ASRock B550 Pro4
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Mid-range ATX gaming motherboard based on 2020 AMD B550 chipset. Equipped with AM4 processor socket, supports ASRock Polychrome Sync LED lighting control technology. Differs in affordable cost and the presence of a full set of up-to-date system and peripheral interfaces, including PCI-E Gen 4.0. Guaranteed compatible with 4/6/8/12/16-core Ryzen 3000 (Matisse/Matisse Refresh, 7nm) and 4/6/8-core Ryzen 4000 APUs (Renoir, 7nm).
The manufacturer is positioned as a product of the middle price category, designed to create multi-purpose home and balanced gaming configurations. The ASRock B550 Pro4 motherboard is equipped with a digital 8-phase (6+2) CPU VRM power supply subsystem with a large aluminium heatsink. Thanks to the PCI-E x16 connector reinforced with a steel plate, it works without problems with any powerful discrete video cards (including heavy and large-sized flagship models).
Supports up to 4 DDR4 DIMMs in dual channel mode for an impressive maximum storage capacity of up to 128GB. The installation of two M.2 SSD drives (one with PCI-E Gen 4.0) and a Wi-Fi module with a Key E connector is provided. Fast traffic processing in cable networks is provided by the Realtek RTL8111H GbE LAN controller. To output images from Ryzen hybrid APUs, an analogue VGA D-Sub port and digital HDMI 2.1 are provided.
Easy start
ASRock B550 Pro4 is one of the junior full-size Full-ATX motherboards based on the latest AMD B550 chipset. By the way, she also has a Micro-ATX sister B550M Pro4. With a moderate price and passive cooling, the B550 offers support for a high-speed PCI-E 4.0 interface (only one x16 slot for a graphics card and an M.2 x4 slot for an SSD). Officially, the B550 is only compatible with Ryzen 3000 and 4000-series processors, but according to reviews on Internet forums, at least on early BIOS firmware, Ryzen 2000-series still work.
snow white
The ASRock B550 Pro4 power subsystem is made eight-phase: six mosfets feed the processor cores and are covered with a white-coloured cooling radiator, and two more are responsible for the RAM controller and the integrated graphics accelerator, if any, but already lack a radiator. But the same white radiators are installed on top of the chipset and the top M.2 slot, which is just the same fast fourth generation PCI-E (up to 64 Gbps).
There are not many slots
Only the upper PCI-E 4.0 x16 graphics card slot is reinforced with metal in the ASRock B550 Pro4. The lower one only supports AMD Radeon video cards in PCI-E 3.0 x4 mode, which allows you to create CrossFire bundles, but not SLI or NVLink. A second M.2 slot is also available, supporting a PCI-E 3.0 x2 (16 Gbps) or SATA3 (6 Gbps) SSD, and even a third M.2 Key-E for Wi-Fi adapter. There are four connectors for RAM — with a frequency of up to 4733 MHz.
Internet and sound
On the rear interface panel of the ASRock B550 Pro4, there were two video outputs (digital HDMI 2.1 with HDR support and analogue VGA), three 3.5 mm MiniJacks from the Realtek ALC1200 audio controller, a Realtek RTL8111H gigabit Ethernet socket, and six USB ports, two of which (Type -A and Type-C) fast version 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps). The amount of ASrock Polychrome RGB lighting is minimal — this is the prerogative of older models, like the B550 Steel Legend.
