Thinking about getting a new mobo: Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite or AsRock B550 Taichi?

[sam_86314]

I've been rocking an ASUS X570 TUF Gaming Pro WiFi since January 2021. I haven't had any issues with this board, though I wish it had better PCIe expandability.

However, over that time, I've become increasingly frustrated with the chipset fan. I'm a huge silence freak, and that stupid fan is easily the loudest part of my system when under load.

I'm thinking about replacing it with a B550 board. I have no interest in a platform upgrade; my 5800X is still plenty fast for my needs.

Aside from no chipset fan, I mainly want to have at least two accessible 16x-sized PCIe slots (I have a 3-slot GPU). I currently have a PCIe 4x 10GbE NIC, and I'd like to be able to throw another >1x card in at some point. I'd also like the board to have built-in WiFi (Intel or maybe Realtek, not MediaTek). Budget-wise, I want to stay under $200. I don't care about RGB at all and would honestly prefer a board without it.

Does anyone have experience with these boards, or know of any others that could work?

EDIT: Added the ASUS ProArt B550-Creator, meets all criteria except WiFi and is a bit beyond what I want to spend.

 

[Deleted member 230939]

Ever tried to learn Tai Chi?

Taichi is for you.

 

[tabascosauz]

I've been rocking an ASUS X570 TUF Gaming Pro WiFi since January 2021. I haven't had any issues with this board, though I wish it had better PCIe expandability.

However, over that time, I've become increasingly frustrated with the chipset fan. I'm a huge silence freak, and that stupid fan is easily the loudest part of my system when under load.

I'm thinking about replacing it with a B550 board. I have no interest in a platform upgrade; my 5800X is still plenty fast for my needs.

Aside from no chipset fan, I mainly want to have at least two accessible 16x-sized PCIe slots (I have a 3-slot GPU). I currently have a PCIe 4x 10GbE NIC, and I'd like to be able to throw another >1x card in at some point. I'd also like the board to have built-in WiFi (Intel or maybe Realtek, not MediaTek). Budget-wise, I want to stay under $200. I don't care about RGB at all and would honestly prefer a board without it.

Does anyone have experience with these boards, or know of any others that could work?

EDIT: Added the ASUS ProArt B550-Creator, meets all criteria except WiFi and is a bit beyond what I want to spend.

Wifi: I'm pretty sure everything midrange and above on X570/B550 is served by Intel AX200/AX201. The AMD-branded rebranded Mediatek networking stuff really only starts with AM5, only exception I know of are obscure last revisions to Gigabyte boards that have the new networking (which are a complete tossup as to region and retail availability). AX200/201 is still the gold standard.

LAN: Stay away from Intel 2.5Gbe if you don't want potential trouble. Any RTL8125 should be fine.

ProArt and Vision D-P are Thunderbolt boards. If you don't have any use for the features, you are wasting your money. X570S Aero G is similar but cheaper, kinda a TB-but-not-TB.

Without knowing anything about your subjective board vendor preferences, there isn't much advice to give. You could put on a blindfold and pick and still turn out fine. The only thing worth pointing out is that the Elite is a 4-layer board, a step down from your TUF, but unless you have good dual rank B-die/Rev.B that you are actively trying to push at 3800-4000 it makes no difference.

Really the only other thing to say is that Gigabyte has a really nice and chonky magnetic Wifi 6[E] antenna.

ASRock has a POST code on everything Steel Legend and above, if that's of value to you. Gigabyte only features it on Master and Vision D/D-P I think, Asus on Strix-E and above, MSI on Unify and above. Asus not putting one on the ProArt is a dumb move.

 

[sam_86314]

Wifi: I'm pretty sure everything midrange and above on X570/B550 is served by Intel AX200/AX201. The AMD-branded rebranded Mediatek networking stuff really only starts with AM5, only exception I know of are obscure last revisions to Gigabyte boards that have the new networking (which are a complete tossup as to region and retail availability). AX200/201 is still the gold standard.

LAN: Stay away from Intel 2.5Gbe if you don't want potential trouble. Any RTL8125 should be fine.

ProArt and Vision D-P are Thunderbolt boards. If you don't have any use for the features, you are wasting your money.

Without knowing anything about your subjective board vendor preferences, there isn't much advice to give. You could put on a blindfold and pick and still turn out fine. The only thing worth pointing out is that the Elite is a 4-layer board, a step down from your TUF, but unless you have good dual rank B-die/Rev.B that you are actively trying to push at 3800-4000 it makes no difference.

