AMD B550 Motherboard First Look & VRM Temperature Test

At long terminal AMD more budget-oriented B550 motherboards will finally proceed auction. There's been plenty of talk about the B550 chipset and all the supporting boards for weeks, and nosotros're now able to share our results with you. On paw for testing today we have the MSI B550M Mortar, MSI B550 Tomahawk, Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro and Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master.

Every bit nosotros've done before, our focus will be testing VRM thermal performance with the goal of finding the best B550 boards that can comfortably back up the Ryzen 9 3900X and 3950X, as those processors will brand for nice second-hand upgrade options downwardly the runway. Unfortunately for now we don't have whatsoever of the more than entry-level B550 boards, but those will come somewhen.

Earlier we become into testing, let'southward briefly talk over why B550 motherboards are more expensive than what well-nigh were expecting. For this discussion nosotros'll use the MSI B550 range equally a point of reference for a number of reasons: they had some of the all-time quality B450 boards with the Tomahawk and Pro Carbon, we have two of their new B550 boards for testing, and they as well provided us with a detailed breakup of their entire B550 range, including VRM configurations and pricing.

The previous-gen B450 Tomahawk hit shelves at around $110 and through the course of its life typically sold for somewhere between $110 - $120. The nearly expensive MSI B450 board was the Pro Carbon and it sold for effectually $130 - $140. This is why pricing for the new B550 boards wasn't well received: the B550 Gaming Carbon WiFi is coming in at an eye watering $220, while the new B550 Tomahawk will set you back $180. The B550M Mortar which we have on hand costs $160, the Gaming Plus $150, the A Pro $140 and the Bazooka $130.

On the surface those prices are quite shocking, simply when you get-go to dig into what these boards offer, you may realize the price increases aren't nearly equally farthermost as they kickoff appear. At present, we're not trying to defend any price hikes, nosotros're always pushing for ameliorate pricing, but we like to do so while being realistic in our demands.

The main reason why the B550 range costs more than the B450 is uncomplicated: it's way better. The B550 Tomahawk, for example, isn't just the B450 Tomahawk with the newer chipset. This is where branding can become a fiddling tricky as the Tomahawk name doesn't target a certain cost point. The Z490 Tomahawk costs $180, the X299 Tomahawk is effectually $250, and the X570 Tomahawk is meant to exist $200. And so what are some of the reasons why the B550 version of the Tomahawk costs ~$60 more than the B450 version?

Although it was 1 of the best B450 boards in terms of VRM quality, the Tomahawk was yet a basic board, featuring a 4-phase vcore with doubled upwards On Semiconductor discrete mosfets. That same VRM tin be plant on the $130 B550M Bazooka. The B550 Tomahawk, on the other hand, has been upgraded across any B450 board with a massive 10-stage vcore VRM featuring 60A Intersil powerstages -- the same you'll discover on the excellent X570 Tomahawk, which packs two more powerstages for a 12-stage vcore VRM. So in theory the B550 Tomahawk has 83% of the X570 Tomahawk's current capacity.

Then in terms of features, yous're getting an additional M.ii slot which supports PCIe iv.0 SSDs, and of course, the primary PCIe x16 slot supports PCIe 4.0 likewise. Other features include USB iii.ii Gen two, 2.5 Gigabit LAN, front USB Type-C, G.2 shields, better PCB, pre-installed I/O shield, much larger VRM cooling to go with the bigger VRM, a ameliorate board layout and just a higher quality motherboard in general. There's actually no comparison the two generations every bit they're in completely unlike tiers, and pricing reflects that.

That ways the closest ATX model to the B450 Tomahawk would be the B550-A Pro, information technology costs $140, or ~20% more, but again you're getting more motherboard. The VRM uses many of the same components, at that place's merely more of them and doublers are now included, creating a 10-phase vcore VRM with 25% more current capacity. There's more features onboard likewise. Again, USB iii.2 Gen 2 and PCIe iv.0 are included, there's 2 additional USB ports on the I/O panel and you go front USB Type-C support. The VRM heatsinks are too larger and you lot get a meliorate quality PCB with two ounce thickened copper. The ~20% premium doesn't sound as well unreasonable given those upgrades.

The MSI B550M Bazooka comes in at $130, slightly more than the B450 Tomahawk and it features the same VRM. However, it nonetheless offers an additional M.2 slot which supports PCIe four.0 x4 bandwidth, front USB Type-C and the thickened copper PCB, though it does drib USB three.2 Gen ii and two of the SATA 6Gbps ports.

Information technology's also worth noting that the B450 Tomahawk and its Max variant aren't going abroad overnight either. And so yous'll still be able to purchase B450 boards for some time after the B550 release. MSI's likely doing this to fill the void until B550 pricing filters downwardly, which ordinarily happens over time with motherboard platforms.

There are a number of AMD X570 boards that have fallen in price since release, though admittedly pricing and availability is very messy at the moment due to the pandemic. For example, the entry-level Asus TUF Gaming X570 Plus which launched at $190 dropped a few months after to $165, and has remained at that place despite rave reviews. There seem to be other X570 boards effectually that $160 price point, too. We'd expect something similar to happen with B550, with higher launch prices for a few months, and a drop by the holiday season.

What we may exist witnessing here is increased demand for Ryzen products and board makers want to get in on the action. Ryzen has made it through that flow of uncertainty since the first generation, as a result B450 sales were significantly higher than that of B350, which we're told by all accounts did very well.

