Asus TUF Gaming B550M-Plus WiFi Review

Overclocking

We managed to hit our usual 4.3GHz all-core overclock with the Ryzen 9 3900X, albeit with a 1.375V vcore, but still, even if you're pushing things to the max for short-term benchmarking, the board performed well and we have no doubt it can handle AMD's 16-core flagship when overclocked.

Performance Analysis 

We should point out that our new test system includes more up-to-date drivers and Windows installation than our X570 results in the graphs, so they're not directly comparable. However, they should give you a good feel for how the board performs compared to B450 and X570 options, especially in the power, storage and audio tests, which are a little more comparable as they don't really change between these kinds of updates. For the raw performance numbers, though, we'd suggest to wait until we have more B550 boards in the graphs to make any comparisons.

Even with some potential driver and Windows tweaks, there was very little between all three boards we added to the graphs, so as we expected, don't expect much more performance moving from B450 to B550 or stepping up to X570 in terms of raw performance. With good CPU cooling things will be pretty much the same for the most part. The audio performance is much better than the lesser audio codec on the TUF B450M-Plus Gaming, and on par with the similar Realtek 1220 audio on the Gigabyte X570-I Aorus Pro WiFi.

If you're planning on using a PCIe 4.0 SSD then the figures we see here are again on par with other boards we've tested. Just remember to use the correct slot as only the top slot will offer that lovely 5000MB/sec read speed. Power consumption might appear to be higher at idle but we're using a more potent liquid cooling system with our test bench these days so these results can't be compared and the extra 20W or so is easily accounted for with our new hardware.

Conclusion

There are clearly a few ways Asus could have shaved a bit more cash off the price here, such as dipping down to a lesser audio codec, dropping an M.2 port, including fewer USB ports, or perhaps ditching WiFi or USB BIOS FlashBack support. However, combined with the beefed-up power delivery and cooling, what we have here is a motherboard that is more than up to the task of dealing with AMD's Ryzen 9 CPUs and will likely handle anything Zen 3 can throw at it, too. This might be a TUF-branded motherboard, which have traditionally demanded quite low price tags, especially with the B450 chipset, but what we have here is actually firmly mid-range both in terms of price and features.

This probably explains why AMD decided to add B450 to the list of Zen 3 compatibility. Yes, there are higher prices involved with B550, but the motherboards are better-featured and more capable for it. At the very least it means that AMD can continue to square up to Intel outside of the CPU arena - something it started with X470 and even overtook it in many areas with X570. 

The TUF Gaming B550M-Plus Gaming (WiFi) is a solid effort, but maybe lacking a couple of gubbins you'd expect at this price. However, with the latest WiFi standard, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, PCIe 4.0 support and decent power delivery and cooling thrown into the mix, it's clear that this board is in a different league to its namesake predecessors. It performs well, looks good and is actually one of the more affordable options out there - yes, there are cheaper X570 boards, but they lack most or all of the features we just mentioned. It overclocked just as well as its X570 counterparts so we have no qualms dishing out our recommended award.