ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING II – TechPowerUp

While AMD has done a great job of maintaining motherboard compatibility with new generation processors, none of the previous-generation AM4 motherboards featured official PCIe 4.0 support, not even for the storage and PCIe controlled by PCIe 4.0 compatible CPUs. Enter B550, the more value-oriented little brother of X570. While the B550 chipset is PCIe 3.0 only, B550 motherboards support PCIe 4.0 from the CPU to the primary PCIe slot as well as the primary M.2 slot (dependent on a PCIe 4.0 ready CPU). With PCIe 4.0 support also came increased cost. PCIe 4.0 devices are still rare in 2021, so for those on a budget, the tried and true B450 chipset is the way to go. What B450 lacks in cutting-edge features it makes up for in value.

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ASUS Launches B450 II Series Motherboards

No, you did not read that wrong. ASUS announced an updates II Series of B450 motherboards. With the recent launch of B550, this is a tad perplexing, but we’ll see how this works out. The B450 lacks any of the PCIe 4.0 goodness on B550, but the advantages thee at the moment are minimal in real world scenarios for the average user. The real benefit here is budget performance, and the addition of features like BIOS Flashback, Fan Xpert 4 and AI noise cancelling tech. Take a deeper look at ASUS.