Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards
by Gavin Bonshor on July 31, 2018 8:00 AM ESTASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac
The B450 Gaming K4 uses similar gunmetal grey heatsinks designs as the B450 Gaming K4, which feature fins to help direct airflow through the channels. The board features support for ASRock’s Polychrome RGB technology, however the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac has no onboard LEDs with the RGB capabilities coming through the same pairing of available headers.
Buy ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac on Newegg
The B450 Gaming ITX/ac has a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot featuring ASRock Steel Slot protection, and has a total of four SATA 6 Gbps ports with all of them featuring straight angled connectors. For M.2, the Gaming ITX/ac model features a single PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA slot located on the rear of the PCB.
As is usually the case with Mini-ITX form factor motherboards, the ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac has a total of two RAM slots giving a maximum supported capacity of up to 32 GB of DDR4. One of the advantages to Mini-ITX is the length of the tracks between the RAM slots and the CPU socket meaning better memory capabilities is possible, which in this case is shown through DDR4-3466 support, compared to DDR4-3200 for the Gaming K4.
On the smaller form factor Fatal1ty B450 Gaming ITX/ac rear panel is two USB 3.1 10 Gbps ports (Type-A and Type-C), two USB 3.1 5 Gbps ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a HDMI output, a DisplayPort 1.2 output, two antenna ports for the integrated Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi module and a PS/2 combo port. The five 3.5mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are governed by a high-quality Realtek ALC1220 audio codec, while the LAN port is driven by an Intel I211AT Gigabit networking controller.
Overall, the smaller B450 Gaming ITX/ac compared to the K4 has higher quality integrated controllers and omits any form of built-in RGB. The new ASRock Fatal1ty B450 models directly replace the currently available B350 offerings and as it stands currently, with the B450 Gaming ITX/ac is set to cost $129.99.
_thumb.png)
_thumb.png)
_thumb.png)
_thumb.png)
_thumb.png)
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
62 Comments
View All Comments
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