choose from. Sadly no ROG mATX and Aorus messed up the Pro mATX not making it copy of the great ATX version. Now all that is missing for the prices to come down, 60€ more for B450 Mortar to B550 Mortar upgrade is a lot for not so much more.
You know you can buy PCIe cards on AliExpress to put NVMe in a regular PCIe slot right? They're like 10 bucks or less from JEYI, and they're really good. But yeah that design decision on the Steel Legend is idiotic. I can vouch for the AsRock X570M Pro4 though as long as you don't plan to OC a 16-core on it.
@@BloodpactORG X570M Pro4 is silly overpriced here 220€ or $245 or 360 aud. I would have bought it on launch if it had alc1220 and decent price. For the add in cards, last time I used those was in 2012 something when I still had a sound card. Whole point to moving to mATX was that I didn't need expansion slots anymore. But yep, plenty fine PCI-e adaptors to be had, heatsinked too. With this ASRock board thou it would give full bandwith funnily enough. Usually the bottom PCIe slot and the M.2 share lanes, but it shares lanes with sata ports, also explaing why it's only 2x. So infact it would also make it only? mATX where you can use the 16x bottom slot along with 2x M.2 drives, so theri decision kinda makes sense too, if you only need one fast M.2
Thanks for the walkthrough, I appreciated you looking at the boards with the most power hungry CPU. Given the video title I was disappointed your conclusion was, you will have to take a look and decide for yourself. Other than the excellent information on power support for OC and non-OC configuration you didn’t offer much to evaluate price/value or say what usage you would buy each for.
My Aorus B550 master is almost at my door. Should be delivered by Monday-Tuesday. Running R9 3900x - 16 x 2 3600 CL 18 I am wanting opinions and suggestions for GPU as I am not sure which route to go for that piece of hardware
Great board if you do no overclock. But, the dual bios is a real pain if you do. Smart buyers will wait for Big Navi to release. Prices should drop closer to the end of the year.
The Aorus master is the highest quality board out of all of those, true 16 phase vrm with 70A power stages, actual fin heatsinks on the vrm and the board comes with a backplate and debug code led. It's a beast!
Appreciated this review! One little thing however, speaking about RGB control, the MSI motherboards (at least the mortar one), have at least two RGB headers: 12v&5v. So for the sake of accuracy, we need to ACT that as it becomes more and more popular among gamers...
@@SISSYPUSS I got it for a good deal from NCIX. It was on we-wanna-get-rid-of-it clearance sale. Solid board. My cousin gave me his B85M-G but with a white GPU, I wanted to do a black and white themed build alà Greg Salazar Walter-White-style. The black board was the best available for cheap.
Thank you so much for this video!! after watching i went with the tomahawk i wanted mortar but they were sold out at the place that im buying my pc but after watching this video i feel much batter i went with tomahawk Thank you so much again!
Good comparison, two things... it's a shame about BIOS, as ROG you had was quite old and there were few versions released in between (last one 6/16) Second, chart with ports, I think it's more important to show if the board has front USB C header, which for some reason is rarity now.
2 questions, please: 1.) Doesn't using the B550 chipset mean that you aren't able to get PCI 4.0 support for your M.2 drive if the video card is PCI 3.0 like all the video cards available today? I'm going to install the PCI 4.0 Sabrent Rocket, and i'm having trouble understanding if the 4.0 speed will be supported by the B550 chipset. 2.) Don't all the Intel 2.5G LAN chips have a flaw that will require an RMA to fix? Before you say this only affects the z490 boards, know that this isn't true. The 2.5G Lan chip fix wasn't implemented until June 2020, and will affect all boards manufactured with that Foxville chip before then.
Wait, are you saying that the Mortar has a 6-layer PCB?? From what little information I've gotten so far, it's running only on a 4-layer PCB. The Tomahawk is a 6-layer. If that's the case and the Mortar is a 6-layer PCB, then the Mortar Wifi would be an easy pick for me. MSI's more honest approach to memory MT/s ratings, the much better heatsinks, the 60A powerstages, front C and integrated AX wifi for $20CAD less would make the Mortar Wifi a no-brainer; only remaining quibble is the absolutely ridiculous location of the CMOS jumper on the Mortar compared to the convenient rear I/O button on the Steel Legend.
