AMD B450 or B550 Motherboard for Ryzen 5000 CPUs?

[Steve]

With the announcement of AMD's Ryzen 5000 desktop CPU series, many prospective buyers aren't clear on the differences between AMD B450 and B550 motherboards, if they should upgrade or which one to buy.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2114-amd-b450-or-b550-motherboard/

 

[Dalunar]

This was very helpful, thank you. I've been looking into a new build but budget is an issue and I didn't know if I would be hampering a new system with a cheaper b450. Looks like it would suit my needs just fine though.

 

[Burty117]

Some pretty solid points there, I will say it is nice to see the networking being pushed forward though, we've been stuck on gigabit for soo long now, I guess if more machines out there support 2.5Gb we might actually start seeing more routers and switches support it?

 

[Irata]

Will stick with my B450 Tomahawk Max. Had B550 been available I absolutely would have gone for that (there are some very nice B550 boards), but since wasn‘t available, it‘s a non-issue. Plus, B450 allowed me to pick up a dirt cheap Ryzen 2700X.

Going from a B450 to a B550 would - at least for me - be counter to one of AM4‘s advantages, upgrading the CPU on the same board. Plus I don‘t see a worthwhile return for the money spent.

Speaking of the 2700X, since it uses about as much power as the 3900x, I don‘t see an issue upgrading to it or the 5900x down the road.

 

[theruck]

Amd successfuly reaching out to intel even in the create a mess in product portfolio category

 

[veLa]

As an X470 owner myself, let me say that it's great to know that I'll be able to drop in a 5000 series chip. Frankly, the X570 boards don't offer a compelling reason to upgrade, and I'm sure B450 owners feel the same way about B550.

With that being said, if I do choose to upgrade from my 2700X, I'd probably grab a 3900X/XT for a deal whenever the 5000 series does officially launch.

 

[AMDGeForceRX4090]

"AMD originally announced they’d be axing support for Zen 3 on all 300 and 400 series motherboards. However, due to push back from the community and publications like ours where we strongly suggested AMD to reconsider"

How very Intel of them. It bugs me when people act like Intel are the bad guys but AMD is your friend. The nice buddy company. Nah, they're there to make money, and screw the customers. The fact that B450/X470 could support Zen3 but they weren't gonna allow it is just BS on their part. And only changing after the backlash... Poor of them. Shouldn't have happened in the first place. Hell why would they even care? not like people buy AMD branded boards.

"we’ve seen BIOS revisions from the likes of Gigabyte which enabled PCIe 4.0 operation on B450 boards, but that was later removed due to pressure from AMD"

Again, how very scummy. That my board could do this but won't cause AMD won't let GB release a FW enabling it, cause they want me to move to the 500 series, is just crappy.

They are just as bad as Intel. But people are more forgiving cause they're the underdogs.

 

[nodfor]

A bit strange that no new chipset is launched along these new cpus.
Even if buying a new b550, it will need a bios update most likely (since most of those on sale now where shipped months before).
And since b550 is compatible only with Ryzen 3xxx (without integrated graphics) and Ryzen 5xxx (after bios update), you will need to find a compatible Ryzen to upgrade the bios, if you own a non compatible one.
Quite a bit of effort for an upgrade.

 

[amghwk]

For the price difference of $30, for a new buyer, I would recommend going for the B550 instead of the B450.

Of course, for a B450 owners, it doesn't make sense to upgrade to B550, since the future Zen 3 CPUs can run on it after BIOS updates.

And do you really think current Zen 2 owners really want to upgrade the already powerful processors to Zen 3 at this stage?

Zen 3 makes sense for new buyers. And for new buyers, B550 should be the bare minimum.

*New buyers = those upgrading from Intel or pre-Zen users.

 

[condelio]

As always, thanks for the very educative way of writing your articles. The response from asus denying an article from TPU that originally said they were not going to support b450 helped me decide on buying a b450i strix just yesterday, as b550 itx are not available at the moment in my country. I plan on using a modest 3000 cpu and later down the road have de ability to upgrade to 5000 series.

 

[Axiarus]

Eh, just save the extra and get a x570

 

[scavengerspc]

"AMD originally announced they’d be axing support for Zen 3 on all 300 and 400 series motherboards. However, due to push back from the community and publications like ours where we strongly suggested AMD to reconsider"

How very Intel of them.
They are just as bad as Intel.

Dead wrong. If they wanted to be "just as bad as Intel" they would have ignored the push back from the community, but they didnt. And on that note, you stopped the quote before it said "they quickly walked back the decision and announced that the 400 series boards (B450 and X470) would receive support for Zen 3 processors, now known as the Ryzen 5000 series".

You knew what you were doing and you did it on purpose.

 

[AMDGeForceRX4090]

Dead wrong. If they wanted to be "just as bad as Intel" they would have ignored the push back from the community, but they didnt. And on that note, you stopped the quote before it said "they quickly walked back the decision and announced that the 400 series boards (B450 and X470) would receive support for Zen 3 processors, now known as the Ryzen 5000 series".

You knew what you were doing and you did it on purpose.

Yes, they overturned the decision only after all the complaining from us. So if we didn't make enough noise for them to notice then screw us, go buy a 550 board?

No you're right I'm sure they're lovely kind folks who really care what the customers want, and not just worried about their image.

 

[theruck]

As an X470 owner myself, let me say that it's great to know that I'll be able to drop in a 5000 series chip. Frankly, the X570 boards don't offer a compelling reason to upgrade, and I'm sure B450 owners feel the same way about B550.

