ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming II

[Black Haru]

The new ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming II strikes a balance between compatibility, performance, and price. Featuring support for AMD's new Ryzen 5000 family, a sleek modern aesthetic, and a capable VRM cooling solution, it aims to answer the question of whether there is still a place for B450 motherboards in 2021.

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[mechtech]

I don't know why the B550 chip motherboards are so much more than the B450??? Nice review, nice board.

Only constructive feedback I could ask for is perhaps ECC UDIMM compatibilty testing on these AM4 boards.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

I don't know why the B550 chip motherboards are so much more than the B450??? Nice review, nice board.

Only constructive feedback I could ask for is perhaps ECC UDIMM compatibilty testing on these AM4 boards.

Because B550 has partial support for PCIe gen 4. Gen 4 is, apparently, a bit costly to implement. B450 lacks PCIe gen 4 and the hardware needed, so naturally it's quite a bit cheaper

 

[kapone32]

Because B550 has partial support for PCIe gen 4. Gen 4 is, apparently, a bit costly to implement. B450 lacks PCIe gen 4 and the hardware needed, so naturally it's quite a bit cheaper

Some of that is BS. The MSI TRX40 Pro Wifi is $399 and has the entire board wired as PCIe 4.0. Even the MSI B550 Pro is a $99 (US) board that has PCIe 4.0 and WIFI 6.

 

[Post Nut Clairvoyance]

what a nice approach. some b450 board advertised pcie4 capability partially, this one, if the article has no typos, has pcie4 on the m.2 slot , which is where (and the only place) it is needed currently. nice approach to absolutely deck out a b450 with intel Lan and 1220vb, as well as absolutely Asus-tastic VRM that is quite capable, if not lacking power stages (did asus want to clear their entire 4c10n inventory LMAO).

the only thing now is pricing. and pray to god that the pricing on this thing will make sense. (checked just then, not available on my area, if was available would be priced too close to x570-p for it to make sense, discounting this is a better board I/O wise)

also when I checked this don't be having gen4 on the m.2, was that a typo or actually offered here? @Black Haru

 

[Aretak]

I could understand still releasing B450 boards at a low price point for people who don't want to pay for B550, but that's not what this is. It's $140. For that money you can buy a very decent B550 board with PCIe 4.0 support, so why would anybody buy this?

 

[altermere]

I could understand still releasing B450 boards at a low price point for people who don't want to pay for B550, but that's not what this is. It's $140. For that money you can buy a very decent B550 board with PCIe 4.0 support, so why would anybody buy this?

they probably had a surplus of b450 chips. and it's ROG so it'll sell regardless. there are a lot of clueless people with money who only look at the brand.

 

[Caring1]

PCI-e 4.0 is CPU dependent as far as I am aware.
Most B450 should support it with the 5000 series, at least for the NVME with lanes direct to the CPU.

 

[cellar door]

Because B550 has partial support for PCIe gen 4. Gen 4 is, apparently, a bit costly to implement. B450 lacks PCIe gen 4 and the hardware needed, so naturally it's quite a bit cheaper

Except Asus has a bunch of entry level b450 boards that have pciex 4.0 ....lamo

 

[Max(IT)]

a B450 board review in 2021 ? Seriously ... I checked the date of the review just to be sure

 

[X71200]

TPU award for an old board with a dumb aka lower end VRM config refreshed in a new form. MSI B550-A was retailing around $120 months ago... I have the older version of this board in my mom's, it's ok but nothing award worthy.

 

[silentbogo]

Because B550 has partial support for PCIe gen 4. Gen 4 is, apparently, a bit costly to implement. B450 lacks PCIe gen 4 and the hardware needed, so naturally it's quite a bit cheaper

That's about 1% truth and 99% marketing BS and artificial roadblocks. Technically you can have PCIe 4.0 even on the earliest X370. Heck, even my trusty X470 Aorus Ultra had PCIe 4.0 for a short while, before it got locked out on the following update. Haven't had a chance to test it out personally, but there were quite a few vids with PCIe 4.0 SSD benchmarks on B450 and X470 boards.