Subscribed. Very good review with the price check, the m2 speed, the vrm temp check, the power efficiency check. Got question.: 1.which board has vrm temp sensor 2.except steel legend, will support raid0 2 nvme PCIx4? 3. Will it support 4 x 32gb ram 3200/3600? 4. The cheapest cooling solution for 3900x/3950x with pbo on less than 90C wprime 95 (hopefully vrm throthling off and cpu cooling throthling off also) : ID cooling se-224-xt / deepcool as500 / any cheapest liquid cooling?
I bought the motherboard from amazon. It came with BIOS P1.80. It was able to run the AMD 5600G processor directly. I did not update the BIOS. I don't have a video card. I'm using it with motherboard + 4x16GB ram + AMD 5600G. It was useful for me to run AMD 5600G version of P1.80. Mainboard: Asrock B550M Steel Legend Amd Am4 CPU: AMD 5600G Ram: GSKILL RipjawsV Black DDR4-3600Mhz CL18 16GB (1X16GB) Single (18-22-22-42) 1.35V (F4-3600C18S-16GVK)
For a Sub $200 Mobo the MSI MAG b550 Tomahawk is fantastic i use Ryzen 7 3700x and it works amazingly for the price, but if price is no object obviously there are some absolutely incredible mobo for $300+ for example I have a buddy who did an all white “frost” build as he calls it lol with a white Gigabyte Vision b550 and it’s pretty sweet. Obviously RGB and specific color is a personal thing.
With how good all of those VRMs are I think it comes down to feature sets, pricing and also looks (at least to me). The Steel Legend looks terrible in my view and I would never put that in my system. The Mortar looks great, but it lacks some RGB and it's rear IO is pretty bad. The Tomahawk has the same rear IO and it lacks Wifi. The Strix E, Taichi and Master and ridiculously expensive. So.. there's not really any board that does it all for me, even though they are all very good - even something like a B550 Elite will overclock a 5950x just fine (as long as you don't draw more than 200 amps current, which is pretty hard with even a 16 core)
2019: Gaming PC's under $500! 2020: Gaming PC's under $750! 2021: Gaming PC's under $950! 2022: Gaming PC's under $1150! 2023: Gaming PC's under $1350! 2024: Gaming PC's under $1650! 2025: Gaming PC's under $2000! 2026: Gaming PC's under $2400! 2027: Gaming PC's under $2900! 2028: Gaming PC's under $3600! 2029: Gaming PC's under $4300! 2030: Gaming PC's under $5000! 2050: Gaming PC's under $50.000!
Logic would dictate if you have 💰 and you're going to buy a 3950 you would go X570 over B550. Nice review, but waiting to see how these perform with upcoming Ryzen refresh SKU's, more importantly for budget conscious builds.
That motherboard is sketchy for any more than 8 core CPUs. Steel Legend / Extreme4/ PG Velocita (which all have the same PCB/ VRM metrics) are the lowest I'd go personally on AsRock.
@@StuartDo The B550 boards have better VRMs, in general (can handle high power cpus better thermally) and some have better features like PCIe Gen 4 storage (faster data transfer to support potential future graphic card needs like Ray Tracing).
call me old school, but I never update the bios in windows due to possible software bugs/failure. not much of a problem with bios flashback, but yeah.... I prefer the old school method.
Was interested in the Asus B550 F-Gaming Wifi but the Clock and Ram Issues that you tested bother me.. if there is an update/fix would be nice to know!
Very impressive thermal testing, insightful info for sure. But the B550's seem priced too high, we are in x570 territory so it's very hard to recommend any B550 now actually, every board needs to come down 20-30% then we can consider it a "budget" chipset once again.
The best B550 board is... one I can actually buy? I'm in the UK and stock levels in the main retailers is comical. Coupled with the fact that I'm gathering parts for a SFF build and must use mini-ITX means that I can't buy anything at the moment. Everyone's pointing the finger at COVID and each other (mobo manufacturers/distributors vs. retailers) and I'm left nearly a week after launch asking if I simply dreamt the B550 launch.
These are my requirements for 2020 and sadly right now I only have 1 option: The MSI B550 Mortar board. + micro-ATX form factor + USB 3.1 GEN2 Key-A internal port on the motherboard for a USB-C port on the front side of the case So guys look out for these details when deciding on your parts. Happy building.
Lots of motherboard content this month, thanks for staying tuned so far, going to get back to the usual used goodness soon! *EDIT the ASUS b550 e ROG is working perfectly after the retail bios update!*
*
Tech YES City love motherboard content
If that guy still wants the P6X58D-E IO shield. I have one.
