B550 vs X570

Discussion in 'Processors and motherboards AMD' started by testcy, Jul 26, 2020.

  1. testcy

    testcy Guest

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    I noticed that the prices of motherboards using the B550 chipset are not much lower than the prices of motherboards using the X570 chipset when both have similar features. I have seen some motherboards using the B550 chipset that are around half the price of motherboards using the X570 chipset, but these lack most features. Not everyone needs a motherboard with the X570 chipset, but if paying more or less the same is there a real reason to choose a motherboard with the B550 chipset?
     
  2. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

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    As far as I've been reading there's less PCI Express lanes and it's up to the motherboard vendors how this is handled plus from what I can find far as PCI Express 4.0 support goes the B550 chipset itself is Gen3 here and not Gen4 like the X570 is so how this gets divided between the CPU and the motherboard chipset will differ a bit.

    PCI Express 4.0 itself isn't that big of a thing yet though, newer and upcoming high-end SSD's will start to utilize it over time but for now I don't think there's that many different SSD controllers that do PCI-E 4.0 and the disks themselves favor far as I've read a quad layer cell system and varying amounts of cache so top speeds outside of benchmarks and specific scenarios (Single large file transfers.) will be a bit varied at least until some newer hardware is available.

    Besides that there's a difference in components going by a few reviews and user comments in particularly in regards to the VRM's but short of high-end overclocking I don't see this as a issue although it would be a good idea to see how the motherboard manufacturer and the model is set up by for example reviews or user comments or a PDF manual though these might not be very in-depth. :)
    (Marketing terms and different makes of the VRM's and what these handle and such.)


    Rest of it seems fairly minimal and it's up to the motherboard vendors what they pack on in terms of features and extras, PCI express slots and lanes and things like USB, SATA and the M.2 ports personally I'd recommend in-depth breakdowns or reviews or analysis from the board or manufacturer you are interested in which goes into it a bit more detailed than the PR/marketing stuff you'd get from the vendor directly and then there's user opinions and testing and such that might be helpful too.

    The X570's having increased in price since they first retailed likely makes the B550's a popular choice but it also makes it so the motherboard vendors can price these in various categories from budget to enthusiast with all kinds of extras or at worst various compromises or straight up downgrades and flaws.

    Don't have any straight up recommendations, pretty sure MSI, Asus and Sapphire all add a bit to the pricing for the higher-end boards whether it's B550's or X570's justifying it with various extras and yet more marketing terms and trademark phrases.
    Support wise Sapphire's been pretty good with newer bios updates, Asus seem active although not as fast and MSI seemingly just adds the latest and throws it out sometimes beta sometimes just general release and users might want to hold off on updating.

    400 series probably also works really well but might be a bit less stable if you are planning on adding a 4000 series CPU later on before AMD jumps to AM5 or what the next socket type will be called but they are still doing bios updates for the 300 and 400 series even if it's a bit after the 500 series bios ones roll out. :)
    (And however long it takes for these to be added from the motherboard vendors.)


    So yeah the controller on the motherboard or bridge or how it's called these days it's a bit different but still seem good unless you absolutely need to be sure about PCI Express 4.0 availability besides I assume the first x16 slot being fed from the CPU itself.

    EDIT: Also the VRM's on the X570 lower-priced boards have gotten some criticism too so it's not like that's going to be any different and it's probable that some of the higher-end B550's will also be pretty robust or over-engineered for what they need with a bit of a extra on the price tag.



    What else is there to say, seems AMD had a 590 and 570 initially but the 590 became the 570 instead and now they've made a somewhat changed model for a B550 but besides the chipset being a Gen3 instead of Gen4 for PCI Express 4.0 support it at least far as I can find seems like a very minimal thing just to have something for a lower price bracket even more so now with the 570 boards having risen in many retailer stores.

