ASUS PRIME B550M-K, AMD AM4, MATX, 128GB DDR4, 4DIMM, D-SUB, DVI-D, HDMI, PCIE

Product Information

It doesn't have PCI-Express v4.0 but that's irrelevant except for high-speed NVMe drives at this point. Superior power delivery when compared to the A-series and B-series boards. Platform is mature and stable. Far more nice features on an X-series board like more USB, Intel Gigabit LAN and the audio is Realtek ALC892 with 7.1 channels. Users will still have a USB 3.0 header, two USB 2.0 headers, four SATA ports, a full PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot for fast storage, and a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot from the chipset. Audio is the same ALC887 codec with some PCB separation.

Just as the other budget boards we’ve looked at don’t include a lot of accessories, the Asus Prime B550M-K follows suit. You’ll get what you need, but little more. Below is a list of all of the accessories included with the board.Now, I assume NOTHING. I still thought that it was funny in a sarcastic kind of way. I mean, come on, I wrote "RECOMMENDED" at the end. What serious poster does that? LOL Across the bottom edge are several headers with various functionality. You’ll find the front panel headers, USB and more. Below is a complete list of headers and ports on the bottom edge.

ASUS’s cheapest B550 board is the B550M-K, which is almost identical to the B550M-A, with just fewer parts. The biggest visual difference is that the B550M-K does not come with a power delivery heatsink, with a simple 4+2 power delivery design. I have to admit however, if your option 5 out of the 4 was a real world choice here, I'd take that X370 over a B550 any day.)Moving on to the bottom half, on the left side and fully exposed is the Realtek ALC887 codec along with the small yellow Japanese audio capacitors. The audio codec hails from Realtek’s budget range, but it should be sufficient. If you’re an audiophile, none of these boards are going to be up to snuff when paired with a high-end set of headphones or speakers. But for casual use, you’ll be fine. I have to give you props for creativity, but when it comes to those of us that don't have a baller AM4 board (or any AM4 board) and are vaguely interested in throwing a box together on the cheap, recommending option 5 out of 4 legit choices might as well be saying to divide by 0. In the middle of the board is a single full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, along with two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. The full-length slot gets its lanes/bandwidth from the CPU while the small slots are fed from the chipset. Due to the slot configuration, you’ll lose access to the top slot using any video card that is over single slot width (which is most of them). I have to admit however, if your option 5 out of the 4 was a real world choice here, I'd take that X370 over a B550 any day.)Why so serious? I only put it there because nobody had posted anything and it's funny (because of option 5 out of 4). Of course it doesn't work unless someone already has the board. It's one of those "D'UH" posts that just takes up space. It also informs people that it is an option. One could say "everyone knows that" and I would've agreed once upon a time but then someone asked me for a source when I mentioned that Zotac is just Sapphire in disguise (and I thought everyone knew that).