I’ve always been a fan of mini-ITX motherboards. It is still very impressive to me that we can cram so much into such a small motherboard. With the Ryzen 3000 series and upcoming Ryzen 5000 series building a super-powerful small form factor system couldn’t be easier. Gigabyte has the perfect motherboard for you too, the Gigabyte B550i AORUS PRO AX! B550 motherboards lack full PCI-Express 4.0 support, but you will get it on a single x16 slot and an M.2 slot, which means in the mini-ITX form factor you really aren’t losing all that much. Gigabyte’s B550i AORUS PRO AX is loaded with features which include a 6+2 VRM with 90A power stages, USB 3.2 support, dual M.2 slots, WiFi 6, 2.5G LAN, RGB lighting and much more! Is this the ultimate mini-ITX motherboard for Ryzen? Read on as we find out!
Special thanks to Gigabyte for providing us with the B550i AORUS PRO AX Motherboard to review.
Features
– Supports 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors
– Dual Channel ECC/ Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4, 2 DIMMs
– Direct 8 Phases Digital VRM Solution with 90A Smart Power Stage (SPS)
– Advanced Thermal Design with Extended & Multi-Layered Heatsink and Thermal Baseplate
– Ultra Durable™ PCIe 4.0 Ready x16 Slot
– Dual Ultra-Fast NVMe PCIe 4.0/3.0 x4 M.2 with Thermal Guard
– Onboard Intel® WiFi 6 802.11ax 2T2R & BT5 with AORUS Antenna
– AMP-UP Audio with ALC1220-VB and Nichicon Audio Capacitors for Rear 120dB SNR
– Blazing Fast 2.5GbE LAN with Bandwidth Management
– USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C™ & DisplayPort + Dual HDMI Support
– RGB FUSION 2.0 Supports Addressable LED & RGB LED Strips
– Smart Fan 5 Features Multiple Temperature Sensors , Hybrid Fan Headers with FAN STOP
– Q-Flash Plus Update BIOS without Installing the CPU, Memory and Graphics Card
– Pre-installed IO Shield for Easy and Quick Installation
Packaging
The Gigabyte B550i AORUS PRO AX comes in a box that is not much larger than the motherboard itself. On the front there is a large AORUS logo and it does let us know that it does support AMD Ryzen 3rd generation processors.
Flipping over to the back we have a run-down of many of the features of the board as well as a list of specifications and rear I/O diagram.
Getting everything out of the box besides the motherboard you’ll find a WiFi antenna, two SATA cables, RGB extension cable, fan adapter, case badge, driver and utility CD, and a user’s manual.