With that being said, if I do choose to upgrade from my 2700X, I'd probably grab a 3900X/XT for a deal whenever the 5000 series does officially launch.

I guess the reasons to go from 2700x to 3900x would make you consider the mobo upgrade too just to be sure to get the most out of your cpu investment.

 

[Kazkas]

Well, in my country the B450 Tomahawk Max currently costs 102€, while B550 Tomahawk is 162€.. I believe similar differences in other EU countries, so it’s a big difference, and no big gains (for casual user)..

 

[Irata]

Well, in my country the B450 Tomahawk Max currently costs 102€, while B550 Tomahawk is 162€.. I believe similar differences in other EU countries, so it’s a big difference, and no big gains (for casual user)..

The B550 Tomahawk is a much higher grade board than the B450 Tomahawk, I.e. the chipset is not the only difference. The technical successor (mostly the same, „just“ a different chipset) would be the MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2065-amd-b350-vs-b450-vs-b550-tomahawk/

And do you really think current Zen 2 owners really want to upgrade the already powerful processors to Zen 3 at this stage?

Depends what CPU they have. Going from a 3600 to a 5600X or a 5900X may show a nice boost but upgrading would make most sense from a perf/$ perspective once they are noticeably reduced in price. Of course, the lower end your CPU is, the better the upgrade will be.

Looking at my 2700x, I was thinking about picking up a 3900x once they are available for cheap but I‘m not sure if it would make sense for my use case or if I would really notice anything. Going from a 2700X to a 5900X in a year or so would be much more worthwhile.
Think I‘ll spend the money on a GPU and monitor upgrade instead now and look at the CPU side in a year. With a 2600 the Zen 2 upgrade option would have looked different.

 

[scavengerspc]

No you're right I'm sure they're lovely kind folks who really care what the customers want, and not just worried about their image.

Guess what brother. Image is everything. It makes no difference if your job is picking up empty cans at the beach or running a Fortune 500 company. Image is front and center to how the job\company viewed.

Also, if AMD didnt care what the customers want they would not have responded positively to it. They would have ignored them.

 

[scavengerspc]

Depends what CPU they have. Going from a 3600 to a 5600X or a 5900X may show a nice boost but upgrading would make most sense from a perf/$ perspective once they are noticeably reduced in price. Of course, the lower end your CPU is, the better the upgrade will be.

Thumbs up.
I built a system for my nephew 2 1\2 years ago with a lowly Ryzen 3 1200 and an $80 Asus Prime B450 board. Now he is out of college and will be getting me to throw a 5600x in it when we can get one. Not bad.

 

[Endymio]

Dead wrong. If [SMD] wanted to be "just as bad as Intel" they would have ignored the push back from the community

Only because the pushback was larger than they anticipated, not because of any moral superiority over Intel. Or over any individual, for that matter: if you are selling your car, and one prospective buyer tells you it needs new rings, you'll tell him to **** off. But if every buyer says the same, you're buying an engine overhaul. I always find it sadly ironic that the people who preach the loudest and most bitterly about corporate "greed" tend themselves to be the most grasping in their own personal dealings.

 

[veLa]

I guess the reasons to go from 2700x to 3900x would make you consider the mobo upgrade too just to be sure to get the most out of your cpu investment.

If you check out the benchmarks between X470 and X570, there wouldn't be a noticeable performance difference. We're talking about a delta of 1-2%.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I bought X470 and gen 3 nvme earlier this year to save money and because 500 series didn't impress me.

 

[TheBigT42]

X570 for me...but I am upgrading a 4th gen i7

 

[scavengerspc]

Only because the pushback was larger than they anticipated, not because of any moral superiority over Intel.

Maybe. Maybe not. What I was saying is that they did respond.

I always find it sadly ironic that the people who preach the loudest and most bitterly about corporate "greed" tend themselves to be the most grasping in their own personal dealings.

Oh hell yes. My Son has a few friends like that. They whine about corporate greed and have a list of things they think should be free. Multiple email accounts so they can get streaming content free for as long as possible, while they are the same people that want to charge $125 - $150 just to install Windows 10 for someone or $75 and up to install a damn video card.

 

[JimboJoneson]

Dead wrong. If they wanted to be "just as bad as Intel" they would have ignored the push back from the community, but they didnt. And on that note, you stopped the quote before it said "they quickly walked back the decision and announced that the 400 series boards (B450 and X470) would receive support for Zen 3 processors, now known as the Ryzen 5000 series".

You knew what you were doing and you did it on purpose.

Well if you want get technical "just as bad as Intel" would have meant that AM4 would not have supported Bulldozer APUs, Zen, Zen+, Zen2, and Zen3 generations, but would have had most likely a minimum of three different sockets, and probably five or six chipsets with all sorts of various compatibility restrictions across the skus.

But of course someone will try to point out that "Intel has to do that because of technical limitations", but AMD has no technical limitations while migrating to PCI4 and having to incorporate compatible chipsets on the same socket, to give you 5 generations of product compatibility on said socket? Are their platform engineers really that much further ahead than Intel's? I suppose that might be true if it really absolutely coudn't have anything to do with any other type of reasoning ... :rollseyes:

And people are complaining still? It's entertaining, really.

 

[AMDGeForceRX4090]

Guess what brother. Image is everything. It makes no difference if your job is picking up empty cans at the beach or running a Fortune 500 company. Image is front and center to how the job\company viewed.

Also, if AMD didnt care what the customers want they would not have responded positively to it. They would have ignored them.

No, they wouldn't. Cause it would have been bad for their image. My entire point.