The branding for every "gamer" oriented product out there is cancer. But it seems manufacturers love to call everything "gaming": the price conscious gamer, the enthusiast gamer, the casual gamer, seems like almost every segment out there is made up of gamers... Hence this could have come with a soldered Atom CPU and a PCIe over USB adapter and still get the "gamer" treatment because of the same reason you have the R on the car. Must go faster.
Anyone know why there has been a severe lack of high end mATX boards in the last few cpu generations on both the Intel and amd side? My case only fits mATX and I don't want to give up the features I already have! Having said that, this looks like a nice enough board. I like the inclusion of 2.5gb Ethernet. The world is finally moving up!
because sales of them have collapsed. You've still got the largest group of enthusiasts buying full ATX because they're happy with a big case and an "I might need one of those" mentality buying the big boards with the largest possible number of features.
On the other hand you've got the "I know I'll never use any expansion cards beyond a single GPU and want it small" crowd; a decade ago most of those people were mATX because mITX was too severely compromised. Now it's good enough for the vast majority of them and they've downsized; taking most of what was the mATX market with them.
Most people just follow trends and do whatever they see on YouTube; big towers with a glass side panel and ton of RGB. It was cool when it was a novel concept to show of custom work with RGB used for accent lighting but has since degraded into radioactive unicorn vomit. A few cases make it look good (Lian Li Dynamic) but its a pretty specific "look" that dosn't really go anything else and usually looks gaudy AF but if you are all about the 'gamer brah' lifestyle then you probably don't care.
But yeah all that aside, mATX is where its at lol.
It really annoys me seeing people use ATX or EATX motherboards, and then put a vertical GPU mount blocking all the PCIe slots. If the only things you're plugging into the motherboard are a few sticks of RAM, a CPU, a graphics card and an SSD, you don't need a giant motherboard.
This is exactly what I did with my last computer, but I realized I really wanted 4 RAM slots down the line, so I went back to a micro-ATX board. By and large, there really isn't that much of a difference in size between most micro-ATX and mini-ITX cases. The smallest mini-ITX cases are much smaller, but the majority of the mini-ITX cases are a good deal bigger because it's easier to assemble and work in. Especially the cases that allow for large GPUs.
As someone that advocates for the mATX form factor I will say that its nice to see an option with a good feature set which this looks like it has. Its Biostar though so I remain skeptical given their history and the price point they historically aim for.
Biostar will never get the market reception they are looking for competing on price alone. They need unique products and a clean looking mATX board with a good feature set is a start but they need to compete on quality as well. Also, drop the Racing branding, the connotations between 'Racing' and PC components is pretty weak sauce.
I also have a preference for mATX for the past few years. At this point for B550, I would probably look at ASUS TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS (Wi-Fi) for $169 or ASRock B550M STEEL LEGEND for $129. Both drop the DVI for more analog audio outs and optical. On the ASRock, the second M.2 slot may be 3.0 x2. Asus specs say x4 for both 4.0 and 3.0
The Steel Legend is good, MSI has a good entry level "Pro" board for something a bit cheaper. Gigabyte also has a really nice looking Aorus that looks pretty high-end, haven't tried yet though.
It's pretty weird that vendors are still skipping these though of course uptake from case manufacturers has also been slow (I was annoyed that my Fractal Design Define Mini-C didn't have a type-C port when I got it two and a half years ago, and it's still not an option now). And of course you'd also think you could get the header on a PCI-E add in card, but that seems also not to be a thing.
DVI? What's the point when a $5 DP or HDMI adaptor gives DVI (you can guarantee it's not dual link DVI). Also ... 1 USB C? Why is it not also displayport? Audio - no optical out? Make the 2nd port a 4 channel breakout and replace the 3rd with the optical port.
The product manual confirms that the video ports are DVI-D-SL, DP 1.2, and HDMI 1.4. So power users who need a DVI-D-DL port are out of luck without an expensive aftermarket adapter. That said, I'm more annoyed that the HDMI port is limited to 2160p30. That makes the board unsuitable for use with UHD/4K home theater setups or 4K monitors with HDMI based KVMs.
If I had to guess, HDMI 2.0 and above probably require signal retimers, whereas 1.4 could probably be run directly from the SoC/socket. Same with DP 1.2 vs 1.3/1.4/2.0's supported frequencies.
Honestly, optical out is pretty useless given that even boards with it don't support realtime encoding. Means that while you can pass through the stream for some pre-recorded media, you can't actually get more than two channel PCM out of the board for games and the like. There is apparently a hacked Realtek driver out there that enables some sort Dolby encoding for Realtek codecs that don't have it enabled, but loading some random unsigned driver seems like a bad idea.
Though I just want to pass audio to my receiver without using a second HDMI connection (which is a whole host of problems in Windows). Won't be passtroughing my receiver, either, since my monitor uses displayport. SPDIF resolves that pretty easily. So could analog, though if I was stuck with 2 channel audio, might as well use a digital connection and tap the DAC in my receiver.