Really the only other thing to say is that Gigabyte has a really nice and chonky magnetic Wifi 6[E] antenna.

ASRock has a POST code on everything Steel Legend and above, if that's of value to you. Gigabyte only features it on Master I think, Asus on Strix-E and above, MSI on Unify and above.

I've heard about the issues with the Intel 2.5Gb NICs. I'd only be using it at 1Gb speeds, so I don't know if that would help with that. My ultimate plan is to get an SFP+ 10GbE switch and use my Mellanox 10GbE NIC for everything, but that'll be expensive.

Vendor preferences, I've only really used ASUS and MSI boards. I've had a positive experience RMAing my MSI X470 board that bricked itself, and I haven't had any reliability issues with ASUS.

Memory-wise, I currently run at 3600MHz and would probably be more interested in tighter timings than higher speeds.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I use SATA devices. I currently have two SATA SSDs in RAID0 and an optical drive. I do want to expand that SSD array over time (and maybe do the sensible thing and change to RAID5).

 

[tabascosauz]

I've heard about the issues with the Intel 2.5Gb NICs. I'd only be using it at 1Gb speeds, so I don't know if that would help with that. My ultimate plan is to get an SFP+ 10GbE switch and use my Mellanox 10GbE NIC for everything, but that'll be expensive.

Vendor preferences, I've only really used ASUS and MSI boards. I've had a positive experience RMAing my MSI X470 board that bricked itself, and I haven't had any reliability issues with ASUS.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I use SATA devices. I currently have two SATA SSDs in RAID0 and an optical drive. I do want to expand that SSD array over time (and maybe do the sensible thing and change to RAID5).

From where you already are, memory doesn't make much of a difference. B-die is still expensive and certainly not great on value.

Gigabyte BIOS is not great but you get used to its quirks if you do a lot of OC. Gigabyte and ASRock BIOS are about equivalent for me. Asus is easy to use and a good search tool, also consistently restores all settings in a saved profile. According to others MSI is supposedly great also, I like the fan control but hate the rest of the idiotic visual layout.

Might want to avoid the Elite or the Vision D/D-P if you want more SATA, as they only have 4 ports. At a glance most other ATX boards look fine. Taichi has 8.

 

[Space Lynx]

That's all I have to say.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

If it helps, I have the Razer Edition of the B550 Taichi and have no complaints about it whatsoever. As the name implies, it's basically a blacked out Taichi with appropriate Razer badging and lots of RGB, but still a Taichi at its core.

 

[Mussels]

I voted for the gigabyte since i quite like my gigabyte B550, but it seems i may be in the minority with those options

The Aorus option depends if you get the V1 or V2

reddit snippet on the V2 changes

Gigabyte is doing their phases ASUS style on the updated version of the ATX B550 Pro/Elite and removed the doublers. As demonstrated by ASUS in many products, this will likely have negligible impacts on performance and efficiency. The VRM is already built like it could reasonably handle an OC'd Threadripper.

There are small, but welcome updates to the feature set, which will now offer an internal USB-C header for front I/O and a WiFi AX option instead of AC. The header does come at the price of one of the 5gps ports on the back, but there are like 10 ports total remaining (7 on the Elite).

All gigabyte V2 B550 boards summarized in one video - although he focuses on the Pro variant not the elite

 

[Space Lynx]

I voted for the gigabyte since i quite like my gigabyte B550, but it seems i may be in the minority with those options

The Aorus option depends if you get the V1 or V2

reddit snippet on the V2 changes

All gigabyte V2 B550 boards summarized in one video

from what i remember hardware unboxed did a vrm cooling wrap up, and asrock was the winner in b550 segment. gigabyte did poorly if i remember correctly.

the aorus elite b550 has mediocre to slightly bad vrm cooling.

the tachi on the other hand doesn't break 40 celsius... much nicer cooling on the taichi.

 

[tabascosauz]

from what i remember hardware unboxed did a vrm cooling wrap up, and asrock was the winner in b550 segment. gigabyte did poorly if i remember correctly.

the aorus elite b550 has mediocre to slightly bad vrm cooling.

the tachi on the other hand doesn't break 40 celsius... much nicer cooling on the taichi.

These are different boards. mATX Elite and mATX Aorus Pro are not their ATX counterparts, and are very mediocre boards with bad 4C06/4C10 discretes only. Only with the later Pro-P and Pro AX did Gigabyte have truly midrange mATX boards. The ATX Elite and Pro are decidedly in an entirely different segment. Every single one of the ATX boards in the second video are well into comfortable territory.

