B550 vs x570

[watzup_ken]

The need for speed is addictive, But u must also think if u actually use it for what purpose too. No point owning a Ferrari which u never get to reach top speed due to your usage and environment.

I guess if u really want to spend the money, u won't be asking these questions too. lol..

I agree. Many people like to see big numbers, but it may not necessarily bring an improvement depending on your usage. B550’s compromise is no full PCI-E 4.0 support on the board, and limited to only the top PCI-E slot and 1 M.2 slot. But you can safely say that it will suffice 90% or more retail users. You typically only need 1 fast NVME SSD for OS and apps. Games don’t benefit from faster sequential transfer rate of NVME SSD, so you can easily utilise the slower M.2 slot or even go for a more economical SATA3 SSD for games and storage. For most people, a fast PCI-E 4.0 SSD is just to run a benchmark to validate the big numbers, other than that, it makes no meaningful improvement to your user experience at least based on my experience over the last decade of using SSD. It was truely a wow factor switching from mechanical drive to SSD, but since then the improvements are mostly all skin deep.

As for the PCI-E slots, most people won’t use dual graphics. Even if they want to use it for other specialised purposes, then one should consider X570.

As to future proof, technically if you are ok not to upgrade for a long time, then there is no need to bother about the limitations on the B550 chipset. By the time you choose to upgrade/ update your rig, there will be new and better parts.

 

[NightRaven49]

I agree. Many people like to see big numbers, but it may not necessarily bring an improvement depending on your usage. B550’s compromise is no full PCI-E 4.0 support on the board, and limited to only the top PCI-E slot and 1 M.2 slot. But you can safely say that it will suffice 90% or more retail users. You typically only need 1 fast NVME SSD for OS and apps. Games don’t benefit from faster sequential transfer rate of NVME SSD, so you can easily utilise the slower M.2 slot or even go for a more economical SATA3 SSD for games and storage. For most people, a fast PCI-E 4.0 SSD is just to run a benchmark to validate the big numbers, other than that, it makes no meaningful improvement to your user experience at least based on my experience over the last decade of using SSD. It was truely a wow factor switching from mechanical drive to SSD, but since then the improvements are mostly all skin deep.

As for the PCI-E slots, most people won’t use dual graphics. Even if they want to use it for other specialised purposes, then one should consider X570.

As to future proof, technically if you are ok not to upgrade for a long time, then there is no need to bother about the limitations on the B550 chipset. By the time you choose to upgrade/ update your rig, there will be new and better parts.

tbh, i feel that now with b450 boards from big manufacturers like msi, asus, asrock etc that now support zen 3, b550 really does not offer anything meaningful over b450. pcie3 nvmes are already plenty fast for most users, and many wont even notice the difference going from pcie3 to pcie4 (other than the price premium of pcie4 nvmes). pcie4 on gpus is also simply marketing fluff, offering very little in the way of performance increase in games vs pcie3. and as mentioned earlier with zen 3 support, the upgrade path for b4550 is now identical to b550 since zen 3 is the last gen of am4 cpus. heck, b450 can support more cpus than b550. given that b550 boards cost (sometimes significantly) more than their b450 predecessors, it only makes sense to buy them when b450 stock has run out.

 

[watzup_ken]

tbh, i feel that now with b450 boards from big manufacturers like msi, asus, asrock etc that now support zen 3, b550 really does not offer anything meaningful over b450. pcie3 nvmes are already plenty fast for most users, and many wont even notice the difference going from pcie3 to pcie4 (other than the price premium of pcie4 nvmes). pcie4 on gpus is also simply marketing fluff, offering very little in the way of performance increase in games vs pcie3. and as mentioned earlier with zen 3 support, the upgrade path for b4550 is now identical to b550 since zen 3 is the last gen of am4 cpus. heck, b450 can support more cpus than b550. given that b550 boards cost (sometimes significantly) more than their b450 predecessors, it only makes sense to buy them when b450 stock has run out.

In my opinion, this depends on the CPU selected. If it is going to be a Ryzen 7 or 9, then I would still recommend getting a decent B550 chipset board because the VRM is typically better than what you find for B450 based motherboards. Though I don't disagree that B450 is still a viable and substantially more value for money.