Is the steel legend good for R5 3600?
Yeah. It's too early for any B550 accordingly to their current prices. If they drop over 30% after a month i will give them a shot. For such money you will take X570...
We love all of your content Bryan! Of course, the used stuff has a special place in our heart, but the new stuff is what keeps the used market healthy!
Great content. B550 Tomahawk looks like the best value for money for me.
I have to agree there
You should check out b550 a pro, very good vrm at only 140
B550 mobos cant run ryzens 1600/2600?
@@memecity6722 idk, but either way im not gonna buy 1000 and 2000 series
@@memecity6722 they dont
Nice overview.
Would like to see content on the Aorus B550 Pro, as this is a lot more affordable than the Master, and still has a very good VRM Cooling Solution.
Nice video, thanks for all this info. One thing: when testing onboard Audio noise levels do that within gaming where you have some level of coil whine from the GPU! That is really important cause normally it renders every onboard chip useless in my opinion.
motar wifi is exceptional value considering the vrm is pretty good and feature set is comparable with all but the best b550 options.
@Just s single rank will be fine
steel legend and tuf plus have better memory t-top (see no capacitor next to DIMM slot), so if you like memory OC, get these. Gigabyte board suck this time tho.
How does tomahawk doesn't have a wifi?!
Really strong review. Very insightful measurements and well presented. Seems like the B550 Tomahawk would be a lock for a gaming centric build with a new 5000 series processor outside of the the obviously weaker audio section.
Love my MSI B550M Mortar. Unbeatable for the price. The VRM is ridiculously cool with my Ryzen 3600 @4400mhz and it has no problem running my dark pro 8pack 3600mhz cl14-15-15 ram.
Great review, thanks for the Audio test (it's usually overlooked). Also I can recommend the Koss KPH30i as I own a white and blue pair.
@13:51 The B550 MAG Mortar may only have the one RGB strip on the board but it has 1 x 12v 4 pin RBG and 2 x 3 pin JRAINBOW connectors so you can have unicorn sick colours with LED strips and fans to your heart's content. I may buy this when the price drops a bit.
Started watching your videos recently. Thank you for the amazing content. I'd love to see a test with some of the cheaper B550. The models you showed are great but I don't think they are priced fairly. You recommend the B550 Tomahawk over the B550M Mortar for just 20 bucks more but I think it's better to spend a bit more and go with the X570 Tomahawk. It's similar with many more expensive B550 when it might be better to go with a good entry X570 like the ASUS X570-P. Thanks once again, keep up the great work.
I want a x570 tomahawk but can’t find one so imma go with the b550 tomahawk, if you know where to find one tell me
Marco Polo same
to easy already imma buy my b550 tomahawk today at night brother
Marco Polo I can’t find the b550 tomahawk motherboard so can you please link if you can. Thank You!🙏
to easy already my bad alr it’s bhphotovideo.com it will ship 2 days after being in stock but you can still buy
Just ordered a B550 Tomahawk. Thanks for the review bud.
Me and my Wife bought the B550 Taichi a Store listed it for 189 bucks on accident soooo we got it for way cheaper . They fixed the pricing right after . got to say I love how the Taichi looks
Update they noticed the mistake BUT I went Karen on them so I still got a discount from 350 down to 300. Woopwoop
If only they could shit it alrdy
I really want to see if the MSI B550 Gaming Carbon is a true successor to its previous gen B450 Gaming Carbon.
it is, with a much better vrm even. It has abit less on audio department tho.
I actually preordered the B550 Steel Legend, not mATX. It's just been shipped. I'm excited to build my first Ryzen PC and upgrade from a Dell Optiplex motherboard and i5 2400.
Enjoy! I bought the Z390 Steel Legend late last year so I could upgrade to a 9700k that I got a killer deal on, and it's been fantastic. :)
Same fisrt ryzen second amd an also came from a close to your dell oem as well so yaa
I'm moving from the msi B450 to the 550M Motor running AMD 3600 with 2x8 G. Skills and the XPG M. 2.... I found that the B450 did great and just ate up games so I'm stepping it up a little with the 550M Mortar by adding cooling system and learning how to over clock and your vid kind of made me feel a little better about my budget build. Thanks Brotha man
Give me b450 david...tanks
Yea, one could not expect buying a B550 M to get a 3950X CPU and overclock, for the price the B550 M Steel did a good job.
