Review Let's liven this slow forum up! My super quick review of the GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX

[DAPUNISHER]

It is a great little board. Runs my 5600@4.65GHz without breaking a sweat. VRMs never get out of the 50s c with the air set at 24c with a ceiling fan. I will push the CPU harder later on, this was the; set the +200MHz in the UEFI one and done overclock.

I know some here do not like Gigabyte, but I have 3 different chipsets of AORUS ELITE and now this pro, and they are all excellent. If you don't like their UEFI, you ain't wrong. I prefer MSI's UEFI out of all the board makers I have tried, but this cost me $190 shipped tax free, so meh.

I will add a couple of pics of it in the build, as quick and dirty as my mini review. Don't beat me up on cable management. I refuse to plug in ARGB on principle, and I swap stuff too often to bother with getting too tidy. I also keep a PCIE cable plugged in since I use other GPUs that require it. Notice how diminutive the 6400 is even in this tiny build.

All prices are rounded up, and include all tax and shipping -

AORUS PRO B550i = $190 Amazon
Gigabyte 256GB nvme = free - Upgraded to 2TB NVME SSD
5600 = $150 Newegg - Upgraded to 5600X3D
Deepcool 120MM AIO = $45 Amazon - Upgraded to PA 120SE
XFX RX6400 = $118 includes Saints Row Amazon - Upgraded to XFX RX 6800
NR200 = $85 Amazon
EVGA GM650W - $60 bought here in FS/FT.
RAM = $45 2x8GB CL15 3000MHz at 3200 - Upgraded to 32GB CL18 3600
Win11 pro = $12 VIPSCDKEYS I use a 10 pro key and Microsoft is like, okay cool.

Total = $705

It is very quiet and temps are spectacular for a mini-ITX build. The AORUS PRO is the real MVP in this build. I like everything about it, other than the RGB lighting.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Put about 150hrs of gaming on this now, it is cool, quite, and just a joy to have and use. Just swapped the 6400 for a Powercolor Fighter 6600XT. I set Radeon Chill with it playing Fallout 4 1080 maxed, fan doesn't spin up often, and when it does it is silent. Best part is it uses even less wattage than the 6400 this way. Doesn't go over 37W max and is in the low 30s and 20s most the time.

The PSU I picked fills the whole cage, unlike the 550W version in the other NR200. It means I can't use a 3 fan card with it, the cables block it. Not having been into SFF since back in the Shuttle days of yore, it is a learning experience.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just swapped the 6400 for a Powercolor Fighter 6600XT. I set Radeon Chill with it playing Fallout 4 1080 maxed, fan doesn't spin up often, and when it does it is silent. Best part is it uses even less wattage than the 6400 this way. Doesn't go over 37W max and is in the low 30s and 20s most the time.

That's... rather interesting, from a wattage perspective.

There's a reason why 6600/XT cards are desired for lower-wattage mining.

I however have had issues with their zero-fan implementation; the fan stays off, the card gets to 86-89C mining, fan never comes on, card crashes.

Some of that might have to do with latent bugs in the mining software when it comes to fan-control, zero-fan, and AMD cards, as I had the SAME problem years ago with XFX HD7700 cards and Nicehash, at the time. The fans wouldn't spin, either.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You stealth edited on me.

No issues with fan stop. Your problems had to be mining related. The card works a treat.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I thought these type of one-click 'gamer' oc modes were dangerous because they tend to set voltages/llc too high. Does it still allow you do some fine tuning to avoid overly high voltages?

This forum is still quiet so I wanted to update this thread.

First by responding that it was a good call. As the game mode overclock did become unstable after less than 3 years of use. Despite being more conservative on voltage than the OOB settings. The 5600G still runs fine for my friend at defaults, but I am fairly certain some degradation occurred due to the auto overclock.

Second: This little B550I AORUS PRO AX is still working flawlessly over 3 years later. I recently sold off my B450 AORUS ELITE purchased in 2018 and it was still running rock solid too. It saw heavy use in my son's gaming setup.

 

[Sgraffite]

I think mini-ITX is neat. Especially with the options Minisforum has put out in recent years, despite being soldered CPUs. No idea if these would be compatible with your case for an upgrade at some point.

MINISFORUM BD795M

MINISFORUM BD795M Micro-ATX board with on-board Ryzen 9 7945HX: DDR5 up to 96GB, 2×M.2 PCIe 4.0 + 2×SATA, PCIe 4.0×16, HDMI 2.1 & DP 1.4 (8K60), 2.5GbE, rich fan/USB headers.

store.minisforum.com

MINISFORUM BD790i X3D

MINISFORUM BD790i X3D Mini-ITX board with on-board Ryzen 9 7945HX3D. DDR5 SO-DIMM up to 96GB, 2×M.2 NVMe + 2×SATA, HDMI 2.1 & DP 1.4, 2.5GbE, USB-C Gen2, Wi-Fi 6E slot, active SSD

store.minisforum.com

 

[DAPUNISHER]

These boards drop right into the NR200 series. The RX 6400 and 5600 I was using are long gone. Swapped in a 5600X3D and XFX RX 6800 for the moment. I have a 5800X3D to swap back in but I'm in no hurry as the 6 core can fully drive the 6800. I only have a SFX EVGA 650W gold so I won't be trying to fit my fatboy Pulse 7900XTX in there.

