Question Heads-up: BEWARE MSI B550 GEN3 board - B550 in name only, PCI-E 4.0 support no-where to be found.

[VirtualLarry]

https://www.newegg.com/msi-b550-gaming-gen3/p/N82E16813144574?Item=N82E16813144574

The whole reason to pay extra for a B550 board over a B450, was for PCI-E 4.0 support.

I guess this is an appropriate boards for all of the many Zen2 and Zen3 APU die derivative CPUs, that also lack PCI-E 4.0.

It is more in line price-wise with B450 boards, coming in at $109.

• Turbo M.2: Running at PCI-E Gen3 x4 maximizes performance for NVMe
• based SSDs.

PCI Express 3.0 x16	2x PCIe x16 slots PCI_E1 slot (From CPU) - Supports PCIe 3.0 x16 PCI_E4* (From B550 chipset) - Supports PCIe 3.0 x4
PCI Express x1	4x PCIe x1 slots - PCI_E2, E3, E5 and E6 slots (From B550 chipset) - Supports PCIe 2.0 X1

 

[VirtualLarry]

Never mind. It never struck me that this might be a board for the mining market, but reviews indicate that it only supports four GPUs. Not much of a mining board either.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

2x PCIe x16 slots

• PCI_E1 slot (From CPU)

1x M.2 slot (Key M)

• M2_1 slot (From CPU)

Unless it's the fake B550A i.e B450 for OEMs then it should support 4.0 with a 4.0 CPU in it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

2x PCIe x16 slots

• PCI_E1 slot (From CPU)

1x M.2 slot (Key M)

• M2_1 slot (From CPU)

Unless it's the fake B550A i.e B450 for OEMs then it should support 4.0 with a 4.0 CPU in it.

Gonna have to down-vote you on this one.

It clearly states PCI-E 3.0, and "gen3" is in the board's name.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Gonna have to down-vote you on this one.

It clearly states PCI-E 3.0, and "gen3" is in the board's name.

LOL oh no not a down vote!

From a technical perspective, and presuming it isn't B550A, explain why they removed BIOS support for the 4.0 present on the CPU.

 

[No_Huckleberry_1514]

I always thought this was an odd board... a crippled 550... why? Who knows

 

[PingSpike]

Strange board. As mentioned it has no 4.0 support listed, neither on the m.2 or the GPU slot. And the 1x slots are listed as 2.0 pcie which strongly suggests this is just a B450 board. The only oddball is the secondary GPU slot hanging off the chipset is listed as 3.0. On 300/400 series chipsets that is typically 2.0 as well. I think it is more likely that last stat is just wrong and the secondary slot is actually 2.0 as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Strange board. As mentioned it has no 4.0 support listed, neither on the m.2 or the GPU slot. And the 1x slots are listed as 2.0 pcie which strongly suggests this is just a B450 board. The only oddball is the secondary GPU slot hanging off the chipset is listed as 3.0. On 300/400 series chipsets that is typically 2.0 as well. I think it is more likely that last stat is just wrong and the secondary slot is actually 2.0 as well.

So can we put this into the "dirty things that AMD has done" pile under "rebadges chipsets"?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

So can we put this into the "dirty things that AMD has done" pile under "rebadges chipsets

Pointing the finger at the wrong culprit. OEMs are the ones that wanted it named B550A for marketing. I haven't seen a retail board like that yet. And until someone provides definitive proof of what this board is all about, it is just you pulling out your jump to conclusion mat again. 😝

 

[PingSpike]

So can we put this into the "dirty things that AMD has done" pile under "rebadges chipsets"?

Feels more like this is MSI but maybe AMD has a handy rebadge program for OEM boards or something that has boiled up into retail. Certainly, this seems less like some weird hybrid and more like a straight rebadging of chipsets which is super lame no mater who is to blame.

I own a few x470 MSI boards and am pretty happy with them, but I went through a stretch in the past where I bought a number of MSI turd boards as well.