The power delivery to the chipset is being managed by AS358 and a couple of PDC3908X N-channel MOSFETs. These are 30V MOSFETs which I think are rated for 46 A. The Asus TUF Gaming B650M-Plus WiFi is also noteworthy. It's a MicroATX board with a dozen 60A power stages for the vcore VRM. Although decent on paper, it doesn't really surpass the B650M Aorus Pro AX, especially given it offers significantly fewer USB 3.2 ports. Then, we have the Asus Prime series, which includes the Prime B650M-A WiFi, Prime B650-Plus, and Prime B650M-A WiFi II. Unfortunately, we must recommend avoiding these. Like the ultra-affordable Gigabyte B650M K, the Asus Prime boards all use discrete MOSFETs, resulting in poor VRM thermals. Now, let’s turn our attention to the PCIe slots on this motherboard. This motherboard has 3x PCIe slots.

The Intel Wi-Fi module is implemented on the mSATA NGGF port on the rear I/O panel. The main driving force is the MediaTek MT7922 (RZ616) chip capable of Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. The latest Wireless solution 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E with a new dedicated 6GHz band enables gigabit wireless performance providing smooth video streaming, a better gaming experience, lesser dropped connections, and speeds up to 2.4Gbps. The motherboard features Bluetooth 5.3 protocol. The top port supports the new 25110/2280 form factor and is labeled M2A_CPU. This is a Gen 5 slot. This is the only slot on this motherboard featuring PCIe Gen 5 x4. This port features the EZ-Latch which is a tool-free way to install the M.2 SSD in the port. Say bye-bye to the screws! M.2 Slots GIGABYTE has provided a Wi-Fi antenna in the box with a magnetic base for convenient mounting. USB Connectivity x DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 3840×2160@144 Hz, Support for DisplayPort 1.4 version and HDR.The above picture shows the ALC897-VB controller from Realtek. The onboard sound solution is not capable of delivering the DTS:X Ultrasound experience. Networking Connectivity For the stress test, we're using the Ryzen 9 7950X and for the load, Cinebench R23, which was looped for an hour, at which point we're reporting the maximum PCB temperature, again recorded using K-Type thermocouples.

The above picture shows the M.2 NVMe port covers. They are made of aluminum material and have pre-applied thermal pads. PCIe Slots and EZ-Latch Design There are tons of USB ports and hubs on this motherboard including the 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C port (on the mid-board for the front panel) and 1x USB Type-C Gen port on the Rear I/O. GIGABYTE has provided Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless connectivity in addition to the Intel 2.5GbE LAN port. The WiFi module is from MediaTek and the 2.5GbE LAN is from RealTek. Not sure why but one clue would be expensive Intel equivalent chips. However, GIGABYTE has mentioned that the Rev 1.1 of this motherboard will have Intel chips for wireless and wired connectivity. For troubleshooting, there are LED indicators. There is a button that is programmable from the UEFI/BIOS.For recording temperatures, we're using a digital thermometer with K-Type thermocouples and we'll be reporting the peak rear PCB temperature. Finally, we're not reporting Delta T over Ambient; instead, we maintain a room temperature of 21 degrees and ensure a consistent ambient temperature. A thermocouple is positioned next to the test system. And with that said, let us know which of these B650 boards you're planning on buying, or perhaps you've already bought your board. Either way, let us know in the comments section. Hopefully, this B650 buying guide was helpful to you. If so, please share it with your peers; it might help us muster up the energy to do this again with another generation of motherboards. Shopping Shortcuts: This board has USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 over Type-C interface providing a theoretical bandwidth of 20Gbps. The rear USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C® is capable of a 10Gbps transfer rate. Internal Connectors The audio solution on this motherboard is pretty ordinary, using RealTek ALC897 codec to drive the audio solution. This is just an ok solution which could have been better in my opinion. Audio Support

We have got some read and write speeds but they come at the cost of high latency. Memory Performance Scores The topmost slot has a single-layer heatsink with a thermal pad underneath for efficient heat transfer. M.2 SSD is written on the cover. This cover is separated from the other covers. It can be taken off by unscrewing a Philips screw and removing the cover from the slot. PCIe X16 Slot On GIGABYTE B560 AORUS Elite AX Motherboard Next, we installed the XPG Lancer RGB 32GB kit which is rated at 6000MHz using 40-40-40-76 timing. We ran the AIDA64 memory benchmark with Low Latency Support and XMP/EXPO High Bandwidth Support disabled and then rerun the test with both settings enabled. We saw good improvement in the transfer rate as well as the latencies. Storage and USB Performance Here are all the VRM temperature results, and it won't surprise anyone to learn that the Aorus Master and Taichi are the two best performing boards here, though there are several Aorus Pro and Elite models with similar temps in the low 50s.The DDR5 support of up to 5200MHz is mentioned. This is with the help of a BIOS update. Since the new 7000 series CPUs will have iGPU, there is an HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity options from the CPU. There is one USB Type-C Gen 2 port and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports along with a USB 2.0 hub which is driving up to 4x USB 2.0/1.1 ports. There are two non-stainless steel PCIe slots. These are PCIe Gen 3 slots and both are rated at X1 speed. I am wondering about this implementation though. There should have at least been one X4-rated PCIe slot for add-in card support. Anyhow, the main reason for rating these at X1 is that they shared the single PCIe Gen 3 bus with the wireless and wired connectivity provision. I would have preferred a bit lower USB count in favor of one fully X4 PCIe slot. B650 Chipset Having taken a look at each board individually, it's time to get to testing. For testing all B650 boards, we're using the Gigabyte Aorus C500 Glass case with the Aorus WaterForce X 360mm AIO. Rename it to GIGABYTE.BIN and copy it to a FAT 32 formatted USB flash drive. Connect the USB to the above-mentioned port. Connect the 12V and 24V connectors from the PSU to the motherboard. Turn the PSU on and press the Q-Flash Plus button. GIGABYTE has employed Infineon VRM controller XDPE192C3B for integrated control of all three types of MOSFETs. EPS Connector