Brian, I think you are the first reviewer I've heard that has mentioned the the MSI B550 Tomahawk uses a 6-layer PCB with 2 ounces of copper to strengthen it. One thing no one mentions is whether or not these motherboards have a 20-pin connector for front panel USB 3.2 Type C. My latest build, the case has a front Type C port but the MB lacked the 20-pin connector (had to buy an add-in card). For people like myself that use the Type C port, this could be a consideration when deciding between two MBs. All things considered, the MSI B550 Tomahawk appears to have a lot of bang for the buck. If you can find it in stock!
I’m planing a new build and didn’t know what motherboard to get but this video realy helped, thanks!!!
Please make b550 mini itx roundup. Love the content!
I would love to get the Msi B550 Mortar or the AsRock B550M stell legend. I just love the mATX form factor as I don't use a lot of PCI-e slots.
I ultimately went with the steel legend as I don’t plan to OC my 5600x. I love the amount of USB ports available. I’ll be using an external sound card so the audio isn’t of concern for me. Only bummer is no usb c front panel header.
Yep but gotta note those temps for stee
Legend
@@giandeguzman8198 Well that definitely applies for the cpus that require a lot of power and generate a lot of heat. A 65w TDP that I don’t plan overclocking is going to be of zero issue.
I am pretty sure, that even if you overclock your 5600x, the temps of the VRM will be fine.
Same bro love M boards, actually Mortar isn't available near me, so i will go for Steel legend as Tuf gaming is pretty expensive than others
Very good and clear comparison. Going for the Mortar because of mATX build.
Never been an early adopter - best wait till end of year (if you can) to see how they perform with the Zen 3's/Zen2 APUs and hopefully price drops on these first B550's, also the full budget entry price boards will be out and reviewed by then.
Great video. I just finished installing the Asus and after flashing to the latest bios I have no issues. The board is actually a revised x570 Strix with a few components swapped out.
I ordered it today , with what ryzen you used this board?
9:23 ASRock Steel Legend does have an M.2 socket that supports PCIe Gen4 x4 while the other M.2_2 socket is capable of running PCIe Gen3 x2 and SATA3 mode. Which is close to 2000MB/s
Thank you for the comparison Bryan! It's 0:30AM here but I'm watching your content!
The B550M Aorus Pro seems like a very good deal to me. You should cover it!
Ordered one with 3300x, waiting for delivery.
The conclusion is the right one.
Building in an older Corsair Carbide Air 240 Case so I need a mATX board. Thanks for cementing my choice on the Mortar. Seems to be a very solid board from all the reviews
The diagram with "Power from wall" is one of the best. It's insane how much energy is wasted to get the same amount of CPU work load.
(chart 5:33) it's not all wasted - 380W from wall at let's say PSU with 95% efficiency means 361W out the back of the PSU, with a power loss of 38W. That 361W is all the components in the case - subtract 260W for CPU usage (95% VRM conversion efficiency ends up at 240W used by CPU), that leaves 101W for mb, ram, ssd, fans, rgb, etc.
@@soupwizard of course wasted. As my electronics teacher said - computers are glorified space heaters.
Sure, the energy waste has its reasons, as you said very well, but it still is waste.
Still impressive how far DC/DC conversion has come. 95% for a ~10/1 conversion is not bad at all
The power draw of the Taichi, Aorus Master, Strix E-gaming were 298, 302, 307. With the test system being the same, the Tomahawk's 386 watts is wasting at least 80 watts of power.
I'm dreaming to have b450 and u guys launched b550
Hi. May I know, among those 6 what is the best for R7 5800X? Can u suggest? Great review anyway.
My opinion is that the Asrock B550 Taichi is the best mainboard in the category of features, sadly it is the most expensiv B550 board in Germany (around 300 Euro that's 353 US-Dollars).
The second is the Asus ROG STRIX B550-E Gaming, but it has a few weaknesses, there's only 2 USB 3.0 ports at the I/O bracket and 4 USB 2.0, finally only 6 normal USB-ports (USB-Type -C is very special I think so). And there's an audio USB 2.0 Type -C port, who need this kind of port? I'm sure much more people wants a optical S/PDF out than an audio USB-Type-C port! And the Asus Strix B550-E Gaming is expensiv (around 250 Euro) too.
Finally I think the Asus ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming Wifi is the best premium B550 mainboard, the list of features are good, the VRM's are good too and the layout/design is fantastic. The price around 210 EURO or 247 US-Dollars in Germany is OK yet.