Spoiler

Chipset isn't a limitation, since at the very minimum you always have an x16 and at least one M.2 NVME wired directly to CPU, and I'm more than sure that hi-end X370/X470 has better design and higher throughput potential than some $100-$150 boring mediocrity. I highly doubt that this segment was special enough to get any relevant type of board layout optimizations, since they look, work, feel, and most importantly cost exactly the same as their predecessors (except X570, of course).

a B450 board review in 2021 ? Seriously ... I checked the date of the review just to be sure

55nm Asmedia chipsets probably give higher margins and more stable supply than cutting-edge in-house AMD designs. Seems like everyone is adopting strategies straight from BIOSTAR's recent cookbook

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Utterly pointless board. You can get a B550 mortar for a few dollars mroe, with a B550 chipset, superior VRM, ece.

Because B550 has partial support for PCIe gen 4. Gen 4 is, apparently, a bit costly to implement. B450 lacks PCIe gen 4 and the hardware needed, so naturally it's quite a bit cheaper

Firmware updates locked out many B450/X470/X370 boards that could do PCIe 4.0 speeds. If Intel did that, people would be apocalyptic, but AMD got away with it for....reasons.

PCI-e 4.0 is CPU dependent as far as I am aware.
Most B450 should support it with the 5000 series, at least for the NVME with lanes direct to the CPU.

Most B450 boards are locked from enabling PCIe 4.0 support, this varies by board and manufacturer. You cant count on having it. If they dont support it with the 3000s, they wont support it with the 5000s either.

 

[Vader]

Intel did that, people would be apocalyptic, but AMD got away with it for....reasons.

Except people did complain, a lot. Mainly because B550 took a long time to release.
PCIe 4.0 on previous chipsets was a no go from a liability standpoint. I think AMD lacked the capacity to validate it on previously released motherboards. Heck even now, on officially supported platforms there are problems (usb dropouts).

On intel's side, they plan to support pcie 4.0 on z490, but even then it's not crystal clear for non-enthusiasts which motherboards will support it, and on which slots.

 

[PerfectWave]

2021 and still need to shortcircuit to reset the bios LOL

 

[Rais]

I am missing something, why is it flagged as II? does the first model has something wrong?

 

[silentbogo]

I am missing something, why is it flagged as II? does the first model has something wrong?

Same as MSI Max variants. Basically the same thing, only swapped SPI flash from 128Mbit to 256Mbit, so they can fit all the microcode and keep all firmware features with some space to spare.

 

[ityrant]

totally destroyed by tuf b450m pro-s……but this is Republic Of Gamer.lol

 

[Black Haru]

what a nice approach. some b450 board advertised pcie4 capability partially, this one, if the article has no typos, has pcie4 on the m.2 slot , which is where (and the only place) it is needed currently. nice approach to absolutely deck out a b450 with intel Lan and 1220vb, as well as absolutely Asus-tastic VRM that is quite capable, if not lacking power stages (did asus want to clear their entire 4c10n inventory LMAO).

the only thing now is pricing. and pray to god that the pricing on this thing will make sense. (checked just then, not available on my area, if was available would be priced too close to x570-p for it to make sense, discounting this is a better board I/O wise)

also when I checked this don't be having gen4 on the m.2, was that a typo or actually offered here? @Black Haru

Just a typo, thanks!

 

[Freaksh0w]

No one probably cares anymore but I'm fairly certain there's an error on the first page of the review.

The PCI-e 1x slots are 2.0, not 3.0. I've read it on the tech specs section of the Asus website. I've read it in my manual. And I'm seeing it right now in AIDA64 that my PCI-e 1x networking card is @ 1x 2.0.

FWIW, I have a Ryzen 5 3600 in my Asus STRIX B450-F Gaming II board.

