Asus TUF Gaming B550M Plus (WiFi)
A well-equipped mATX B550 entrant that’s surprisingly affordable.
It’s nice to see fans of mATX get some love! Asus’ TUF brand has expanded to include partnerships with many different manufacturers who sell products to match the yellow tinged aesthetic. Though we wouldn’t call it a particularly attractive board, it has a rather understated and subtle appeal that users opposed to RGB lightshows will appreciate. It also offers very good value, something we don’t always see from Asus.
The mATX form factor means PCB space isn’t as limited as it is with mini-ITX, but with M.2 slots taking a lot of room, the PCB is still quite packed with components. The SATA ports are of the vertical variety, and there’s a pair of RGB headers if they’re of interest to you. There are a pair of M.2 slots, one of which supports PCIe 4.0, while the other supports PCIe 3.0 and is connected via the chipset. Strangely, the PCIe 3.0 slot is the one that is equipped with a heatsink, a curious decision when it’s the topmost slot that is most likely to be used. The positioning of the secondary slot under a potentially hot GPU partly explains it.
The B550M TUF features an 8+ 2 phase VRM powered by a single 8-pin power connector. Two large and hefty heatsinks help to keep it all cool. It might not be what you’d call an extreme VRM solution, but for the price it’s perfectly adequate, capable of powering a high-end Ryzen CPU without issue. The heatsinks look big but there’s actually quite a lot of empty space underneath them, so you’ll still need to pay attention to your airflow if you plan to use a high core count CPU and/or overclock.
The rear I/O is quite good, Eight USB ports are welcome compared to the bare six on the MSI and Asrock boards. You also get Wi-Fi 6 and Realtek 2.5 GB Ethernet along with HDMI 2.1 and a single DisplayPort (1.2 instead of 1.4). This makes it a good candidate for pairing with an upcoming Renoir APU.
The Asus B550M TUF performed admirably during our testing, consistently at the top of the pack, or near to it across all
CPU and bandwidth based testing. It’s a similar story when it comes to gaming with the Asus putting up a strong showing. Very good!
Asus is known for its comprehensive BIOS implementations. There’s not the complexity that can overwhelm some ROG users, yet the TUF BIOS contains all the useful settings you could need. Asus deserves a shout out for its fan controls. Along with MSI, Asus’ hysteresis and custom fan curves are typically top notch.
We came away quite impressed with the Asus TUF Gaming B550M Plus Wi-Fi (that’s a mouthful!) At $279 it still isn’t what you’d call a cheap board, but compared to other equivalent B550 boards, it’s very affordable especially with the features on offer. These include a decent quality VRM, 2.5GbE, Wi-Fi 6 and a good I/O selection. Throw in its strong performance and we’re left with a highly positive opinion of the Asus TUF Gaming B550M Plus Wi-FI. Thumbs up! Asus’ B550M TUF is a well appointed board that offers excellent value and performance. mATX fans take note.
“Though we wouldn’t call it a particularly attractive board, it has a rather understated and subtle appeal that users opposed to RGB lightshows will appreciate.”