AMD B450 chipset based motherboards spotted in etail
ASUS, ASRock, and Gigabyte B450 motherboards are now available in etail. The boards seem to hover in a 80~90 euro price region and are compatible with both last years Ryzen, as well as the new Ryzen 2000 series processors.
From the looks of it, the boards could offer some great value. The AM4 socket based motherboards will mostly have four DDR4 memory slots and one a m.2 SSD (NVMe compatible) connector. Gigabyte offers the B450M DS3H has since surfaced for about 80 euros. ASUS release just over seven board, starting at roughly 70 EUR, ASRock offers one, at roughly 90 EUR. AMD B450 is a lower classed (budget) Ryzen chipset, where the X470 chipset is going to support SLI , B450 does not (but does support Crossfire). The B450 will be a more budget aimed choice, which makes a lot of sense. Please notice that you will get your standard 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes pulled from the Ryzen processor. Ryzen all by itself has 24 PCI-Express lanes, 4 are being used to interface with the B450 or X470 chipset (which adds Gen 2.0 lanes as shown in the table). So depending on the chipset used it adds a number of gen 2.0 PCIe lanes through the chipset.
X470 | X370 | B450 | B350 | A320 | X300 / B300 / A300 | Ryzen CPU | |
PCIe 3.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 20 |
PCIe 2.0 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbit/s) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
USB 3.0 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
USB 2.0 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
SATA 6 Gbit / s | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
SATA or NVME Raid | 0/1/10 | 0/1/10 | 0/1/10 | 0/1/10 | 0/1/10 | 0/1 | - |
Overclocking | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | X300 Yes | - |
CrossFire / SLI | Yes / Yes | Yes / Yes | Yes / - | Yes / - | - | - | - |
Each chipset will add select numbers of USB ports, the Ryzen processor also offers four native USB 3.1 ports. There is support for RAID 0/1/10 configurations both SATA and now NVME as well as overclocking support on the X470 and B450 chipset. B450 will also support enhanced XFR2. Obviously, the motherboard partners could add 3rd party chips to increase USB 3.0 and so on.
We have the first samples inbound and will start offering reviews soon.
Update - communication seems rather foggy at the moment, there should still be a sales embargo in effect. The review embargo will be lifted later this month, but considering we see retail and e-tail availability and the listing of B450 boards, that could change anytime. We'll keep you posted and will go live with reviews one we get a thumbs up from AMD.
Multiple AMD B450 motherboards Spotted at Computex - 06/06/2018 12:08 PM
It'll be hard to find some real scoops at Computex this year. AMD will soon be releasing B450 chipset based motherboards that offer a bit more value. below the fold some photos of B450 motherboards o...
AMD B450 Motherboards Will be Displayed at Computex - 06/01/2018 07:55 AM
I don't think this will be a big year for Computex, there are few advanced technology releases in this time of year, Computex is going to show lots of mining hardware, and the occasional oddity. ASRo...
Details AMD B450 Mid-range Chipset Surface - 05/22/2018 10:34 AM
We've mentioned the pending AMD B450 chipset details inn our Ryzen gen2 review already really, but two new slides surfaced showing the final details. ...
Senior Member
Posts: 255
Joined: 2018-03-01
Good chance I will buy one after your review. Very excited! SSD & RAM are finally dropping in price. Have an overclocked Phenom X4 @ 4.3GHZ and RX560 4GB clocked really good and need a new system.
Senior Member
Posts: 907
Joined: 2001-08-12
From the limited amount of testing memory compatibility seems to be dependant on the Ryzen CPU it's self which makes sense since the memory controller is on the CPU, but have seen some Ryzen 2700X do 3600MHz on the X370 platform.
Senior Member
Posts: 536
Joined: 2016-10-04
I agree with Dazz. Is down to CPU, but the process is better with Ryzen 2 compared to Ryzen 1 where IMC was bit wonky.
But they were some good chips also. My old 1800X with CH6 and 0701 (and newer) BIOS even run ram at native speeds (3600C15) without trouble. (Gskill Ripjaws V)
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The only thing that stops me from jumping to 2700X and Strix X470-I is that there is no monoblock for it

My Strix Z370-I looks so nice with it and don't want to replace it.
Senior Member
Posts: 3719
Joined: 2010-05-16
I'm curious about that too. If the B450 accepted a wider variety of DDR4 at higher speeds without bios updates then it would be a no brainer to buy them over the previous generation.
Senior Member
Posts: 157
Joined: 2016-10-22
I'm interested if memory is more stable with these boards compared to B350 boards. It would be nice to test with the first generation Ryzen CPU and the second.