ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming ITX Review - $200 of Pure Motherboard.

ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming ITX Review - Here is asrock's latest addition to the b550 family, the phantom gaming itx/ax, where that stands for ax wi-fi wifi, 6. It'S also got bluetooth 5.1 on board, and this does differ a little bit to the x570 phantom gaming itx we'll go through those differences today. 

But let's go uh first of all through the price range, where we've got this coming in at 199 usd and then for the x570, we're looking at 240 usd. So it's a 40 us dollar difference between the b550 version and the x570 version in australia. We'Re looking at 399, currently at the prices, recommended retail prices versus 449.

So i would like to see the australian pricing be corrected a little bit. I mean when we convert that 200 usd into aussie dollars, that's 280 aussie dollars. Roughly i mean, of course, we've got taxes, there's not a big of a market, but really there's a lot of sort of difference in those two prices there between australia and the us. 

So, basically in the us, this board is pretty well priced and we're going to get on to why it's pretty well priced right now, with the vrm details, where they're putting in eight phase six plus two phases and that's true phases: there's no doublers! There'S no moss drivers in here and we've got 90 amp chokes as well as 90 amp intercell mosfets. 

So these are the isl99390s and then for the socs they're using the isl 99227s they're 60s. But, of course, those six phases dedicated towards the cpu does a phenomenal job uh for an itx board right we've got a 3950x and we've loaded this thing up both at stock and at 4.3 gigahertz for finishing off the vrm details. We'Ve got tantalum caps here on board. This is what makes this vrm very special too. 

So the vrm, even though you're not getting as many phases as you used to with other motherboards that are bigger and around this price point. You are getting a better quality vrm, which does make up the difference, and it does make up the difference quite well. 

We'Re out of the box it's going to boost the 3950x to 4.025 gigahertz on all 16 calls 32 threads. This enables us to get over 9 000 points in cinebench single core we're getting 516, so the single core could go a little bit higher than what i'm used to seeing. 

But then again, the all core speeds are beautiful on this board going higher than that of any of the b550s. I did in the other comparison, and it also runs 4 400 megahertz memory, absolutely fine on the xmp stuff. This is the aorus memory modules that we've used for all our testing just to test. 

If there's any problems with compatibility and booting up with this memory, now overclocking 4.3 gigahertz all cores this managed to do this and it did it whilst getting around 89 degrees maximum on the ir readout, as well as getting to 91 degrees on the software readout and then 86 on the heatsink. Now the heatsink weighs in at about 80 grams. 

So it is a little bit anemic compared to other heatsinks, but again it is itx and the vrm is quite efficient, especially out of the box, we'll get onto the temperatures quickly there, where we're scoring roughly 80 degrees in software and in hardware 79 degrees and then 73 degrees for the heatsink, so the vrm is not getting a whole lot hotter for uh pushing out the 4.3 gigahertz all core overclock, where it is using an extra 50 watts from the wall. 

So it's using about 260 watts from the wall out of the box and then when we overclock it's using about 315 watts, so it does lose a little bit of efficiency. When you start to overclock it. I guess the vrm is getting a little bit hot. That'S making it inefficient in itself, but still b550 boards around this price range even versus the bigger brothers. 

It is doing a really good job on efficiency and the 90 degrees. That'S sort of like my maximum that i would like to keep a vrm at for all day, every day operation, and this does uh pass that test, and so it is a pretty solid border. And so the good thing is the vrm efficiency is there, and if you want to put a fan over the vrm you'll get cooler temperatures and possibly even better power efficiency, since it will be then running cooler. 

But what it's worth vrm very solid implementation. You are losing two phases versus the x570 version of this board, but you are gaining 90 amp chokes and mosfets versus 60 amps on the x570 solution. Another difference is the mounting bracket. This is am4 mounting. The x570 version actually has the intel lga 1150 mounting bracket. 

Now, moving through the m.2 configuration, we've got two m.2 slots on this board, one on the front, one on the rear, the front one carries a heat sink. This is a hyper slot, so it'll only support mvme pcie, the one on the back is ultra sort of but support both sata and pcie nvme solutions. However, it will only support it that gen 3 x4 speeds is the front. One will do x4, gen 4

And i tested out the speeds that are working, absolutely fine. The temperatures were getting up to around 72 degrees with this pci4 device. However, without the heat sink on, it was just simply overheating and it would shut the whole system off. 

So that's something to be aware of this heatsink. If you want to use a very fast drive, you will need cooling and this cooling does do a decent job. It'S certainly not the best cooling i've seen come through the studio here, but it does get the job done so moving through the onboard audio numbers. 

Of course, if you're buying a mini itx solution, you probably want good audio, because you don't have any extra pcie slots to add an extra device and also since you're going small. Maybe a usb interface is out of the question, and so here's where the realtek, 12, 20 adc and dax solution does deliver some decent numbers, not the best i've seen minus 5.2 decibels 0 to 10 hertz of roll off there and then, after that, relatively flat with a 0.1 decibel roll-off after 10 to 20k kilohertz, and then the crosstalk is actually very low up until a volume level of 90. 

Then, after that, we start to get spikes on the left channel. So basically, if you're using this on-board audio, keep it at a volume level of 90 or below then for the mic input. This is actually very good if you're looking at it in one way - and that is the volume level overall i found - was a lot lower than i'm used to hearing. 

