Choose between the Gigabyte B450M H, B450M S2H, ASUS Prime B450M-K II, or the Gigabyte B450M S2H V2 model.
Choose between the Gigabyte B450M H, B450M S2H, ASUS Prime B450M-K II, or the Gigabyte B450M S2H V2 model.
I’d choose the ASUS board because of my negative experiences with Gigabyte, though they’re all quite alike and you’d be safe picking any of them.
They’re all pretty similar. A few points to note: + Gigabyte B450M S2H includes some heatsinks on the VRM, which could help prevent overheating with more demanding chips (such as 8-core or higher Ryzen). + The Asus Prime B450M-K II supports BIOS flashback, letting you update the BIOS without a CPU installed. + Other models lack this feature. - However, you’ll lose about 0.2 watts per square millimeter... Asus offers a mixed PS/2 connector; only one can be used at a time, while others provide separate PS/2 for keyboard and mouse if needed. The layout for PCI-E X1 is poor—it has two slots below the PCI-E X16, so a standard video card would block one slot. + All but the Asus model have one PCI-E X1 above the X16, making it always usable, plus the second PCI-E X1 slot remains available (with an empty space between X16 and X1), allowing a regular 2-slot card. - If you intend to use processors like Ryzen 1xxx, 2xxx or 3xxx, the Gigabyte B450M S2H v2 offers extra heatsinks and likely better value. + The original BIOS supports these models right out of the box. - For Ryzen 4xxx or 5xxx, you’ll need BIOS updates released in March. Unless the board has been sitting on shelves for months, it probably lacks the latest version. For graphics-focused 5xxx chips, you’d need BIOS from two months prior, meaning you might need an older CPU to upgrade. I doubt you’re planning a 4xxx or 5xxx build if cost is a factor—everything seems fine otherwise.
Asus offers solutions for BIOS flashback and preventing unstable Gigabyte BIOS settings.
I own a B450M S2H V2 and nothing negative about it. It delivers 90W to my 3100 and handles my 2133MHz RAMs smoothly at 3433MHz. The only thing noted is a report that this model might include an extra VRM for RAMs, but I haven’t experienced any issues despite heavily overclocking the RAMs.
It's not a big deal at all; the integrated graphics doesn't draw much power to need three phases. As per the link, version 2 uses just two phases for the SoC... it really depends on whether you have processors with built-in graphics, otherwise it's negligible.
The models differ in the phase configuration: one has phases 4+2 and the other 4+3. The update addressed some issues, but not all bugs were fixed.