There isn’t a better gaming B550 motherboard than the Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2. It’s also the least expensive B550-chipset board. But some parts that make it look better, like RGB LEDs, are missing so that the gaming features can be improved while keeping the price low. It has a solid, simple design and is all black, with some grey drawing patterns and brushed black metal on the heatsink for the built-in graphics. Gigabyte focuses on getting rid of a lot of extraneous visual features from the motherboards. This lowers the final prices and makes room for better gaming features without having a big effect on the motherboard costs.
This board doesn’t have an RGB LED because of this. An RGB LED is sometimes called a gaming visual feature. Aside from that, keep in mind that this board has the ATX shape, which measures 13.18 x 10.62 x 3.14 inches and can fit in all PC cases. Even though it has the B550 chipset, the Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 board is still considered a mid- to high-end model. This chipset is a better long-term investment than the B450 because it has faster connectors and more overclocking room. People who aren’t big fans of AMD chipsets say that the B550 is the upper limit of what they will accept. Anything higher than that starts to include advanced features that are better for certain users.
Specifications
- CPU Socket Socket AM4
- Compatible Devices Gaming Console
- RAM Memory Technology DDR4
- Compatible Processors AMD 3rd Generation Ryzen
- Chipset Type AMD B550
- Memory Clock Speed 4400 MHz
- Platform Not Machine Specific
- Model Name B550
- Memory Storage Capacity 128 GB
Where to Get Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2?
One of the best things about the Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 is its cooling system. Recall that they wanted to leave out some parts that would make it look better? To make up for it, though, they put a lot of focus on the cooling system, which is what the Gaming X name stands for. At the same time, remember that this is a mid-range motherboard, so don’t push it too far. So, if you want to overclock, I wouldn’t use a processor with +100W. If you’re not going to overclock, though, you can buy a 100W model without worry. In our tests, the Ryzen 9 3900X running at stock settings and low temperatures had no trouble with this board. So we decided to overclock it. When we tried to push it too far, the results were a little scary.
The AM4 socket lets you choose from a lot of different CPUs, so you can use this one as a starting point and pick any other CPU below it. You can look at the Gigabyte X570 UD board if you need a CPU that is much more powerful than the Ryzen 3900X. For the Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 to work, it needs a 24-pin ATX main power connector and an 8-pin ATX 12V power connector. And there are two M.2 connectors. The first one works in the CPU and supports PCIe 4.0 (depending on the CPU). The M.2 connectors don’t have a shield, which is a shame.