ASUS might be about to shake up the motherboard market after revealing more about a new offering that offers a vital recent Intel hardware update, promising to combine its motherboard with the Thunderbolt 4 connectivity.
Posting on Reddit, ASUS's Technical Product Marketing Manager disclosed information about the new ASUS ProART B550-Creator, an AMD-based cheap motherboard that will be the first to take advantage of Intel's Thunderbolt 4 controller for professionals and content creators.
Following the simplistic design of the ASUS Z490 motherboards, the new hardware looks to balance out power efficiency and thermal performance thanks to a 12+2 VRM design and ProCool II power connectors, which should keep the motherboard cool even when on heavy workloads.
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What's inside?
Despite its minimalist aesthetics on the design part, the motherboard manages to still pack in s with a front USB 3.0 connectivity as well as USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type internal connectivity, and also looks to offer two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots and possibly two PCIe M.2 slots also.
At the rear of the hardware, in the rich set of interfacing ports, is the major draw for the B550-Creator - the pair of Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports. Alongside the USB 3.2 G2 Type-A connector, it also comes with a display port input and five 3.5 mm audio jacks.
Looking more at the hardware design, the ProART B550-Creator incorporates the company’s latest M.2 Q-Latch design that creates a great user experience for M.2 drive installation. Apart from the onboard storage space, ASUS looks to have provided four SATA ports with dual M.2 slots alongside the heatsinks allowing you to connect mass storage devices.
Taking advantage of the isolated audio codec and the ALC 1220A, the ASUS motherboard produces a high-quality audio experience for all content creators that use audio as their backbone. Furthermore, it adds to the ASUS AiNoise cancellation, which promises to improve audio quality by filtering out noise and distractions from incoming audio.
The ASUS ProART B550-Creator is expected to launch in April for around $299.
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Via Anandtech