GIGABYTE Intros B450M Gaming Socket AM4 Motherboard

[btarunr]

GIGABYTE today introduced the B450M Gaming, a low-cost socket AM4 motherboard based on AMD B450 chipset, designed to be priced under $100. Built in the compact micro-ATX form-factor (205 mm x 244 mm), the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS, and uses a 4+3 phase VRM to power the AM4 SoC. A large VRM heatsink dominates the main MOSFET block, which also covers up a portion of the rear I/O area. The AM4 socket is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory, the board's sole M.2-2280 slot, and the PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot with metal reinforcement. Two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots wired to the B450 chipset make for the rest of the expansion area.

Storage connectivity includes one M.2-2280 slot with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring, and four SATA 6 Gbps ports. USB connectivity includes four USB 3.1 gen 1 type-A ports on the rear panel, and two USB 3.1 gen 1 ports via header. Networking, interestingly, is a 1 GbE interface driven by Realtek Dragon 8118AS controller, which was originally launched as Realtek's competitor to the i219-V (comes with various performance enhancements). Audio is a basic 6-channel fare driven by Realtek ALC887, somewhat improved with ground-layer isolation and electrolytic capacitors.



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[Space Lynx]

A little late to the party, and probably with sub-par VRM cooling to boot compared to similar priced MSI options, which has excellent thermals on VRM temps.

 

[bonehead123]

cheap is as cheap does

 

[Space Lynx]

cheap is as cheap does

$100 isn't cheap, I have seen X470 models from MSI go for $115, and they had good VRM cooling heatsinks. /shrug

also its like 3 months to late to the party... Zen 2 is literally like 3 months away.

 

[INSTG8R]

$100 isn't cheap, I have seen X470 models from MSI go for $115, and they had good VRM cooling heatsinks. /shrug

also its like 3 months to late to the party... Zen 2 is literally like 3 months away.

Why would Zen 2 matter? The socket won’t change.

 

[holyprof]

Humm, aside from the "Gaming" name and red paint, this motherboard is worse than my Gigabyte B450M DS3H (less PCI-e slots, less memory slots) and costs more??? OK, it has something nice mine doesn't - a VGA port which only matters if you bought a Ryzen from the G series with integrated GPU and intend to use it (edit: with you old VGA monitor).

 

[Space Lynx]

Why would Zen 2 matter? The socket won’t change.

I'd still rather wait for x570, board improvements seem to be happening, so socket itself is not my concern. VRM cooling improved a lot over first gen ryzen, etc. overall stability issues should still be be better on x570 and zen 2 7nm. that is when i plan to buy anyway, alongside a 7nm vega 2 if AMD ever gets there act together adn stops making me wait 5 years for competition

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

cheap is as cheap does

You get what you pay for.

 

[Ruru]

Why they can't make real heatsinks on VRMs, instead just those chunks of metal just for aesthetics.

 

[btarunr]

$100 isn't cheap

I never mentioned it costs $100. It's under $100, could even be $70.

 

[HossHuge]

Why they can't make real heatsinks on VRMs, instead just those chunks of metal just for aesthetics.

Looks like that heatsink could interfere with a lot of coolers as well.

 

[Ruru]

Looks like that heatsink could interfere with a lot of coolers as well.

Good point. I don't even realize that anymore since I'm not running on air.