ASROCK B550M STEEL LEGEND M-ATX MOTHERBOARD

ASROCK B550M STEEL LEGEND M-ATX MOTHERBOARD

ASRock B550M Steel Legend MOTHERBOARD Main Features:

• Supports 3rd Gen AMD AM4 Ryzen™ / Future AMD Ryzen™ Processors
• 10 Power Phase Design, Dr. MOS
• Supports DDR4 4733+ (OC)
• 1 PCIe 4.0 x16, 1 PCIe 3.0 x16, 1 PCIe 3.0 x1, 1 M.2 Key E for WiFi
• Graphics Output Options: HDMI, DisplayPort
• AMD CrossFireX™
• 7.1 CH HD Audio (Realtek ALC1200 Audio Codec), Nahimic Audio
• 6 SATA3, 1 Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4 x4), 1 M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x2 & SATA3)
• 2 USB 3.2 Gen2 (Rear Type A+C), 8 USB 3.2 Gen1 (4 Front, 4 Rear)
• Dragon 2.5G LAN

ASRock B550M Steel Legend Motherboard Overview:

Steel Legend represents the philosophical state of rock-solid durability and irresistible aesthetics. Built around the most demanding specs and features, the Steel Legend series aims at daily users and mainstream enthusiasts! Providing a strong array of materials/components to ensure stable and reliable performance.

STEEL FOREVER

Get Endless Performance Possibilities with Steel Style, Steel Legend represents the philosophical state of rock-solid durability and irresistible aesthetics. Built around most demanding specs and features, the Steel Legend series aims at daily users and mainstream enthusiasts! Providing a strong array of materials/components to ensure stable and reliable performance.

Unbeatable Heatsink Armor

Forged with aluminum alloy heatsink top cover that effectively improves heat dissipation. Underneath its solid strong cover lie two gaming required M.2 Key M sockets for high-speed SSDs.

Dual M.2 Sockets for SSD

Hyper M.2 socket that supports PCIe Gen4 x4 while Ultra M.2 socket is capable of running PCIe Gen3 x2 and SATA3 mode.

ASRock B550M Steel Legend Review

About a year ago I reviewed the ASRock X570 Extreme 4, which ASRock also sells as the X570 Steel Legend just with a different paint job. Today they’ve sent the B550M Steel Legend which is one of the very few Micro-ATX B550 boards available currently.

This is also our first look at a motherboard with AMD’s newest chipset, B550 which features a more affordable implementation of PCIe 4.0 this time only being used on a single primary PCIe x16 and the main M.2 slot. The rest of the PCIe slots onboard are Gen 3 with 10 lanes which can be reconfigured for other purposes like SATA and USB. It also has a very similar USB configuration to B450

Today we will be looking at the ASRock B550M Steel Legend, which is priced at just under is in the mid-range for B550 motherboards. Looking from the front we see that ASRock has once again kindly included a ziptied foam insert to protect the board during shipping, this is becoming a more common practice that I am happy to see. The board comes in a M-ATX form factor with a single x16 PCIe gen 4 slot slot a single PCIe Gen 3 x4 slot as well as a single x1 slot that is Gen 3. 6 SATA 3, Two M.2 (1 PCIe Gen4 x4, 1 PCIe Gen3 x2/SATA3) up to 8 front panel USB ports, with half being USB 3.2 gen 1 headers and the other half being USB 2.0 headers.

It has a Camouflage pattern PCB that uses silver heatsinks, one of which supports the chipset and the main M.2 slot which is a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot while the secondary one is below it and is unfortunately running at 3.0 x2 and disables the top two SATA ports when in use. The fact that it is limited to only 3.0 x2 and is a secondary drive may make adding a heatsink, an unnecessary cost that most users in this price point. Those who are seeking more storage utility may look elsewhere. looking at the top of the board it has both an 8 and 4-pin CPU power connector, this extra connector will likely never actually be necessary but should allow the power to be slightly more stable and put less strain on the single connector in the case of heavy overclocking 12 and 16 core CPUs.

The heatsinks are made out of aluminum and are rather heavy considering their size. The rear I/O cover uses mostly plastic and feature RGB lights, though some enthusiasts may actually remove it for slightly better airflow. The motherboard uses a 8+2 Phase VRM which uses the uP9505S PWM controller and a uP1911R phase doubler by uPI and Vishay SIC634 50 Amp power stages and a 60 amp inductor. Which I would argue given the array a 12 core should be fine though the 16 core may be pushing this a bit more than you should.

They use a set up to the X570 Extreme 4 in terms of audio capacitors with 5 Nichicon gold capacitors which are the gold standard andit uses the standard ALC1220 Realtek audio chip On the rear I/O we have a clear CMOS button which is a very nice addition, an HDMI and display port out, as well as 2 USB 3.2 ports one Type-C and one Type-A, along with 4 USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports. For the LAN there is a Dragon RTL8125BG 2.5 Gigabit LAN chip.

ASRock has went with 3 chassis fan headers, a CPU water pump header and a CPU fan header. In addition there is two RGB headers and a single addressable RGB header on the bottom of the board. This motherboard like many others in its class has a steel reinforced PCIe 4.0 slot on top for the GPU. This is used for durability to aid in rigidity and strength. You also get to see the heatsink on the board here as well.