AMD’s B550 chipset has finally launched, and we are looking at two of ASUS’ premium ROG STRIX offerings – the B550-F Gaming (WiFi) and the B550-E Gaming. Can the price reduction for the B550 silicon versus X570 prove sufficient in freeing budget for ASUS to cram in features typically associated with higher-end X570 motherboards?
Read more @ KitGuru
The MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk finds itself in the middle to top of MSI’s B550 roster, sporting an extended PWM heatsink to support AMD’s range of high core count CPUs, alongside a 10+2+1 Dual Rail Power System, Gen. 4 NVMe support, 1G and 2.5G ethernet and a dedicated high-definition audio processor equipped with high-quality audio capacitors with support for 7.1 output.
Read more @ Vortez
The box for the ROG Strix B550-I Gaming doesn’t really look any different from any of the ROG Strix ITX boards I’ve seen for the last 4 or 5 generations. This includes the black background with the ROG logo with that Strix rainbow effect and then the picture of the board on the front.
Read more @ LanOC
The trio all features an integrated I/O shield. The Pro and Elite share the same power-delivery consisting of a 12-phase supply to the CPU plus another two for the SoC. In detail, the boards use a six-phase Intersil ISL229004 PWM that’s doubled and connected to 12 Vishay SiC651C phases each capable of 55A. These appear to be unique to B550 as the Aorus X570 boards use different setups.
Read more @ Hexus
The Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme isn’t just a hell of a mouthful, it’s also one of the best Intel Z490 motherboards released for the new 10th Gen Comet Lake processors. But it is also one of the most expensive. Like, really expensive. I mean, I could build an entirely respectable gaming rig for the amount of money Asus are expecting us to spend on the Max XII.
Read more @ PC Gamer
Asus ROG Maximus XII Hero (Wi-Fi) is the entry point for the Asus ROG range of Z490 motherboards that support Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake-S. The model name sounds like a minor upgrade from the Z390 Maximus XI Hero however the VRMs have been overhauled with an increase to 14 stages that are each rated at 60A… and that makes a massive difference!
Read more @ KitGuru
The Biostar Z490GTA EVO is a decent board overall, offering updates from the Z390 version to support 10th Generation Intel processors. During short tests, the board performed just as well as the comparison boards. But in longer tests, it was slower. It’s $10 cheaper than the ASRock Z490 PG Velocita, but without an update to enable overclocking, it’s worth spending a little more on something else.
Read more @ Tom’s Hardware
The Asus ROG Maximus XII Hero brings users a slew of modern connectivity, including three heatsinked M.2 slots, a USB 3.2 Gen2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port, high-quality power delivery, and CrossfireX/SLI support. Its performance also matches other similar boards and is a good solution for those in the sub $400 market, though the other boards we looked at have similar features and are priced less.
Read more @ Tom’s Hardware
In our performance metrics, the Hero scored well in power consumption, Boot Time, and was very competitive in our CPU/GPU benchmarks. We did indeed see benchmark differences when using ASUS’ Optimized settings over the Intel defaults, making it well worth enabling for all users, especially as we also saw a lower peak power reading at the wall.
Read more @ AnandTech
In this review, we look at the Gigabyte Z490 Aorus PRO AX. The new series is aimed to become the more high-end solution at 269 USD, it comes with AX WIFI, and has that intel 2.5 Gbps ethernet jack. That and some pretty fancy design choices from an aesthetic point of view.
Read more @ Guru3D