Hot take: B550 is DOA for enthusiasts. Your thoughts?

[Hyderz]

i think the b550 motherboard will remain a good option and it all comes down to the price.
For somebody considering buying a new system they might think well there are some of the features on x570 on the b550 and they might not even that bothered with x570 due to a higher price.
With the price difference they could use it for more/better ram, bigger capacity ssd, better gpu

if money was tight, it will be a serious consideration.

 

[EarthDog]

In short, I don't see any reason why you'd want to choose B550 over X570.

Flr those who know its single gpu 1/2 m.2 users who don't quite need all the bells and whistles of x570 and wants to save a few bucks while having better than b450 vrms (on average).

 

[TheLostSwede]

B550 will sell for many people that do not want chipset fan (X570) and want support out of the box for Zen3. That is a fair amount of people in that category me thinks. It would have sold much more if it was in the market earlier but it isn't a DOA product by any means imho.

Uhm, I don't remember AMD promising out of the box support for Zen 3. I think you've read something into this that was never promised.
What AMD promised, was that there will be Zen 3 support, but that will almost guaranteed require a UEFI update.

Describes me. I had a chipset fan back with the NVIDIA nForce 4 Ultra and ugh it was a PITE (Pain In The Ear). I refuse to buy another actively cooled chipset.

I can't say I have ever heard the fan on my board. YMMV.

 

[xrror]

My biggest issue with B550 is it still feels like a more expensive re-warmed B450... which itself just seemed like a newer stepping of B350.
It also didn't help AMD's arguement back when B450 was a brand new chipset when people were able to crossflash B350 boards with B450 firmware (short version - not worth the effort / minimal perf difference + peripheral chips / temp fan control broken).

It'd be interesting to see comparisons of die photos between B450/B550a and B550 to see if this is the case (again).
It's not that I mind them re-using old designs it's that I don't like paying more for the same old design + it makes certain chipset limitations really stand out as market segmentation vs. genuine limitations.

As for the original thread my goto was B450 (though they are getting expensive now???) or just the cheapest X570 (Both AsRock and MSI have X570 starting at $160) because stupidly B550 seems determined to start at $190+.

Though one big caveat for me (but probably not you all) is that 5xx boards don't officially support old Ryzen 1xxx chips (our group has a few of those bouncing around - which are useful as "placeholder" processors if they want to upgrade a few parts at a time and/or are waiting to see what Ryzen 4000 does - either upgrade to it or see if 3xxx gets cheaper, etc).

EDIT ADD: Just wanted to clarify I'm not against getting a high end mobo, it's just with Ryzen it doesn't really make much difference as far as overclocking, which is what I care about.

 

[Apocalypsee]

There is no bad product, just bad price.

 

[TheLostSwede]

My biggest issue with B550 is it still feels like a more expensive re-warmed B450... which itself just seemed like a newer stepping of B350.
It also didn't help AMD's arguement back when B450 was a brand new chipset when people were able to crossflash B350 boards with B450 firmware (short version - not worth the effort / minimal perf difference + peripheral chips / temp fan control broken).

It'd be interesting to see comparisons of die photos between B450/B550a and B550 to see if this is the case (again).
It's not that I mind them re-using old designs it's that I don't like paying more for the same old design + it makes certain chipset limitations really stand out as market segmentation vs. genuine limitations.

As for the original thread my goto was B450 (though they are getting expensive now???) or just the cheapest X570 (Both AsRock and MSI have X570 starting at $160) because stupidly B550 seems determined to start at $190+.

Though one big caveat for me (but probably not you all) is that 5xx boards don't officially support old Ryzen 1xxx chips (our group has a few of those bouncing around - which are useful as "placeholder" processors if they want to upgrade a few parts at a time and/or are waiting to see what Ryzen 4000 does - either upgrade to it or see if 3xxx gets cheaper, etc).

EDIT ADD: Just wanted to clarify I'm not against getting a high end mobo, it's just with Ryzen it doesn't really make much difference as far as overclocking, which is what I care about.

There are obviously similarities, but the older chipsets and the B550 are NOT the same. The key difference is the move from PCIe 2.0 to PCIe 3.0 and it's quite significant. Then there's support for Crossfire, not that I think that really matters. The rest, is indeed mostly the same, as the additional USB port support, is hardly significant.

