Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards
by Gavin Bonshor on July 31, 2018 8:00 AM ESTASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac
The B450 Gaming K4 uses similar gunmetal grey heatsinks designs as the B450 Gaming K4, which feature fins to help direct airflow through the channels. The board features support for ASRock’s Polychrome RGB technology, however the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac has no onboard LEDs with the RGB capabilities coming through the same pairing of available headers.
Buy ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac on Newegg
The B450 Gaming ITX/ac has a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot featuring ASRock Steel Slot protection, and has a total of four SATA 6 Gbps ports with all of them featuring straight angled connectors. For M.2, the Gaming ITX/ac model features a single PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA slot located on the rear of the PCB.
As is usually the case with Mini-ITX form factor motherboards, the ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac has a total of two RAM slots giving a maximum supported capacity of up to 32 GB of DDR4. One of the advantages to Mini-ITX is the length of the tracks between the RAM slots and the CPU socket meaning better memory capabilities is possible, which in this case is shown through DDR4-3466 support, compared to DDR4-3200 for the Gaming K4.
On the smaller form factor Fatal1ty B450 Gaming ITX/ac rear panel is two USB 3.1 10 Gbps ports (Type-A and Type-C), two USB 3.1 5 Gbps ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a HDMI output, a DisplayPort 1.2 output, two antenna ports for the integrated Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi module and a PS/2 combo port. The five 3.5mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are governed by a high-quality Realtek ALC1220 audio codec, while the LAN port is driven by an Intel I211AT Gigabit networking controller.
Overall, the smaller B450 Gaming ITX/ac compared to the K4 has higher quality integrated controllers and omits any form of built-in RGB. The new ASRock Fatal1ty B450 models directly replace the currently available B350 offerings and as it stands currently, with the B450 Gaming ITX/ac is set to cost $129.99.
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sh009vf5ik1a - Saturday, January 18, 2020 - link
Heads up on the Gigabyte B450 DS3H...This article pretty clearly states ECC memory is supported on this board, and so does Gigabyte's product page, however it fails to mention that 'supported' means just boot support. The actual Error Checking and Correction features are missing and unable to be leveraged.
I purchased this board purely based on this article for the sole reason of having a cheap ECC setup. Combined it with a Ryzen 2600 and Unbuffered Kingston ECC memory, and found that its impossible to get ECC working.
The system boots and works, but you do not get ECC functionality.
chrcoluk - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
I read on reddit someone wrongfully stated the 2nd 16x slot is only pci gen 2. I wondered how they got this info, I then came across this review, which also states the 2nd 16x slow is gen 2.According to the manual both slots are gen 3 and both are hooked to the cpu.
I have confirmed this as I now use an asmedia 1604 sata card, on post it reports what pci-e mode its in, if I use any of the x1 slots it reports gen 2 x1, if I use either of the x16 slots it reports gen 3 x1 (its limited to one lane). I actually have even moved the gpu to the second x16 slot as its easier to plug in cables to the sata card when its in a higher slot and even gpuz reports the gpu is on pcie gen 3.
Whats the lesson? read the manual, test and dont take what a media rep tells you for gospel ;)