Excuse me for my worst english, i haven't often the possbility to use it.
*ASRock just rocks ! As an audio engineer , I really love my ASRock B450 Steel Legend board !* I'm pretty sure i would love the B550 Steel Legend also , but i'm skipping Zen3 !
Because next year , we will have AM5 motherboards with DDR5 ram , Pcie5 , and Ryzen 5000 series on 5Nm ! 2021 is the year of Nr. 5 ;-)
Not gonna happen lol
@@SISSYPUSS I read it's ready for servers. Servers always come first
@@christianpaulsotto1461 he said 2021.
Bought a MSI Mortar for a future upgrade to the new 5900x when it's out. Coming from i7 3770k so yeah... Thank you ! Very nice informative video with a nice pace and quality!
I just bought an Asrock B550m Steel Legend at 109USD, I have an R7 3800X and I'm already sure it's going to go more than well
Great content as always, thank you. I subbed today for your audio analysis of these boards. There is a problem with the audio cross talk graph at 7:50. The units should be labeled as -92dB etc and graphed with -90 as a smaller bar than -82. The legend says that smaller is better but shows the higher numbers with the smaller bars which will confuse many viewers. Please keep up the audio analysis but correct these flaws.
Yeah it was hard to graph this one lol, it's mainly because I can't graph negative numbers in excel (or I just don't know how to yet), but you have to think of it in an inverse sense, -92 is lower than -83, making it higher on the chart, only because it should be read in a negative sense... I don't know ultimately as I can see where you are coming from too, lower is better so the graph size should be lower is better too. definitely a weird one!
imo,
mobo manufacturer trying to replace entry-level x570 with these b550 mobo with those pricing
It make me wonder, what b650 will offer next year
Simple ....... AM5 motherboards with DDR5 ram , Pcie5 , and Ryzen 5000 series on 5Nm !
We're extremely unlikely to get any more chipsets for AM4 after A520. B650 (if it exists) will be for AM5.
@@nathangamble125 but next Ryzen 4000 will launch with x670, right??
@@ZAR556 I think Ryzen 4000 (ZEN 3) will be compatible with X570 (upgrading Bios), currently new B550 and future X670.
Thanks for the Steel Legend 2nd M.2 x2 speed mention, hadn't noticed that That's a no go, it's same speed as any B450 then, so pointless. Currently already bottle necked with my 970 EVO on the PCI-E 2.0 4x slot for 2000mb/s and PCI-E 3.0 2x will be exact same bandwith.
Part of the reason my wanting to upgrade from B450->B550 is I'll get full speed of my 2nd M.2 as well, granted it's only on OS duty, so not a big deal, but other motherboards give you x4. Funny thing is I had ASRock Z270 mATX before going B450 and that board already had two 3.0 4x M.2 slots.. :) Still can't get all the features from B550 matx boards that I already had early 2017.
That Mortar and ASUS TUF mATX only ones left to choose from. Sadly no ROG mATX and Aorus messed up the Pro mATX not making it copy of the great ATX version. Now all that is missing for the prices to come down, 60€ more for B450 Mortar to B550 Mortar upgrade is a lot for not so much more.
You know you can buy PCIe cards on AliExpress to put NVMe in a regular PCIe slot right? They're like 10 bucks or less from JEYI, and they're really good. But yeah that design decision on the Steel Legend is idiotic. I can vouch for the AsRock X570M Pro4 though as long as you don't plan to OC a 16-core on it.
@@BloodpactORG X570M Pro4 is silly overpriced here 220€ or $245 or 360 aud. I would have bought it on launch if it had alc1220 and decent price.
For the add in cards, last time I used those was in 2012 something when I still had a sound card. Whole point to moving to mATX was that I didn't need expansion slots anymore. But yep, plenty fine PCI-e adaptors to be had, heatsinked too.
With this ASRock board thou it would give full bandwith funnily enough. Usually the bottom PCIe slot and the M.2 share lanes, but it shares lanes with sata ports, also explaing why it's only 2x. So infact it would also make it only? mATX where you can use the 16x bottom slot along with 2x M.2 drives, so theri decision kinda makes sense too, if you only need one fast M.2
Thanks for the walkthrough, I appreciated you looking at the boards with the most power hungry CPU. Given the video title I was disappointed your conclusion was, you will have to take a look and decide for yourself. Other than the excellent information on power support for OC and non-OC configuration you didn’t offer much to evaluate price/value or say what usage you would buy each for.
