Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards
by Gavin Bonshor on July 31, 2018 8:00 AM ESTASRock B450 Gaming K4
Both the B450 Gaming K4 and B450 Gaming ITX/ac feature similar designs with gunmetal grey heatsinks which feature fins to help direct airflow through the channels, which in turn should help dissipate any excess heat. The boards both feature support for ASRock’s Polychrome RGB technology, with the B450 Gaming K4 having customizable LEDs under the chipset heatsink and additional expansion through a single addressable LED header and standard RGB LED header.
From a quick glance, it looks as though the B450 Gaming K4 has a 9-phase power delivery which appears to be operating in a 6+3 configuration - the Gaming K4 has a heatsink covering the entirety of the MOSFETs, compared to the smaller Gaming-ITX model which only covers the CPU section of the power delivery.
The rear panel of the Fatal1ty B450 Gaming K4 consists of a two USB 3.1 10 Gbps ports (Type-A and Type-C), four USB 3.1 5 Gbps ports, two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI output, a DisplayPort 1.2 output, a D-sub output and a combo keyboard/mouse PS/2 port. The single LAN port is controlled by a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit networking chip with the three 3.5mm audio jacks being powered by a Realtek ALC892 audio codec.
The ATX sized B450 Gaming K4 has a host of gaming-themed features, AMD 2-way CrossFire multi-graphics card support (x16 + x4) and integrated RGB. The new ASRock B450 models directly replace the currently available B350 offerings and as it stands currently, the B450 Gaming K4 sits at $99.99.
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theanalyzer - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Signed up to point that out. Needs to be fixed. It’s the only ITX board supporting 2x which sets it’s apart form the competitionDeath666Angel - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Glad to see more options in the mATX range with two M.2 slots, not just from AsRock this time around. My next rig will either be based on the AsRock B450M Pro4 or one of the MSI B450M Mortar boards. Will wait for actual VRM setup and overclocking results / general tests to see which one will be it. I had motherboards from both manufacturers and was pleased with both. MSI has the advantage of offering PCIe M.2 options for both slots as well as SATA. One question regarding that: if I install a 3.0 PCIe x2 M.2 SSD into a 2.0 PCIe x4 slot, what will be the speed ramifications? Can it only use 2.0 PCIe x2 or can it use the full x4, thus being similar in speed to a native 3.0 PCIe x2 setup? :) Still waiting on mATX x470 mainboards.Outlander_04 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
.3.0 x 2 is the same speed as 2.0 x 4DanNeely - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Except that a 3.0 x2 drive is almost certainly x2 because it only has 2 PCIe lanes (cutting down on them is one of the ways the cheaper drives pinch pennies), which means it will be connected at 2.0 x2; at that point you might as well just use a SATA drive and save a bit more money.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Thanks for providing an answer to my actual question. :)AdrianB1 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
You will get a 2 lane PCIe 2.0 connection, that means 1 GB/s. This is 1/4 of a PCIe 3.0 4-lane usual NVME drive, but real life you may get closer to 80% of the performance.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Thanks!Outlander_04 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Finally some budget boards with solid VRMs.skpetic - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
There are some seriously shady stuff going on with VRMS om X470 og B450. Check out Buildzoid on youtube. Asus B450 STRIX ITX board is single phase for SoC. Several of the Gigabyte B450 and X470 boards in reality have half the advertised amount of phases or are using doublers:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IjWCOXSuKU
meacupla - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
hahaha... noAsus with the absolute trash tier VRM heatsinks
AsRock with fake phases
Gigabyte with fake phases and trash VRM heatsinks
MSI with no Vcore offset