MSI B550 Unify
A B550 board that puts many X570 boards to shame.
Depending on who you ask, the B in B550 stands for business or budget. There’s nothing budget about the MSI MEG B550 Unify though. It’s a premium board through and through. MSI divides its gaming motherboards into three lines, there’s MAG at the lower end, MPG in the middle and MEG at the top. The MEG series includes the premium (and expensive) Godlike and Ace, so the fact that MSI includes the B550 Unify in its top product tier alongside its very best motherboards indicates we’re looking at a serious piece of kit.
The B550 Unify features an all-black design, with no RGB lighting. Isn’t that a surprise in these gamified times! The power delivery system wouldn’t be out of place on a board that costs twice the price, with 14+2 phase PWM with 90a chokes and dual 8-pin power connectors. Do you plan to run a 5950X with ln2 cooling? Go right ahead. The heatsinks are appropriately large and chunky. Its evident when you pick up the board. It just feels solid and well built.
There no less than four M.2 slots! Though due to lane limitations you’ll have to compromise elsewhere if you plan to run all four. Impressively, MSI includes comprehensive explanations and diagrams of the various combinations in the manual. Other manufacturers could learn a thing or two here.
The rear IO is well equipped but it’s about par for what we’d expect. You get Realtek 2.5G LAN and Intel Wi-Fi 6 plus four USB 2.0 and four USB 3.2 Gen 2, one of which is a Type-C. There’s one HDMI 2.1 port that will come into its own when Zen 3 APUs finally arrive (hurry up AMD!). The rear CMOS clear button is always welcome, as is the BIOS flashback button, which allows you to flash the board without needing to install a CPU.
AM4 boards and BIOS’ are mature, though there are always ongoing BIOS updates that can affect performance. The B550 Unify performed exactly as expected, though perhaps its gaming performance was a tiny fraction behind the competing Asrock B550 Razer Edition. Not that <1% really makes any difference in a benchmark here or there.
The B550 Unify is a wonderful overclocking board. Overclocking high core count processors is mostly limited by cooling these days, but a good ability to overclock memory is a characteristic of a strong and refined motherboard. Much like the Asus Dark Hero we reviewed in this issue, the MSI Unify was able to hit an impressive 2066MHz Infinity Fabric clock which results in a memory clock of DDR4-4133 when running in the optimal 1:1 mode. If you really want, you can run much faster than this, though you’ll have to drop back the Infinity Fabric a bit.
The MSI B550 Unify is a hugely impressive board. It puts many X570 boards to shame, and at $400 it’s not exorbitantly priced. It will appeal to users looking for a refined and reliable overclocking focused board. Those four M.2 slots are a rarity, especially on a B550 board. In the eyes of many, they alone might make the B550 Unify the pick of all B550 boards. Perhaps it is anyway! The Unify places features, functionality and performance ahead of aesthetics and we’re happy to recommend it.
If you value overclocking performance and functionality ahead of bling, then this is the B550 board for you.