Conclusion
Today we evaluated one of ASUS’ B550 line-ups. The ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI). This is one of ASUS’s full ATX design motherboards for gamers and enthusiasts alike. For being an upper mid-level it packs a lot of punch with many features found in some of the higher level motherboards. It has an MSRP of $189.99.
This is a feature-rich board, thanks to AMD’s B550 chipset and with the newest BIOS release supports the new Ryzen 5000 series processors. Being a $200 motherboard, it is a price-friendly enthusiast gaming motherboard with a fantastic feature-rich BIOS along with support for Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors. Packed with the new PCI-Express 4.0, USB 3.2 Gen2 speeds, and 2.5GBE LAN, it will make a great gaming platform.
Motherboard Goals Continued
As we unboxed and started testing this motherboard, we were pleased with the looks and style ASUS put into making an enthusiast gaming motherboard. Being sleek in style and an ATX it will look great in any tempered glass enclosure. It also sports some very large heatsinks on and around the VRMs allowing the user to game worry-free for many hours without the worry of overheating the VRMs and throttling the CPU down.
This motherboard provides you with the AMD B550 chipset features and runs the AMD Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors and also comes complete with PCI-Express 4.0. With the new PCIe 4.0, it also supports the lightning-fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs and PCIe 4.0 GPUs. If you have a need to transfer large data across drives, then the PCI-Express 4.0 will be right up your alley. With the PCIe 4.0, NVMe SSD games should load a lot faster and allow for a much better gaming experience for around $200.
This board would be a good decision for a business application. With the new PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD drive capability, a business could implement a 2 TB drive and this board for a speedy small business server or workstation. Supporting the Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors, the selection is large for any small business budget. One can even implement one of AMD’s many APU allowing the business to use the processor for their video output.
Overclocking
We were able to achieve a solid 4.4 GHz overclock that ran stable and never dropped during our CPU-intensive benchmark. Meaning that the large heatsinks ASUS implemented on and around the VRMs are doing a good job of keeping them puppies cool. We would have liked to see a higher stable overclock, but at 4.4 GH/z over the stock 3.6GHz, it isn’t too shabby gain for enthusiasts and gamer alike.
I/O Performance
If you are an enthusiast or gamer that uses a lot of external peripherals then this board would be a good fit. It includes one standard USB 3.2 Gen2 port as well as one new Type-C USB 3.2 Gen2 port. This board also includes one USB port that is specifically designed to flash the BIOS with the push of a button. This could be very handy for enthusiasts that like to test boards and could possibly run into BIOS issues. This BIOS flash USB port doesn’t require having a chip, RAM, or video card to flash.
The board also has 1 HDMI and 1 Display port if the user is wanting to keep a budget system and using one of AMD’s many APU processors.
Components
Discussing the fan headers again, we found that ASUS didn’t include very many fan headers and we would have liked to see more for the gamer and enthusiasts that run a lot of fans. With only 3 chassis fan headers the end user might need to be creative if using several fans. This motherboard does include the RGB headers for people that would like to add some bling to their systems.
We did find that ASUS included 6 SATA connectors which, with the inclusion of dual M.2 NVMe slots, allows for some creative storage solutions. Also, with the inclusion of dual M.2 heatsinks, one can keep the M.2 NVMe drives cool for fast data transfers.
Final Points
With the ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) being at or under the $200 enthusiast and gaming board and being a feature-rich AMD B550 chipset motherboard, many will find it a good choice for a fairly reasonable budget system. It supports the Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors, supports the new PCI-Express 4.0 that allows for PCIe 4 NVMe SSD’s. It also supports up to 128 Gigs of RAM which will be plenty for even the hard-core gamers.
With an MSRP of $189.99, it is priced right for the feature set, and priced well for being an ASUS ROG STRIX version packed with quality components. We feel for the price range, it includes a great number of features far and above what AMD offers on the B550 chipset allowing the user to customize their system in many different ways. We found it to have a small few shortcomings, but all in all, it’s a pretty decent motherboard that most enthusiasts and gamers will enjoy and allow a reasonably priced build today.
Discussion