This is obviously a market segmentation thing, but AMD should really, imho, added a couple of extra PCIe lanes to the spec to make "competitive" vs. Intel's B360, as in some ways it's a more direct competitor to the H310, at least in terms of PCIe lane count.

I guess one way to look at it, is that the X570 is too high-end for a consumer platform, at least vs. what Intel has done so far, whereas the B550 is a bit too low-end to be a mid-range chipset.

B550 boards don't start at $190. The cheapest available board in Sweden right now seems to be $158, but that includes 25% VAT/sales tax, so that would be around $126 without tax. There are seven cheaper models that are not in stock. The same retailer's cheapest X570 board is $180, or $144 without VAT/sales tax.

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Cheapest board available in Taiwan is the equivalent of $111 including 5% VAT/sales tax.

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24h.pchome.com.tw

 

[thebluebumblebee]

Ya know, AMD may have hurt themselves by making the B550 motherboards too capable, combined with AMD's commitment to all, well, mostly anyway, overclocking features available on all motherboards. If there's no real reason to purchase an "X" motherboard, the sales of the "X" motherboards will drop, which will push the prices of those "X" motherboards up, since there will be fewer sales to amortize the development costs.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Ya know, AMD may have hurt themselves by making the B550 motherboards too capable, combined with AMD's commitment to all, well, mostly anyway, overclocking features available on all motherboards. If there's no real reason to purchase an "X" motherboard, the sales of the "X" motherboards will drop, which will push the prices of those "X" motherboards up, since there will be fewer sales to amortize the development costs.

AMD doesn't sell motherboards, but whatever...
Also, just because Intel has arbitrary limitations on their multitude of chipsets, why should AMD when they technically only offer three chipset per generation?

 

[xrror]

The ky difference is the move from PCIe 2.0 to PCIe 3.0 and it's quite significant.

Fair enough, I'd forgotten about that change.

As far as mobo pricing yea regional differences will make a huge difference. I was just talking from my limited midwestern U.S. perspective and a quick look at the big e-tailers.

Right now it seems like things like motherboards and PSU's here are in a big flux, not sure why. It also doesn't help that at least for this area, Amazon still has screwy shipping where some things won't show up until like a month later due to "COVID prioritization" which makes them a non-option if you don't want to take the gamble of them canceling your order after you wait 3 weeks for it.

On the other hand, right now DDR4 memory is dirt cheap in the U.S. market. You can get actual decent kits (16GB 3600 CAS16) for like $70 right now which is nuts.

 

[erocker]

I don't consider low/mid tier motherboards to be for "enthusiasts".

 

[xrror]

I don't consider low/mid tier motherboards to be for "enthusiasts".

Somebody missed out on the era of soldering volt-mods to crappy ECS/PCChips mobos apparently

 

[HD64G]

Uhm, I don't remember AMD promising out of the box support for Zen 3. I think you've read something into this that was never promised.
What AMD promised, was that there will be Zen 3 support, but that will almost guaranteed require a UEFI update.

My mistake. I meant official support for Zen3 from day 1 without delayed beta UEFI versions.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Fair enough, I'd forgotten about that change.

As far as mobo pricing yea regional differences will make a huge difference. I was just talking from my limited midwestern U.S. perspective and a quick look at the big e-tailers.

Right now it seems like things like motherboards and PSU's here are in a big flux, not sure why. It also doesn't help that at least for this area, Amazon still has screwy shipping where some things won't show up until like a month later due to "COVID prioritization" which makes them a non-option if you don't want to take the gamble of them canceling your order after you wait 3 weeks for it.

On the other hand, right now DDR4 memory is dirt cheap in the U.S. market. You can get actual decent kits (16GB 3600 CAS16) for like $70 right now which is nuts.

Have you looked at the cost/availability of web cams recently? Either you can't get one, or they cost a small fortune.

Also, those boards seem quite over priced.

 

[erocker]

Somebody missed out on the era of soldering volt-mods to crappy ECS/PCChips mobos apparently

That is not this era.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

trying to sell B550 by claiming it has better VRMs

Agree

memory overclocking

For Matisse also agree, however I would expect Renoir and Vermeer to make better use of faster memory speeds.

B550 loses out big time on connectivity, with only a single PCIe 4.0 slot for the GPU and M.2 each.

