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.
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.
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
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.
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
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 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!
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.
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.
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
@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.
*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 ;-)
(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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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
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!
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...
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.
@@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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 really need a tip: is the b550 gaming edge wifi worth it over the b550 tomahawk? In the country where i live, gaming edge costs 20 dollars more. Any advice will be appreciated THANK YOU
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!
i seriously have my doubts, with the 1.4v he was feeding his 3950x would be a seriously toasty 250-270w tdp the noctua would need to handle, although i have seen them handle 5.1ghz 9900k that would be like 220w tdp. if you can get away with 1.3v@4.3ghz on the 3950x it would make a worlds difference, but that depends on your luck with silicone lottery
Very old vid and you'll never read this, but on MY ASUS boards, it sets my tRC RAM timing WAY higher than it shold be. I.E. 78-82 rather than, for example on my 2x16GB dual rank DDR3600 C16 kit @ 58 and that EXTREMELY affects the boost clocks from my experience. Both my Asus STRIX B450-F Gaming II and Asus B550-F Gaming Wi-Fi II did this on an R5 3600 in both boards and a 5900x in the B550 board. So use whatever you want (HWiNFO64 shows it) and see what your tRC timing is and then check what your RAM SHOULD be able to do. It makes a HUGE difference in core boosting.
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 $300+ for example I have a buddy who did an all white “frost” build as he calls it lol with a white Gigabyte Vision b550 and it’s pretty sweet. Obviously RGB and specific color is a personal thing.
Subscribed. Very good review with the price check, the m2 speed, the vrm temp check, the power efficiency check. Got question.: 1.which board has vrm temp sensor 2.except steel legend, will support raid0 2 nvme PCIx4? 3. Will it support 4 x 32gb ram 3200/3600? 4. The cheapest cooling solution for 3900x/3950x with pbo on less than 90C wprime 95 (hopefully vrm throthling off and cpu cooling throthling off also) : ID cooling se-224-xt / deepcool as500 / any cheapest liquid cooling?
Is it worth it to get a b550 vs a b450 for up to an 8core? If the b450 is a better value would you rather get a x370 and flash the bois or does the b450 have features the x370 is missing?
B550-E strix or b550 Aorus master ? Was gonna order the the strix one but you pointed out 2 little problems in this video, should I be worried about that Because there will probably be a fix for it or get the Aorus board ? Maybe I’m just being 2 hesitant because it’s my first pc 😂 wanting to just run a Ryzen 5 3600 for now until the newer CPUs come.
@@shantanusahu9168 I got the Asus b550 E gaming motherboard. Mainly so it matched my gpu lol I’ve been running a 5800x in it for about 4 months now and have had no problems at all.
It must be noted that only the MSI boards include an internal type c header in the sub 200$ category which you seem to have brushed over. I also hope that there are enough users out there to demand white accented boards for white case builds especially now that manufacturers move to a 6 layer pcbs.
ASRock Steel Legend has internal type C header too (the ATX one). Extreme4 has type C header as well, but currently it is little bit over 200$ I believe
i know it's late ... i got a B450 steel legend and wanna upgrade to B550 steel legend .. Im running a 5800X3D with a RTX 3060 ... would it be a good/ ''great'' upgrade for improved performance?
Thnx for the review! First i liked the aorus master the most, but it turns out it has no usb-c header. Now iam aiming at the asrock taichi, to me the greatest mb of all b550. Wondering when we can buy this one.
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.
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)
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.
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!
Just ordered a B550 Tomahawk. Thanks for the review bud.
Thank you for the comparison Bryan! It's 0:30AM here but I'm watching your content!
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.
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.
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.
The video I've been waiting for, no wonder it came from you
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
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
I’m planing a new build and didn’t know what motherboard to get but this video realy helped, thanks!!!
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?
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
Very good and clear comparison. Going for the Mortar because of mATX build.
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
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 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!
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.
Thx i was waiting for something like this comparison. U are the best
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!
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?!
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.
Thanks for the great review!
this is the video i've been wanting. thanks mate.
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.
The B550M Aorus Pro seems like a very good deal to me. You should cover it!
Ordered one with 3300x, waiting for delivery.
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
Please make b550 mini itx roundup. Love the content!
@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.
*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.
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.
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!
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.
Yes bro keep it up my man ✌️
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
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
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!
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
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
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!
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...
The conclusion is the right one.
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.
Great reviews and attention to detail Bryan! Thank You!
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.
Excellent comparison, you're the man!
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
Tech Yes gunna give it to ya!
awesome video. still after watching your content all i want is a xeon with an lga 2011 mobo. cheers man.
A Look on the VRM without cooler would be a nice touch
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
Thank you mate, excellent video
Excellent review
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
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
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?
Hi. May I know, among those 6 what is the best for R7 5800X? Can u suggest? Great review anyway.
