ASRock Rack B550D4-4L Motherboard Review: B550 Goes Professional with BMC
by Gavin Bonshor on May 20, 2021 9:00 AM ESTBoard Features
The ASRock Rack B550D4-4L is a professional-focused ATX motherboard which is using AMD's desktop B550 chipset. It includes support for AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors, Ryzen 4000 G-series processors with Radeon Graphics, AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 and 3000 series processors, and AMD Ryzen 3000 desktop series processors.
The B550D4-4L includes one full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, with a half-length PCIe 4.0 x4 slot, with support for PCIe 4.0 coming directly from the processor. For storage, there's a single PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slot, with six SATA ports in total. Four of these are powered by the chipset and as such, include support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, while the other two are powered by an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller. In regards to memory support, the B550D4-4L has four memory slots, which are capable of supporting both ECC (CPU dependent) and non-ECC memory with speeds of up to DDR4-3200 and a total capacity of up to 128 GB.
ASRock Rack B550D4-4L ATX Motherboard | |||
Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
Product Page | Link | ||
Price | N/A | ||
Size | ATX | ||
CPU Interface | AM4 | ||
Chipset | AMD B550 | ||
Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR4 Supporting 128 GB Dual Channel Up to DDR4-3200 Non-ECC Ryzen Desktop ECC with Ryzen Pro |
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Video Outputs | 1 x HDMI 1 x D-Sub (ASPEED) |
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Network Connectivity | 4 x Intel i210 Gigabit 1 x Realtek RTL8211E (BMC) |
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Onboard Audio | N/A | ||
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 |
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PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | N/A | ||
Onboard SATA | Four, RAID 0/1/10 (B550) Two, (ASMedia) |
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Onboard M.2 | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA | ||
USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) | 2 x Type-A Rear Panell | ||
USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) | 2 x Type-A Rear Panel 1 x Type-A Header (2 x ports) |
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USB 2.0 | 1 x Type-A Header (2 x ports) | ||
Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8pin CPU 1 x 4pin CPU |
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Fan Headers | 1 x CPU (6-pin) 5 x System (6-pin) |
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IO Panel | 2 x USB 3.1 G1 Type-A 2 x USB 3.1 G2 Type-A 4 x Network RJ45 Gigabit (Intel) 1 x Network RJ45 Gigabit (Realtek) 1 x HDMI 1 x D-Sub 1 x Serial port |
The board includes an ASPEED AST2500 BMC controller, with network access provided by a Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit port, as well as physical access via a single D-Sub video output. Other connectivity on the rear panel includes two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports, a Serial port, and one HDMI 1.4 video output. The B550D4-4L has an impressive network array with five Ethernet ports in total, four of these being controlled by separate Intel i210 Gigabit controllers, with support for teaming, as well as a dedicated IPMI port powered by a Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit contriller.
Test Bed
As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS. Most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users and industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
Test Setup | |||
Processor | AMD Ryzen 3700X, 65W, $329 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 3.6 GHz (4.4 GHz Turbo) |
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Motherboard | ASRock Rack B550D4-4L (BIOS L0.16) | ||
Cooling | Corsair iCue H150i Elite Capellix 360 mm AIO | ||
Power Supply | Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Gold PSU | ||
Memory | 2x8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 22-22-22-54 1T | ||
Video Card | ASUS GTX 980 STRIX (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
Case | Open Benchtable BC1.1 (Silver) | ||
Operating System | Windows 10 1909 |
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
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mode_13h - Saturday, May 22, 2021 - link
Yeah, but 5x 1 gigabit ports is kinda ridiculous. It's not as if that costs nothing and uses no PCIe lanes.Spunjji - Monday, May 24, 2021 - link
It costs very little and uses very few lanes, though - depending on how they've done it, it could be as few as one lane for the 4 1GbE ports but is likely no more than 2. The management port will be using another, but that's still plenty left over for whatever the user needs.Spunjji - Monday, May 24, 2021 - link
"The exact smae argument could be made the other way around"Only if you ignore cost! It makes sense to integrate the minimum where upgrades are possible, rather than forcing the far higher cost of 10GbE everyone who buys your board.
fmyhr - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
Yup! Love that they put GOOD 1Gb NICs in there: i210s. Perfect for edge router, physically isolating different networks.Lucky Stripes 99 - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
I also agree that dual 2.5 Gbps would be more ideal as the market begins to move away from 1 Gbps. There are niche uses for quad Eth port boards, but the ones I'm most familiar with tend to use smaller form-factor boards.I get the feeling that this was designed for a specific industrial/embedded customer with a unique use case who didn't mind Asrock releasing to the general market.
BedfordTim - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
You could for example hook up 4 GiGE cameras. Most can't take advantage of 2.5Gbe ports, but saturate a 1Gbe port.BedfordTim - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
There are quite a few Atom boards with 2.5Gbe ports now.ZENSolutionsLLC - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
Because regardless of the bandwidth, a single 10G nic is a single point of failure, which is a big NO NO in a corporate Enterprise IT environment. Multi 1GB nics are used (still very much) for LACP links spanning multiple switching fabrics. Also highly used on VMWare and HyperV hosts to separate out management traffic, VMotion, etc... and for aggregation and link failover.Jorgp2 - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
The fuck kind of server would have 2.5G or 5G ethernet?bananaforscale - Saturday, May 22, 2021 - link
A roll your own NAS.