Best B450 Motherboards (Mini ITX, Micro ATX and ATX) in 2021

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If you need to enjoy the latest AMD AM4 processors but are focused more happening rate and public presentation than feature overload, then finding the best B450 motherboards is believably of great importance to you.

AMD's B450 motherboards offer overclocking capabilities on about all their processors at a much lower Mary Leontyne Pric than competing Intel options, where shrill-end Z-series motherboards and K-serial publication processors are the minimum requirements for CPU overclocking. Non every enthusiast can afford to pass an extra hundred bucks operating theater two for features like these, and that's where AMD dominates.

What are the optimal B450 motherboards?

But enough well-nig Intel, and everything other. Let's dive into our big top five picks for AMD B450 motherboards, ranging from Miniskirt ITX all the way to full ATX boards.

Best Mini ATX B450 Motherboards

#1. ASRock B450 Gaming-ITX/Ac

ASRock Mini-ITX Motherboard (B450 Gaming-ITX/AC)

The ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/AC is our pick for unexcelled Mini ITX B450 motherboard. There are a few assorted reasons, but first get's come up to the "AC" in the refer.

Uncomparable issue with acquiring Mini ITX motherboards is that they only have elbow room for a singular PCI Utter slot. This means that your choices for expansion are fairly limited, and most won't deficiency to use that slot for love or money but a proper graphics card. While USB ports are still available for elaboration, many won't want to permanently sorb a USB port with a Wi-Fi arranger, either, especially for an ideally on-the-go takeout PC soma.

That's where this motherboard shines. It offers assembled-in WI-Fi and Bluetooth, which greatly reduces the involve for any additive expansion slots. This is especially useful for those getting a Mini ITX PC build for portability's saki, and saves them the trouble of carrying around an extra peripheral for Internet connectivity.

Wireless capabilities aside, this is beautiful much exactly what you'd expect from a B450 motherboard. Respectably high RAM speed capacity, overclocking capabilities, and high-speed NVMe are all present here. ITX does come with a a couple of downsides- namely a more cramped construction experience and less SATA/RAM slots- only these can easily be built around.

This is also one of the many expensive boards on this list, just that comes with the territory of Miniskirt ITX boards and Mini ITX cases in general, so we aren't docking a point for that. If you privation a mini ITX B450 circuit card, this is definitely your best bet.

Verdict: Best Mini ITX B450 motherboard

First Micro ATX B450 Motherboards

#2. ASRock B450M-HDV

ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Socket AM4 MicroATX Motherboard

The ASRock B450M-HDV is our picking for the best budget Micro ATX B450 motherboard. In addition to being single of the cheapest B450 MATX motherboards happening the market, IT's also one of the better-specced of those boards in terms of maximum RAM speeds. With a 3200 MHz RAM overclock, you shouldn't have an issue pushy Ryzen 3 and last-gen Ryzen 5 processors to their proper levels of carrying into action.

With the step up to a Micro ATX room, you now also puzzle over to delight the easier building undergo and enhanced expansion capabilities that attach to a Micro ATX case.

Additionally, many a users study that this board is shipping with patronage for tertiary-gen Ryzen processors out of the box, despite it beingness manufactured preceding to it launch. A "Ready for Ryzen 3000" sticker should follow on the box when it arrives- if it International Relations and Security Network't, either send it back to the manufacturing business to get an updated version, Oregon request a BIOs update kit to get the job done. You shouldn't need to do this, though.

With the out-of-box Ryzen 3000 support, great pricing, and decent well-rounded spectacles for a B450 board, we're hard-ironed to find something to complain more or less with this one. It doesn't have much in the way of any extras, merely you really shouldn't be expecting those at this price range. If what you want is a solid, functional B450 Small ATX motherboard for a low cost…this should more than suffice.

