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Review on ASRock Motherboard B550M Phantom Gaming by Adam Trela ᠌

Revainrating 5 out of 5

I can't stop being happy with the purchase, a very good deal!

After going through a large number of different alternatives for B450 chipsets, I could not locate a single board that would have honest lines on all of the different ports. They inserted an NVME SSD into the M2 connector; hence, the second PCIEX16 slot should not be used and vice versa. We inserted the component into the second PCIEX16 slot, if you could just deny fifty percent of the available SATA ports. The situation is marginally improved among boards that are based on the B550, and there is less reuse; still, this board is the only one that I have discovered for sale where everything works without any shutdowns. The situation is much more favorable on chipsets X470 and X570, however motherboards equipped with these chipsets cost 1.5 to 2 times as much. If you are looking for mATX, 4 RAM slots, 2 M2 slots, and most importantly honest PCIE lanes, there is simply no other option but this board. A board that comes close is the Gigabyte B550M D3SH, however on that one, a video card that requires two slots will block the PCIEX1 slot and possibly certain SATA slots as well. In the beginning, I purchased a motherboard for Ryzen 7 2700 since the number of threads was more essential to me than the speed per core. However, the computer will not start and will just cause the fans to rotate. At the manufacture, it was not feasible to use the BIOS without a processor that was supported by it; however, this limitation may no longer exist on newer versions of the BIOS and it may hold 7 2700. It was imperative that I switch to a Ryzen 5 3600 processor. There is no issue with having four SATA slots; even for those who require more, there are splitters available. Even today, hard disk drives do not make advantage of the entire bandwidth provided by the SATA line. Decent BIOS, everything can be configured, there are settings for those who overclock as well as for those who have a lot of peripherals (PCIEX line configurations), and there are settings for both overclockers and those who have a lot of peripherals.

Pros
  • PCIEX16_1, even with a two-slot card, does not overlap PCIEX1, unlike mATX boards from the same Gigabyte. The operation modes of the PCIE ports can be adjusted in the BIOS. x16, x8x8, x8x4x4, and x4x4x4x4 slots for memory; two M2 slots; connections for connecting CBO 4-pin cables; I use these cables to power the case fans on my computer; - heatsink on the VRM - who needs it if it doesn't have built-in gaming lights if it has connectors for connecting it
Cons
  • does not start with ryzen 7 2700 and similar processors with all processors below the 3000 series - there is no BIOS button on the board, and it does not require the involvement of the processor - it takes a long time to initialize when turned on (ten seconds), which is also a severe drawback, but it does work for me. 24-hours-a-day, four SATA drives — a conditional disadvantage that can be remedied with a splitter