Most people don't need/use more than a GPU and a SSD, most people don't use a capture card or other PCIe slot, and most people don't run more than one or two drives (often they will be holdovers from previous builds as well so at best gen 3 drives and likely SATA). Also PCIe 4.0 SSDs are a waste of money at the moment IMHO.

Most B550 boards also have vastly lower numbers of USB ports

This is probably one of my biggest gripes about B550 (and Z490 tbh)... Though it seems like a common theme on most modern platforms unless you are willing to shell out over $400...

B550 seems determined to start at $190+.

This is the other sticking point for me on B550, my current board is a very well rounded board for my daily use and I got it for €110... There's basically no B550 or other AM4 board that is a substantial upgrade for me unless I spend well over $200.

Overall I think B550 has it's place but I don't think it has a place for me... I will likely be going for a Zen 3 or Rocket lake, current X570 and B550 board offerings don't actually interest me much at all, so I would likely either slot a Zen 3 part into my current X470 board, or look for something like a Z490/590 Apex/Hero/Dark mostly for shits and giggles...

 

[Assimilator]

I don't consider low/mid tier motherboards to be for "enthusiasts".

That's one of the points I intended to make, although likely it got lost in my ramblings: many of these B550 boards are priced, and (over-)engineered, to look like enthusiast boards. But B550 isn't (intended to be) an enthusiast chipset, it just so happens that it's not launching alongside a companion enthusiast chipset, so motherboard manufacturers are going ham, and it seems that consumers are eating it up hook line and sinker. It doesn't bode well for the prices of future "mid-range" boards.

It doesn't help that you have influential figures like Buildzoid doing multiple videos analyzing B550 VRMs and complaining it has less connectivity than X570. WAY TO MISS THE POINT DUDE.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

B550 isn't (intended to be) an enthusiast chipset

I kinda disagree on this, IMO there's no reason to exclude B550 boards from having really high end features for both "normal" and extreme OCing... I'd love to see a priced down Crosshair 2-dimm board or a return to MSI's old Mpower line of budget XOCing boards.

The real problem for me is that board vendors are making you pay more for useful features that cost them very little to implement (stuff like USB ports and other sensible I/O, and basic troubleshooting stuff like clear CMOS buttons) by bundling them with a bunch of junk most people don't want or need: Rear I/O covers, RGB, mediocre but overengineered onboard audio, and absurdly overbuilt VRMs.

 

[EarthDog]

n Crosshair 2-dimm board or a return to MSI's old Mpower line of budget XOCing boards.

Those are enthusiast class boards... in particular the MPower.

B550 is not an enthusiast chipset.

That's one of the points I intended to make, although likely it got lost in my ramblings: many of these B550 boards are priced, and (over-)engineered, to look like enthusiast boards. But B550 isn't (intended to be) an enthusiast chipset, it just so happens that it's not launching alongside a companion enthusiast chipset, so motherboard manufacturers are going ham, and it seems that consumers are eating it up hook line and sinker. It doesn't bode well for future "mid-range" boards.

It doesn't help that you have influential figures like Buildzoid doing multiple videos analyzing B550 VRMs and complaining it has less connectivity than X570. WAY TO MISS THE POINT DUDE.

The funny part is these boards are still expected to overclock the flagship enthusiast processor so they kind of have to be overbuilt.....or built properly. TPU only tested a 2700X on some boards, HWu (or someone) called them out on it and part of the reply was that nobody who's buying b450 is going to put a 3900x in it.... a poll was taken and an overwhelming majority expected that to happen and be OK for w/e board. So... in that light it makes sense.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Those are enthusiast class boards... in particular the MPower.

B550 is not an enthusiast chipset.

Does it make a difference for those kinds of boards whether they have a B550 or X570 chipset on them? Especially the MPower was intended as a low cost XOCing board, basically a XPower-lite... When you run that kind of board you really couldn't care less about having extra PCIe 4.0 m.2 slots, a few extra 10Gb/s USB ports (some of which are just upgraded from 5Gb/s), and 4 more SATA ports...

An enthusiast board doesn't need to have completely decked out I/O.

 

[xtreemchaos]

too little for too much sums them up, ive nothing to take advantage ill be sticking to what ive got untill theres something better coming along that do not break the bank.

