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

[Assimilator]

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.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I think you went a bit too high on the RAM clocks, as 3800MHz is the peak on the currently available CPUs. Maybe we'll see 4000MHz come the XT or 4000-series APUs, but I doubt it.

DOA, nah, it'll sell, I just don't think anything over $160-180 will sell in any quantity, as those boards have way too many limiting factors.

The chipset really need two more PCIe lanes and four more USB 3.x ports to be "good enough" for those that want a decent alternative to the X570 though.

What disappointed me, is the lack of a solid mATX board based on the B550 chipset, as there are none based on X570.
Edit: Turns out MSI actually has an ok mATX board, but I really loathe their current UEFI design... It's even priced pretty fairly at $170.

MSI MAG B550M MORTAR WIFI AMD AM4 DDR4 CF Lightning Gen 4 M.2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 HDMI WiFi6 mATX Gaming Motherboard

Powered by AMD Ryzen AM4 processors, the MSI MAG B550M MORTAR WiFi inspired by the military armor design, tuned for better performance by Core boost, DDR4 Boost, WiFi 6, Lightning Gen 4 M.2 with M.2 Shied, 2oz copper PCB

www.msi.com

 

[dont whant to set it"']

I oscilated between an b450 Chipset and a b350 one , just to settle for the later on this build matx footprint and all that , although serious considerations I gave to the top of the line x570 Chipset only to be disappointed by the lack of extra pci-e lanes be it gen. 3 or 4 x8 more than the full 16 lanes .
X570 boards are in stock here and there, all be it not a plethora off them, still one can be had vas the paper launched b550 ones although I expect them to see them in stock soon because otherwise the point of the paper launch would be moot at best , PR stunt not quite. 2cents out.over.

 

[tabascosauz]

I think you went a bit too high on the RAM clocks, as 3800MHz is the peak on the currently available CPUs. Maybe we'll see 4000MHz come the XT or 4000-series APUs, but I doubt it.

DOA, nah, it'll sell, I just don't think anything over $160-180 will sell in any quantity, as those boards have way too many limiting factors.

The chipset really need two more PCIe lanes and four more USB 3.x ports to be "good enough" for those that want a decent alternative to the X570 though.

What disappointed me, is the lack of a solid mATX board based on the B550 chipset, as there are none based on X570.
Edit: Turns out MSI actually has an ok mATX board, but I really loathe their current UEFI design... It's even priced pretty fairly at $170.

MSI MAG B550M MORTAR WIFI AMD AM4 DDR4 CF Lightning Gen 4 M.2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 HDMI WiFi6 mATX Gaming Motherboard

Powered by AMD Ryzen AM4 processors, the MSI MAG B550M MORTAR WiFi inspired by the military armor design, tuned for better performance by Core boost, DDR4 Boost, WiFi 6, Lightning Gen 4 M.2 with M.2 Shied, 2oz copper PCB

www.msi.com

Both Mortars are a big step up from their B450 predecessors, but the memory support is pretty lacking with dual rank sticks topping out at 3733, probably from the 4-layer PCB in part. The Steel Legend mATX is decent in feature set but the heatsinks should have been a bit bigger. The TUF has memory support between the MSI and ASRock models. I'm just confused as to why MSI decided to go above and beyond with 60A smart power stages on the Mortar, yet didn't give it a 6-layer PCB and make it a smaller Tomahawk.

All of them are pretty well-featured. All of them have 8 or more doubled phases for Vcore with 50A DrMOS or 60A SPS. As to the "overclocking" argument, you don't need to be OC'ing a 3950X to run into thermal or power limit issues on shitty Sinopower/Onsemi/even worse discrete MOSFETs with not enough heatsink mass and not enough phases. B450 mATX boards have proven that many times over.

The only mATX board for X570 is the Pro4, which we all know is hot garbage that now sells for more $$ than any of the mATX boards.

I mean, if only looking at higher end ATX boards like all reviewers seem to be doing, then sure, B550 doesn't make a lot of sense. But there's a lot going on here at lower segments that's better than has previously been on any AM4 chipset.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

They're "B" boards. They're not supposed to replace the X570's.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

I don't think the word enthusiast, and B550 where not truly ment to be together. Not that I don't believe you can't have an enthusiast B550. It fits the bill for most people without the chipset fan, that everyone complains about.