My Aorus B550 master is almost at my door. Should be delivered by Monday-Tuesday. Running R9 3900x - 16 x 2 3600 CL 18 I am wanting opinions and suggestions for GPU as I am not sure which route to go for that piece of hardware
RTX 2070 super or higher 👌👍
RTX 3090
Niko Bellic 😂
Great board if you do no overclock. But, the dual bios is a real pain if you do. Smart buyers will wait for Big Navi to release. Prices should drop closer to the end of the year.
@@tonkatoytruck RTX 2000 is a waste of money at this point, use a card you already have or buy a cheap one until the new stuff comes out.
I have found this very useful. Many thanks!
Hi, Brian! I went with the Aorus Master. It's great. Easily handling my 3900x. Appreciate your videos!
Great reviews and attention to detail Bryan! Thank You!
So i guess if the A520 does comes it replaces B450, since B550 is more in between, unless the price of B550 drops, im looking forward to A520
A520 doesn't support overclocking or PCIe 4.0, but it should be cheaper because they cost less to make.
That power draw was strange dude, hope they update the bios, so it can have even better temps
probably the rumour about some manufactors showing false power readings, and using extra power is true when looking at MSI
The Aorus master is the highest quality board out of all of those, true 16 phase vrm with 70A power stages, actual fin heatsinks on the vrm and the board comes with a backplate and debug code led. It's a beast!
i have the b550 aorus master, i think its the best one all overall
I cant fit my Xeon into these boards! What am I doing wrong?
Maybe you applied the thermal paste over the socket instead of the CPU's IHS.
Maybe you should try to look at the gold triangle and try to align it 😀
Rip out the socket
@@wesmednardhyppolite1680 RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT'S DONE
Need a bigger hammer
Appreciated this review! One little thing however, speaking about RGB control, the MSI motherboards (at least the mortar one), have at least two RGB headers: 12v&5v. So for the sake of accuracy, we need to ACT that as it becomes more and more popular among gamers...
Brian.. Thanks for reading my post. That clears my confusion did some research on it on my behalf no body has ever unlocked that processor
The best tech channel for the money is Tech YES City!
Hey Marco , what motherboard you got ?
@@CharlieQ7400 GA-Z97-UD3H-BK
@@MarcoGPUtuber Solid Board, I7-4470/90K in there ?
@@CharlieQ7400 4670K lovingly donated by my cousin when he upgraded. I am lookin to get aboard the Ryzen bandwagon later on
@@SISSYPUSS I got it for a good deal from NCIX. It was on we-wanna-get-rid-of-it clearance sale. Solid board. My cousin gave me his B85M-G but with a white GPU, I wanted to do a black and white themed build alà Greg Salazar Walter-White-style. The black board was the best available for cheap.
A Look on the VRM without cooler would be a nice touch
Thank you so much for this video!! after watching i went with the tomahawk i wanted mortar but they were sold out at the place that im buying my pc but after watching this video i feel much batter i went with tomahawk Thank you so much again!
Good comparison, two things...
it's a shame about BIOS, as ROG you had was quite old and there were few versions released in between (last one 6/16)
Second, chart with ports, I think it's more important to show if the board has front USB C header, which for some reason is rarity now.
The video I've been waiting for, no wonder it came from you
Thanks for the great review!
Thx i was waiting for something like this comparison. U are the best
My build
R5 3600
Rx 5600 xt
B550m mortar
2x8 3200mhz ram
Nzxt h510
700 watt psu
128 gb ssd and 2tb hdd
Monitor pixio px247
Keyboard rk kludge 60%
Mouse reddragon m602
Thanks for reviewing the b550m mortar!
I bought an msi mpg b550 gaming plus the other day. It seems pretty good for $130
2 questions, please: 1.) Doesn't using the B550 chipset mean that you aren't able to get PCI 4.0 support for your M.2 drive if the video card is PCI 3.0 like all the video cards available today? I'm going to install the PCI 4.0 Sabrent Rocket, and i'm having trouble understanding if the 4.0 speed will be supported by the B550 chipset. 2.) Don't all the Intel 2.5G LAN chips have a flaw that will require an RMA to fix? Before you say this only affects the z490 boards, know that this isn't true. The 2.5G Lan chip fix wasn't implemented until June 2020, and will affect all boards manufactured with that Foxville chip before then.