Verdict: The best budget Little ATX B450 motherboard

#3. MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX

MSI ProSeries AMD Ryzen 1st and 2ND Gen AM4 Micro-ATX Motherboard

The MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX is our pick for the go-to-meeting overall Micro ATX B450 motherboard. For not besides much more than our budget pick, you make a nice ramp-up in max supported RAM speeds, an betterment in VRM quality for better overclocking, and high overall build quality. There's besides whatever blade reinforcement added to the of import PCI Express x16 card expansion slot, meant to protect from GPU bending and sag over metre. (GPU sag is a harmless phenomenon, though, so you preceptor't really involve to occupy too much about that.)

Like before, we're semihard-ironed to complain about this board. IT's pretty well-priced for what it offers, and shouldn't chokepoint any Ryzen 5 operating theatre straight-grained 7 processor you slap into it, within conclude. Piece you don't have X570 levels of VRMs and Pound speeds with this board, no B450 motherboard has those things, and we don't think it'd live fair to dock points for features that are unreasonable to expect in this Mary Leontyne Pric rate.

Verdict: The best total Small ATX B450 motherboard

Best ATX B450 Motherboards

#4. ASRock B450 Pro4

ASRock ATX Motherboard (B450 PRO4)

The ASRock B450 Pro4 is our pick for best budget B450 motherboard.

Of particular pursuit with this board over all the others along this list is that it offers dual NVMe M.2 slots, but with a catch. Unrivalled of those slots is limited to half rush, which means that any NVMe SSD used in that slot will be capped to roughly ~1500 MB/s total bandwidth. While that's tranquillise much faster than SATA, it is a downgrade. Even if it weren't NVMe in the least, the extra M.2 slot would still be prissy to have, though.

That aside, the go up leading to an ATX case and motherboard gets you a lot more elaboration than is possible with the previous entries happening this list. For not untold more than our ATX motherboards, you get essentially twice the PCI Express and RAM slots. If you want to run Quad-Transfer RAM (which should as wel serve your Ryzen Mainframe performance) and set u more PCI expansion cards, then this board is a great option for doing so without breaking the bank.

As of January 2020, virtually users are reportage that this board is shipping with 3rd Gen Ryzen compatibility impossible of the box, merely the product pageboy has hitherto to be updated to indicate this. If you're fine with possibly having to make the BIOs update yourself, then getting this board shouldn't be a problem. If you're willing to pay out more for peace of mind, though, opting for our #5 pick up will guarantee thatand provide some more features.

Finding of fact: The best budget ATX B450 motherboard

#5. MSI B450 Tomahawk Max

MSI Arsenal Gaming AMD Ryzen 2ND and 3rd Gen AM4 ATX Motherboard

Our piece for trump ATX B450 motherboard — and many others' pick, for that matter- is the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max. This B450 board was manufactured later on the 3rd Gen Ryzen launch, so any of the boards you buy are guaranteed to sustenanc 3rd Gen Ryzen processors, disregardless how long they've been held in stock.

Unequal other B450 motherboards, this one isn't self-complacent with the basic descriptor of "it can overclock and it has decent Cram speeds, in real time give us your money". MSI went all out with this B450 board, pushful its max retentiveness speeds into low X570 levels with a maximum speed of 4133 MHz. This is genuinely stellar Random memory speed headroom, and that makes this board eager for Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 processors. (We'd still commend doing X570 for Ryzen 9, though.)

In addition to the prima RAM speed, you have got a lot of other crossways-the-board improvements. Boilers suit build character is much high, including a heatsink for the chipset and solid VRMs. Pushful a 4 GHz overclock happening your Ryzen 5 3600X shouldn't exist an way out with this board, peculiarly if your ice chest and RAM can prevent up.

Other little extras, like 2 more SATA ports, RGB lighting, and high-quality onboard sound, make this a compelling package. While we normally skim complete USB-related stuff, this board as wel offers USB 3.2 Gen 2 support with both a Type-A and Type-C port on the back, where complete the other boards happening this listing are limited to Gen 1. For those who use external USB entrepot, that makes this an even more compelling pick over the others.

All this combined with its sub-$120 price makes this our topmost pick, no more question. The pricing is more than antimonopoly, and the lineament put off on offer is the first you can invite in that price range, if not better.

