[SOLVED] B550 Motherboard suggestion needed

[LionKing12]

MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk
MSI MPG B550 GAMING PLUS
ASUS ROG Strix B550-A (the white color one)
ASUS ROG STRIX ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI)

Price of all these is almost same in my country, which would be the best option if price is same? Specs-wise. I kinda like MSI MPG motherboard more but they prove better warranty coverage for Asus here and this would be my most expensive motherboard I've ever purchased so I'm just tryna be a little more careful.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Any of those would be good boards...choosing means digging into details of the features that are more important to you. Look at USB ports in particular: how many are pre-wired on the back panel vs. how many your case front panel can connect to.

If you're interested in USB Type-C on the front panel only the two MSI boards have the headers for it.

Only the ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) has Wi-Fi, but you've probably already considered that.

And the very last thing: which has the aesthetics that appeal more? If the white version of the B550-A is what you want, then would the others serve if they don't offer anything else to make them stand out?

 

[LionKing12]

Any of those would be good boards...choosing means digging into details of the features that are more important to you. Look at USB ports in particular: how many are pre-wired on the back panel vs. how many your case front panel can connect to.

If you're interested in USB Type-C on the front panel only the two MSI boards have the headers for it.

Only the ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) has Wi-Fi, but you've probably already considered that.

And the very last thing: which has the aesthetics that appeal more? If the white version of the B550-A is what you want, then would the others serve if they don't offer anything else to make them stand out?

I almost don't care about the WiFI since I use ethernet to play games. All these motherboards have almost the same price so I just wanted an expert opinion if one has better specs than the other. I'm sort of an MSI fanboy but I hear things about warranty claiming which are kind of upsetting. I think I'll just take the MPG motherboard of B550F now.

Do you think that audio software in ROG (sonic studio) is an advantage? I don't see anything fancy about audio in MSI motherboard.

EDIT: So I just read a bunch of reviews on the ROG WIFI motherboard and everywhere I look people are complaining about its Ethernet which just doesn't seem to work easily or work at all and Wifi issues.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I almost don't care about the WiFI since I use ethernet to play games. All these motherboards have almost the same price so I just wanted an expert opinion if one has better specs than the other. I'm sort of an MSI fanboy but I hear things about warranty claiming which are kind of upsetting. I think I'll just take the MPG motherboard of B550F now.

Do you think that audio software in ROG (sonic studio) is an advantage? I don't see anything fancy about audio in MSI motherboard.

I think (maybe) the B550 Tomahawk would have the beefier VRM. But all those boards have very good VRM's built on DrMOS power stages. Every one are more than capable of running even 5950X CPU's for extended all-core rendering operations while staying cool throughout.

I do not like the audio drivers at all on my B550m Tuf Gaming Plus, which included DTS Audio system. Not sure what the Sonic Studio is, it may be the same as DTS. In my case it may have been the DTS, maybe just the garbage Asus injects in every motherboard utility or driver you install, but using the Asus drivers caused a lot of problems in games. I'd get a lot of audio glitches and crackling sounds, it even affected display as there were occasional FPS dropouts in Cyberpunk2077.

I wound up un-installing the Asus driver package and cleaning up the driver store. It installed Windows' default drivers which worked perfectly but I wanted the Realtek control panel so I DL'd Realtek's driver package and bingo. Perfect audio, perfectly smooth gameplay. And a Realtek control panel.

I've a general rule about motherboard utilities, and Asus' in particular: since I value stability, privacy and a clean, well ordered, spamware/scamware/trashware free OS I do not install them. Ever. In Asus' case, they're next to impossible to fully uninstall if you do: I had to re-install the OS to get rid of the Aura Sync app. Asus' case is particularly worse as I aso had to disable a BIOS setting that alerts the OS to download and install the utilities at every bootup. A backdoor if I ever saw one.

I try to either get drivers from the mfr (Realtek for LAN and Audio). I did install the Asus drivers this time to try DTS...and I made the mistake of not stopping it on first boot for AuraSync before I found that BIOS setting.

 

[LionKing12]

I think (maybe) the B550 Tomahawk would have the beefier VRM. But all those boards have very good VRM's built on DrMOS power stages. Every one are more than capable of running even 5950X CPU's for extended all-core rendering operations while staying cool throughout.

I do not like the audio drivers at all on my B550m Tuf Gaming Plus, which included DTS Audio system. Not sure what the Sonic Studio is, it may be the same as DTS. In my case it may have been the DTS, maybe just the garbage Asus injects in every motherboard utility or driver you install, but using the Asus drivers caused a lot of problems in games. I'd get a lot of audio glitches and crackling sounds, it even affected display as there were occasional FPS dropouts in Cyberpunk2077.

I wound up un-installing the Asus driver package and cleaning up the driver store. It installed Windows' default drivers which worked perfectly but I wanted the Realtek control panel so I DL'd Realtek's driver package and bingo. Perfect audio, perfectly smooth gameplay. And a Realtek control panel.

A general rule about motherboard utilities, and Asus' in particular: if you value stability, privacy and a clean, well ordered OS, then do not install them. Ever. In Asus' case, they're next to impossible to fully uninstall if you do: I had to re-install the OS to get rid of the Aura Sync app. Asus' case is particularly worse as I aso had to disable a BIOS setting that alerts the OS to download and install the utilities at every bootup. A backdoor if I ever saw one.

I don't like having a bunch of programs installed either, right now I'm using MAG MORTAR b365M for my 9400F and the realtek drivers work perfectly. My first choice was the Tomahawk board I think that should have been my priority all along, I'll just get it. I'm buying a motherboard that I don't have to change in a few years again, if the tomahawk board has decent VRM I'll just get it, it also seems to me its a better value than the MPG GAMING PLUS version.

 

[LionKing12]

Any of those would be good boards...choosing means digging into details of the features that are more important to you. Look at USB ports in particular: how many are pre-wired on the back panel vs. how many your case front panel can connect to.

If you're interested in USB Type-C on the front panel only the two MSI boards have the headers for it.

Only the ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) has Wi-Fi, but you've probably already considered that.

And the very last thing: which has the aesthetics that appeal more? If the white version of the B550-A is what you want, then would the others serve if they don't offer anything else to make them stand out?

Went ahead and ordered the Tomahawk motherboard, the build quality on that motherboard seemed better than the other ones, I asked around on reddit as well and compared it myself as much as I could. Thank you for helping <3