Wait, are you saying that the Mortar has a 6-layer PCB?? From what little information I've gotten so far, it's running only on a 4-layer PCB. The Tomahawk is a 6-layer.
If that's the case and the Mortar is a 6-layer PCB, then the Mortar Wifi would be an easy pick for me. MSI's more honest approach to memory MT/s ratings, the much better heatsinks, the 60A powerstages, front C and integrated AX wifi for $20CAD less would make the Mortar Wifi a no-brainer; only remaining quibble is the absolutely ridiculous location of the CMOS jumper on the Mortar compared to the convenient rear I/O button on the Steel Legend.
Yes bro keep it up my man ✌️
Mid range motherboards over 200$... What the heck are these companies thinking? Is anyone really going to spend almost 300 bucks on a mid range board?
awesome video. still after watching your content all i want is a xeon with an lga 2011 mobo. cheers man.
this is the video i've been wanting. thanks mate.
Subscribed. Very good review with the price check, the m2 speed, the vrm temp check, the power efficiency check. Got question.: 1.which board has vrm temp sensor 2.except steel legend, will support raid0 2 nvme PCIx4? 3. Will it support 4 x 32gb ram 3200/3600? 4. The cheapest cooling solution for 3900x/3950x with pbo on less than 90C wprime 95 (hopefully vrm throthling off and cpu cooling throthling off also) : ID cooling se-224-xt / deepcool as500 / any cheapest liquid cooling?
If I could put the heatsing from the tomahawk on the steel legend with matching design of the steel id be ecstatic
Cant wait for Tomahawk Max upgrade
I bought the motherboard from amazon. It came with BIOS P1.80. It was able to run the AMD 5600G processor directly. I did not update the BIOS. I don't have a video card. I'm using it with motherboard + 4x16GB ram + AMD 5600G. It was useful for me to run AMD 5600G version of P1.80.
Mainboard: Asrock B550M Steel Legend Amd Am4
CPU: AMD 5600G
Ram: GSKILL RipjawsV Black DDR4-3600Mhz CL18 16GB (1X16GB) Single (18-22-22-42) 1.35V (F4-3600C18S-16GVK)
For a Sub $200 Mobo the MSI MAG b550 Tomahawk is fantastic i use Ryzen 7 3700x and it works amazingly for the price, but if price is no object obviously there are some absolutely incredible mobo for $300+ for example I have a buddy who did an all white “frost” build as he calls it lol with a white Gigabyte Vision b550 and it’s pretty sweet. Obviously RGB and specific color is a personal thing.
I have only one way to figure out which one is the best,
The wallet way
*ASRock* Steel Legend it is !
B450 Asrock
B550-A Pro
@@gertjanvandermeij4265 you can get the b550m ds3h though from gigabyte considering the pre b450 motherboard of this version is good for budget
@@UrbanaticLemonade is it easy to upgrade the bios?
Excellent comparison, you're the man!
How important is VRM phase distribution. is 10+2+1 more efficient than 8+2+1? How does Mortar compare with Asus Tuf Gaming B550M WiFi ?
my favorite B550 boards are the MSI B550-A Pro and the Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO
U know after so many video watching i get finally my answer. Nice video bro. I am go with strix on $200 in my country
Tech Yes gunna give it to ya!
Thanks for the video! Please can you also review the cheaper mATX boards like Asrock B550M Pro4 and MSI B550M Bazooka and Gigabyte B550M Pro/Elite?
I'm waiting for tech yes review of a520 motherboards!!!
Pranav Rao I love the Ax20 series
Thanks for the video , was hoping for the Aorus pro
i got myself an x570 arous elite wifi from microcenter with my ryzen 5 3600x for 170 it was a massive steal and it was brand new too
With how good all of those VRMs are I think it comes down to feature sets, pricing and also looks (at least to me). The Steel Legend looks terrible in my view and I would never put that in my system. The Mortar looks great, but it lacks some RGB and it's rear IO is pretty bad. The Tomahawk has the same rear IO and it lacks Wifi. The Strix E, Taichi and Master and ridiculously expensive. So.. there's not really any board that does it all for me, even though they are all very good - even something like a B550 Elite will overclock a 5950x just fine (as long as you don't draw more than 200 amps current, which is pretty hard with even a 16 core)
It is around $110.19 after the crypto crash the other motherboards are still expensive and the RGB is kind of distinctive to me.
Wait why the 2 MSI boards draw much more power than the rest?????