    Then it's just up to what the board partners decide to add for extras and how they utilize the available PCI lanes and users will need to look up the details from one motherboard to another.
    All in all it seems like a very nice alternative for the 500 series motherboards long as the motherboard manufacturer didn't cheap out on construction or anything like that. :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2020
  3. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    I was also debating between the two and ultimately went with the X570. Aorus Elite is around 200$. Considering decent B550 boards are close to 150$ its worth spending extra 50$ if you need pcie4 and some more robust vrms.
     
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  4. Slinkyminx

    Slinkyminx Master Guru

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    I have the Aorus Elite X570 - how are you getting on with yours ? Also the BIOS ?
     
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  5. insp1re2600

    insp1re2600 Ancient Guru

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    have the x570 aorus master here, boards ok, but bios is terribly slow. i hear they put 16mb bios on them too.

    Was even debating switching to the lovely taichi b550 but concerned it was a downgrade for same price.
     
  6. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    Its the best X570 board in that price range i think. For a little more you can go Aorus Pro wifi. Vrms are also overkill which is nice for a future 12core upgrades. ;)
     
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  7. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

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    Slowness or rather the bios feeling like it is sluggish I think was a known issue assuming it's not something else here but it is down to something when the CSM setting is disabled, I run mine fully in UEFI so CSM is off and it can be a bit laggy even without mouse navigation just using keyboard input or hotkeys.

    Plus the boot times are a bit slower but still better with the newer bios updates so something has improved.
    Think that's down to a combination of bios memory size so the 32's are slower than the 16's plus memory compatibility and the memory training whether you use XMP or not or other settings for the RAM.

    After the first few seconds once it hits the board version and bios date image the boot into the OS itself is quick but there's a few stages it performs plus how AMD does their boot process through the little PSP security processor and validation though I think the big one is the memory stuff and potentially the larger flash memory though I don't think Gigabyte uses 32MB at all even for the 999$ board. (Extreme was it?)


    I'm on the Aorus Master, bit around the 400 - 500 Euro range I think without discounts or similar which I would say is a bit more than I would recommend though if available at a nice discount yeah it's a fine motherboard although somewhat over-kitted for most user needs as is probably the norm for many of the high-end boards. :D

    There's a few revisions as well, 1.1 added Thunderbolt connectivity which the 1.0 board just had some room for but it wasn't fully implemented, 1.2 I think is the latest and hopefully it just means a re-release from F2 or whatever to the latest F20 and newest as of this time AGESA and support for the XT CPU revisions and a lot of code fixes without needing to first flash the bios. (USB flashing is really nice if only it'd be improved to also handle NTFS boot support so you don't need a lower end or older FAT32 stick for it.)


    EDIT: There's that article on how AMD handles some of it's stuff.
    https://www.igorslab.de/en/inside-a...curity-processor-and-the-numbers-of-combo-pi/
     
  8. testcy

    testcy Guest

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    I promised myself not to buy again anything from Gigabyte as the responses I received in the past from their support were worst than useless. Surely there must be better brands to choose from?
     
  9. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

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    Ah yeah I've heard some less fun things on direct support from them too, here it's mostly resolved through the store you bought the product from and either the initial buyer protection and two week refund time or the I think it's usually two years default warranty on consumer electronics with some exceptions instead of dealing with the product company directly and whatever support that results in.

    It's not always perfect but it's gotten better and even within the EU and the various directives for how this should be handled it seems results on some of the bigger store chains are quite varied so someone might be really happy about Amazon and no questions asked just ship it back and full refund and elsewhere it's a complicated back and forth even after pointing out they have to take responsibility and how long it might take to get a reply or resolving the dispute or matter.


    Though I've heard similar on Asus and MSI too and I guess if you're really unlucky you end up with some outsourced customer support who knows where and trying to get prioritized instead of having that pending and how that gets handled or resolved.
    Think MSI had some early issues with the 300 or 400 series but came back strong with the 500's here thus a more positive reception and customer satisfaction and then Asus I don't know too much about although their ROG brand is likely a bit of a brand premium for pricing even if the hardware could very well be good but there's a bit of a extra cost just from that itself.

