ASUS TUF Gaming B550-PLUS WiFi II AMD AM4 (3rd Gen Ryzen™) ATX Motherboard (PCIe 4.0, 6, 2.5Gb LAN, BIOS Flashback, USB 3.2 2, Addressable 2 RGB Header and Aura Sync)

I purchased this board to replace an ASUS ROGX-470F motherboard that died.Pros:This board has the same number of SATA ports as the 470 (6), which was important for me, because all my games are stored in SATA SSDs.This MB boots quite a bit faster than my previous board. That’s always a plus.Built-in Wi-Fi controller. While I had a Wi-Fi expansion card for the x470 board, it was good to have it built-in to help clean up the interior of the case.Plenty of ports. Not only the above mentioned SARA ports, but plenty of USB ports, as well, including support for front-of-case ports. I have 6 USB cables plugged in and still have two free ports in the back, and 6 more on the case top.Drivers included on CD/DVD. This is a big deal to me, because newer boards don’t appear to include them. PNP picks up much of the drivers, but not all. Without included drivers, you might have to go to another machine to download them. That’s not customer-friendly.Cons:The Wi-Fi antenna is non-magnetic. This allows the antenna to slide off the case way too easily, diminishing the signal from the router, if you don’t notice it immediately.The Aura lights are not on top of the board. If you have ARGB light bars, it can flood out the boards built-in lights.DisplayPort and HDMI ports included, but so far, I have not been able to find integrated video hardware. This one has me confused.

Love this motherboard. I was looking for a high quality matx motherboard that supported 256GB DDR5 for my workstation build and I'm glad I picked this motherboard. Supports 4x64GB DDR5 sticks @ 5200 Mhz with the latest BIOS and selecting EXPO II profile (will default to 3600 Mhz otherwise). I also like the support for 3xnvme drives, which is rare for B850 matx motherboards. Lots of USB ports, wifi 6E and bluetooth work great.

I'm not a gamer. I use my personal computer for various hobbies, such as routing circuit boards, rendering video, the occasional AI project, running Linux VMs, etc. I had no trouble at all with this motherboard. I purchased 64GB of DDR5 RAM at the same time, as well as a new 9900X CPU, a Noctua cooler, and a Samsung 990 SSD. All of this worked well and booted properly on the first time. I burned in the system using Ubuntu 24.04 live distribution on a USB stick, ran some performance tests, and used Ubuntu to copy over my existing Windows 10 image onto the new Samsung SSD. Unlike the other reviewer, I had no problem using the Wifi under Ubuntu. I don't use Wifi on Windows, so I wouldn't know whether it works there or not. As a productivity user, I don't really care about some of the "Gamer" features of this motherboards, nor do I care about aesthetics like glowing LED lights. I picked the Tuf series over the ASUS B840 because it seemed like a beefier build overall. The only drawback is the relatively large heatsink at the rear of the motherboard -- it precludes me from the possibility of installing a second fan on my Noctua cooler. I'm skeptical whether such a large heatsink generates any real benefit, other whether it is done for appearance sake. Nevertheless, I don't really need that second fan anyway. Installing the SSDs was a little bit unorthodox with a plastic springy clip that ASUS uses rather than a screw, but it worked fine. There's a hefty heat sink that fits over the SSDs and will further hold them snugly in place. One complication I had during boot was that I had the enable Compatibility Support Mode (CSM) to get it to boot from the Samsung 990 SSD. Not sure if that's typical or if it was because of the idiosyncrasy of the existing SSD image that I brought over from my old computer (it was a new Samsung 990 SSD, but an existing image that I wrote to it). All things considered, a good motherboard that feels like it's more than tuf enough for my needs.

This motherboard is pretty good, but I need to highlight a few important points based on my experience:1. Initial Boot Time: The first boot-up can take a bit of time.2/ Firmware Update is Crucial: I highly recommend updating the firmware. Before I updated from the factory version, my FPS was limited and wasn't utilizing my Ryzen 9800X3D to its full potential. After the firmware update, my FPS significantly increased, reaching the performance levels it should have.3. Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Driver Requirement: To use the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth features, you must install the ASUSDRIVERHUB. Without these specific ASUS drivers, neither Wi-Fi nor Bluetooth functionality will work.4. Rigorous Firmware Update Process: The firmware update process can be quite rigorous. After installation and upon restarting the BIOS, it can take a considerable amount of time for everything to reconfigure.

Solid workhorse of a machine. Almost overbuilt but affordable. One of the easiest to build on MB I've ever used, and on top of that, it looks stylish. (Also, can't believe that it has 3 M.2 drives???