In times of brightly colored hardware, MSI advertises black mainboards without RGB LEDs. MSI goes with the two AM4 boards B 550 Unify and B 550 Unify-X not only optically new old ways, but also relies on equipment options that were previously not found.

The two sister models only bind one PCI-Express-x 16 slot to the processor. The second, which is typically present, gives way to an additional M.2 slot: Four PCI Express SSDs can thus be placed on the B 550 Unify and B 550 Operate Unify-X, three of them with PCIe 4.0 x4 speed. In all four cases, MSI includes cooling plates.

MSI B 550 Unify and Unify-X (8 Pictures) (Image: MSI) Since the B 550 chipset is only PCIe 3.0, MSI has to trick this number: three M.2 slots can be operated with the PCIe 4.0 lanes of a Ryzen CPU. If a user inserts PCIe SSDs into the second and third slots, he can pinch them off from the processor via the UEFI BIOS. Eight PCIe 4.0 lanes are then available for the graphics card. Alternatively, two PCIe 3.0 lanes each come from the chipset – such a configuration slows down high-end PCIe SSDs. The fourth M.2 slot is firmly attached to the chipset with four PCIe 3.0 lanes.

Optional two RAM slots for better OC The B 550 Unify-X differs from normal in the RAM slots B 550 Unify: With the X version, only two DDR4 modules can be operated, despite the ATX design. The B 550 Unify-X is intended for overclockers who want to exhaust their main memory. The omission of two slots simplifies the mainboard layout and is intended to enable clean signal paths, which in turn allows higher clock frequencies. MSI is promoting the B 550 Unify-X for a maximum of DDR4 – 5300 , the B 550 Unify for DDR4 – 5100 – common practice clock frequencies should be lower, however.

The rest of the equipment on the two mainboards is common for the upper middle class: 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek 8125 B-CG), Wi-Fi 6 (Intel AX 89), vi