Agent47 Posted December 28, 2020 Posted December 28, 2020 Previously, we reviewed the least-expensive B550 MicroATX motherboards we could find using the Ryzen 9 3900X CPU. Though some couldn’t handle overclocking, we found that most of these boards had no issues dealing with the then-flagship Ryzen 9 3900X. So what if you want to use the newer Ryzen 9 5950X? For the most part, these boards can handle the new CPU at stock settings, but not PBO or overclocking. For that, you will need to step up a tier. To that end, we’re looking over the Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro, which has better power delivery, more features, and a slightly higher price tag than entry-level B550 boards. Will it make our best B550 motherboards list? The B550M Aorus Pro includes four SATA ports, a gigabit LAN port, two M.2 sockets (one with a heatsink), a solid audio section, and of course, a VRM said to be able to handle the 5950X. Compared to its little brother, the Gigabyte B550M DS3H, the Aorus Po has better audio, more USB ports and more robust power delivery, making this a well-rounded board for the latest AMD processors, especially if you plan on overclocking. As far as appearance goes, the Aorus Pro is the first board in the company’s lineup that brings some premium aesthetics. It comes with a brushed-aluminum finish on the VRMs and a black PCB. The only integrated lighting on the board is a strip by the audio section. Any RGB lighting will have to be purchased separately and get plugged into the onboard headers. Still, it’s a step up compared to the bargain- basement B550 MicroATX boards we’ve looked at previously. On the performance front, the Aorus Pro blended in well with the other results from our test pool. Our only anomalies come from the PCMark10 suite, where some of the benchmarks are a bit lower than expected. The board ran our processor up to 5 GHz, so we know boost was working correctly with this configuration. Overclocking was successful and happened without Issue. The N-channel MOSFETs ran extremely hot, but were within their operating parameters and did not throttle. Read on for details on the features and performance of the B550M Aorus Pro. All motherboards include an accessory stack and our B550M Aorus Pro is no different. In this case, the low-priced board doesn’t offer much, but enough parts to cover the basics. Below is a complete list of the included accessories. ● (2) SATA cables ● User’s Manual ● Aorus sticker On the top portionof the board, we’ll cover the heatsink/shrouds, socket and the DRAM slot area. The large VRM heatsinks look like they do a good job, but as we see later on, these things get hot, especially when overclocking more power-hungry chips like our Ryzen 9 5950X. Outside of that, we find a single 8-pin EPS plug for CPU power on the top edge. Next to it (also below this heatsink and above the top M.2 socket) are the first two (of five) fan headers. The manual doesn’t specify these headers’ output, so it is best to assume 1A/12W. Regardless of what class the motherboard is, we would like to see at least one with more output. To the right of the socket are the four DRAM slots. Gigabyte lists capacity up to 128GB with supported speeds up to DDR4 4266. This value is a bit lower than most other boards but is still over AMD’s ‘sweet spot’ of DDR4 3600/3733 with the Infinity Fabric 1:1. Just above these slots are two more fan headers and two (of four) RGB headers. In total, we find two 3-pin ARGB headers and two 4-pin RGB headers. Last here is another 4-pin fan header and the 24-pin ATX power connector on the right edge.
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