GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX (AM4 AMD/B550/Mini-Itx/Dual M.2/SATA 6Gb/s/USB 3.2 Gen 1/WiFi 6/2.5 GbE LAN/PCIe4.0/Realtek ALC1220-Vb/DisplayPort 1.4/2xHDMI 2.0B/RGB Fusion 2.0/DDR4/Gaming Motherboard)

The Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX is one of the most affordable B550 ITX motherboards on the market at the time of this review, yet it is also extremely solid with all the latest features that an enthusiast may want in an ITX motherboard.Pros:For myself personally, the reasons for choosing this motherboard or a B550 board in general, is to have better/sooner support for the Ryzen 5000 series, along with things like PCIe 4.0, USB 3.2, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. This board also features a very handy Q-Flash feature for flashing the BIOS without having anything aside from a power supply and a USB stick, so no need to worry about having a Ryzen 3000 series chip on-hand to flash the latest BIOS. The board also features a backplate that really makes it feel like a properly premium and sturdy product. Compared to its X570 sibling, this board is around $30 less expensive but does not lack anything notable in my opinion, aside from the M.2 slot on the back of the board being PCIe 3.0 whereas the X570 version has PCIe 4.0 on both M.2 slots. The B550 also does not have a chipset cooling fan, which to me is an advantage over the X570 because it eliminates a potential source of noise and premature failure.It’s also worth noting that the chipset fan on the X570 version takes up one of the 3 fan headers, whereas all 3 headers on this board are usable. The X570 version also appears to only have USB 3.1 Gen 2 and 1.0 Gigabit Ethernet.Cons:This board does not have any provisions for front panel USB-C ports, so beware if your case features any USB-C ports that will need to be connected to the motherboard. Officially, the B550 chipset only supports Ryzen 3000 series out of the box, with Ryzen 5000 support enabled via a BIOS update. On the other hand, the X570 version will support Ryzen 2000 series as well, so in that regard the B550 board does lack a bit of flexibility.Additional Notes:I picked up this motherboard with the intention of using it with a Ryzen 5000 series chip when I get around to buying one sometime next year. The reason for buying this board now is mainly because availability for this board has been very inconsistent until recently, so I figured it would be wise to buy one while it’s readily available. I’m currently using a Ryzen 2700X which isn’t officially supported by the B550 chipset, so I was originally going to leave this board on the shelf until I got a Ryzen 5000 series CPU.I saw a few reports of people getting 2000 series CPUs to work in B550 boards, though they were few and far in between. However, I was going to go ahead and flash this board to BIOS version F10 to enable Ryzen 5000 support, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check if my 2700X will post in this board while I’m at it. The board was probably preloaded with the F1 or F2 BIOS out of the box, and I got nothing but a black screen when I tried to boot. However, after flashing to the F10 BIOS, I was massively surprised to see that it was able to post, and everything seemed to function normally in the BIOS. I proceeded to go a step further and installed my boot drive to see if it will boot into Windows, and I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when it reached desktop without any noticeable issues, and without reinstalling Windows or any of the drivers.Fast forward to today, and I’m running the F11b BIOS from October 19 with “additional optimizations” for Ryzen 5000 series, which actually enabled XMP for me, something that wasn’t working on the F10 BIOS. I have now reinstalled Windows and have been fine-tuning all the details without any problems whatsoever. I couldn’t be any happier with this board, everything from its features and construction to the unexpected support for older chips like mine. I would also like to add that the F10 BIOS which enabled Ryzen 5000 support was released on September 18, before the Ryzen 5000 series was even announced. I don’t see how Gigabyte could possibly have been further ahead of the curve when it comes to product support, and they have done a truly excellent job with this board.

6 meses funcionando y sin novedades

I had a b450i msi plus ax and 2700x and this is much better with my new 5800xt. Best b550 itx and it seems only b550 itx left so good thing it's the best one for performance and looks. PBO board limits are 300 TDC - 215 EDC - 540 Watts

worked for a SFF living room gaming build. Plopped it in a silverstone raven with a 5600x and gigabyte 6700xt eagle.Overall it works good, the bios didnt need an update which was nice. the XMP/AMP profile was recognized and runs mushkin redline stilleto's just fine at advertised 3600mhz.AMD PBO works great, ran Ryzen Master, set oversets to +2 over everything it recommended so -28 except on top 2 cores at -25 and havent had any stability issues.Was really hoping bluetooth would just work but it doesnt. Maybe bios update might fix it, or it mess up all my other settings so I opted for a $20 asus BT dongle which works fine, just means I have to have front usb cover opened on my very sleek case.WIFI does work great though.My other minor gripe is the labeling of the front I/O pins and a lack of instructions. I wish they just provided a quick single plug solution instead of trying to seat the single connectors in very tight spaces.Overall very happy with it and its got my wife gaming from the comfort of our living room chaise.

I got this to throw onto a Hydra Mini chassis build. I am running a Ryzen 3600 with a Scythe Big Shuriken 3, GTX 1080 Founders, G.SKILL Trident Z Neo F4-3600C16D-32GTZN, Samsung 790 EVO PLUS, Samsung 970 EVO, and a Corsair SF600 PSU. Everything went together good.I obviously don't need front panel C with a Hydra Mini so this worked out great for me. I updated to the F2a UEFI update before even trying to install windows.When I turned on above 4g decoding in the UEFI I lost everything connected to the chipset in Windows. Oddly enough I just had this happen on my Asrock Taichi Ultimate with the latest update on it too. I'm thinking there must be a bug in the latest code from AMD because I've always used that setting in the past. Once I turned it off both systems ran normally with all devices detected.Another thing that hung me up for a minute was the M.2 mounting on the front. I took the cover and heatsink off and at first, couldn't figure out why the drive wouldn't lay flat. The post was too high and I was thinking does this thing have to be pushed down beside it then the heatsink put on? After closer examination, I noticed that the top part of the post unscrews and then you put the drive in and screw that down over the drive, then lay the heatsink down and screw it in, and then reattach the cover over all of it. Also, be careful because the heads and threads look and feel easy to strip.I've been running for a couple of days now with no problems and so far would recommend this board. I plan to install one of the next series of Ryzen CPUs and whatever the best upcoming GPU turns out to be. I'll be sure to come back and update if I have any problems.