AIDA64 shows both my Asus PCE-AC56 Dual-Band 2x2 AC1300 WiFi PCIe adapter and the onboard Intel I211 Gigabit Ethernet running at PCI-e 2.0 x1.

Are either one of these limited in bandwidth by PCI-e 2.0 x1? Nah, not even close to 500MB/s.

However, if someone was planning on using a PCI-e 3.0 x1 S-ATA III controller card, one single SSD would fully saturate that bandwidth transferring a file.

Also, I'm 99% sure the bottom PCI-e x16 slot (which is PCI-e x4 as you can see on the back of the motherboard) is also 2.0, not 3.0.

TL;DR
The board has 2x PCI-e x16 length 3.0 slots, 1x PCI-e x16 length 2.0 slot, and 3x PCI-e 1x 2.0 slots.

First PCI-e x16 is x16. Second PCI-e x16 is x8 max. Third PCI-e x16 (the 2.0 one) is x4 max.

I think it was this site that I submitted a correction for the Pentium G4560 a long time ago. It listed that it supported the AVX instruction set. It doesn't. I don't see it listed on the review page anymore.
However, that could have been another site. I can't remember. There was a (practically) "see an error?" link on the page that I was able to click and report.

I get it. 99.999% of people will never see it, again. It's just for those that will.

I love this site.. it's my go to for looking at pictures of the PCB's for GPU's and motherboards.

Wait a second... the TL;DR was longer than the original lol. My bad.

Here's what AIDA64 shows for me (pic of PCI-e x1 slots on B450 chipset and another pic just showing it is this B450-F Gaming II board):

http://imgur.com/a/AKVhPsY

Notice the last pic showing the PCI-e x16 slot with my RX480 8GB showing that it is at 2.0...
What is going on lol? Have I misunderstood the tech specs in the manual AND AIDA64 is showing me incorrect info? I even restarted AIDA64 with GPU-z's graphics load running just to make sure the AIDA64 software wasn't seeing something wrong. GPU-z certainly shows my RX480 in a PCI-e 3.0 x16 slot.

What have I done here? Cause more confusion? I'm... I'm just going to leave, now.

 

[kansaiconnect]

Just bought this motherboard and built a pc. I’ve turned everything on but I don’t get a bios beep and the monitor displays No Signal and shuts down. Everything seems to be installed correctly but maybe I’m missing something. It’s only the second pc I’ve ever built. Do I need to install another hard drive other than the SSD one in order to run the BIOS and install Windows? Looking for some kind of help if anyone has any.

Build:
ROG STRIX B450-f gaming ii
AMD RYZEN 7 5800 X
EVGA 650 GS power supply
ROG STRIX GEFORCE RTX 3060 V2 OC 12 GB graphic card
MSI CORSAIR VENGEANCE RGB PRO 2x8 GB 3200 MHz DDR4
MAG CORELIQUID 240 R V2 liquid cpu cooler
Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1TB SSD

LG UltraGear 27 inch monitor - monitor works off my notebook so I know it’s not the problem.

Just bought this motherboard and built a pc. I’ve turned everything on but I don’t get a bios beep and the monitor displays No Signal and shuts down. Everything seems to be installed correctly but maybe I’m missing something. It’s only the second pc I’ve ever built. Do I need to install another hard drive other than the SSD one in order to run the BIOS and install Windows? Looking for some kind of help if anyone has any.

Build:
ROG STRIX B450-f gaming ii
AMD RYZEN 7 5800 X
EVGA 650 GS power supply
ROG STRIX GEFORCE RTX 3060 V2 OC 12 GB graphic card
MSI CORSAIR VENGEANCE RGB PRO 2x8 GB 3200 MHz DDR4
MAG CORELIQUID 240 R V2 liquid cpu cooler
Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1TB SSD

LG UltraGear 27 inch monitor - monitor works off my notebook so I know it’s not the problem.

Figured out the problem. The CPU power wasn’t plugged in at the top of the motherboard.