The Taichi had better top the list (which it doesnt, because 50A Vishays), it is a flagship and costs as much. In any case, all of these upper midrange ATX boards are beyond fine in the VRM category.

I'm getting a little tired of seeing the HWUB 3950X VRM torture tests being brought up to label lower midrange and budget boards as being "terrible" (which of course are irrelevant in this thread), even if the testing methodology is valid. 4.3 @ 1.375V for hours of all-core on end is a one-way ticket to bad places for a 3950X, nobody does that shit except to prove a point like they are here.

 

[Space Lynx]

These are different boards. mATX Elite and mATX Aorus Pro are not their ATX counterparts. Every single one of the ATX boards in the second video are well into comfortable territory.

The Taichi had better top the list (which it doesnt, because 50A Vishays), it is a flagship and costs as much. In any case, all of these upper midrange ATX boards are beyond fine in the VRM category.

I'm getting a little tired of seeing the HWUB 3950X VRM torture tests being brought up to label lower midrange and budget boards as being "terrible" (which of course are irrelevant in this thread), even if the testing methodology is valid. 4.3 @ 1.375V for hours of all-core on end is a one-way ticket to bad places for a 3950X, nobody does that shit except to prove a point like they are here.

true, he did this recently with the asrock b640m, hwub i mean... 7950x torture test on it... it handled it fine at 82 celsius, but such an unrealistic cpu for that mobo... really wish they target tested more accurately.

 

[tabascosauz]

true, he did this recently with the asrock b640m, hwub i mean... 7950x torture test on it... it handled it fine at 82 celsius, but such an unrealistic cpu for that mobo... really wish they target tested more accurately.

To be fair, in that test it does make more sense because of the general AM5 layer count increase and VRM upgrade, and massive price increase. The B650M-HDV is a reasonably stout 8-phase Vcore with 50A Vishays and a big heatsink. I don't think it reflects badly on the ASRock AM5 board; staying below 90C with a 230W CPU is a true testament to what an 8-phase DrMOS Vcore is capable of (and just how overkill 8-phase 50A VRMs are on AM4).

The takeaway from the AM4 tests is that it takes a lot of effort to overwhelm most boards with a stock 2CCD AM4 CPU. Between 80-90C for the mATX Gigabytes is understandable for their VRM design, not too shabby, and certainly not cause for alarm. Only the absolute bottom of the barrel boards that are even lower end, or dumpster fires like the Biostar B550GTQ will run into problems at 142W.

 

[Mussels]

from what i remember hardware unboxed did a vrm cooling wrap up, and asrock was the winner in b550 segment

They used that one good group of boards to earn goodwill, and then released a ton of trashy ones after that - like the ones that lied about temps with sensors away from the heat, and throttled performance
Depending on what was tested, if you didnt check all the variables (performance, clock speeds, wattages, temps) all together it was very easy to get misled

To be fair, in that test it does make more sense because of the general AM5 layer count increase and VRM upgrade, and massive price increase. The B650M-HDV is a reasonably stout 8-phase Vcore with 50A Vishays and a big heatsink. I don't think it reflects badly on the ASRock AM5 board; staying below 90C with a 230W CPU is a true testament to what an 8-phase DrMOS Vcore is capable of (and just how overkill 8-phase 50A VRMs are on AM4).

The takeaway from the AM4 tests is that it takes a lot of effort to overwhelm most boards with a stock 2CCD AM4 CPU. Between 80-90C for the mATX Gigabytes is understandable for their VRM design, not too shabby, and certainly not cause for alarm. Only the absolute bottom of the barrel boards that are even lower end, or dumpster fires like the Biostar B550GTQ will run into problems at 142W.

buildzoid brought up that the VRM's are the focus since they're easy to understand, while its the FET's they pair them with that often cause the issues - they're what make the VRM's less efficient and overheat

It's beyond my knowledge of electronics, but that was also his exact point... marketing focused on the VRM values and phase count, so we all learned to focus on one part of a greater whole

 

[Space Lynx]

They used that one good group of boards to earn goodwill, and then released a ton of trashy ones after that - like the ones that lied about temps with sensors away from the heat, and throttled performance
Depending on what was tested, if you didnt check all the variables (performance, clock speeds, wattages, temps) all together it was very easy to get misled

I had no idea, I don't watch all of the videos. Damn, that is a shame.


I'm pretty happy with my MSI B550 board, only cost me $109, and never seen the vrm's go above 52 celsius. Model number is in my system specs, its been rock solid for me though.

