Review Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro Review: Reasonably Priced, Capable MicroATX

[Admin]

The MicroATX B550M Aorus Pro performed well in our tests and even managed to overclock the Ryzen 9 5950X. The $129.99 board is a step up from the DS3H, including more robust power delivery, improved audio, a heatsink for an M.2 module, and more.

Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro Review: Reasonably Priced, Capable MicroATX : Read more

 

[kyuuketsuki]

Not sure why the author beats on the "no integrated wi-fi" drum. Desktop systems are largely stationary, and many certainly use ethernet for the network connection rather than wi-fi, as they should. Having the option to purchase a board without a wi-fi chipset, which would be a useless component (and therefore expense), is appreciated. For those do want wi-fi, they can use an add-in card (as noted) or find one of the multitude of boards that does have wi-fi.

Also, having a smaller number of SATA and M.2 slots is par for the course for mATX and mITX boards, isn't it? Not sure that's really a legitimate knock against the board either.

Should also note that there is an updated version of this board, denoted with a -P, that upgrades the ethernet to 2.5Gb and ups the supported RAM speed to DDR4-4400. The audio solution may or may not be different (different model numbers are shown in the Newegg listings). Otherwise it seems identical.

 

[JamesSneed]

Not sure why the author beats on the "no integrated wi-fi" drum. Desktop systems are largely stationary, and many certainly use ethernet for the network connection rather than wi-fi, as they should. Having the option to purchase a board without a wi-fi chipset, which would be a useless component (and therefore expense), is appreciated. For those do want wi-fi, they can use an add-in card (as noted) or find one of the multitude of boards that does have wi-fi.

Also, having a smaller number of SATA and M.2 slots is par for the course for mATX and mITX boards, isn't it? Not sure that's really a legitimate knock against the board either.

Should also note that there is an updated version of this board, denoted with a -P, that upgrades the ethernet to 2.5Gb and ups the supported RAM speed to DDR4-4400. The audio solution may or may not be different (different model numbers are shown in the Newegg listings). Otherwise it seems identical.

This was a very lazy review. All of the cons really are not cons for 99% of the people building a mATX build.

 

[kaalus]

Why would you want more than 4 SATA ports? 4 is too many already, 2 would be perfectly fine. SATA is legacy anyway, and most people should have their harddrives in a server, not in their desktop. No WiFI? That's a plus. And who needs so many USB ports?
The real minus is lack of 2.5GBps Ethernet - that's rules it out for me.

 

[agabriel]

Why would you want more than 4 SATA ports? 4 is too many already, 2 would be perfectly fine. SATA is legacy anyway, and most people should have their harddrives in a server, not in their desktop. No WiFI? That's a plus. And who needs so many USB ports?
The real minus is lack of 2.5GBps Ethernet - that's rules it out for me.

There's a new one with 2.5GBs B550M AORUS PRO-P

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Why would you want more than 4 SATA ports? 4 is too many already, 2 would be perfectly fine. SATA is legacy anyway, and most people should have their harddrives in a server, not in their desktop. No WiFI? That's a plus. And who needs so many USB ports?
The real minus is lack of 2.5GBps Ethernet - that's rules it out for me.

Well, with the amount of cores that these higher end builds may have, setting up a small VM for a server is a piece of cake. Why have the expense of a completely separate machine when you can take the one you have, allocate 2 out of 16 cores to it, some ram, and then just add 3 or 4 large HDDs for your server.

Personally, 4 SATA ports is just about perfect. 1 NVME M.2 port for the boot drive, 1 SATA for large storage for the main machine and 3 SATA for the VM server. Or, just put all 4 SATAs to the VM and map the large storage for the main system to the server. It would almost be as fast as local storage.

And yes, I do agree with the 2.5G ethernet. These days many people are looking for more than your typical 1Gb networking. Still, the board looks pretty solid otherwise.

 

[Late_Apex]

The MicroATX B550M Aorus Pro performed well in our tests and even managed to overclock the Ryzen 9 5950X. The $129.99 board is a step up from the DS3H, including more robust power delivery, improved audio, a heatsink for an M.2 module, and more.

Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro Review: Reasonably Priced, Capable MicroATX : Read more

why no comments about the b550 usb bug that is particularly bad with gigabyte b550 boards? Having your USB port drop out randomly is somewhat of a major con. Did gigabyte manage to fix that for this board? Last I looked yesterday they were still waiting for a fix from amd (for a similar board).

 

[neojack]

Not sure why the author beats on the "no integrated wi-fi" drum. Desktop systems are largely stationary, and many certainly use ethernet for the network connection rather than wi-fi, as they should.

You are right, but integrated wifi comes with integrated bluetooth, Wich is needed for VR.
Since VR already uses a lot of USB ports, and this motherboard has limited PCIe extentions, that make sense to mention it, but not the way it was in the article.