2019: Gaming PC's under $500!
2020: Gaming PC's under $750!
i still think about new consoles for games. PC market is horrible expensive.
Sławek P. Well if you want the newest hardware yes hell yes!!!
2019: Gaming PC's under $500!
2020: Gaming PC's under $750!
2021: Gaming PC's under $950!
2022: Gaming PC's under $1150!
2023: Gaming PC's under $1350!
2024: Gaming PC's under $1650!
2025: Gaming PC's under $2000!
2026: Gaming PC's under $2400!
2027: Gaming PC's under $2900!
2028: Gaming PC's under $3600!
2029: Gaming PC's under $4300!
2030: Gaming PC's under $5000!
2050: Gaming PC's under $50.000!
guys he figured out economy and inflation
@Broke As FK Look at the specs, and compare to B450 and X570. The prices on a lot of the B550 boards are really good.
Logic would dictate if you have 💰 and you're going to buy a 3950 you would go X570 over B550. Nice review, but waiting to see how these perform with upcoming Ryzen refresh SKU's, more importantly for budget conscious builds.
Bancroft Hulme some of these b550 have better vrm than counterpart x570 so if you go 3950 these can be better!
1.4v is not a voltage to manually set on zen2, that's degrade city. TSMC have said you shouldn't put more than 1.3v max through 7nm.
Can u review asrock b550 pro4?
That motherboard is sketchy for any more than 8 core CPUs. Steel Legend / Extreme4/ PG Velocita (which all have the same PCB/ VRM metrics) are the lowest I'd go personally on AsRock.
The best bang for buck B550 is an X470, actually.
B550 prices are going to have to drop considerably. I got my Asus X570 TUF Gaming Plus for $140usd new.
Wow that's a great price!
Daaaaaaamn thats a great deal!
Hello, i don't undestarnd much hardware, but how is b550 better?
@@StuartDo The B550 boards have better VRMs, in general (can handle high power cpus better thermally) and some have better features like PCIe Gen 4 storage (faster data transfer to support potential future graphic card needs like Ray Tracing).
@@tonkatoytruck i am ask you how b550 is better? Asus and more, i am think to buy a rx 5700 xt, but i have a 1660 now...
The MSI boards can have their bios upgraded, in windows, with the Dragon Center.
call me old school, but I never update the bios in windows due to possible software bugs/failure. not much of a problem with bios flashback, but yeah.... I prefer the old school method.
That sounds like a great way to brick your board
Dragon center is poopoo, doing it in the bios isnt even that hard
Can you maybe take a look at the MSI B550 gaming plus? looks like its a good board for 150
Was interested in the Asus B550 F-Gaming Wifi but the Clock and Ram Issues that you tested bother me.. if there is an update/fix would be nice to know!
Thank you mate, excellent video
Very impressive thermal testing, insightful info for sure. But the B550's seem priced too high, we are in x570 territory so it's very hard to recommend any B550 now actually, every board needs to come down 20-30% then we can consider it a "budget" chipset once again.
Nah not priced to high
b550.. shhhhieee. im in the market for an am3 or x58
I'm pretty sure the Mortar is a 4 layer pcb... but it doesn't matter too much since there's no point in OCing memory past 4000 anyway.
Love this one, thank you.
Excellent review
The best B550 board is... one I can actually buy? I'm in the UK and stock levels in the main retailers is comical. Coupled with the fact that I'm gathering parts for a SFF build and must use mini-ITX means that I can't buy anything at the moment. Everyone's pointing the finger at COVID and each other (mobo manufacturers/distributors vs. retailers) and I'm left nearly a week after launch asking if I simply dreamt the B550 launch.
These are my requirements for 2020 and sadly right now I only have 1 option: The MSI B550 Mortar board.
+ micro-ATX form factor
+ USB 3.1 GEN2 Key-A internal port on the motherboard for a USB-C port on the front side of the case
So guys look out for these details when deciding on your parts. Happy building.
What about ASrock Steel Legend, is Micro-ATX + extra 3.1 Gen2, doesn't work?
Why not x570 then? It’s a $20 but you get much more features, B550 seems a bit overpriced, I’m waiting for A520 though
August for A520, hopefully it's cheaper than B550.
and you get an annoying bios chip cooler !
@@gertjanvandermeij4265 I never hear mine.
My thoughts too. I don't need Pciex4 x2 yet but who knows in a few years.
The x570 at that price point have crap VRM's