The B450 series, the next lineup of mid-range motherboards from AMD, have been announced with vendors like ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI already with products to show.
These motherboards all come in at or below $200 (about £150, AU$270), and as such are missing a few of the features enthusiasts enjoy from AMD’s X470 series and onward. However, the differences aren’t as stark as you’d think.
For starters, these new boards do not support AMD’s CrossFire or Nvidia’s SLI technology for daisy chaining graphics cards. Knowing that, these motherboards are best suited for smaller or less feature-packed chassis.
Beyond that, the boards support up to 16 PCIe Gen3 lanes for component connectivity – just like the X470 and Z490 series of motherboards. The Threadripper X399 boards support up to 60 lanes. The B450, however, has two fewer PCIe Gen 2 lanes and support for just six USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, compared to higher-end models that handle up to 13.
USB 2.0 ports, SATA Express slots and DDR4 memory DIMMs all remain the same in the B450 as they do in pricier AMD motherboards save for more DDR4 DIMMs.
These motherboards support overclocking, just like all the rest above it in price, and they include AMD’s automatic overclocking XFR2 technology in addition to Precision Boost Overdrive, a similar feature.
All in all, if you’re looking for the most affordable of means of getting Ryzen 2nd Generation into your gaming PC, then AMD may have just done it for you.
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