Subsystem Testing
The MSI B550I GAMING EDGE WIFI uses MSI’s Audio Boost high-definition audio processor that supports 7.1 surround sound.
SSD Performance – M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVME Slot
As we can see from the above CrystalDiskMark numbers above, this drive performs pretty much where Samsung states it should. The read speed a couple of hundred MB/s under and the write speed is a little less than a hundred under the theoretical speed stated, but still some nice numbers.
LAN Speed
Wireless
Our local network, here at the lab, has a 1 Gigabit speed as well as the router is a 1 Gigabit unit. With an average wireless speed of 58.96 Mbits/Sec, this is not something to write home about. We fully felt we would see much better wireless speeds. We were at about 10 feet/3 meters from the wireless router and expected better results.
Wired
On the wired side, we saw an average of 948.4 Mbits/Sec speeds which is right on par with a 1 Gigabit connection. This motherboard supports the new 2.5 Gigabit connection, so if you are running a new modem that has the 2.5 connection, you will most likely see some great transfer speeds.
USB 3.2 Gen2
We tested the read and write to a USB 3.2 Gen2 port to the Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 using an external drive enclosure. We did this using a second Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 drive in the PCIe 4.0 NVMe slot on the motherboard.
With this test, we are reading from the USB 3.2 Gen2 port and writing the data to the M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. What we see is that we maintained an 846.3MB/s read. We used 2 different Gen2 USB ports, including the new USB Type-C with the same results.
Something to note on the read times with the new USB 3.2 Gen2 is that under most tests we have conducted here on The FPS Review, we have found that the new Gen2 is about double the speed on reading.
As we can see above, the read speeds of the MSI B550 GAMING EDGE WIFI are much better than the previously reviewed Gigabyte B550 motherboard. With that said, let’s move on to see if our write speeds can overcome the Gigabyte motherboard.
As we would expect, the write performance is lower than the read performance. This is on par with almost every drive benchmark and is to be expected. Again, these speeds are significantly faster than the Gen1 counterpart.
As we can see from the graph above, the MSI B550I GAMING EDGE WIFI commandingly stood above the earlier reviewed Gigabyte B550 motherboard!
This is something that many enthusiasts and gamers might consider when purchasing a motherboard for a new build. The USB 3.2 Gen2 might be something that should be looked at prior to purchase. If a person is using an external drive for games or applications, the Gen2 is a much faster transfer.