So, even though it goes up to 100 plus 30 db, it's doing so with no noise, but even then that input level is very uh. I guess low compared to other mic input solutions. So there is no noise, but you will have to have a sensitive mic to get the most out of this input. Port they're, going through the rest of the features here. Bios, absolutely fine got all the options. 

If you want to overclock save 10 profiles, you can control the three different pwm fan, headers individually, if you want to you've, got 12 volt and 5 volt rgb, one of those being addressable. That'S the 5 volt of course, but you can't control this within the bias. 

Something i've critiqued azeroth 4, since, on the intel side of things, they tend to offer this option with the rgb control within the bios itself, and there's also no bass flashing via the internet, which i'd like to see them bring both these things on the amd side. But, besides that, the bios is really well built very simple to use. It'S also got all the advanced features. If you want to go that far in then going over the rear of this board, this is where it starts to differ a bit to the x570 version. 2

We'Ve got usb 3.2 instead of thunderbolt support on the x570. So if you do need that thunderbolt support on amd's side, then the x570 solution is going to be for you. For sure, though, we are losing the uh, also optical out for the audio here, as well as the manual 5.1 versus the line in mic in and audio out. Only then we're also getting an extra usb type, a port for five in total plus the type c. 

So six in total versus five on the x570 and the x570 does have a ps2 port, which this is missing. So in the box. You also get your sider cables included antenna, which is the same on both the x570 and b550 versions. Then the last difference is the nik 2.5 gigabit solution versus one gigabit on the x570, and so that leaves us now to conclusion time with this motherboard right here. 

Is it worth the money and i'm going to definitely say yes, i like, where this board's coming in. In fact, i'm going to be using this in a build where i'm going to be changing over to amd for my main rig with mini itx theory, i think mini itx. Has i guess you know technically, it's got the shortest traces, which technically would mean the best latency. 

This is coming from a real, weird route that i'm going to go down in the future, but of course it's going to be almost impossible to prove the differences. But that being said, if the science sort of states that the difference is there, so if it's there to be had, why not have it with all these gigahertz and instructions per cycle going on and so itx is becoming more popular for me personally and i feel Like when you're going in the realm of itx,.

You want a really good board to match that experience, and this board really hits the mark, especially with its vrm, and that's what you want to get the most out of supporting the 16 core 32 threaded beast. The 3950x, with no problems out of the box, giving really good performance numbers out of the box and then, when you overload the 4.3 gigahertz handling that absolutely fine. 

I am left with nothing but impressed with the 199 dollar price point. Now the usb speeds they checked out absolutely fine. The m.2 speeds are fine, the temperatures are fine. You'Ve also got everything else on board 2.5 g and the onboard audio works. Okay. So now it leads to the question of. Would you want to buy this or the x570 variant, and that depends on what you want to do?

 Of course, you've got that money to be saved here. The 40 bucks the vrm itself. Both these itx solutions have really good implementations, though, where the big differences come down to, in my opinion, is if you need that optical out on the x570, as well as the thunderbolt 3, where you're going to get both those on the x570 variant, as opposed to This right here you're going to lose those, but you are going to gain an extra m.2 slot, which could be very handy in terms of those extra chipset lanes of b550 versus x570.

This is the one area on mini itx, where it's almost useless, and so because you don't have all those extra pcie brackets on your motherboard you're, not really missing out on much with going b550 versus x570 on the mini itx solutions. So really, when it comes down to it, if you need those features on x570 versus the b550 version, go with that, if you don't - and you want to save some money and gain an extra m2 slot, then this is going to be a phenomenal solution, so asrock have really been doing a good job, especially on the amd side of the fence, with mini itx. 

I haven't really taken a look at their z490 itx solutions. Yet, even though i had to use one for a competition recently - and it does the job absolutely fine, but i haven't gotten around to reviewing it properly yet, but i have been using it as my main workhorse for now and it's been doing absolutely fine job. 

This is the cheaper variant, not even the phantom gaming version, so basically summing everything up for you guys if you're in the us of a very solid buy for 199 us if you're in australia, i would sort of take a look around and see if you can Get it on sale because i think the pricing differential is quite big, as we pointed out in the intro there, so i'll ask asrock. 

What'S up with that they're! Definitely for 199 us very solid board, even if you want to put a 3950x in it and with all that out of the way, if you guys enjoyed today's review of the b550 phantom gaming itx from azeroth, then be sure to hit that like button for us. Also, let us know in the comment section below: what's your opinions and thoughts on b550 rtx, vs, x570 versus z490? 

Are you an itx fan, love reading your thoughts and opinions? As always, just like this question of the day here, which comes from rumple - and they ask - was the previous tech - yes mobile in eight six stinger looks mint by the way, so the previous uh, yes mobile, was a one two four bath spider and then before that, It was a whole nash draw and i'm going to do a card vlog for you guys. 

I know i haven't forgot about that. That will be coming uh the 86 you guys have seen on the channel. Sometimes that's one of my best friends, uh, shannon he's a really cool dude and he just likes coming along with the parts hunt sometimes - and we use his 86 because believe it or not. It'S actually got a lot more had a lot more room than the uh one, two, four bass spider. 

I could literally fit one computer in the boot if i was lucky on the one two, four surprisingly, on the eight six, you could actually fit quite a bit of used hardware in that thing. Hence the reason why it popped up a lot more than the abarth did previously in the parts hands, but the stinger that has a lot more room than both those cars combined. 

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