ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-Plus [WI-FI] (AMD AM4)

Die Entscheidung ob X570 oder B550 ist natürlich auch eine Frage des Geldes und der benötigten Features. Und genau da wird es plötzlich interessant, wenn man z.B. zwei Boards einer sehr ähnlichen Ausstattungsreihe des gleichen Herstellers vergleicht... Video gucken!

Das erste B550-Mainboard von ASUS bei uns im Test war das ROG Strix B550-E Gaming (Hardwareluxx-Test) und heute werden wir uns das TUF Gaming B550M-Plus (Wi-Fi) näher anschauen. ASUS' TUF-Gaming-Reihe wurde ja nun schon seit einiger Zeit als Einstiegsklasse der ASUS-Gaming-Produkte deklariert, was natürlich auch den positiven Nebeneffekt hat, dass die TUF-Gaming-Mainboards zu einem interessanten Anschaffungspreis angeboten werden.

Über den neuen B550-Chipsatz hatte ich ja bereits ausführlich geschrieben und wer sich noch einmal informieren möchte, kann und sollte dies zunächst hier mit Hilfe des Artikels AMDs B550 Chipsatz bringt viele neue Features und trennt doch die Ryzen-Generationen tun. Ansonsten ist die Entscheidung natürlich auch eine Frage des Geldes und der benötigten Features. Und genau da wird es plötzlich interessant, wenn man z.B. zwei Boards einer sehr ähnlichen Ausstattungsreihe des gleichen Herstellers vergleicht.

With AMD recently announcing that 400-series chipsets would support 4th Gen Ryzen CPUs, the B550 chipset has no longer been seen as merely a more affordable way than X570 to get PCIe 4.0 support as well as offering a future home to AMD's highly-anticipated Zen 3 CPUs. Instead, it's now facing questions from both sides, with B450 offering far lower pricing and X570 perhaps that premium swagger that has already lured many to part with their cash.

During our time with the B550 motherboards it has become clear that they are surprisingly good considering that they are a more affordable version of the X570. It wasn't that long ago that if you got a chipset that was anything but the flagship take on that particular socket then you were having to give up a lot of performance and connectivity to obtain that lower price. However, in raw performance terms the B550 is just as good as the X570 thanks to some careful design choices and places to give up a little manufacturing cost to save some money.

ASUS seem to be on a winning streak with their motherboards for quite some time now, and I don’t see that trend changing any time soon. They have easily the biggest range of motherboards for every launch, giving consumers a very broad range of features and prices to choose from. The TUF gaming certainly represents great value for money though, as the performance was competitive, it looks great and of course, it’s mATX.

There are clearly a few ways Asus could have shaved a bit more cash off the price here, such as dipping down to a lesser audio codec, dropping an M.2 port, including fewer USB ports, or perhaps ditching WiFi or USB BIOS FlashBack support. However, combined with the beefed-up power delivery and cooling, what we have here is a motherboard that is more than up to the task of dealing with AMD's Ryzen 9 CPUs and will likely handle anything Zen 3 can throw at it, too.