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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JohanPirlouit - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
Thanks Sakkura ;-) .... And I also agree with you..patire - Wednesday, August 1, 2018 - link
The ASRock microATX B450M Pro4 has a total of four SATA ports not the six as wrongly posted on the final page table for choosing the right B450 Motherboard.Xajel - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link
Yet not a single high-end X470 mATX motherboard !!Xajel - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link
Yet not a single high-end X470 mATX motherboard !!jensend - Saturday, August 4, 2018 - link
WHY ON EARTH DO THEY KEEP MAKING AMD BOARDS WITHOUT DISPLAYPORT?FreeSync is a game changer for the Ryzen APUs, and very few of the inexpensive adaptive sync displays support FreeSync over HDMI.
KAlmquist - Sunday, August 5, 2018 - link
Gavin Bonshor's otherwise excellant page on choosing the right B450 motherboard doesn't include a list of boards that support DisplayPort. Unless I've missed some, there are eight:ASRock B450 Gaming K4
ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac
ASRock B450 Pro4
ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming
MSI B450I Gaming Plus AC
MSI B450M Mortar
MSI B450M Mortar Titanium
MSI B450-A Pro
I once had a motherboard with a Realtek network controller and got so sick of it randomly connecting at 10 mb/sec that I vowed I would never buy another Realtech network controller. That leaves only one B450 option:
ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming
AdrianB1 - Sunday, August 5, 2018 - link
There is also the MSI B450 Carbon AC that in theory is better as it has better VRM and wireless LAN. It is also a bit cheaper in the stores in my area.DMCbr - Sunday, August 5, 2018 - link
I think MSI totally won this time, with the PRO Carbon AC board: best sound, best lan, wifi, 5+2 VRM phases, good heat-sinks...foxbat - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Great, really great ... but still can't buy outside of USA 13" laptop with Mobile Ryzen APU except extremely expensive not so well designed Lenovo 720S. What is the reason?Djoie123 - Tuesday, August 14, 2018 - link
I think that B450 gaming plus have 4+3 vrm phase design, on their site they said it's 7 phase power design