Review on Motherboard ASRock B550M STEEL LEGEND by Boyan Topuzliev ᠌

Name: Motherboard ASRock B550M STEEL LEGEND
Item: Motherboard ASRock B550M STEEL LEGEND
Rating: 5

July 25, 2023

I didnt expect the quality to be so high.

In most cases, I would advise making a purchase. In the event that you are not an audiophile, the motherboard is quite respectable and cutting-edge in all respects. In addition, if you are an audiophile, you most likely already possess a variety of external ADCs and other sound devices that are capable of digitization.

Pros

A motherboard that is, in theory, quite deserving of praise. The latest version of UEFI and BIOS, which appears to be 1.7 and had been issued only a few short months before the purchase, was already installed on the AMD Ryzen 7 5800x, so the system booted up immediately. Everything has been attended to in great detail. Power supply with 8pin and 4pin connectors - a healthy buffer for future expansion, and there are even more. that there is a potential for the memory frequency to reach up to 4722 Mhz. A reinforced PCI Express x16 connector for a video card, gold-plated contacts in PCI Express, DIMM, and audio connectors, M2 with PCI Express gen.4x16 (for Vermeers and Matiss) - really a bomb (it's a shame that only one drive is supported in this mode), audiophile "golden" tips in the audio path and "black series" for digital, there is a digital audio output (this is important for me), six connector includes a variety of different connectors for the lighting (I'm not sure why someone would need it, but someone definitely does). It seems that the board itself is made of ceramic. with shielding and heat dissipation provided by layers of solid copper that are located within. It's really cool in my book. Standard number of USB ports (eight on the back and eight more on the internal connectors). Regarding the enjoyable - one USB Type-C, but other than that - the same as everyone else.

Cons

It's possible that these are advantages rather than drawbacks, but just in case, here's what you should be aware of: 1. When the power is turned off, any backlight that is connected externally will go out, but the backlight on the motherboard will remain on. If it is set up properly, it will never fail to illuminate the path for you in the dark! It's possible that you just do not have sufficient nightlight. Therefore, it is advantageous for at least one person:). If you switch off the computer, which also turns off the key on the power supply for the computer, then all of the backlight settings will revert to their default values (and the backlight is already on and is quite unpleasant). 2. It is illogical to mix the heatsink on an NVMe solid-state drive (SSD) with the heatsink on a chipset. To begin, NVMe solid-state drives have either their own heatsinks or stickers that cannot be removed on the drives exactly at the area where the heatsink is mounted. Both of these options prevent the stickers from being removed. You will not be able to use the NVMe SSD without voiding the warranty (there are stickers on all sides of the drives). Second, there is a space of 2 millimeters between the heatsink and the solid-state drive (SSD), and there is a gap of 5 millimeters between the heatsink and the chipset (there are Velcro-thermal pads, which, although they are stuck without a gap, are pressed "in no way"). I obtain an average temperature of 46 degrees Celsius for my SSD (however it's possible that the heat generated by the video card is the source of the heat on the SSD). 3. In order to install the second M.2, three of the motherboard's SATA ports will need to be disabled. In point of fact, this is a trait of processors based on Matisse and Renoir (I don't know about Vermeers), and it has the potential to be disrespectful. 4. I did not require it because 64 gigabytes of RAM is sufficient for my needs, but the memory bus frequency would fall if all four DIMMs are installed at the same time. In general, the motherboard has a significant overclocking margin, and everything can be "overclocked" again; however, you should keep in mind that this is not always possible. The chipset also has this capability built into it. 5. With all of the superb sounding capabilities of the built-in sound card, it takes up pickups from a cell phone while looking for cells along the analog path. Approximately -58 decibels, which, obviously, cannot be heard by the human ear but can be seen on the equipment. I digitize vinyl records on occasion, and you may have noticed). It's a pain in the neck. My motherboard almost certainly merely has an issue with grounding, despite having a brand new case with very fine plastic coating and stops-platforms for mounting the motherboard. Everything can "leave") if the paint is peeled off, but it does so in an irritating way.