The GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX Motherboard Review: All The Small Things

Conclusion

As AMD has finally launched its Ryzen 5000 series processors, which we reviewed in early November 2020, it blew the competition away with its newly designed core based on the 7 nm manufacturing process. Not only has AMD taken the single-threaded performance crown from Intel comfortably, but there could still be uplifts in the future. Despite using the Ryzen 7 3700X in our AM4 testing purely for consistency, the Ryzen 5000 series is supported across various chipsets, including X570 and B550, and A520, with many recent roll-outs of new firmware for B450 and X470 models, albeit without support for PCIe 4.0. 

Focusing on the GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX, and GIGABYTE has a pretty competitive offering for the mini-ITX crowd; in a trifecta of ways, including price, performance, and spec. The only PCIe 4.0 limitations to B550 on ITX are those that include two PCIe M.2 slots like this one, with one operating at PCIe 4.0 and the other reverting PCIe 3.0. The CPU drives the full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, and that both NVIDIA and AMD have been consistently pushing users away from multi-card setups, which of course, mini-ITX isn't compatible with. Other storage options include four SATA ports, all with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays as per AMD specification, and GIGABYTE has done a good job at utilizing space around the board.

The GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX is very well equipped for a mini-ITX board and drops potential space on the rear panel for video outputs, in fact, three including two HDMI and one DisplayPort 1.4 at the expense of USB connectivity. There is still a total of six USB ports on the rear panel, including two USB 3.2 G2 ports (A+C), with four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A too. The rear panel's Q-Flash button also allows users to update to the latest firmware without having a CPU, memory, or GPU installed, which I tried for myself for the review, and it worked flawlessly. A method like this should exist for all boards, in my opinion, especially those that require an older CPU to flash to make it compatible for newer CPUs seen on models such as B450 with Ryzen 5000. 

Putting it on our testing suite, the GIGABYTE performs well in most of our system based tests, with good power consumption in long idle, idle, and full-load, with fast booting times in our POST time testing. The DPC latency performance was sufficient but not groundbreaking, but on the whole, in our CPU and gaming tests, the B550I Aorus Pro AX was very competitive in all of our benchmarks. 

Regarding overclocking performance, we saw similar performance to other GIGABYTE models, and unfortunately, we still couldn't push our Ryzen 7 3700X beyond 4.3 GHz stable. Touching more on the specifics, the GIGABYTE has excellent levels of VDroop control at default LLC settings, and we saw nothing out of the ordinary. Even the VRM thermal temperatures were well within the expected range, which shows that GIGABYTE's mini-ITX option doesn't just look good, but it can handle its own under testing conditions.

GIGABYTE B550 versus X570 Models, B550I Pro AX Is a No Brainer

Looking beyond the striking similarities in design between the B550I Aorus Pro AX and the X570 I Aorus Pro WIFI, which we reviewed in March 2020, both share a near-identical PCB layout. The benefits of the newer B550I model, though, come through the power delivery, with a solid 8-phase design using the higher-spec Intersil ISL99390 90 A power stages over the 70 A variants the X570 model uses. While one of two PCIe M.2 slots is locked down to PCIe 3.0 x4, GIGABYTE hasn't just improved the board for B550, but it's priced much more competitively, and if users aren't going to utilize the more expensive PCIe 4.0 drives, then B550I offers much better value all-around. Networking is also better on the B550I with a Realtek RTL8125 2.5 GbE port and Intel's AX200 Wi-Fi 6 interface with support for BT 5.0 devices.

To summarize it up, I feel GIGABYTE has improved over its premium X570 mini-ITX model, and the B550 model even outshines it in regards to both specifications and price. The B550I Aorus Pro AX is currently on Amazon for $180, which is much cheaper than the X570 I Aorus Pro WIFI at $213. If a second PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot is necessary, then X570 is the way to go, but with better networking support (2.5 Gb v Gigabit), a better power delivery's hard to look past the B550I Aorus Pro AX. It's the cheapest premium B550 mini-ITX model, and GIGABYTE hits it right out of the park with a solid feature set, competitive performance, and an all-around good showing.