GIGABYTE B550 AORUS Elite AX V3 AMD AM4 ATX Motherboard, Supports Ryzen 5000/4000/3000 Processors, DDR4, 12+2 Power Phase, 2X M.2, PCIe 4.0, WIFI6, 2.5 GbE LAN, Front USB-C, Q-Flash Plus, RGB Fusion

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.

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

Motherboard works great, connects to every component flawlessly, came in great condition, looks great with my cardboard box pc case.

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.

Pretty slick b550 while it lasted, doesnt much like overclocking died in abt a year but I dont put to much fault on the mobo.

Funciona perfectamente

Kein Karton um das Mainboard zudem wurde Retouren ware verwendet da dort schon zwei weitere Adressen auf dem Karton standen, funktionierte aber alles einwandfrei. Karton hatte einige Beschädigungen weshalb ich mir ein wenig sorgen machte. Teile nächste mal bestellen über Amazon, definitiv nein.

Placa boa demais, chegou completa, atende as necessidades que eu tinha e com muita margem para upgrade.

La tengo desde hace 2 meses y no me ha presentado ningún problema, llegó en perfecto estado y tiene todos los puertos y conectividad necesarios que por el precio me parece una muy buena opción en comparacion con otras

La MAJ bios semble réduire les évènements de déconnexion mais il y en a toujours, chaque fois la souris et le clavier sont deco donc redémarrage manuelle et ca remarche. Ça fait ieche quand même car j'ai prévu un wake on lan pour éviter toute interaction physique avec le pc mais bon ca marche quand même la plupart du temps. Pour le reste bas j'attendais des températures plus élevée avec le 3200g (qui fonctionne dès la sortie de boîte sans maj d'ailleurs). La carte est solide et le heatsink du m.2 de devant a l'air de tres bonne qualité malgré que je ne l'ai pas encore testé. Globalement pour le prix ce serait un excellent produit (5 étoiles) s'il n'y avait pas de problème bluetooth.