ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING, AMD AM4, ATX, 128GB DDR4, 4DIMM, DP, HDMI, PCIE

After doing tonnes of research into what motherboard to use for my first ever mini-ITX PC build, I settled on a B550i mobo. I ruled out the X570i mobos because the affordable ones don't have a front panel USB-C socket. And among the B550i mobos, I picked the Asus ROG STRIX and oh boy, what an amazing piece of motherboard!The mobo is built on an 8-layer PCB which is a sign of high quality circuitry manufacturing and stable and reliable electrical performance. There is also no flex to the board.A front m.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD slot with heatsink and a rear m.2 PCIe 3.0 SSD slot without heatsink. I would suggest using a one-sided m.2 SSD for the rear slot because the mobo will be placed flat onto the chassis panel and you don't want clearance problems or having too much pressure placed onto the rear SSD.Among the HDMI, DP, USB-A and USB-C ports and the excellent USB-C audio port in the I/O, there is the BIOS Flashback button which is extremely convenient should you need to reset or update your BIOS.The integrated WIFI 802.11ax and Bluetooth 5.1 module is a godsend as there is only one PCIe x16 expansion slot (which would likely be reserved for your GPU).All the headers and sockets are logically and neatly laid out around the mobo which makes cable management a breeze.And on top of all the tech crammed into this tiny square, the mobo looks as sexy as h**ll, especially with the colourful holographic ROG STRIX logo on the m.2 heatsink.I've been running the mobo with a Ryzen 9 5900X CPU and an RTX 3070 GPU to display on a 32" 4K monitor for more than two months now and they've been running together as smooth as silk! Power management by the mobo is excellent. Chipset temperatures average about 50°C and never go over 90°C even under load (this, of course, depends on your cooling management).All in all, no regrets in choosing the Asus ROG STRIX B550i. Highly recommended!

I hadn't built a PC for a few years, my last was a Micro ATX about 6 years ago and i recently have been using an ASUS ROG laptop but I decided to put together my own Mini ITX build with all new components. I done my research and for the first time in probably 15 years i decided to go with an AMD based machines. There are a number of reasons, high speed cpu's, latest 7nm tech, support for PCIe-4 and of course cost. You get so much more from your money with AMD.I was specifically looking for a mobo which had an internal USB-C header which, surprisingly is rare! I also wanted two M2 slots as i wanted to move completely away from SATA SSD's so i could minimise the internal cables. As soon as i spotted ASUS had a ROG board with this header i was pretty convinced this was the one. I have had some very good experiences with ASUS and the Republic of Gamers equipment and research told me this was a great board. Also, being a B550 board this also could handle a PCIe x4 M2 drive ... good news!Opening the box the first thing you notice is the size, an ITX board is tiny! Only 17cm x 17cm. You can tell the board is well made, it feels premium and has numerous accessories including every cable you could need, cable ties and a good manual. Installation was very simple and within 90 mins i had a working machine.I run a quick BIOS update, used ASUS Aura to manage the LED's on my memory sticks and overall performance is very impressive! A word of caution, the board comes with a ton of software, some of it doesn't add a great deal of value but i highly recommend using RamCache - it reserves a small amount of RAM to support the disk cache and wow, what a difference it makes! Even with my Seagate Firecuda 520 PCIe x4 drive which is super quick, it smashes everything on read and writes as the crystal disk mark shows (one benchmark with ramcache and one without).Now I am just waiting for the nvidia 3080 to be realised so i can buy an ASUS card to go into this rig and replace the 1060.Overall i am very impressed with the board, highly recommended and difficult to beat!

I needed a B550 motherboard as I was getting a Zen 3 Ryzen CPU, 5600x specifically, and wanted the option of a quick BIOS update for instant support. This motherboard has BIOS flashback so you do not need a CPU installed to update the BIOS to support the latest Zen 3 CPUs.I also wanted to have PCIe Gen 4.0 to give me the option to add a fast M.2 NVMe and a Gen 4.0 GPU in the future.I decided to purchase this board as it was very well reviewed and had all the features I needed, such as the PCIe Gen 4.0 I mentioned earlier, along with a great sound and networking chip. The connectivity is also better versus competitors from the likes of MSI, more rear USB 3.0 ports specifically. Additionally, the VRM performance is great and this board can easily handle serious overclocking whilst keeping cool, thanks to the beefy VRM and M.2 heatsinks.I also liked the aesthetic of the board and the reputation that comes with it. It is no secret that the ROG Strix lineup is admired across the board and known for its gaming aesthetic and features.Overall I believe this is a solid motherboard and a great choice for any gaming build, it represents excellent value for money and you get amazing performance. The go to choice!