Ryzen's ram problem has to do with chiplet's fighting over ram access. It might even go down to Core complexes Fighting for it. Since there seems to be only one link to the memory controller for each chiplet. High ram speeds in certain games show gains, but unless you can out weigh the 6-9ns bump in latency beyond 3800mhz. Meaning of you get 60GB/s @ 3800mhz and you go higher in the ram say 4200mhz you need to make up for the bump in ns in bandwidth with at minimum 66GB/s-70GB/s or much higher. Well at least in theory. Threadripper bandwidth with out Numa is actually lower on 3000 series then 2000 series. I've seen the 2000 Threadripper series yet up to 144GB/s vs something like 80-100GB/s on the 3000 Threadripper

As for overclocking I've done but of my own research it seems Threadripper 3960x (4.4ghz-4.5ghz) out clock 3950x (4.2ghz-4.3ghz) by 100mhz-200mHz on all cores. With PB, PBO, auto-overclock either you get a lower single core score with all core overclock or just use one of those three with an offset it seems. If perhaps we had more control over how far each state could be changed it could be better.

I really personally hate seeing that Crossfire and SLI dead. As mGPU is going no where because developers would rather not waste the time in implementing it, and just cash in on the game. Single card is basically all anyone is recommended for gaming anymore.

As for the m.2 drives People rarely RAID them 0 or better anyways.

If you think B550 an x570 have had IO connectivity check TRX40 they are by far the worst for IO possible choices. Yet the TRX40 is suppose to be just an x570 chipset.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Just going to add my 2 cents here and say I think the biggest issue with B550 boards compared to the enthusiast X570 boards (excluding the MSI Godlike and AORUS Extreme from my point due to the fact that they're both stupid-expensive for MSDT; I've seen Threadripper boards cheaper than them, and that's HEDT!) is the price. I'm sorry, but there's something not quite right when you see the "mainstream" B550 AORUS Master and ASrock B550 Taichi going for MORE than what my X370 Crosshair VI Hero ($230, got it on sale) was going for at the time -- at $280 and $300 respectively! At those prices, you may as well get an X570 board for about the same price.

So yeah, I definitely think prices are one of B550's biggest fails. Going to end my opinion piece here.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Both the people I did systems for this month went from waiting to B550 to going X570 due to the shit pricing but I think us a consumers need to get use to the fact the X570 and Z490 is the new pricing standard for mainstream boards. I don't think anyone should be surprised by B550 pricing as each new release for the last couple years has gotten more expensive in the diy pc space.

I also think AMD is trying to separate itself from the budget brand moniker it has held for the majority of the last decade. They have the more expensive consumer Hedt platform (if you don't count Xeon), the most expensive mainstream CPU the 3950X, all that is left is GPU but I don't see them beating Nvidia anytime soon so that will likely have wait a couple more generations assuming they keep up their success in their other divisions.

I personally gravitate towards The $350-500 motherboards and have so since Z390 for my personal systems so B550 was never on my radar but I do a lot of budget systems for people with less than $1000 for a complete system so the pricing kinda sucks for them.

 

[INSTG8R]

Just bought an X570 so honestly was never on my radar considering the pricing I’ve seen and availability.

 

[John Naylor]

I have never given a though to any of the "lesser" chipsets . Forgetting what the chipsets offers with regard to PCI Lanes and other advantages. the chipsets were almost always [paires with sunstandard audio and LAN subsystems, such that by the time you found a board with a decent gamng audio subsystem, you could fund the higher level chipset boards at the same price. B550 seems to be no exception:

ASUS PRIME B550M-A (WI-FI) @ $150

1. If you are serious about gaming, you are npt using WiFi unless limited by rental agreeemnt or some outside requirement.
2. ALC 887
3. Realtek LAN

The MSI X570 pro is about the same proce, has ALC 1220 ... still a Realtek LAN subsystem , but again ... why bother, the value just isn't there.

 

[Cranky5150]

Yeah this chipset was dead at launch..It arrived way to late to the party, and was overpriced from the beginning.

