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 |
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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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im.thatoneguy - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
Please stop putting 10g ports one servers.They're always 10-BaseT which is useless to me. They take up pcie lanes. And 25gb/40gb/100gb is imminently supplanting 10gb.
It's too late for 10g especially baseT
fmyhr - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
Heh. I agree with you about 10-BaseT, SFP+ would be preferable if 10GbE *needs* to be present. I don't have $ or power budget for 25gb/40gb/100gb network... but understand those are requirements for some. I'm curious how your ideal board would allocate its limited PCIe lanes among PCIe slots, M.2 slots, OcuLink,...?bananaforscale - Saturday, May 22, 2021 - link
10GBase-T uses the same cabling as 1000Base-T, assuming the network was built with any future proofing so you can basically just plug it in. 25GBase-T probably won't happen. 'sides, YOU are not the market. What's useless to you is probably useful for someone. Also besides, you can disable those integrated NICs.mode_13h - Saturday, May 22, 2021 - link
> 10GBase-T uses the same cabling as 1000Base-T,> assuming the network was built with any future proofing
Depends on when. It might've been built with Cat 6, rather than Cat 6A. And even that has shorter length limitations and requires greater power expenditure than we're used to with Gigabit.
BTW, there's no such standard as Cat 6e. If you see someone selling cable as Cat 6e, treat it as plain Cat 6, but with a bit more suspicion.
Samus - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
I think 2x2.5G would be more appropriate for the target market of this board. Anybody considering 10Gbe is likely on the verge of adopting 25/40/100G anyway, in which case the PCIe slot will be utilized.The other head scratcher is why the M2 slot isn’t PCIe 4.0 - the allocation of PCIe lanes to ports on this board is very strange.
fmyhr - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
Do you have personal experience running 2.5GbE? I've seen reports of problems using both Intel and Realtek chipsets. Whereas 10GbE is very mature and well-supported. Upside of being "obsolete" :-)This board runs the M.2 slot from the B550 chipset, which limits its speed to PCIe 3.0. The upside of this choice is an extra PCIe 4.0 x4 slot from the CPU. