ASUS officially launched a whole range of motherboard based on AMD’s B550 chipset. Designed as the mid-range alternative to AMD’s current high-end X570 chipset, the new chipset is designed to be compatible with AMD’s 3rd generation Ryzen CPUs and is available across several of ASUS’ sub-brands.
Starting with its ROG Strix series, ASUS will release the B550-E Gaming and B550-I Gaming. The B550-E Gaming is obviously the crème de la crème of duo; the motherboard is a full-sized ATX and is flanked by several high-end features, including a 14+2 power stage VRM, reinforced PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, two M.2 slots that are NVMe PCIe 4.0 compatible (complete with heatsinks), a healthy amount of USB 3.2 ports internally and around the back, and a 2.5G LAN port, courtesy of Intel. Additionally, the board also comes with built-in Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 support, along with the complementary antenna packed inside the box.
Moving down the line, the B550-I Gaming is, as its name suggest, a mini-ITX form-factor motherboard that still comes with all the game-ready trimmings the line-up has to offer. Naturally, it’s designed for small form-factor PC and as such, it a single PCIe 4.0 slot, two memory slots that support DDR4 RAM with speeds of up to 5500MHz. Plus a PCIe NVMe 4.0 M.2 slot situated near the base. Like the B550-E Gaming, it also come pre-built with a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 module.
In the TUF Gaming series, there’s the B550M-Plus Wi-Fi. This motherboard sports an M-ATX form-factor. It shares similar features with its ROG Strix brethren, albeit with some differences. For starters, one of its two M.2 slots only supports 80mm devices, instead of 110mm storage components. It is also available in two variants: one with Intel’s AX200 Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 module, and one without.
Last but not lease are ASUS’ Prime series B550 motherboards. Featuring the B550M-A Wi-Fi and B550-K, both are also M-ATX form-factor motherboards designed with space-saving within offices and bedrooms in mind. The B550M-K is the only model in the lineup that doesn’t come with a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 module, but it should also be noted that the B550M-A also has an option without the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module.
