Final Thoughts
I’ve had my eye on ASRock’s new LiveMixer series since it was first leaked and it is pretty awesome getting one of these boards in to review! As I mentioned ASRock launched this series with two boards, the B650 LiveMixer on the AMD side and the Z790 LiveMixer on the Intel side. It is interesting that ASRock went with a lower-end chipset on the AMD side, but in any case this board really does pack in the features and looks great!
That is of course the thing that makes the LiveMixer boards stand out, is their looks! ASRock has gone with a sort of graffiti-style with these boards and it’s something we really haven’t seen before! With the B650 board we have very vibrant orange and yellow colors! It is safe to say that if you have a side panel window on your PC case this board is definitely going to stand out. It would be really cool to see ASRock come out with a graphics card that would match this board!
Beyond looks the LiveMixer boards are made for podcasters, livestreamers, and content creators. If there is one thing most of those people have is USB devices, whether it is gaming peripherals, microphones, webcams, audio interfaces and more. With the B650 LiveMixer you are going to get 14 USB ports on the rear I/O of the board and even more available via headers on the board itself! This should cover all of your gear! It is also nice to see PCI-Express 5.0 storage here, which will be great for gaming, and beyond the single Gen5 M.2 slot you have two more Gen4 slots, all of which come with heatsinks to keep your drives nice and cool.
Only having two SATA ports might be a bit disappointing to some, especially since this is more of a mid-range to entry-level chipset. I was also not able to get the USB 3.2 gen 2×2 port to go beyond 1000 MB/s, which was a bit odd.
I think if you are looking for a motherboard that is going to really stand out and has a ton of USB ports and other connectivity on the AMD side this is an excellent board. Right now you can pick this board up at our favorite online retailer for $229.99. Overall ThinkComputers gives the ASRock B650 LiveMixer Motherboard a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Standout graffiti-style paint job
– A TON of USB ports (14 on the rear alone)
– Gen5 storage support
Cons:
– Only two SATA ports
– USB 3.2 gen 2×2 header only gave us Gen 2 (not 2×2) speeds
