GIGABYTE B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2 Motherboard, Supports AMD AM4 Ryzen 5000 Processors, ATX, DDR4, Dual M.2, SATA 6Gb/s, 2.4/5 GHz Dual-Band, 2.5 GbE LAN, PCIe 4.0

This motherboard delivers a great set of features for the price, but with a few minor things worth pointing out.The RAM slots are very close to the CPU socket, so be mindful of your cooler choice and orientation. I learned that lesson the hard way - after installing my cooler, one side of the fan shroud protruded just enough to block a RAM slot, so I had to remove the cooler, clean/reapply thermal paste, and reverse the fan orientation to make it fit.If you need to remove the stock mounting brackets for a different cooler mounting style, keep in mind that the backplate is not attached to the board. It stays in place as long as you don’t move the board, but I lifted my board while working and suddenly found myself wondering where the cooler mounting screws had disappeared to, not realizing the bracket got left behind.There were some minor quality control issues. The M.2 screws were over-tightened, so I nearly stripped them trying to remove them. There was also a USB 3.2 header issue in that the plastic socket for the USB 3.2 header came loose when I needed to unplug the cable. I was able to fit it back onto the pins just fine, but this shouldn't happen.My only real disappointment is with the M.2 slots. The board features two, but only the first one (nearest the CPU) supports PCIe 4.0 speeds. The second slot is PCIe 3.0 only, which wasn't obvious in the product description. This won’t matter for many users, but if you were planning a RAID setup like I was, it’s important to note that both drives won’t run at the same speed.I loved Q-Flash! Being able to flash the BIOS without needing a CPU installed is an awesome feature. After flashing, the BIOS handled everything in my build flawlessly - I only had to enable XMP and I was good-to-go. If you’re using a newer Ryzen CPU, be sure to check if a BIOS update is required before installation.For lighting, the board has two main LED zones - one near the I/O shield, and another with 2 LED strips and backlighting near the PCIe slots. These were individually addressable using OpenRGB in Linux. I haven’t tested RGB control in Windows yet, but Gigabyte’s software is likely needed for full customization.Overall, this is a feature-rich board for the price and Q-Flash alone makes it a great choice for Ryzen users. If you need a solid, budget-friendly AM4 motherboard that's easy to work with, this is a great choice.

TL;DR: I'd recommend this board however it is important to keep in mind the clearance of the SATA ports if you're using a GPU.Been using Gigabyte boards for my main rig for the better part of a decade, so this board was a bit of a no brainer for the price. I was in the market for a new AM4 mATX board because unfortunately my B450 board did not have PBO2 so it wasn't allowing for my 5700X3D to properly spread its wings. The build went along swimmingly, Windows booted as if nothing happened, BIOS update went without a hitch, and I was finally able to tune my CPU! I usually prefer to buy motherboards with Intel WiFi but the Realtek adapter has been working great. It pains me to say this because it is partially my fault for not checking, but y'all can imagine my disappointment when I connected my GPU into the PCIE slot just to find out it covers 3 out of the 4 SATA ports!!! Keep in mind this is a 3060 ti which is not a triple slot card and it has two fans... So yeah I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't think to use 90° SATA connectors like my previous AORUS did but all this does is give me an excuse to buy the CM vertical GPU mount :p

Supported 5800X3D out of the box.Writing this to assist anyone else that has the same issue as I did.This board is paired with an RTX 5070 and replaced a failing Asrock Steelseries micro b450. After replacing, I would receive a blank screen, the case fans would ramp to 100 percent and require a manual shutdown.I was able to address the issue by using separate PCI-E 8pin rails from my PSU. I would also recommend reinstalling Windows.No issues with my 5800XD3 and with the available features and a quick Google, I was able to under volt with better performance and knock about 7C off the average CPU temp.

The Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX is one of the most affordable B550 ITX motherboards on the market at the time of this review, yet it is also extremely solid with all the latest features that an enthusiast may want in an ITX motherboard.Pros:For myself personally, the reasons for choosing this motherboard or a B550 board in general, is to have better/sooner support for the Ryzen 5000 series, along with things like PCIe 4.0, USB 3.2, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. This board also features a very handy Q-Flash feature for flashing the BIOS without having anything aside from a power supply and a USB stick, so no need to worry about having a Ryzen 3000 series chip on-hand to flash the latest BIOS. The board also features a backplate that really makes it feel like a properly premium and sturdy product. Compared to its X570 sibling, this board is around $30 less expensive but does not lack anything notable in my opinion, aside from the M.2 slot on the back of the board being PCIe 3.0 whereas the X570 version has PCIe 4.0 on both M.2 slots. The B550 also does not have a chipset cooling fan, which to me is an advantage over the X570 because it eliminates a potential source of noise and premature failure.It’s also worth noting that the chipset fan on the X570 version takes up one of the 3 fan headers, whereas all 3 headers on this board are usable. The X570 version also appears to only have USB 3.1 Gen 2 and 1.0 Gigabit Ethernet.Cons:This board does not have any provisions for front panel USB-C ports, so beware if your case features any USB-C ports that will need to be connected to the motherboard. Officially, the B550 chipset only supports Ryzen 3000 series out of the box, with Ryzen 5000 support enabled via a BIOS update. On the other hand, the X570 version will support Ryzen 2000 series as well, so in that regard the B550 board does lack a bit of flexibility.Additional Notes:I picked up this motherboard with the intention of using it with a Ryzen 5000 series chip when I get around to buying one sometime next year. The reason for buying this board now is mainly because availability for this board has been very inconsistent until recently, so I figured it would be wise to buy one while it’s readily available. I’m currently using a Ryzen 2700X which isn’t officially supported by the B550 chipset, so I was originally going to leave this board on the shelf until I got a Ryzen 5000 series CPU.I saw a few reports of people getting 2000 series CPUs to work in B550 boards, though they were few and far in between. However, I was going to go ahead and flash this board to BIOS version F10 to enable Ryzen 5000 support, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check if my 2700X will post in this board while I’m at it. The board was probably preloaded with the F1 or F2 BIOS out of the box, and I got nothing but a black screen when I tried to boot. However, after flashing to the F10 BIOS, I was massively surprised to see that it was able to post, and everything seemed to function normally in the BIOS. I proceeded to go a step further and installed my boot drive to see if it will boot into Windows, and I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when it reached desktop without any noticeable issues, and without reinstalling Windows or any of the drivers.Fast forward to today, and I’m running the F11b BIOS from October 19 with “additional optimizations” for Ryzen 5000 series, which actually enabled XMP for me, something that wasn’t working on the F10 BIOS. I have now reinstalled Windows and have been fine-tuning all the details without any problems whatsoever. I couldn’t be any happier with this board, everything from its features and construction to the unexpected support for older chips like mine. I would also like to add that the F10 BIOS which enabled Ryzen 5000 support was released on September 18, before the Ryzen 5000 series was even announced. I don’t see how Gigabyte could possibly have been further ahead of the curve when it comes to product support, and they have done a truly excellent job with this board.