What did you go with?
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 ?
Thanks for the video , was hoping for the Aorus pro
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.
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.
Cant wait for Tomahawk Max upgrade
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!
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.
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.
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!
Love this one, thank you.
I really need a tip: is the b550 gaming edge wifi worth it over the b550 tomahawk? In the country where i live, gaming edge costs 20 dollars more.
Any advice will be appreciated THANK YOU
Tomahawk better
Gaming edge has fsr better vrm, wifi, blutooth. Defenetely bettrr
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!
If I could put the heatsing from the tomahawk on the steel legend with matching design of the steel id be ecstatic
The video mentioned water cooling a lot for over clocking, but can let's say a B550 Taichi with 3950x be OC to 4.3ghz with a Noctua NH-D15 air cooler?
i seriously have my doubts, with the 1.4v he was feeding his 3950x would be a seriously toasty 250-270w tdp the noctua would need to handle, although i have seen them handle 5.1ghz 9900k that would be like 220w tdp. if you can get away with 1.3v@4.3ghz on the 3950x it would make a worlds difference, but that depends on your luck with silicone lottery
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!
Very old vid and you'll never read this, but on MY ASUS boards, it sets my tRC RAM timing WAY higher than it shold be. I.E. 78-82 rather than, for example on my 2x16GB dual rank DDR3600 C16 kit @ 58 and that EXTREMELY affects the boost clocks from my experience. Both my Asus STRIX B450-F Gaming II and Asus B550-F Gaming Wi-Fi II did this on an R5 3600 in both boards and a 5900x in the B550 board.
So use whatever you want (HWiNFO64 shows it) and see what your tRC timing is and then check what your RAM SHOULD be able to do. It makes a HUGE difference in core boosting.
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.
Wait why the 2 MSI boards draw much more power than the rest?????
4:13 Uh… don’t you lose performance above DDR4-3800 or so because of the Infinity Fabric?
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 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
Many many thanks brother From Bangladesh.
Is it worth it to get a b550 vs a b450 for up to an 8core? If the b450 is a better value would you rather get a x370 and flash the bois or does the b450 have features the x370 is missing?
Now this is tech yes lovin!
my favorite B550 boards are the MSI B550-A Pro and the Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO
I bought an msi mpg b550 gaming plus the other day. It seems pretty good for $130
Can you maybe take a look at the MSI B550 gaming plus? looks like its a good board for 150
Thanks for the video! Please can you also review the cheaper mATX boards like Asrock B550M Pro4 and MSI B550M Bazooka and Gigabyte B550M Pro/Elite?
Thanks for testing the VRM and the audio, most people dont test the latter.
A shame the Tomahawk is so bad in terms of audio.
So i guess if the A520 does comes it replaces B450, since B550 is more in between, unless the price of B550 drops, im looking forward to A520
A520 doesn't support overclocking or PCIe 4.0, but it should be cheaper because they cost less to make.
B550-E strix or b550 Aorus master ? Was gonna order the the strix one but you pointed out 2 little problems in this video, should I be worried about that Because there will probably be a fix for it or get the Aorus board ? Maybe I’m just being 2 hesitant because it’s my first pc 😂 wanting to just run a Ryzen 5 3600 for now until the newer CPUs come.
which one did u buy?
@@shantanusahu9168 I got the Asus b550 E gaming motherboard. Mainly so it matched my gpu lol I’ve been running a 5800x in it for about 4 months now and have had no problems at all.
And what about MSI X570 Tomahawk? It was presented on January, but still not on selling 🤔
It must be noted that only the MSI boards include an internal type c header in the sub 200$ category which you seem to have brushed over. I also hope that there are enough users out there to demand white accented boards for white case builds especially now that manufacturers move to a 6 layer pcbs.
ASRock Steel Legend has internal type C header too (the ATX one). Extreme4 has type C header as well, but currently it is little bit over 200$ I believe
i know it's late ... i got a B450 steel legend and wanna upgrade to B550 steel legend ..
Im running a 5800X3D with a RTX 3060 ... would it be a good/ ''great'' upgrade for improved performance?
Thnx for the review! First i liked the aorus master the most, but it turns out it has no usb-c header. Now iam aiming at the asrock taichi, to me the greatest mb of all b550. Wondering when we can buy this one.
What is the power draw of the MSI x570 Tomahawk motherboard? Is it high like the B550 Tomahawk or is it normal like the top end boards?
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.
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)
Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE or ASRock B550M Steel Legend? What do you recommend for r5 3600 - 3600xt?
i have the same question
orutra3000 watch gamer nexus he covers those
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.
How much the price and what model for the cheapest b550/m motherboard?
I have a question, would u recommend asrock b550m steel legend motherboard for ryzen 5 3600x?
Same though