    Asrock I think is also fairly good just as long as you don't use the cheapest models since they do make a few compromises or cost cuts though from what I hear the mid-range and up seem to be good and I would expect this also holds for the B550 boards.
    (After all if every other vendor offers a nice selection it's hard to be competitive if there's a reputation for inferior quality sticking around and how fast things spread through video or social media in general these days.)


    EDIT: Seems they have a fairly good lineup.


    From:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/gvr9fm/first_good_impressions_of_asrocks_b550/

    Video description also has links for Asus and Gigabyte board impressions.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2020
  10. GarrettL

    GarrettL Master Guru

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    I built my pc last November and went with the x570 Asus TUF. It’s been rock solid and issue free since first boot. It’s good too.
     
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  11. insp1re2600

    insp1re2600 Ancient Guru

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    i went with the aorus master for the VRM's without doublers, VRM's where a consideration due to 3900x i run.
     
  12. Night Hope

    Night Hope Member Guru

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    I vote for 570, B550 pci 4.0 different from 550. If you build new computer go with 570, if not and have 450 upgrade to 550
     
  13. testcy

    testcy Guest

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    I think the cheapest X570 motherboard I can find with the minimum features I need is ASROCK X570 PHANTOM GAMING 4. Is anyone using this?
     
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  14. tived

    tived Active Member

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    MSI PRESTIGE X570 CREATION, works great, have had no issues so far. (Knock on wood )
    It’s not the most popular board, but it isn’t letting down.

    if I could do it again, I would go for Threadripper board with more PCIe lanes

    My current setup is very minimal “for me” As for add-on boards
    I have a GPU
    M.2 expander with 2x 2tb MP600 Corsair
    1x Seagate m.2 1tb 520
    All m.2 are gen 4

    I would probably add my old Areca 24 channel controller for SSD array but I haven’t at the moment

    henrik
     
  15. Kool64

    Kool64 Ancient Guru

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    I have one. It’s got a decent VRM and I’ve not had any issues aside from slow bios updates but really that’s not an issue as any of the last few work fine. I did have one mysterious cold boot bios wipe one day but I think it was the latest bios fault so I just reverted it to the previous version.
     

  16. Might matter for a niche but I did notice the addition of Thunderbolt to B550 by more OEMs than X570. IIRC ASRock stood alone in supporting TB on X570.
     
  17. testcy

    testcy Guest

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    I also see DisplayPort 1.4 and Realtek ALC1220 on some B550 boards, while most X570 boards have DisplayPort 1.2 and Realtek ALC1200. Unless there are newer X570 boards out?
     
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2020
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  18. If anything just newer revisions, but not that I'm aware of yet
     
  19. blitz72

    blitz72 Master Guru

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    That's the board I just went with on my new build. Been a couple of months now and I have to agree that it's a great mobo. Rock solid also. Have my lil 3600(non X) running at 4.4 stable and cool. The only issue(and not really a big one) is the BIOS the mouse is super laggy(I just use the KB).
     
  20. Fender178

    Fender178 Ancient Guru

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    With me I purchased the ASUS x570 Strix -E Gaming X570 because at the time of purchase it was the only board that was available that I could purchase even though the board was on back order and would ship once Amazon would get them in stock. Also I was afraid that if I waited for b550 then I would have had to wait a tad bit longer which I didn't want to do. The board was over $100 more than what I paid for my z97 pro board back in 2014.

    I am very happy with the board because I wanted a board that had Bluetooth as well as the IO shield being installed without me having to do it. Also the BIOS is pretty similar to the BIOS that my Z97 Pro had so I was pretty familiar with the BIOS.

    Also I have plenty of USB ports in the rear. Also most of the B550 boards were close to the prices of the x570 making the B550 a tiny bit less enticing for a purchase. The one exception would be the Asrock Taichi B550 boards because from what I have heard from tech YouTubers who reviewed that board said that the B550 Version of the Taichi has better VRMs than the X570 version.
     

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