AORUS B550 Master

amazon AORUS B550 Master reviews

AORUS B550 Master – AMD is quite different; when it launched the Ryzen 3000 Series processors during the Computex 2019, it introduced only one line of high-end X570 chipsets. That makes it difficult for many users when the prices of motherboards using this chipset are all high.

The company recently launched a low-cost chipset version B550, blowing a new breath for the mid-range segment with today’s leading advanced technologies. However, it seems that manufacturers also do not follow the traditional “recipe” of the previous years when launching “heavy-armed” versions, not merely “low price” versions, as usual, every year.

For example, Gigabyte has launched the AORUS B550 Master model, bringing the “class” of this high-end product line down with the mid-range B550 chipset line. Surely many users will be curious to see how the quality of this motherboard model will be when “armed” with high-end design standards?

AORUS B550 Master is a rather special product because it carries AMD’s mid-range B550 chipset, designed according to the “class” of Gigabyte’s high-end Master motherboard series. The company has chosen the very characteristic style of this product line with the “eagle” logo AORUS and purple-orange tones from the box design.

The back of the box is still extremely familiar information that highlights the remarkable features of the product, which can be mentioned as the power supply design with 16 high-quality phases, 2.5G LAN port, and wifi 6, quite similar to recent Master series models.

Unboxing, it is easy to see that the AORUS B550 Master has a design close to the elder using the X570 chipset. It has a regional heatsink design for M.2-card solid-state drives discrete, not “monolithic,” as the recently launched Z490 AORUS Master product.

The removable heatsinks design is more stable than the “full plate” heatsink because top high-speed hard drives are often equipped with integrated heatsinks, such as the AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD and the WD Black SN750, which is also very popular among gamers.

The back of the board is still protected by heavy armor. The socket foot area is also “reinforced” by a solid steel back armor, helping protect the motherboard if the user uses large air cooling solutions.

More details show that the RAM slots are “armored” as traditionally; compared with the recent AORUS X570 MASTER or Z490 AORUS Master version, the motherboard version uses the chipset. B550 only owns one main PCI Express 16x slot, “armored,” instead of all slots as before. That is also quite reasonable because only this slot offers the full 16x speed, while the other slots are for accessories with more limited bandwidth.

That is understandable when the B550 chipset is just a mid-range chipset with fewer PCIe threads than high-end chipsets like X570 or Z490.

The chipset heatsink on the AORUS B550 Master is also smaller than the X570 version, no need to integrate an external cooling fan. The main works are “quiet,” users do not need to find the AORUS X570 XTREME version at an extremely expensive price to avoid the noise from the chipset radiator fan.

“Facing” with CPU models that consume more power, our mid-range chipset motherboard model is “upgraded” with a real 16-phase power supply configuration with the ability to pass current up to 70A in a 14 + 2 structure, ensuring to “load” even “heavy” CPU models like today’s AMD Ryzen 9 3950X.

Equipped with such a “heavy” power supply configuration, the heatsink of the AORUS B550 Master for the power supply phases is even slightly smaller than that of the X570 version, let alone the board model “final boss” circuits like the TRX40 AORUS MASTER use heat pipes.

The integrated grille is designed by Gigabyte in fish scales, increasing the area exposed to the airflow. The bottom layer of these heatsinks is designed flat in direct contact with power phases, helping to “save heat” more effectively than the previous heatsink design so that the heatsink size does not “bulge.” Still, it is also slightly reduced, helping to protect the cover become much neater.

Regarding connectivity, AORUS B550 Master still owns today’s leading high-speed connections such as 2.5G LAN or integrated Wifi 6. The amount of USB connections remains the same compared to the X570 version, so almost all users with high requirements with this number of ports do not feel a “shortage” even using a mid-range chipset like the B550.

A notable highlight of this board model is the Amp-Up Audio feature. This feature is quite new, only recently applied by Gigabyte to high-end motherboard models that provide higher power for “genuine” headphones with large resistance. Thanks to this ability, users do not need an external sound card or an external DAC / Amp and can still “fight” with their favorite headset model.

A small pity is that the audio decoder chip and DSP are still only the ALC1220-VB models produced by Realtek, not the ESS SABER HiFi 9118 DAC chip produced by ESSTech is more appreciated in the ability to express music as on the X570 version. However, the company is “redirecting” audio solutions when launching the high-end external audio solution ESS SABER USB DAC for gamers with recent products.

Currently, this solution is only included with the Z490 AORUS ULTRA G2 motherboard model but has not been widely sold.

OVERVIEW

In general, despite using AMD’s mid-range B550 chipset, Gigabyte still almost “plumped” the high-end texture of the AORUS X570 Master version down to the design of the AORUS B550 Master. That has an advantage: advanced users can still take full advantage of this motherboard model, but on the contrary, it also increases the “price” of this motherboard line quite a lot.

where can you get a AORUS B550 Master online

GIGABYTE B550 AORUS Master (AM4 AMD/B550/ATX/Triple M.2/SATA 6Gb/s/USB 3.2 Gen 2/WiFi 6/Realtek ALC1220-Vb/Fins-Array Heatsink/RGB Fusion 2.0/DDR4/Gaming Motherboard): Buy it now