 

[Shou Miko]

NVME SSD's with Gen4 speeds are nice and if the B550 chipset offered more than 1 lets say 2 or 3 the X570 wouldn't be what people would buy because SLi and Crossfire for the main user is dead specially in games.

No GPU really needs PCI-E 4.0 to run even the RTX 2080 Ti doesn't max out PCI-E 3.0 x8.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Most users aren't going to use more than 1 PCI-E x16 nor are they going to use more than 1 NVMe.
For those people a b550 is for them.

If you want more get a cheap x570.

If you want a board for aesthetics spend more.

If you want a board to OC your 3600...etc
Don't bother this series pretty much comes at their limit.
Just my opinion and my justification for buying a cheap x570 a few months ago..I might also add that I got my x570 cheaper than any b550's I've currently seen in stock.

 

[EarthDog]

Does it make a difference for those kinds of boards whether they have a B550 or X570 chipset on them? Especially the MPower was intended as a low cost XOCing board, basically a XPower-lite... When you run that kind of board you really couldn't care less about having extra PCIe 4.0 m.2 slots, a few extra 10Gb/s USB ports (some of which are just upgraded from 5Gb/s), and 4 more SATA ports...

An enthusiast board doesn't need to have completely decked out I/O.

Yes because that is what defines the two classes. MPower was always part of the enthusiast chipset ftr. It was never low cost. IIRC, the MPower was either 2nd or 3rd in line behind the XPower for cost? It was not a mainstream board by price or chipset bud. Sorry.

MPower is more like a track car (stripped some features for OC ability)... XPower was a fast luxury vehicle. MPower is, by all accounts, an enthusiast level board.

No GPU really needs PCI-E 4.0 to run even the RTX 2080 Ti doesn't max out PCI-E 3.0 x8.

It doesn't? Then why does it lose a couple % when dropping down to 3.0 x8?

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti PCI-Express Scaling

It takes a lot of bandwidth to support the fastest graphics card, especially one that can play anything at 4K 60 Hz, with an eye on 120 Hz. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti could be the most bandwidth-heavy non-storage PCIe device ever built. PCI-Express gen 3.0 is facing its design limits.

www.techpowerup.com

2-3%... while not significant, it certainly seems to take a hit, no?

 

[TheLostSwede]

No GPU really needs PCI-E 4.0 to run even the RTX 2080 Ti doesn't max out PCI-E 3.0 x8.

Ah, but wait for the next gen of cards, they'll all need PCIe 4.0 x16 or the system won't boot

 

[r.h.p]

The only features it has over X570 are (possibly, depending on the board) WiFi 6 and 2.5Gb LAN (and the lack of a chipset fan, if that really bothers you). Motherboard manufacturers are trying to sell B550 by claiming it has better VRMs and memory overclocking but let's face it, OC on Ryzen is pretty much non-existent and due to the Infinity Fabric wall there's no reason to want to run RAM any faster than DDR-4000, which pretty much every X570 board does already. And the VRM argument is mostly moot because (most) X570 boards, being flagship products, have strong VRMs anyway - unless you're on a 3900X/3950X it really isn't going to matter.

B550 loses out big time on connectivity, with only a single PCIe 4.0 slot for the GPU and M.2 each. Most B550 boards also have vastly lower numbers of USB ports, and only a handful come with a front USB-C header. And yet they're consistently priced around the same price, or even higher, than X570 boards with better feature sets. Heck, there are many B450 boards with superior IO connectivity!

In short, I don't see any reason why you'd want to choose B550 over X570. Supplies of X570 boards are somewhat restricted due to le COVID, but the B550 launch has effectively been a paper one (the boards are out of stock almost everywhere) for the same reason, so once again it's a moot point.

I also have a strong suspicion that we're going to see refreshed X570 boards, with all of B550's features and more, drop at the same time that Zen 3/Ryzen 4000 launches (still supposedly later this year). Those will certainly be pricier than the current crop of X570, but in terms of features they'll have it all.

I'll be sticking with my 3600X/X370 combo until the next socket from AMD, so I won't be affected, but for anyone putting together a new system in the near future, tell us: what are you going to choose, and why? Do you disagree with my opinion on B550, or not?

p.s. please try not to derail this thread with irrelevant BS about AMD's driver quality and such.

i would only buy it for a cheap , backup or 1080p system . Not to say its a bad chip , i would just wait or spend a bit more for x 570 .... uno?