Anybody remember the nVidia nForce chipsets? They could do realtime analog -> 5.1 DD encoding. Was so nice if you had a proper surround system for games, back before HDMI was a thing and your choices were 3 crappy 3.5mm into analog-ins, or spdif.
That said, now you just do it all over HDMI and it generally goes bitstream out into a receiver, at least if you have a "real" surround setup at home...
Personally I just want a motherboard with 12 USB ports on the back and no video I/O. Very few people buying this board are going to use integrated graphics. Even if they added more USB, there would be room for a single DP or something.
I'm happy to see more decent mATX board this generation. It was always the achilles heel of AMD, there was not a single good mATX AM3+ board and one whole AM3 board. With dual GPU being forever dead now, mATX is the way to go if you need more then just a GPU
True. The overall specs for this board are good. The real I/O is odd (though I actually appreciate the PS/2 port) but the 1150 audio codec and 2.5G NIC are fantastic at this price and really should be the bare minimum for any board these days.
I'm pretty sure that the mini-pciE connector on the board is for the "unspecified wireless interface," it doesn't actually have a wifi chipset onboard.
Look at the antenna leads right by that socket, those presumably just run to the back panel's larger connectors.
If they're going to do it that way, major disappointment that they didn't install 3 or 4x leads so you could take advantage of a 3:3 or 4:4 card later (even if they were too cheap to ship the board with more than 2:2).
WiFi 6 support.... buy M.2 2240 card and install it. Fantastic value! Why not WiFi 7 or 8? Other vendors integrate WiFi cards, not only antenna sockets.
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Gigaplex - Monday, December 14, 2020 - link
What's with the "Racing" print on the chipset heatsink?Brane2 - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
It's a special spoiler that utilizes ground effect and keeps CPU stable even in tight loops.Pure gaming magic.
at_clucks - Wednesday, December 16, 2020 - link
The branding for every "gamer" oriented product out there is cancer. But it seems manufacturers love to call everything "gaming": the price conscious gamer, the enthusiast gamer, the casual gamer, seems like almost every segment out there is made up of gamers... Hence this could have come with a soldered Atom CPU and a PCIe over USB adapter and still get the "gamer" treatment because of the same reason you have the R on the car. Must go faster.Kevin G - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
The same reason you put a stripe on a car: to make it go faster.Deicidium369 - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Only certain stickers increase speed...Samus - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
+10HPrynomuncher - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Anyone know why there has been a severe lack of high end mATX boards in the last few cpu generations on both the Intel and amd side? My case only fits mATX and I don't want to give up the features I already have! Having said that, this looks like a nice enough board. I like the inclusion of 2.5gb Ethernet. The world is finally moving up!DanNeely - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
because sales of them have collapsed. You've still got the largest group of enthusiasts buying full ATX because they're happy with a big case and an "I might need one of those" mentality buying the big boards with the largest possible number of features.On the other hand you've got the "I know I'll never use any expansion cards beyond a single GPU and want it small" crowd; a decade ago most of those people were mATX because mITX was too severely compromised. Now it's good enough for the vast majority of them and they've downsized; taking most of what was the mATX market with them.
Operandi - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Most people just follow trends and do whatever they see on YouTube; big towers with a glass side panel and ton of RGB. It was cool when it was a novel concept to show of custom work with RGB used for accent lighting but has since degraded into radioactive unicorn vomit. A few cases make it look good (Lian Li Dynamic) but its a pretty specific "look" that dosn't really go anything else and usually looks gaudy AF but if you are all about the 'gamer brah' lifestyle then you probably don't care.But yeah all that aside, mATX is where its at lol.
Makaveli - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Excellent explanation.Gigaplex - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
It really annoys me seeing people use ATX or EATX motherboards, and then put a vertical GPU mount blocking all the PCIe slots. If the only things you're plugging into the motherboard are a few sticks of RAM, a CPU, a graphics card and an SSD, you don't need a giant motherboard.Someguyperson - Wednesday, December 16, 2020 - link
This is exactly what I did with my last computer, but I realized I really wanted 4 RAM slots down the line, so I went back to a micro-ATX board. By and large, there really isn't that much of a difference in size between most micro-ATX and mini-ITX cases. The smallest mini-ITX cases are much smaller, but the majority of the mini-ITX cases are a good deal bigger because it's easier to assemble and work in. Especially the cases that allow for large GPUs.Operandi - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
As someone that advocates for the mATX form factor I will say that its nice to see an option with a good feature set which this looks like it has. Its Biostar though so I remain skeptical given their history and the price point they historically aim for.Biostar will never get the market reception they are looking for competing on price alone. They need unique products and a clean looking mATX board with a good feature set is a start but they need to compete on quality as well. Also, drop the Racing branding, the connotations between 'Racing' and PC components is pretty weak sauce.
erotomania - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
I also have a preference for mATX for the past few years. At this point for B550, I would probably look at ASUS TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS (Wi-Fi) for $169 or ASRock B550M STEEL LEGEND for $129. Both drop the DVI for more analog audio outs and optical. On the ASRock, the second M.2 slot may be 3.0 x2. Asus specs say x4 for both 4.0 and 3.0Operandi - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
The Steel Legend is good, MSI has a good entry level "Pro" board for something a bit cheaper. Gigabyte also has a really nice looking Aorus that looks pretty high-end, haven't tried yet though.Operandi - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Tech Power Up review of mATX Gigabyte Aorus board, looks like it does really good for the price.https://www.techpowerup.com/review/gigabyte-b550m-...