@sam_86314

 

[Mussels]

I had no idea, I don't watch all of the videos. Damn, that is a shame.


I'm pretty happy with my MSI B550 board, only cost me $109, and never seen the vrm's go above 52 celsius. Model number is in my system specs, its been rock solid for me though.

@sam_86314

I've learned i need a temp probe, and to verify the backs of the VRMs

My current board has 2 pin temp sensors and it's been amazing to use those and get readings from the watercooling setup, but i need ones that dont rely on the PC itself - bit hard to test another PC without them being a bit... intimate

 

[sam_86314]

I ended up getting the Taichi since it has 8 SATA ports, three accessible PCIe slots below my GPU (8x, 1x, 4x) and no chipset fan (obviously). The built-in POST code display and power button are nice, too.

My PC also seems to boot significantly faster with this board. The old ASUS one would take like 9-12 seconds to POST (according to Task Manager), while this board takes 5 seconds. That's even without freshly reinstalling Windows.

I shouldn't be surprised since my ASRock Deskmini X300 is probably the fastest booting system I own.

 

[Space Lynx]

I ended up getting the Taichi since it has 8 SATA ports, three accessible PCIe slots below my GPU (8x, 1x, 4x) and no chipset fan (obviously). The built-in POST code display and power button are nice, too.

View attachment 296836View attachment 296834View attachment 296835

My PC also seems to boot significantly faster with this board. The old ASUS one would take like 9-12 seconds to POST (according to Task Manager), while this board takes 5 seconds. That's even without freshly reinstalling Windows.

I shouldn't be surprised since my ASRock Deskmini X300 is probably the fastest booting system I own.

its a beautiful looking board thats for sure, don't forget to update to the latest BIOS!

 

[sam_86314]

its a beautiful looking board thats for sure, don't forget to update to the latest BIOS!

Yep, already done. The one it came with was from 2021, but at least I didn't need to update it to support my CPU.

 

[eidairaman1]

What cpu are you running and how are your temps

 

[sam_86314]

What cpu are you running and how are your temps

5800X, and it runs hot as they usually do. I set the thermal limit to 80C, and it'll happily go right up to that limit when gaming or doing CPU-intensive things.

 

[eidairaman1]

5800X, and it runs hot as they usually do. I set the thermal limit to 80C, and it'll happily go right up to that limit when gaming or doing CPU-intensive things.

Ok idle Temp and loaded temps. Are you at 4.7 GHz at that point?

 

[sam_86314]

Ok idle Temp and loaded temps. Are you at 4.7 GHz at that point?

Idle is usually around 50C (26C ambient because Arizona).

All core loads sit around 4.4GHz at 80C. Single core is around 4.65GHz at 75C.

My system is tuned for silence rather than performance.

 

[Mussels]

I ended up getting the Taichi since it has 8 SATA ports, three accessible PCIe slots below my GPU (8x, 1x, 4x) and no chipset fan (obviously). The built-in POST code display and power button are nice, too.

View attachment 296836View attachment 296834View attachment 296835

My PC also seems to boot significantly faster with this board. The old ASUS one would take like 9-12 seconds to POST (according to Task Manager), while this board takes 5 seconds. That's even without freshly reinstalling Windows.

I shouldn't be surprised since my ASRock Deskmini X300 is probably the fastest booting system I own.

The more hardware a board supports, the slower they tend to boot up.
B550 doesnt support 1000 and 2000 series ryzen, so i guess that helps them?

My 4th gen intel laptop boots instantly, a cold boot is the same speed as sleep - but it's so locked down you cant boot from anything but internal HDD or DVD, no USB boot, HDD in the DVD bay isnt even an option

Nice looking board - see if you can run the GPU power cables above the GPU from behind, so they pull up on the GPU to counter sag instead of pulling down on it

 

[eidairaman1]

Idle is usually around 50C (26C ambient because Arizona).

All core loads sit around 4.4GHz at 80C. Single core is around 4.65GHz at 75C.

My system is tuned for silence rather than performance.

Im using a Thermalright ARO M14G, the 5800 OEM Is a 5700X, I will try to get some load data but i know idle is 39-40

 

[Space Lynx]

Idle is usually around 50C (26C ambient because Arizona).

All core loads sit around 4.4GHz at 80C. Single core is around 4.65GHz at 75C.

My system is tuned for silence rather than performance.

you live in Arizona and you don't have air conditioning? damn dude that must be rough. i got a $140 window air conditioner in my bedroom from walmart, they are surprisingly energy efficient these days and keep my room at 68 faren all summer long.