MSI Performance Gaming AMD Ryzen 1st and 2nd Gen AM4 M.2 USB 3 DDR4 HDMI Display Port Mini-ITX Motherboard (B450I Gaming Plus AC)

Good motherboard but seller ship old stock. Without updated bios.

I've been a fan of MSI for a long time and have built many computers using their boards. This board did not disappoint. I've been using a laptop for a while and it has been unable to keep up very well and had started to freeze randomly, so it was time to build a new desktop. I wanted something small that would take up very little room and had on board Wifi + Bluetooth. I found this board from MSI and was confident it would be just fine. I was surprised at how small this board really is and how much stuff they've managed to stuff on it. Installing and plugging in everything was pretty painless, although you'll need to plug things in working outward on the board. Otherwise if you plug something in on the outer edge of the board first it will be difficult to plug in something behind it because the plugs are all so close together. My biggest challenge was cable management, but that isn't an issue with the motherboard it's just an inherent issue with making a computer this small in a small case. Another great feature of this board is that it has an M.2 connector so you can connect an NVMe SSD drive. Boy is this thing fast. Windows boots up super fast and starting programs is almost instantaneous (some may take a second to load). Booting up for the first time was hassle free and messing around in the BIOS was easy and was able to set all of my settings to my liking. System has been running smoothly ever since. WiFi and Bluetooth worked upon Windows installation. Another solid Motherboard from MSI.

The m/b needs a bios update before it can be used with Ryzen 3000 CPU. There is no onboard bios flashback so it requires an earlier generation AMD processor to complete the update. It is my first non-Intel build so I needed to take it to a local computer shop (or find a friend who will loan you one) for update. $20 charge, not an issue. Works perfectly after that. Had to enable X-AMP in the bios to have 3200 cl16 memory recognized (started at 2133) but no issues after that.

After ordering this I saw a lot of reviews and many people noted that it did not work with Ryzen 3. So I was worried that would be the case with my purchase as well. Fortunately it did work out of the box with my Ryzen 3600 with motherboard Bios 7A40vAA. However, there was nothing stating that it would work and I didn't know until I powered it up for the first time. On the box it stated "AMD Ryzen desktop 2000 ready" and nothing more. Why couldn't they put a sticker on the box or motherboard stating that the BIOS had been upgraded and that it would work with Ryzen 3?

It's a very good solid motherboard for AMD CPUs. It works with AMD 3000 series if you update the motherboard to the newer BIOS versions. Ideally sellers should update the BIOS to the latest version before shipping it out but I guess they didn't do that to keep the cost low. Even if you get one with old BIOS, you can borrow a bootkit from AMD Singapore so that you can upgrade the board to the latest BIOS or just get that $50 (SGD79) AMD Athlon 200GE CPU.

Sub $200 ITX motherboard that tanks Ryzen 3700X and 3800mhz CL16 RAM OC like a champ? Sign me up. There is a lot of buzz about MSI b450 motherboards malfunctioning, but I personally never had an issue with mine. Flashed beta bios with previous gen CPU and the rest was plug and play. If you don't need a bling factor for your system and just need good raw power for affordable price, this board is it, crew.