I was testing AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with this motherboard, ASUS ROG STRIX B550-I GAMING. It is definitely not a new product which has been available on the market for at least one year. However, I just found I didn’t share any photos of this motherboard before. So, before I post the test results, let’s quickly take a look at this motherboard first.

Well, you can directly skip this paragraph if you are familiar with the specification of AMD B550 chipset. Instead, please allow me to remind you once again that AMD B550 chipset doesn’t come with PCIe Gen 4.0. In other words, you’ll need an AMD 3000 series Ryzen processor or an AMD 5000 series Ryzen processor to provide the bandwidth of PCIe Gen 4.0 so your PCIe Gen 4.0 graphics card or PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD can take advantage of it. Other than that, PCIe Gen 3.0 is the only choice you have. None of any AMD APU can support PCIe Gen 4.0 till now, not even the newly launched Ryzne 7 5700G or Ryzen 5 5600G. Of course, if you’re not interested in PCIe Gen 4.0, this is not a problem at all.

Now, time to the photos.

ASUS ROG STRIX B550-I GAMING motherboard is a MiniITX motherboard which has very limited area for the components (17cm x 17cm ). So, please keep this in mind that it is not fair to compare a MiniITX motherboard to an ATX motherboard.

The rear panel of this motherboard is as simple as I expected including 1 x DP and 1 x HDMI for the APU, 5 x USB connectors (including 1 x Type-C), 1 x LAN, integrated WiFi & BT, and audio jacks. And the black button is NOT the “Clear CMOS" button, it’s called “BIOS Flashback" button which is basically designed to get your BIOS back to normal in case you mess up the BIOS accidentally.

The 8-pin 12V “ProCool II" power connector for the CPU.

You can find 3 fan headers on the board and the one in different color is for the CPU fan. I really like this design because users can easily find the CPU fan header without checking the mini tiny words on the board.

There are 2 RGB headers right next to the fan headers. For any user who plans to use an RGB AIO water cooler for the CPU, this place is very close to the CPU socket that makes the installation easier.

The power connector.

There are 2 headers right next to the power connector, 1 x 10-pin (with 1 empty pin) and 1 x 4-pin. These headers are for the front panel of the PC chassis. Well, I have no question about the 10-pin header, but I’m really curious about the 4-pin header which is for the speaker. I mean…… is there any user still using the chassis speaker?

2 x USB 3.2 connectors are available.
If you get confused about the terms of USB 3.0/ 3.1/ 3.2/ gen 1/ gen 2 bla bla bla, that’s alright, check this post first and I’m sure you won’t get confused any more.
https://www.facebook.com/thealexwushere/posts/911812699177834

If you still have SATA hard drives, no worry at all, 4 x SATA connectors are available.

The SSD slot with the heat spreader on top side of the motherboard. The screws for the SSD is pre-installed. Nice!

Besides the SSD slot, the components for the audio are also on the same small PCB. And you’ll find the metal shielding around the audio jacks.

There are 3 audio jacks including line in, line out, and mic, and the Type-C connector under the audio jacks is called “Audio USB Type-C". If you have no idea about “Audio USB Type-C", check this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5E52-0abDk
The automatic translation is…… well, hope you understand.

One more thing about the audio jacks. They are RGB! “Mic" is red (R), “Line out" is green (G), and “Line in" is blue (B), yes, RGB!!!
Actually it’s called “LED Audio Jack". According to the product web page, this feature can “save you from fumbling around in the dark". The only scenario I can imagine is, when you’re about to watch special videos at the midnight…… or maybe play PC games at the midnight, and you don’t want to wake up no one, you’ll absolutely need to use the headset. At that moment, the LED audio jacks will be very helpful. 🙂

The PCIe x16 slot with the metal cover.
(metal reinforcement or maybe metal shielding)

The VRM.
There is a hidden fan on top of the heatsink. Therefore, “single fan" would be recommended in case of the air flow interference if you’re going to use an air cooler for the CPU.

There is not any metal plate on the back side of the motherboard but you can find another SSD slot over there.

The last 2 photos are about the “Clear CMOS" function.
There are 2 headers right next to the PCIe x16 slot, 1 x 10-pin (with 1 empty pin) and 1 x 4-pin. The 10-pin header is the USB header, and the 4-pin header, the 2 pins in the left is “Clear CMOS". You will need it when you overclock too much and suffer NO Boot issue.

Personally, I believe that the motherboard with AMD B550 chipset is an excellent choice which is flexible enough to fit most users’ needs, not to mention it’s more affordable comparing to the motherboard with AMD X570 chipset. Interested in this board? Go get it. 🙂