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
The MSI b550m mortar also has a great VRM.Gigaplex - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
And 2.5Gbit ethernetzepi - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
No USB-C Front panel connector?A5 - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Not many B550 mATX boards with that, sadly. The main one I can think of is the MSI MAG MORTAR.fcth - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
It's pretty weird that vendors are still skipping these though of course uptake from case manufacturers has also been slow (I was annoyed that my Fractal Design Define Mini-C didn't have a type-C port when I got it two and a half years ago, and it's still not an option now). And of course you'd also think you could get the header on a PCI-E add in card, but that seems also not to be a thing.dontlistentome - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
DVI? What's the point when a $5 DP or HDMI adaptor gives DVI (you can guarantee it's not dual link DVI).Also ... 1 USB C? Why is it not also displayport?
Audio - no optical out? Make the 2nd port a 4 channel breakout and replace the 3rd with the optical port.
Lucky Stripes 99 - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
The product manual confirms that the video ports are DVI-D-SL, DP 1.2, and HDMI 1.4. So power users who need a DVI-D-DL port are out of luck without an expensive aftermarket adapter. That said, I'm more annoyed that the HDMI port is limited to 2160p30. That makes the board unsuitable for use with UHD/4K home theater setups or 4K monitors with HDMI based KVMs.jeremyshaw - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
If I had to guess, HDMI 2.0 and above probably require signal retimers, whereas 1.4 could probably be run directly from the SoC/socket. Same with DP 1.2 vs 1.3/1.4/2.0's supported frequencies.fcth - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Honestly, optical out is pretty useless given that even boards with it don't support realtime encoding. Means that while you can pass through the stream for some pre-recorded media, you can't actually get more than two channel PCM out of the board for games and the like. There is apparently a hacked Realtek driver out there that enables some sort Dolby encoding for Realtek codecs that don't have it enabled, but loading some random unsigned driver seems like a bad idea.jeremyshaw - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Yeah, that encoding issue is annoying.Though I just want to pass audio to my receiver without using a second HDMI connection (which is a whole host of problems in Windows). Won't be passtroughing my receiver, either, since my monitor uses displayport. SPDIF resolves that pretty easily. So could analog, though if I was stuck with 2 channel audio, might as well use a digital connection and tap the DAC in my receiver.
ZPrime - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Anybody remember the nVidia nForce chipsets? They could do realtime analog -> 5.1 DD encoding. Was so nice if you had a proper surround system for games, back before HDMI was a thing and your choices were 3 crappy 3.5mm into analog-ins, or spdif.That said, now you just do it all over HDMI and it generally goes bitstream out into a receiver, at least if you have a "real" surround setup at home...
Samus - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Personally I just want a motherboard with 12 USB ports on the back and no video I/O. Very few people buying this board are going to use integrated graphics. Even if they added more USB, there would be room for a single DP or something.Gigaplex - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
"Very few people buying this board are going to use integrated graphics."Virtually zero, I'd say, since you can't actually buy a CPU with integrated graphics that works on this board without grey market OEM parts.
lmcd - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Turns out some B550 boards do support even as old as Raven Ridge, let alone Pinnacle RidgeGigaplex - Wednesday, December 16, 2020 - link
Do you have some examples? I was looking for one that supported the older APUs.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
I'm happy to see more decent mATX board this generation. It was always the achilles heel of AMD, there was not a single good mATX AM3+ board and one whole AM3 board. With dual GPU being forever dead now, mATX is the way to go if you need more then just a GPUSamus - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
True. The overall specs for this board are good. The real I/O is odd (though I actually appreciate the PS/2 port) but the 1150 audio codec and 2.5G NIC are fantastic at this price and really should be the bare minimum for any board these days.Gigaplex - Wednesday, December 16, 2020 - link
"fantastic at this price"What is the price?
TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, December 19, 2020 - link
$139ZPrime - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
I'm pretty sure that the mini-pciE connector on the board is for the "unspecified wireless interface," it doesn't actually have a wifi chipset onboard.Look at the antenna leads right by that socket, those presumably just run to the back panel's larger connectors.
If they're going to do it that way, major disappointment that they didn't install 3 or 4x leads so you could take advantage of a 3:3 or 4:4 card later (even if they were too cheap to ship the board with more than 2:2).
Agent Smith - Monday, December 21, 2020 - link
I’d prefer more DTX board choiceAlB80 - Saturday, December 26, 2020 - link
WiFi 6 support.... buy M.2 2240 card and install it. Fantastic value! Why not WiFi 7 or 8?Other vendors integrate WiFi cards, not only antenna sockets.
ykmgroup1 - Monday, December 28, 2020 - link
Nice Information..https://www.ykmgroup.com/