Gigabyte B550i AORUS PRO AX Motherboard Overview
Typically we talk about board design in our overview section, but most of this board is covered as it is so small. We basically have a more neutral color design with black and silver. We do have a nice I/O cover and large heatsink with the AORUS logo towards the bottom of the board.
Being a B550 motherboard we have the AM4 socket towards the center of the board. It does include the standard AM4 mount so you can install a stock AM4 cooler quiet easily. On the left side of the CPU socket you’ll find your power delivery components. Gigabyte is using an 8-phase power design in a 6+2 configuration. The power stages are Intersil ISL99390’s, which support a maximum of 90A. So for the CPU you have a maximum output of 540A.
At the top corner of the board you’ll find your 8-pin EPS connector as well as 4-pin CPU fan header.
Moving over to the edge of the board you’ll find your two DDR4 DIMM slots which are metal reinforced. In front of them is your 24-pin ATX power connection, front panel headers, four SATA 6GB/s ports, a USB 3.2 gen 1 header, 4 pin standard RGB header, USB 2.0 header, and a 4-pin fan header.
Towards the bottom of the board you mainly have a pretty sizeable heatsink and your single PCI-Express x16 slot, which will operate at Gen4 speeds as long as you have a 3rd generation or higher Ryzen CPU installed. This slot is also metal reinforced. Towards the bottom corner of the board there are a few more headers which include your HD audio header, TPM header, and a clear CMOS jumper.
The large heatsink on the board does cover the first M.2 slot. Removing two screws we can access the slot, which also comes with its own integrated M.2 cooler. As long as you have a Ryzen 3000 series or above processor installed this slot will run at Gen4 speeds, otherwise it will run at Gen3 speeds. The slot also supports SATA M.2 drives.
Moving along to the rear I/O we do have an integrated I/O shield which is nice to see. From left to right you have DisplayPort, 2x HDMI, four USB 3.2 gen 1 ports, a small Q-Flash plus button, 2.5G LAN (Realtek), two USB 3.2 gen 2 (1x Type-A, 1x Type-C), WiFi antenna connections, and your audio connections.
Flipping the board over we can see that it is wrapped in metal shielding, this not only acts as a heatsink for the board, but also helps with structural integrity. There is also a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 / SATA M.2 slot on the back of the board.
For those wondering about RGB lighting there is a row of RGB LEDs on the right edge of the board. These will provide a nice under-glow on this edge of the board.