 

[INSTG8R]

I have never given a though to any of the "lesser" chipsets . Forgetting what the chipsets offers with regard to PCI Lanes and other advantages. the chipsets were almost always [paires with sunstandard audio and LAN subsystems, such that by the time you found a board with a decent gamng audio subsystem, you could fund the higher level chipset boards at the same price. B550 seems to be no exception:

ASUS PRIME B550M-A (WI-FI) @ $150

1. If you are serious about gaming, you are npt using WiFi unless limited by rental agreeemnt or some outside requirement.
2. ALC 887
3. Realtek LAN

The MSI X570 pro is about the same proce, has ALC 1220 ... still a Realtek LAN subsystem , but again ... why bother, the value just isn't there.

I don’t often go with your posts but this is as short and sweet and factual!

 

[newtekie1]

They're "B" boards. They're not supposed to replace the X570's.

B for budget.

I think we are seeing inflated priced due to them being new and Covid. Once the initial launch hype settles down they should fall into place taking over for the B450 boards. They'll be good value, offering everything most people will need. Most of the Ryzen systems I've built have been B450(or B350 before that) because there really wasn't any reason to go with a more expensive X470(or X370).

 

[thesmokingman]

Yeah this chipset was dead at launch..It arrived way to late to the party, and was overpriced from the beginning.

Pay more for less...

 

[TheLostSwede]

3. Realtek LAN

No need to knock Realtek these days, it was a very long time since their Ethernet controllers were crap.
If anything, Intel should be getting crap now for their poor 2.5Gbps implementation that meant it wasn't compatible with all switch ICs. They claim to have fixed it, but do we really know that for a fact?
Realtek didn't have any of those issues with their 2.5Gbps implementation.

 

[enxo218]

I always thought that it was rather obvious if observed from manufacturers perspective ie amd has no competition right now (features, performance and price) not even on popularity so by default a significant margin of the market in cpu is currently monopolised and board makers tried to leverage obscene prices on consumers but it turned them off x570, however by making the b550 near identical in specs and slightly price the buyer will opt to pull the trigger on x570 rationalising the small price difference as irrelevant and emboldened by the concept of future proofing (manufacturer and amd willingness to support bios updates has been a consistent recurring issue with zen and may play a role here)

personally I'm still mulling x470 but the main reasons I hadn't done so sooner were memory compatability and availability in my region fears and os support I hate windows 10 (I wonder if distros have matured and stabilised for new hardware I use manjaro currently)

 

[FordGT90Concept]

B550 prices will come down as lower end models debut but apparently there's a limited supply of chips so all the AIBs are pushing them out in premium products with lots of added on features not native to the chipset (like wifi). B550 was never meant to compete with X570.

 

[Metroid]

I said this 2 weeks ago, b550 was born dead because it came without pcie 4.0 storage and that will be very important in few months and price is close to x570.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

because it came without pcie 4.0 storage

Huh?

 

[Metroid]

Huh?

AMD Chipset Comparison: B550 Specs vs. X570, B450, X370, & Zen 3 Support (2020) | GamersNexus

stub In this content, we’re going to be breaking-down the AMD B550 vs. X570, B450, X470, X370, and A320 chipset specifications number-by-number. Our goal is to look at this purely from a facts-based angle of what the differences are, and those differences will include both numerical...

www.gamersnexus.net

Chipset

X570

B550

Chipset Link

PCIe 4.0 x4

PCIe 3.0 x4

 

[thebluebumblebee]

While the B550 chipset is PCIe 3.0 only, B550 motherboards support PCIe 4.0 from the CPU to the primary PCIe slot as well as the primary M.2 slot (dependent on a PCIe 4.0 ready CPU).

 

[HD64G]

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.

 

[Metroid]

You see that is still in debate if it really supports or will support in the bios, till we get a pcie 4 m2 we are never sure and even if it supports, will be just the primary m2, storage wise x570 is a better deal and price wise not much, only downside is that macabre fan.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

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.

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.

 

[INSTG8R]

You see that is still in debate if it really supports or will support in the bios, till we get a pcie 4 m2 we are never sure and even if it supports, will be just the primary m2, storage wise x570 is a better deal and price wise not much, only downside is that macabre fan.

See I “almost“ bought a Gen4 SSD(MX500) but ended up going Gen3(970 Evo Plus) because despite being just Gen 3 it’s still faster across the board except in reads. So while I can make use of Gen4 it doesn’t actually benefit me in the end. Nor will my 5700XT benefit from a Gen4 slot. Nice to have but offers no ”extras value” or was part of my purchase decision(okay it was until I searched for an M2)