With the current Minisforum sale and coupon it's $494 for the 3D. That's a solid deal for a 100W TDP 32 thread 3D CPU and board with good features. For that price it would definitely be a fun project. But I would have to get over all of the downsides to buying it first.Which include: 610M iGPU is disappointing. I'd use a dGPU, but 680M would have been a nice bonus. Bios support is lacking. Pedestrian ram speed; present DDR5 SODIMM prices are discouraging too. Warranty is sketchy for N. American buyers. Owner said they had to ship to Hong Kong even though they bought from the U.S. outlet and they did not refund the expensive shipping fees.

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm pretty sure this was the board model I used a year ago for a shoebox build. I found the second M.2 slot position a bit bizarre (under the board), but in this build it's never going to get used anyway. Enabling Secure Boot was a bit bizarre, I had to google that solution. My only other niggle was that the AMD stock heatsink (IIRC, fairly sure) only goes on one way around, and in that position it blocks access to one of the memory slots.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The 2nd nvme is easily accessible in the NR200. It's better placed the under the GPU Perhaps because I've used quite a few AM4 Gigabyte boards, enabling secure boot was the same as the rest. I have not used stock cooling, but that doesn't sound right. Are you referring to the stock wraith or the PRISM?

 

[Shmee]

These boards drop right into the NR200 series. The RX 6400 and 5600 I was using are long gone. Swapped in a 5600X3D and XFX RX 6800 for the moment. I have a 5800X3D to swap back in but I'm in no hurry as the 6 core can fully drive the 6800. I only have a SFX EVGA 650W gold so I won't be trying to fit my fatboy Pulse 7900XTX in there.

With the current Minisforum sale and coupon it's $494 for the 3D. That's a solid deal for a 100W TDP 32 thread 3D CPU and board with good features. For that price it would definitely be a fun project. But I would have to get over all of the downsides to buying it first.Which include: 610M iGPU is disappointing. I'd use a dGPU, but 680M would have been a nice bonus. Bios support is lacking. Pedestrian ram speed; present DDR5 SODIMM prices are discouraging too. Warranty is sketchy for N. American buyers. Owner said they had to ship to Hong Kong even though they bought from the U.S. outlet and they did not refund the expensive shipping fees.

I am curious how the RX 6800 GPU fits in there now. Got any new pics? I seem to recall in an NR200 I was working on, even a midsize GPU was running into some of the PSU cables. IDK, maybe I just wasn't fitting the PSU right.

 

[mikeymikec]

The 2nd nvme is easily accessible in the NR200. It's better placed the under the GPU Perhaps because I've used quite a few AM4 Gigabyte boards, enabling secure boot was the same as the rest. I have not used stock cooling, but that doesn't sound right. Are you referring to the stock wraith or the PRISM?

The stock wraith. IIRC if you're looking at the board so the I/O panel is in the top-left corner, then the wraith stealth can't be installed with the AMD logo on the left (the plastic around the fan sticks out a little on that side and that's where the logo is), and if you mount it with the logo on the right, it blocks access to a RAM slot.

Bear in mind this was about a year and a half ago so the details aren't fresh in my head, but I remember doing a shoebox build shortly after that one with the same board and recommending that the customer either go with a higher capacity memory module or change the HSF to one that fits better.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I am curious how the RX 6800 GPU fits in there now. Got any new pics? I seem to recall in an NR200 I was working on, even a midsize GPU was running into some of the PSU cables. IDK, maybe I just wasn't fitting the PSU right.

Different board but I posted a pic of it in this thread - https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/xfx-radeon-rx-6800-16gb-379.2617112/post-41167619

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I have this same board in my box. 5600X but I didn’t bother overclocking anything.

I got the board from MicroCenter as a boxed return because my original board (an Asrock) fried itself FNAR.

Had a GTX1660Ti which was migrated over from my previous cpu/playform. Finally upgraded a few weeks ago to a 3060XT. Motherboard is chugging along just fine.

 

[aigomorla]

OK im gonna give u guys all a heads up with Gigabyte... as i am going though this nightmare right now.

But gigabyte RMA is not reliable. Lost RMA is becoming a issue.
It might be worse then ASUS because ASUS breaks your stuff and then denies it, while gigabyte might be just saying they never received it even tho tracking says it was received.

I will give u guys more updates. But until the RMA issues are resolved, i don't think i can recommend a gigabyte board.