Conclusion
Today we have evaluated our second entrant into the AMD B550 chipset motherboard category, with a new name, BIOSTAR. We took a look at the new BIOSTAR B550MH motherboard, a cost-effective, entry-level, mATX motherboard that gets you into the AMD Ryzen ecosystem. It also has some legacy features if you are upgrading from older hardware, but wish to be on a modern platform with some modern features thanks to the AMD B550 chipset. This sub-$100 motherboard is a price-friendly entrance into having an AMD Zen 2 or Zen 3 based system with PCI-Express 4.0. It’s on Amazon for $96.99.
Motherboard Goals Continued
At first glance, the lean feature configuration may be off-putting, but you have to keep in mind who and what this motherboard is meant for. Firstly, it is micro-ATX, so it will lack some feature configuration anyway just due to its size. However, that smallness means you can install and setup this motherboard in a large number of case options. Since it does run lean, it allows for very compact and small computer systems to be built to save space, yet have all the power of the AMD B550 chipset and Ryzen CPUs. This also means smaller, low-cost Power Supplies as well, for an overall savings on the size and cost of a system build.
This motherboard is meant to provide you AMD B550 chipset features, and run an AMD Zen 2 or upcoming Zen 3 CPU, and also have PCI-Express 4.0. This allows you to have and run the latest PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, and PCIe 4.0 GPUs. If you are the kind of person that does large data compute workloads, then you know how important PCIe 4.0 is for moving large data sets between storage, CPU, and GPU VRAM. This motherboard can facilitate those kinds of things for under $100.
This motherboard is also great for business users. It allows small, compact computers to be built with Ryzen CPUs for the office. With an NVMe SSD, RAM, and a GPU or an APU, they have the perfect office setup with no frills. The office worker doesn’t need the most expansive overclocking options. They will mostly run APUs, and this motherboard is certainly built for that and does have HDMI on board.
For gamers, would this board work? Yes. For the light gamer. You can put today’s Zen 2 CPUs in there, and tomorrow’s Zen 3 CPUs. If you want to stay lean, why not a Renoir APU? That is a great balance of motherboard cost at sub-$100 to APU cost, which are also cheaper than the CPUs, and you don’t have to have an external GPU.
But hey, if you want it, nothing is stopping you from putting an RTX 3080 on this motherboard. Well, ok, the availability is actually stopping you, but you know what I mean. Slap a 2TB PCIe 3 or 4 NVMe on there, and you have a pretty decent gaming machine. No frills of course, but a gaming machine none-the-less for gaming.
Overclocking
This motherboard can do light overclocking, and we’ll leave it at that. It has the basic options you need for overclocking, but it will never compete with more expensive B550 motherboards in that department. Still, it can overclock slightly. You can get an uplift from your CPU or APU with this motherboard, the capability is at least there for you to try. We actually got our CPU up a couple hundred MHz, and that did improve performance. We are impressed with the range in Voltage it supports, and the LLC should help hone in a good OC, and you do ultimately have the Core Clock to mess with as well as SOC Voltage. It’ll allow you to get an easy overclock. Just make sure you keep those VRMs cool, this is no joke.
The lack of any heatsink on the VRMs and MOSFETs means you will not be hard overclocking this motherboard or CPUs. Rather, this motherboard is better suited for stock CPU configurations. This motherboard is also probably not suited well for high TDP CPUs, like the 3900X or 3950X. While they might technically work, I wouldn’t say the operation would be completely efficient. Temperatures will be an issue, and so we’d recommend in any configuration a good case cooling solution with plenty of moving air. Do not cramp up the top-side of this motherboard, leave room for it to breathe, and give it lots of air cooling around those VRMs. If we could have had one thing added to this motherbord, it would have been at least a minimal VRM heatsink.
I/O Performance
If you are large into external peripherals, and you daisy-chain peripherals or rely on high-speed I/O connectivity, this may not be the motherboard for you. It does only just support USB 3.2 Gen 1, and we found the USB performance to be rather on the slower side for whatever reason. It doesn’t support anything faster than USB 3, so if you utilize a lot of external devices it will slow everything down connected to it.
In that regard, it lacks some of those higher-end I/O configurations on more expensive motherboards. If you just use a basic Mouse/Keyboard, Printer, and a USB drive here or there, you should be fine for that basic use. You do always have the option of installing PCI-Express 3.0 devices on the two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. This could be handy if you need WI-FI or more USB.
Components
Let’s talk briefly about the placement of some of the headers. We really don’t have any major issues with header placements, EPS 12V power placement is typical, and works. The ATX power placement is typical and works. There really are only two placements that we’d like to chime in on.
Firstly, the system FAN header on the bottom of the motherboard really only allows connection to a single front case fan. With the fan header way down there, it will be difficult to connect a rear case fan. We would have liked to have seen a second FAN header at the very least, more toward the top, so a rear case fan can be controlled via the motherboard as well. The one single fan connection on the bottom limits you quite a bit.
Second, the placement of the SATA connectors may make connecting right-angle SATA cable connections difficult with the motherboard right at the bottom of the case. Only straight-end cables will work well. Other than those two things, everything else is fine. The CPU fan connector works well because you can tuck your power cable from the fan under the DIMM slots clips and out of sight.
Final Points
At the end of the day, the BIOSTAR B550MH offers affordable sub-$100 entry into the AMD Ryzen ecosystem or as an upgrade from older hardware with legacy connections. It is a good transition motherboard. You get all the benefits of the AMD B550 chipset, like support for AMD Ryzen Zen 2 and upcoming Zen 3 CPUs or Renoir APUs. You get PCI-Express 4.0 for a PCIe 4 NVMe SSD or GPU. Even with just two DIMMS, it supports plenty of RAM for most end-users. It has the ability to do some light overclocking. It’s also small, being micro-ATX it can fit in a lot of places and make compact systems. It isn’t the fastest B550 chipset motherboard we have reviewed, however.
But it’s all about that price tag, at $96.99 it makes for a lower-priced motherboard that you can buy a lower-priced APU for, and some RAM, and an SSD and have a pretty affordable setup going very quickly. Just don’t expect it to offer you more than that, it’s a basic, lean configuration, that is simply there to get the job done, and it will certainly do that.