Today is the next stage of the AMD AM4 B550 motherboard rollout: numerous vendors have started listing its models in place of an expected launch on June 16th. One big feature of B550 that B450 didnt have in the specifications was PCIe 4.0 support, and so this will be a big uplift with the new motherboards. Vendors today are unveiling the more price conscious models when directly compared to the premium X570 models.

The B550 chipset has been touted for many months, with much speculation on feature set, compatibility, and which AMD Ryzen processors users will opt to go for when pairing up a new board. One prevalent issue which AMD has addressed recently is that its impending Zen 3 and Ryzen 4000 processors will now be supported on B450 and X470, albeit without the benefits of PCIe 4.0 and its increased bandwidth. With this in mind, one of the main advantages of the new B550 chipset is that it will openly support PCIe 4.0 and Zen 3, which gives users more affordable options when it comes to selecting a new PC, whether it is a budget gaming system or an AMD Ryzen 3950X 16-core laden powerhouse.