Question B550 motherboard that woud suit my needs

[rusina]

I bought X570 board and it's chipset fan turned out to be noisy. According to everyone there's nothing wrong..it's a normal feature. So now I'll need a new board.

It must be suitable for:
3 PCIe devices (GPU, Sound Card and PCIe-> M.2 adapter)
2 M.2 pcie drives
4 SATA devices

ASRock B550 Steel Legend - seems to fit for the job(at least on the paper)?

Spec-listing doesn't say anything about there being an issue with using three PCIe devices. Second M.2 slot is only PCIe 3.0 x2, but that would be populated by Intel 660p so that ain't problem. Using that slot will disable two out of six SATA ports, but I'll only need four.

Is there other options? I'm running 3900X at the moment and that board should also work with theoretical 4950X in the future. Not going to overclock.

 

[damian101]

The B550 chipset only provides 6 PCIe lanes, which are in the case of the ASRock B550 Steel Legend shared across the second mechanical x16 PCIe slot (4 lanes), the second M.2 slot (2 lanes) and both of the mechanical x1 PCIe slots (1 lane each). For your configuration to work the second mechanical x16 slot would have to run in x2 mode so that the two x1 slots can be used for your sound card. That might happen automatically or it has to be configured in the BIOS. Maybe it doesn't work at all and you can't use all the PCIe slots at the same time. Oh, and from the spec sheet it looks like those two x1 PCIe slots aren't actually usable when using a PCIe Gen4 capable CPU like the Ryzen 3900X.
The X570 chipset provides 16 PCIe Gen4 instead of 6 PCIe Gen3 lanes, making X570 boards a much better option for your setup. There are even ones without a chipset fan.

 

[aigomorla]

To be honest, the B550 to me makes no sense over a X570.
The B550 is not even budget, they are all expensive as heck.
You may as well invest a bit more and get a X570.

So i agree with damian.

 

[Shamrock]

I own an Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming Wifi. It meets all your needs and more. It's only $209 (I caught it on sale for $189). I am running it with a 3600 (for now).

2 PCIE slots + 3 more PCI (the little half slots)
2 M.2 drives
6 SATA ports (2 are disabled if you use 2nd M.2 drive slot)

I've seen no difference, between my X470 than the B550. It runs cooler, but yeah, you lose the PCIE 4.0 with the M.2 drives if you fill up the GPU and M.2. It still runs at 3.0, and it isn't hot.
Also, since it has Intel LAN and Wifi, you can use it for Linux. (Linux doesn't play nice with Realtek).

 

[kschendel]

...
Also, since it has Intel LAN and Wifi, you can use it for Linux. (Linux doesn't play nice with Realtek).

That's odd, since I've been running a linux cluster with mostly Realtek ethernet (wired, not wifi) for close to a year and it's just fine. Perhaps you could be more specific?

 

[thigobr]

No issues at all using Linux with Realtek gigabit NICs since socket 1155 (Z77 launched in 2012)

 

[Shamrock]

I've had intermittent disconnects.
I've had recognition of the wifi, but it wouldn't go anywhere, like wouldn't send or receive data.

Both on Manjaro

 

[Massive79]

To be honest, the B550 to me makes no sense over a X570.
The B550 is not even budget, they are all expensive as heck.
You may as well invest a bit more and get a X570.

So i agree with damian.

agree with this, and also on most B550 you can't run 2x NVme m2 drive on Gen4, and if you happened to use more than a GPU, you can only use 1x NvmE m2 drive.

However I did simple research previously when I search for a B550 motherboard, however my search narrow down to 2 result, MSI B550 Tomahawk and Gigabyte Aorus Pro Elite, here is some comparison I made :



Since I use 6 SATA drive, my choice goes to MAG Tomahawk. Minus of using MAG Tomawahk based on my experience
1. No DEBUG Led - it will be nice if you have one, but considering its price I can live with it
2. Reset button is in the middle of mobo which will be blocked if you have a big GPU. I need bought a jumper connection to make me able to reset without removing GPU
3. Updating BIOS make previous setting won't work, you have to load from scratch again your own setting. They make setting performed by previous BIOS can not be loaded in new BIOS, so you have to load your own personal setting everytime you update BIOS. And I think BIOS interface should be improved as I found setting that overlapping.

Other than that I'm happy with the Mobo as it can give me FCLK 1900 and 3800Mhz RAM easily.

If you're not tight budget Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro or ASUS TUF Gaming Wifi can be worth of consideration though as I saw some review give high praise on them as well