Better late than never - B550(?) motherboards found

[williamcll]

Though with the AM postfix it might mean there are more variants coming.

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Courtesy of hardware leaker KOMACHI_ENSAKA, we've got images and documentation for one of ASRock's upcoming motherboards: the B550AM Gaming. This is a Micro-ATX board based on one of AMD's upcoming chipsets. It must be noted that while the new upcoming chipset might be called B550, this particular motherboard looks to be a B550A board, which are OEM boards as confirmed by AMD in October last year. In fact, this is the same motherboard as was spotted in October. Where things get a little confusing is that at that time, the B550A chipset was said by AMD's Robert Hallock to be a rehash of the B450 chipsets but for OEMs, only featuring PCI-Express 3.0. The specifications we found now, however, point to the motherboard having PCI-Express 4.0 on all fronts. Therefore, it's possible there may be only one B550 chipset, and that the "B550A is for OEMs" argument was meant to throw the community off. 

 

Whereas the X570 motherboards have PCI-Express switching that brings PCI-Express 4.0 lanes to all the PCI-E slots, and can split them across multiple slots if necessary, the B550AM Gaming from ASRock only delivers PCI-Express 4.0 support on the uppermost slot and to the M.2 slot. The second PCI-Express slot might look like an x16 slot, but on this Micro-ATX motherboard will only fuel four lanes of PCI-Express 3.0 via the chipset. Wiring the PCI-Express slots straight to the CPU is a cost-saving measure, but a perfectly acceptable one on a B-series board. After all, most people don't use more than one graphics card, so chances are that these limitations won't affect many. Those who do need more options can opt for the X570 or better motherboards.

This is good news for buyers looking to build a new system and don't need the full plethora of connectivity and expansion offered by the X570 motherboards, but who do want a motherboard with good VRM circuitry. Paired with PCI-Express 4.0 support with the right CPUs installed, if we end up seeing more B550 boards in the DIY space with this kind of VRM implementations, we could see the mid-tier B-series chipset group gaining serious traction.

Source:

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/b550am-gaming-motherboard-features

http://www.cyberpowerinc.com/drivers/Motherboards/MB-478-101 B550AM GAMING/Manual/MB-478-101 B550AM Gaming_Standard Spec Form.pdf

http://www.cyberpowerinc.com/drivers/Motherboards/MB-478-101 B550AM GAMING/Manual/MB-478-101 B550AM Gaming Manual.pdf

Thoughts: This would help pushing down the price of older models, but splitting up so many models for one chipset is annoying.

[Spotty]

That's not B550. That's B550A. It's a B450 chipset with PCIe Gen 4 enabled on the top PCIe slot. When I say "enabled" what I should say is that it does not have PCIe 4.0 disabled like other B450 boards.

 

There's many mistakes in that Tom's Hardware article. Watch the Gamers Nexus video instead.

 

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Courtesy of hardware leaker KOMACHI_ENSAKA, we've got images and documentation for one of ASRock's upcoming motherboards: the B550AM Gaming.

"Hardware leaker"... "Upcoming"...
These motherboards have been in prebuilt systems since October. That documentation linked to has been on Cyberpower's website since October 2019.
I didn't know someone who could buy a pre-built PC off the shelf was considered a hardware leaker now.

Look at this forum post on cyberpowerPC's website from someone who bought one of the prebuilt machines with this board in it... The date: 07 October 2019... One of the replies to the thread even links to the "leakers" documentation for it back in December.

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Topic: B550AM Gaming MB
    Posted: 07 Oct 2019 at 8:23am

Recently bought a SLT 5700 with a ASrock B550AM mb.  I cannot find a manual for this MB.

Searching this on ASrock website says it doesn't exist!

P1.10 bios.

 

Just trying to find a manual.

^{https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/forum/b550am-gaming-mb_topic55715.html}

 

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the B550AM Gaming. This is a Micro-ATX board based on one of AMD's upcoming chipsets.

It is not. It is using the same B450 chipset other motherboards are using. It just doesn't have the lock placed on it that other B450 boards have that disables PCIe 4.0.

 

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This is good news for buyers looking to build a new system

It's currently OEM only. In my opinion it should also stay that way to avoid confusion with real B550 motherboards, whenever they finally come out.

[Soppro]

I think the only news on B550 in the past few weeks has been Gigabyte listing some boards in the Eurasian Economic Commission:

 

https://videocardz.com/newz/gigabyte-intel-z490-and-amd-b550-motherboards-spotted-at-eec

https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/james-dawson/gigabyte-b550-motherboards-spotted-on-recent-eec-listing/

 

Unfortunately, it still doesn't spill any light on its release timeframe nor its feature set.

[Doobeedoo]

Well I mean X boards can be found for very good prices now. 

[DavidKalinowski]

12 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Well I mean X boards can be found for very good prices now. 

lowest price I can find (at least on pcpartpicker) for an x570 is  aprox $145 (USD) x470 $130 B450 $68 thats a fairly big leap in price IMHO. granted I would go for a higher priced x570 because if I'm going to spend the money, I'm going to do it once every ten years lol. I feel like even the B450 boards are a little bit over priced right now honestly, feel like there should be a $50 b450 at this point or even a little less.

[Doobeedoo]

46 minutes ago, DavidKalinowski said:

lowest price I can find (at least on pcpartpicker) for an x570 is  aprox $145 (USD) x470 $130 B450 $68 thats a fairly big leap in price IMHO. granted I would go for a higher priced x570 because if I'm going to spend the money, I'm going to do it once every ten years lol. I feel like even the B450 boards are a little bit over priced right now honestly, feel like there should be a $50 b450 at this point or even a little less.

Yeah for much more budget oriented build they are pricey, though for such build I'd just get a cheap first gen board heh.