ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/AX Supports 3rd Gen AMD AM4 Ryzen™ / Future AMD Ryzen™ Processors Motherboard

This tiny motherboard has a strong power delivery system along with good heat management to handle a 5950X or 5900XT with no issues. If building a system very small in size, yet very capable with performance using the last of the AM4 series, this performs very nicely.

What a dream of a board coupled with my Ryzen 5 5600GT processor, did not need bios update to boot and post. I eventually did update the bios because I was planning to sell the system I was building. SFF mini-itx build, mother board performs well, lots of bios and overclocking options, more than I can even understand and I have built my own systems since the 90s. Runs cool, no issues, I almost didn't buy the board because of negative comments but I have nothing bad to say about this board and I have had nothing but positive experiences with it.

- This is better than the X570 ITX boards- This has USB-C connector- Supports X3D Processors- Supports 64GB RAM- One of the best stable motherboards, I have 5800X3D and can play all games, no need for AM5

ok givin that this is an odd one becase on one hand I like this board, I have many asrock am4 products and in my opinion after 2 decades in this industry asrock has some of the strongest offerings for amd platforms, BUT this board was an all around let down,on paper it had all the fetures I wanted from an itx board that was going into a very bespoke small formfactor jonsbo n3 itx case...but on the other hand the tradeoffs were just not worth it, write of the bat there is the side oriented sata ports...seriously, wtf, it's mini itx, meaning there is a higher than usual probability that this board is going into a sff build were there likly isn't alot of space at that edge of the motherboard, ya on any other formfactor I 100% would value the cable management benifits of this but it is literly the reason I had to order right angle to top dual sata port adapters just to use any of the onboard sata ports in this jonsbo case... I own half a dozen sff itx builds and not one of the would this ports arangmet not have been a problem...sure there is a real type C motherboard header, that's nice and actually usefull aswell as the standard 19pin...ok in fairness the sata port issue was the only "desing" choice I had an issue with, the other issues are not necessarily the board manufactures or designers fault but asrock as a whole and probably some higher level management decisions anyway...first and potentially least important...intel i225-v realy?... we've known about the i225 chipsets instability for years at this point, even no name shenzen specials don't ship with that phy anymore and they use the i226 that us much improved, asrock come on... also it's an amd platform you could have avoided all the licensing BS and just used a Realtek 8125 which is a vastly more avalible and lower cost solution especially for a board partner based out of China like asrock... what are we doing...ok that's honestly not a huge concern for me as my config was going to include a AQC107 m.2 10gb nic anyway...the wifi and Bluetooth I'm sure are also intel, I didn't bother to find out but it goes with the territory as they are using intel for the copper nic that they'd also throw intel a bone with there wifi 6 offering, and fair enough, they work fine from my minimal experience using wifiBUT here the big kick in the teeth...my board worked just fine with a 5800x3d out of the box, no issues, when I had I built into a regular test bed with the same hardware that was going to be used in the jonsbo for testing, but then I put it into the jonsbo with a known working 5700x3d and I updated the bios just to be sure I get the logo exploit mitigations and, guess what...NO POST... not with the new core, not with the other 5800x3d, not with difrent memory, ssd, powersupply, power button(I know, I'm being hyperbolic) nothing, and I know the board isn't bricked due to a failed bios flash because I can put in a 5700G and it boots just fine... wtfyes that board is on its way back, and I'll be receiving a replacement here shortly, but this seems to me that the bios itself is the issue, perhaps it's bricking the b550 chipset idk, becase the successful boot was with an APU so there was no need for a gpu to get a post... idk, idc if there are any issues with the replacement, I'll be sending that back aswell and just getting a full refund, I don't want to haf to use the gigabyte b550i pro ax but I will becase I need the 2 m.2 slots becase I don't want to be booting this server off sata SSDs alone and ima need some nvme cache and that b550 board has quite a few of its very own problems, like it deciding to reset the bios to defaults when you press del to early in the reboot cycle trying to get to the bios... wtf gigabyte, seriuslybut I need to be able to deploy this appliance soon so my options are dwindling here...updated on April 28th 2024ok I received the replacement and after extensive testing with several CPUs on every bios version after 2.30 up to 3.40 I have determined that none of these bios version work with x3d chips, you have to use the super old version 2.30 inorder to get the ftpm reset prompt inoder for the board to post, on any version up to v 3.40 you cannot reset the ftpm so you cannot post, I had to use a 5700G to determine this discrepancy and inorder to roll back to a version that would work I swapped the cores back and forth until one would post with the x3d chips and it turned out to require one from 2022, this is not good, it is a super old agesa microcode that is lacking in alot of the security mitigations that have been implemented on newer agesa versions and also all stability and optimisations that amd has implemented specifically for these cores are part of the newer agesa code but these cores that are explicitly listed on the QVL of this board do not work with bios revision that is shipped on this board from the manufacturer as of today, so you have to have an older non x3d core inorder to roll it back from the jump not to update it, but to downgrade it and that NEEDs to be explicitly mentioned in this products description as a disclaimer otherwise consumers will be under a false impression that perhaps some other component in there system is DOA and proceed to fall down a rabbit hole due to this red hairing...I have downgraded this review to 2 stars due to this issues, and IF asrock actually duz the due diligence and refreshes the bios to then include the updated microcode in a way that is compatible with these clearly claimed compatible cores than I will update my rating but a clear disclaimer NEEDs to be added to the description clearly stating that any bios version after 2.30 up to the updated version WILL result in effectivly a no post situation on any of AMD X3D chips otherwise I will not be amendeding what is effectivly a recomedation against the use of this product...just sayin...UPDATE ...NOT harsh enough apparently...After this being a known issue they have released a "beta" bios r3.43 and guess what ... NO x3d support...Seriously... what TF .. why would anybody pay these prices for a premium board on a EOL platform if they weren't using an x3d chip... Riddle me that ASRockNOPE I'm done, don't hear me out JUST DONT BUY THIS vaporware .. seriously...I don't like buying ewaist people ... Come on...OK another update...Since no one seems to be able to get asrock to pay attention to this bios issue including the vendors that are selling it, I am replacing it with a gigabyte b550i aorus pro ax, it's the same price but better built with better vrm staging and normal Sara ports, better ethernet, maybe not great wifi 6e low frequency but idc I'm using Linux an those amd/mediatek drivers work great... I already have one of these boards in another build and I already know about the issue/feture we're you span the del key and it resets the bios, I can work with that, and usb bios flashback with would have been a easy way to remediate this issue with the asrock, except they NEVER released a bios that works with any of the X3D chips so NOPE back to a returns reclamation bin it goes... im done here