Therefore having seen stiff demand for B450 boards priced over $100, motherboard makers are confident that B550 tin command higher price points, allowing them to make better, more expensive motherboards. Whether that experiment pays off, we'll know eventually. But plenty nigh pricing for now, and permit's go on with testing the VRM thermal performance of the four boards nosotros already have.

Examination Setup and Notes

For this test we'll exist mirroring the setup nosotros used with the X570 motherboards every bit we desire to compare that thermal information. Do note that X570 boards were tested some time agone using earlier AGESA versions, and then at that place might be some small discrepancies there. This is a fairly extreme VRM test setup, as the thought was to stress high-end X570 boards to ensure they could handle all conditions. The plan was to revisit the testing with the Ryzen 9 3950X, given the 3900X was the most high-end AM4 CPU bachelor at the fourth dimension of testing, but after all the 3950X doesn't use that much more ability than the 3900X, so we didn't bother.

Rather than installing the boards in an ATX instance like we often do, nosotros're using an open air-test bed with no direct air-menstruation. Withal, through further testing we've found that the results in a poorly ventilated case are actually worse, and then we guess this isn't an absolute worst case scenario, no pun intended. Placing load on the CPU is Blender running the Gooseberry workload and the temperatures are reported after an hour.

For recording temperatures we're using a digital thermometer with K-Type thermocouples and we'll be reporting the peak rear PCB temperature. Nosotros're also not reporting Delta T over Ambient, instead we maintain a room temperature of 21 degrees every bit this is by far the nigh accurate way to conduct this testing. Monitoring the ambience temperature is a thermocouple positioned next to the exam organisation.

Here are our baseline results with essentially out of the box Ryzen 9 3900X performance with PBO enabled. The motherboards are left to determine the appropriate voltages on their ain, so it'south a very bones overclock that anyone tin can do with the help of AMD's Ryzen Master software.

The best issue we've recorded to appointment of any AM4 motherboard was the Aorus Xtreme at 55C while the worst consequence technically comes from the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi which had to throttle the CPU during this examination for its own survival. The X570-A Pro ran hotter, but avoided throttling in this test.

What'southward incredible to annotation here is just how cool these B550 boards run, fifty-fifty the Mortar which was comparable to the X570 Aorus Pro WiFi nether these test weather condition and that board costs nearly $100 more.

Gigabyte's own B550 Aorus Pro ran a few degrees cooler than the X570 board with the same branding and it's around 30% cheaper. The MSI B550 Tomahawk was also excellent, peaking at just 60C, making it 2 degrees hotter than the X570 Tomahawk and just 5C hotter than the $700 Aorus Extreme.

And so we have the B550 Aorus Principal matching the X570 Aorus Xtreme with a meridian temperature of 55C. Y'all might wonder how does a $280 B550 board manage to match a $700 X570 board from the same company? The answer: it uses the exact aforementioned VRM with the same existent finned heatsinks, oh and it's a little over twenty% cheaper than the X570 Aorus Master.

Looking at overclocked results with the Ryzen 9 3900X running all cores at 4.3 GHz using i.4v. Again, we're using a high voltage to stress the boards and assist united states of america weed out the runts like the X570-A Pro and Gaming Edge WiFi, MSI'due south regrettable mistakes.

Despite these extreme test conditions, the B550M Mortar passed with relative ease, peaking at merely 80C, putting slightly more expensive Asrock and Gigabyte models similar the Steel Legend, Pro4 and Gaming Ten to shame. With a small corporeality of air-flow in that location is no AM4 CPU this board won't handle with ease. That beingness the case the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro and Master were extremely impressive, equally was MSI's B550 Tomahawk.

What We Learned

In curt, these new B550 motherboards are certainly a significant upgrade from the now ii-year-sometime B450 platform. MSI and Gigabyte take washed an first-class chore with the specific models nosotros checked out today and we're very peachy to review the base models to see how they handle the 3900X. From the looks of it, for a piddling over $100 yous'll exist able to buy a motherboard that supports PCIe 4.0 forth with loftier-stop AM4 CPUs.

This makes the B550 platform delay all the more frustrating for those who purchased a Ryzen 5 3600 with a new motherboard. Non but do these B550 boards support PCIe 4.0 graphics cards and storage, simply they will also offer a more seamless transition to Zen 3 processors in the hereafter.

If you bought a Ryzen five 3600 a year ago, in that location'due south a existent possibility that you might desire to purchase a Zen 3 role with more cores, but we guess that'southward a story for later in the twelvemonth.

In the meantime, the new AMD B550 chipset tin can be viewed equally another nail in Intel 10th-gen Core series coffin. The B550 Tomahawk, for example, is slightly cheaper than the Z490 Tomahawk, but yous get PCIe 4.0. Boards like the MSI B550-A Pro will be the existent killers, at $140 that looks similar a very solid board and we can't wait to cheque information technology out forth with entry-level boards from Gigabyte, Asus and Asrock.

There will also exist cheaper A520 boards, merely unless something really special happens, we'll largely ignore those for future tests as we did with the A320 boards. Equally we saw with the latter, you often stood to save a mere $x while losing CPU and memory overclocking in the procedure. Plus, CPU support and overall board quality was almost always worse, making them an easy pass.