GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX (AM4 AMD/B550/Mini-Itx/Dual M.2/SATA 6Gb/s/USB 3.2 Gen 1/WiFi 6/2.5 GbE LAN/PCIe4.0/Realtek ALC1220-Vb/DisplayPort 1.4/2xHDMI 2.0B/RGB Fusion 2.0/DDR4/Gaming Motherboard)

This motherboard delivers a great set of features for the price, but with a few minor things worth pointing out.The RAM slots are very close to the CPU socket, so be mindful of your cooler choice and orientation. I learned that lesson the hard way - after installing my cooler, one side of the fan shroud protruded just enough to block a RAM slot, so I had to remove the cooler, clean/reapply thermal paste, and reverse the fan orientation to make it fit.If you need to remove the stock mounting brackets for a different cooler mounting style, keep in mind that the backplate is not attached to the board. It stays in place as long as you don’t move the board, but I lifted my board while working and suddenly found myself wondering where the cooler mounting screws had disappeared to, not realizing the bracket got left behind.There were some minor quality control issues. The M.2 screws were over-tightened, so I nearly stripped them trying to remove them. There was also a USB 3.2 header issue in that the plastic socket for the USB 3.2 header came loose when I needed to unplug the cable. I was able to fit it back onto the pins just fine, but this shouldn't happen.My only real disappointment is with the M.2 slots. The board features two, but only the first one (nearest the CPU) supports PCIe 4.0 speeds. The second slot is PCIe 3.0 only, which wasn't obvious in the product description. This won’t matter for many users, but if you were planning a RAID setup like I was, it’s important to note that both drives won’t run at the same speed.I loved Q-Flash! Being able to flash the BIOS without needing a CPU installed is an awesome feature. After flashing, the BIOS handled everything in my build flawlessly - I only had to enable XMP and I was good-to-go. If you’re using a newer Ryzen CPU, be sure to check if a BIOS update is required before installation.For lighting, the board has two main LED zones - one near the I/O shield, and another with 2 LED strips and backlighting near the PCIe slots. These were individually addressable using OpenRGB in Linux. I haven’t tested RGB control in Windows yet, but Gigabyte’s software is likely needed for full customization.Overall, this is a feature-rich board for the price and Q-Flash alone makes it a great choice for Ryzen users. If you need a solid, budget-friendly AM4 motherboard that's easy to work with, this is a great choice.

I got this to throw onto a Hydra Mini chassis build. I am running a Ryzen 3600 with a Scythe Big Shuriken 3, GTX 1080 Founders, G.SKILL Trident Z Neo F4-3600C16D-32GTZN, Samsung 790 EVO PLUS, Samsung 970 EVO, and a Corsair SF600 PSU. Everything went together good.I obviously don't need front panel C with a Hydra Mini so this worked out great for me. I updated to the F2a UEFI update before even trying to install windows.When I turned on above 4g decoding in the UEFI I lost everything connected to the chipset in Windows. Oddly enough I just had this happen on my Asrock Taichi Ultimate with the latest update on it too. I'm thinking there must be a bug in the latest code from AMD because I've always used that setting in the past. Once I turned it off both systems ran normally with all devices detected.Another thing that hung me up for a minute was the M.2 mounting on the front. I took the cover and heatsink off and at first, couldn't figure out why the drive wouldn't lay flat. The post was too high and I was thinking does this thing have to be pushed down beside it then the heatsink put on? After closer examination, I noticed that the top part of the post unscrews and then you put the drive in and screw that down over the drive, then lay the heatsink down and screw it in, and then reattach the cover over all of it. Also, be careful because the heads and threads look and feel easy to strip.I've been running for a couple of days now with no problems and so far would recommend this board. I plan to install one of the next series of Ryzen CPUs and whatever the best upcoming GPU turns out to be. I'll be sure to come back and update if I have any problems.

The Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX is one of the most affordable B550 ITX motherboards on the market at the time of this review, yet it is also extremely solid with all the latest features that an enthusiast may want in an ITX motherboard.Pros:For myself personally, the reasons for choosing this motherboard or a B550 board in general, is to have better/sooner support for the Ryzen 5000 series, along with things like PCIe 4.0, USB 3.2, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. This board also features a very handy Q-Flash feature for flashing the BIOS without having anything aside from a power supply and a USB stick, so no need to worry about having a Ryzen 3000 series chip on-hand to flash the latest BIOS. The board also features a backplate that really makes it feel like a properly premium and sturdy product. Compared to its X570 sibling, this board is around $30 less expensive but does not lack anything notable in my opinion, aside from the M.2 slot on the back of the board being PCIe 3.0 whereas the X570 version has PCIe 4.0 on both M.2 slots. The B550 also does not have a chipset cooling fan, which to me is an advantage over the X570 because it eliminates a potential source of noise and premature failure.It’s also worth noting that the chipset fan on the X570 version takes up one of the 3 fan headers, whereas all 3 headers on this board are usable. The X570 version also appears to only have USB 3.1 Gen 2 and 1.0 Gigabit Ethernet.Cons:This board does not have any provisions for front panel USB-C ports, so beware if your case features any USB-C ports that will need to be connected to the motherboard. Officially, the B550 chipset only supports Ryzen 3000 series out of the box, with Ryzen 5000 support enabled via a BIOS update. On the other hand, the X570 version will support Ryzen 2000 series as well, so in that regard the B550 board does lack a bit of flexibility.Additional Notes:I picked up this motherboard with the intention of using it with a Ryzen 5000 series chip when I get around to buying one sometime next year. The reason for buying this board now is mainly because availability for this board has been very inconsistent until recently, so I figured it would be wise to buy one while it’s readily available. I’m currently using a Ryzen 2700X which isn’t officially supported by the B550 chipset, so I was originally going to leave this board on the shelf until I got a Ryzen 5000 series CPU.I saw a few reports of people getting 2000 series CPUs to work in B550 boards, though they were few and far in between. However, I was going to go ahead and flash this board to BIOS version F10 to enable Ryzen 5000 support, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check if my 2700X will post in this board while I’m at it. The board was probably preloaded with the F1 or F2 BIOS out of the box, and I got nothing but a black screen when I tried to boot. However, after flashing to the F10 BIOS, I was massively surprised to see that it was able to post, and everything seemed to function normally in the BIOS. I proceeded to go a step further and installed my boot drive to see if it will boot into Windows, and I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when it reached desktop without any noticeable issues, and without reinstalling Windows or any of the drivers.Fast forward to today, and I’m running the F11b BIOS from October 19 with “additional optimizations” for Ryzen 5000 series, which actually enabled XMP for me, something that wasn’t working on the F10 BIOS. I have now reinstalled Windows and have been fine-tuning all the details without any problems whatsoever. I couldn’t be any happier with this board, everything from its features and construction to the unexpected support for older chips like mine. I would also like to add that the F10 BIOS which enabled Ryzen 5000 support was released on September 18, before the Ryzen 5000 series was even announced. I don’t see how Gigabyte could possibly have been further ahead of the curve when it comes to product support, and they have done a truly excellent job with this board.