I've had good experiences with AsRock on X99 with their Extreme4 board, so I figured I'd go AsRock this time around as well. The only thing that disappointed me about this board was actually the RGB software, it's not all that good with mediocre lighting effects and it doesn't link with anything else in my system like Asus Aura would have, I regret not buying the STRIX board for that specific reason.Otherwise, like other reviewers have said, this board is a great option. The WiFi is good, it has a nice assortment of features as well as a USB Type C header (other people have been happy about that, I personally don't care but it's a nice touch) and it has RGB headers (one of each type, aRGB 5v as well as standard RGB 12v) as well as most other creature comforts. Just bear in mind that this board does not have BIOS flashback, I didn't need it but if you're getting 5th gen Ryzen and don't have a supported previous gen chip to update the BIOS with, you're SOL from everything I can tell. Luckily, the Gigabyte and ASUS B550 boards in this price range have that, so you can just go with one of those.All in all, I'm happy with the board and glad I used it to power my new ITX system. Having Gen4 support is great, and the two M.2 ports this board came with enabled me to run M.2 for boot and an additional Samsung M.2 1TB NVMe for games storage. The one complaint I have is that the right-angle SATA ports are not very accessible in my case, but that could have been compensated for by better planning on my part.

Update Nov. 1 2022. Original Purchase April 8, 2022.Welp. 7 months in and Wireless died. Sending in for Warranty replacement. Lets see how that goes.====Original Review===I ran an Extreme 4 on my Sandybridge for... Well... Until I bought this one. The only problem I had with the first one was during a storm. Ethernet went out on that one. Bought a daughter card and was set. Ended up better than most of the people on my block. Almost every one of my neighbors TVs died that night.That old Sandybridge PC is still in circulation today. Given that it lasted 10 years I figured I've give ASRock another shot.This board is performing quite well so far.Didnt need to Flash mine to run my 5900XR9-5900X runs well on a 240 closed loop.2x16 3600 Corsair Dominator3070ti2x 980 Pro @ 2TB in Raid 1Solid. Wifi 6 works well too.

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