# ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming (WiFi)



## Black Haru (Jun 16, 2020)

The ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming (WiFi) is the successor to the brand's best-selling B450 motherboard, featuring a powerful VRM, dual M.2 slots with full coverage heatsinks, and even 2.5 Gb/s LAN. Has B550 gone mainstream? Let's find out!

*Show full review*


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## Assimilator (Jun 16, 2020)

2.5Gb ethernet is something most consumers can't use anyway, so it's about as useful or useless as PCIe 4.0.

Seems like none of these boards have front USB-C, which is disappointing in terms of speeding adoption of that connector.


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## IceShroom (Jun 16, 2020)

Is that Intel LAN controller working at full speed?


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## kardeon (Jun 16, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> 2.5Gb ethernet is something most consumers can't use anyway, so it's about as useful or useless as PCIe 4.0.
> 
> Seems like none of these boards have front USB-C, which is disappointing in terms of speeding adoption of that connector.



Because SSD pcie 4.0 make no sense for you ?


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## Fr3ak (Jun 16, 2020)

The main downside of the B550-E for me is not having the option to use the external temp probe as input for the CPU-Fan curve. That only works for case fan ports. Other than that, super solid board, that runs memory a lot better than the X370 I upgraded from, no change in CPU or GPU OC though.


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## Alexandrus (Jun 16, 2020)

"Three Vishay SIC639 power stages run in parallel for each phase, which gives ASUS double the power-handling capability without using any doublers. "
If there are 3 power stages running in parallel, how is that double the power handling and not triple the power handling ?


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## BSim500 (Jun 16, 2020)

> "Has B550 gone mainstream?"



Well they certainly won't with these +70% price increases over the ROG STRIX B450-F...


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## DarthFK (Jun 16, 2020)

I am not sure how this Asus B550-F for $190 can be better than their own Asus x570 TUF for $165 in terms of VRM and features (I quote US Microcenter prices for non-wifi versions & I have the b board now in stock, while x570 pops up from time to time). The only real "downside" of the TUF x570 is the fan & its placement.

I am overall astonished how these B boards got more expensive than solid x570s (asus to asus is a good comparison) considering real(!) costs of materials and labor (let's avoid "costs" useless discussions)

EDIT: P.S. :
Well, "surprise", here is Hardware Unboxed saying it's ok to pay these prices because of beefier VRM & way better temps... On a CPU that only uses pbo & autoOC? I don't know, I still don't feel the price hike is justified as the x570 chipset still offers more, but ... here you go:


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## Jism (Jun 17, 2020)

> Technically a 4 + 2 phase VRM



Well here you see, asus proved that you dont need a 8 / 12 / 16 phase VRM in order to overclock or run a system in the first place. It shows that even a 4 + 2 phase VRM is perfectly capable of running your CPU stock and in overclocked condition. The Ryzens woud'nt consume over 500A at all even in heavy overclocks. Second; AMD pretty much throws high minimum requirements for even the cheapest boards. This means that you can run a high end CPU on a 50$ board as tested on TPU itself. The quality of AMD hardware is improved on so much levels lately.


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## Black Haru (Jun 18, 2020)

Alexandrus said:


> "Three Vishay SIC639 power stages run in parallel for each phase, which gives ASUS double the power-handling capability without using any doublers. "
> If there are 3 power stages running in parallel, how is that double the power handling and not triple the power handling ?



Fixed!


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## Traladingdong (Jun 25, 2020)

Aw I just can't really decide between the B550 Aorus pro and this. They seem so similar. Does someone know how good the Supreme Fx sound chip is doing in real world cases? Could it be on paar with a dedicated Xonar DGX5.1?


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## EarthDog (Jun 25, 2020)

> Has B550 gone mainstream? Let's find out!


You mean, gone enthusiast? 2.5 GbE is barely found on X570 and only recently on most Z490...both enthusiast platforms, no?


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## PraetorP (Aug 19, 2020)

Can anyone explain why the difference from Gig 550 pro in CPU and memory speed tests is significant?? One gets the impression that the processor operates at different frequencies, or that the processor on this board is undervoltage. If the latter is true, then two additional phases significantly improve the efficiency of the power system.


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## Athlonite (Sep 27, 2020)

Traladingdong said:


> Does someone know how good the Supreme Fx sound chip is doing in real world cases? Could it be on paar with a dedicated Xonar DGX5.1?



Yes it's a very competent chip and I'd rate it in the lower end of high end audio codecs


Technically a 4 + 2 phase VRM
So how in the hell does Asus get away with calling it a 14 phase VRM then


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## Sandbo (Nov 24, 2020)

I wonder how I should decide between this and the B550 Steel Legend.
The Steel Legend has 6 phases with a doubler giving 12; while this board is 4 with triple stage in parallel to give 12.

I just don't know which approach is closer to a true 12 phases in this case, could anyone provide some ideas?


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## IceShroom (Nov 24, 2020)

Sandbo said:


> I wonder how I should decide between this and the B550 Steel Legend.
> The Steel Legend has 6 phases with a doubler giving 12; while this board is 4 with triple stage in parallel to give 12.
> 
> I just don't know which approach is closer to a true 12 phases in this case, could anyone provide some ideas?


Doubler apporach is 12 phase or closer to true 12 phase. A 12 phase has 12 singnal for a unit of time. The VRAM of Steel Legend outputs 12 pulse compared to ASUS's 4 pulse.


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## Sandbo (Nov 24, 2020)

T


IceShroom said:


> Doubler apporach is 12 phase or closer to true 12 phase. A 12 phase has 12 singnal for a unit of time. The VRAM of Steel Legend outputs 12 pulse compared to ASUS's 4 pulse.


Thanks, I agree that the doubled phase will resemble a true 12 phase better at least with less ripples, but from this discussion:








						Z370 / Z390 VRM Discussion Thread
					

hicookie looks like having fun with Aorus Xtreme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxNXU1JPgNg  WOW Cookie ran 5.2 with no heatsink and still didn't hit 90C... Not bad? :-0  (For those who don't know HiCookie is GIGABYTE's in-house XOC'er and part of the R&D team that is responsible for all our...




					www.overclock.net
				



It looks like the parallel output stages of ASUS did manage to have lower undershoot than using a doubler, suggesting a better performance (?)

naively, if I am targeting a more stable overclock how should I justify one against the other?


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## EarthDog (Nov 24, 2020)

Who cares about phase count... how many amps are the MOSFETs?


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