Gigabyte B550M AORUS PRO-P (AMD Ryzen 5000/B550/Micro ATX/M.2 Thermal Guard/HDMI/DVI/USB 3.2 Gen 2/DDR4/Motherboard)

This review is for the b550m aorus pro-p mobo,I have ryzen 5 3600 (very good silicon quality, could do ccx0 4.5ghz ccx1 4.3ghz with vcore 1.35v);paired with 3600mhz cl 16-19-19-38 at 1.4v ram (Micron c9bkv, manually overclocked, very stable),a msi gtx 1080 ventus gpu and firecuda 520 500g pcie gen4 ssd as the os drive.this mobo compares to the original p version is that this mobo comes with a beefier power supply (which comes from the atx b550 aorus pro design),which is at the same level ofmsi b550 tomahark/gaming edge (they have the same vrm design and chip);asus rog strix x570i (the itx mobo, in terms of vrm, x570e is stronger than x570i, b550e is stronger than even c8h/c8f, currently asus strongest am4 mobo is c8dh/b550xe);asrock x570 taichi (asrock strongest am4 mobo rn is b550 taichi or x570 aqua, aqua has higher amp range where b550 taichi has one extra phase and better ram controller)in general, b550 mobos are just better than x570 mobos simplely because b550 mobos came out almost a year later than x570 mobos, the biggest pro part for x570s are the pcie gen4 supports (but for non-professional use, the extra speed from gen4 is not obvious at all)i had a x570i aorus pro wifi mobo for my matx case which at the time that was the cheapest pcie gen4 itx mobo on the market (b450 does not support pcie gen4); but the bios on the mobo was wonkey, i did update the bios on that mobo several times to see if I could get a better overclocking performance for my 3600 (which i could only get all core 4.3 with vcore 1.35v, and only 3600 cl 18-22-22-36 with 1.35v for the ram)This mobo comes with 5 pwm fan headers which is plenty for a typical matx case fan control; three 12v rgb heads and two 5v argb headers for light control; a standard usb 3.1 gen 2 for front io, no usb 3.2 gen2 type c front header; no debug lights (which is a shame, this mobo with debug lights would be so much more competitive to the tuf b550ms and msi b550m mortars);One pcie 4.0 x16 slot; One pcie 3.0 x1 slot; One pcie 3.0 x16 sized slot(but runs in x4 mode), all these slots do not interfere with any of the m.2 slot or the sata ports (learn from this msi!); each pcie slot is one slot seperated;10 usb rear ports (four 2.0; four 3.1; two 3.2 with one of them type c), plently ports for your devices;Does not come with a wifi card, so you'll need a pcie wifi card (you can put it in the second x16 slot if you have a gpu)In general, so far this mobo is very solid, will update if anything changesEdit 1:for any one who may be experiencing the intermittment usb disconnections, AMD official has addressed this issue under their subreddit post, you can find a lot more information there;Personally I have not experienced any issues yet with this mobo (or any other AM4 mobos that I have, I have built 9 of them in total),one of the recommended potential fix is that to disable the "global c-state control" option in the bios, c-states are the varies types of idle/sleep/hibernation behavior of the cpu when the os(operating system) is in different situations (standby, sleeping, etc), since personally I always disable this option when doing my overclocking (making the system more stable after wake up or failed overclock), this might be a potential fix to the issues addressed above;also, AMD official has also recommended to update the bios the latest version (right now for b550m aorus pro-p, the latest version is f13c);make sure you install the amd chipset driver in your os (lastest version should be 2.13.27.501);Another potential fix is that manually changing the pcie mode in the bios, from gen4/auto to gen3 (personally i think this might be the cause, since most of the users who experienced the issue have a gen4 gpu);Will update if amd official has more information or if they have a definite fix.

I've been using this motherboard for a year now as of writing this review. So far, I have not had any issues with it and has been working as intended. From my case point, the best features of this motherboard are the amount of USB ports that are on the I/O. It has exactly ten ports, including a USB Type-C port. Other premium boards don't even have that many USB ports, but the Aorus Pro-P does. Another great feature is that is has a flash BIOS button on the I/O panel. This can be extremely useful, which was the main reason I bought this motherboard in the first place. At the time, I had bought the 5800x, but the board was on an older firmware. The flash BIOS button allows you update the board's firmware without the need of installing the cpu, ram, or graphics card. From now on, a BIOS flash button is a feature I will look for my future motherboard purchases, and that should also be something you should consider. Additionally, the Pro-P has great thermals in the VRM department due to its massive heatsinks.The only "bad" thing about this motherboard is the PCI-e bus layout. Ideally, you'd install your graphics card on the main PCI-e x16 slot, because that is how you get most of it's performance. If you have a large GPU like an Asus 3070ti TUF (like in my case), installing such a massive card on the first PCI-e x16 slot covers the other PCI-e slots below the main one. However, smaller graphics cards don't have this issue. Previously, I had a 1660 super installed, and was able to use the chipset's PCI-e x16 slot. My 3070ti is large though, and now I can't use the other PCI-e slots. Not really a problem for me though, it could be for you however. This PCI-e layout seems to be a trend for Gigabyte's micro boards. Also have this in consideration before purchasing this board.Overall, the board itself is working as it should. I personally recommend this for anyone looking for a micro ATX motherboard.Side notes: there are two versions of this b55om aorus board, the 'Pro' and the 'Pro-p'.The 'Pro' has mediocre VRM performance and thermals. The 'Pro-p' (this one we're reviewing), is updated with better thermal pads in the VRM department.

Setup was a breeze with this board, and it has a ton of USB ports compared to competitors. My Ryzen 5600x worked right out of the box without a BIOS update. Also, I didn't have many of the issues that other reviews stated, such as LAN drop-outs. Recent BIOS and driver updates resolved them, I suppose.My main problem with AORUS is their software. I'll just be honest, it isn't very good. RGB Fusion is finicky and the effects are not great. It fails to detect my RGB RAM part of the time. RGB settings don't get saved to the BIOS, so I can only use them within Windows (everything defaults to orange when booting up or in an unsupported operating system).I would also like a way to configure fan profiles from within Windows. Doing it from within the BIOS is clunky (but it does work).The other issue is the placement of the PCI-E slots. I don't know why manufacturers ever put the 16x slot up top. Most decent graphics cards will take up multiple slots. Here, a 2-slot card will cover the next slot down. The bottom slot is usable, but it doesn't give the graphics card much room to breathe. If I wanted, I could use the bottom slot, even though it's not 16x, but I don't think my card is powerful enough to use that much bandwidth. I would run into another problem though: the cables and connectors are in the way!Luckily I don't currently use any other PCI-E devices, but Gigabyte really should put more thought into the board layout issues. Otherwise, it is a really great value, and I'm definitely happy with it.