Verdict: The Sunday-go-to-meeting ATX B450 motherboard

FAQ and Choosing The Right B450 Motherboard For You

Immediately that we've muffled all of our top picks, we're going to give you all the information you need to know to progress to an informed purchasing decision.

What is AMD B450?

First and foremost, Lashkar-e-Toiba's explain what AMD B450 evenis for those of you who aren't predestinate or stumbled on this article aside accident.

"B450" refers to the chipset role model. The motherboard chipset determines what CPUs your motherboard is compatible with, what RAM speeds your motherboard can achieve, overclocking potentiality, and all kinds of unusual nerdy stuff.

There are three main tiers of AM4 motherboard chipsets:

A320 – Bare negligible, no OC features surgery real extras.
B450 – Mid-range occasionally flirting with high-end, adds overclocking and higher RAM speeds.
X470/X570 – The high-end, with X570 having mostly phased out X470. Improves VRMs for higher CPU overclocks, and overall build quality for even high Read/write memor speeds, faster PCIe/NVMe, and other extras,

B450 is the ideal for most users, who aren't going to glucinium pushing insane overclocks but just want a well-balanced motherboard for a balanced price.

Motherboard Size and Expandability

Motherboard size corresponds directly to the amount of enlargement a motherboard can handle, but As the old age birth gone on…these have become less primal to most users. Pitch a motherboard with a single PCI Express slot to an enthusiast in the 90s and you would've been looked at like you were insane, because features we now see as introductory- including networking and strong- all required PCI Express elaboration back then.

Nowadays, features like those are built right into the motherboard, and optionals like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can easily be achieved with a simple plug into a USB port. Many PC users only indigence a single PCI Verbalize slot for their graphics bill, today.

That being said, there are still many reasons to opt for a big motherboard, including multi-GPU configurations, quad-channel RAM setups, and multi-NVMe storage setups. Overall pricing seems to be balanced mostly in favor of Micro ATX besides, with Mini ITX and ATX both trending many high-ticket for the same features due to the smaller size and many raw capacity, respectively.

Difference between SATA and NVMe Bandwidth

There are two main storage standards: SATA and NVMe.

SATA is used aside 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives, unremarkably SSDs and HDDs, respectively. Its effective speed is limited to just about ~600 MB/s, usually manifesting more or less 550 MB/s study for the highest-end SATA SSDs.

NVMe drives use PCI Express mail bandwidth, and for PCI Express Gen 3, that's a theoretical4000 Bachelor of Medicine/s maximal. (Most high-end NVMe Gen 3 drives top unconscious much lower than this- around 3000 MB/s. Even and so, that's still a pregnant improvement terminated SATA!)

Where things get a little tricky is with the M.2 form factor. Many motherboards get M.2 slots that only financial support SATA speeds, and more or less M.2 drives themselves only support SATA speeds despite looking physically very to much-faster M.2 NVMe drives. Embody reliable to two-base hit-check both motherboard and M.2 force back specs if you're shopping for ultra-immoral SSD entrepot!

How Ryzen relies happening Tup

Reading through this clause, you English hawthorn notice a higher-than-normal level of centre on RAM.

This is because Ryzen processors, particularly, can be heavily bottlenecked by low-pitched RAM speeds and greatly benefit from higher RAM speeds. Intel CPUs aren't As heavily impacted therein compliments because they're built differently, but for some serious Ryzen enthusiast this is a big deal, specially if you're purchasing Ryzen 5 or better processors.

For that reason, we've included uttermost Aries the Ram quicken ratings with each of our motherboard picks. While diving into whol the specifics of Ryzen and RAM is a bit out of the ambit of this careful article, we've enclosed this data so users ass make truly hip purchasing decisions. We aren't in the business of suckering our readers.

Parting Words

…and that's it!

If you have any lingering questions you don't feel were properly addressed by this article, please leave a comment in the comments segment to a lower place so that we can help you. Otherwise, we trust you enjoyed this article and our picks, and we hope you've learned everything you need to know!

Good luck with your new B450 motherboard, and have a blast with your PC!