MSI continues to offer new motherboards for AMD’s former AM4 platform. The company is announcing its Pro B550M-B and Pro B550M-P models. The special feature of these boards is support for the USB-C port on the front of the cases. This feature enables the boards to exploit the connectivity of recent chassis, despite the age and positioning of the socket.
MSI: two new entry-level AM4 motherboards support USB-C!
Micro-ATX format boards:
With these two motherboards, MSI offers us entry-level models in micro-ATX format. The boards feature a basic layout with one PCIe 4.0 x16 port, coupled or not with other PCIe 3.0 x1 ports. As for storage, we’re talking about two M.2s, one of which is PCIe 4.0 x4, coupled with four SATAs. On the memory side, we find two DDR4 DIMMs on the Pro B550M-B and four on the Pro B550M-P. While the first board can support 64 GB of memory, the second is capable of 128 GB.
Typical of entry-level boards, these models feature bare or partially-covered power supply stages.
But the most interesting feature is the presence of a USB-C header. In this way, boards can exploit the front-panel connectivity of recent cases.
A timely launch!
The timing of this launch is ideal, as we recently learned that AMD was about to resurrect its Ryzen 7 5800X3D via a 10th AMD AM4 Anniversary edition. Re-launching entry-level boards provides affordable options for MSI customers to welcome the CPU ‘s re-launch, while retaining its DDR4 modules.
Clearly, we’re dealing with a decision designed to appeal to gamers on a tight budget. These days, affordable components are essential!
