Final Thoughts
There is just something about mini-ITX boards that makes them sexy. Maybe its the small size and what all can be packed into them, but whatever it is I love small boards like the MSI B450i Gaming AC. Being that this board is so small you can only fit so many things on it, but I think MSI did a great job of including the right features.
Of course you have support for the latest second generation Ryzen processors and we had no issues running our 2700X on the board, and even overclocking it. There is only a single M.2 slot (PCIe x4), but I would guess most people are not running more than one NVMe drive. The only gripe I have about the M.2 slot is that there is no integrated heatsink. Even with the single M.2 slot you do get four more SATA 6GB/s ports.
You are limited to two DDR4 DIMM slots, so you’ll only be able to run a max of 32GB of memory, but again that is more than enough for most people. Then you have your single PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot for graphics, again how many people are actually running multiple cards these days? MSI also outfits this board with Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11 ac WiFi.
MSI’s Click BIOS 5 is very easy to navigate and their motherboard companion software has really come a long way in the past couple of years. I really like how I can just download the App Manager and just install everything through there, not download a 10 different installs from the MSI website.
At the end of the day if you are looking for a mini-ITX motherboard for your Ryzen build the MSI B450i Gaming Plus AC is a solid choice. Right now you can pick it up at our favorite online retailer for $116.74. Overall ThinkComputers gives the MSI B450i Gaming Plus AC Motherboard a 9 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!
Pros:
– A lot packed in a small package
– Able to handle overclocking a Ryzen 2700X
– PCIe x4 M.2 slot
– 802.11ac WiFi
– Great BIOS and motherboard companion software
Cons:
– No M.2 cooler
– Limited to 32GB of memory
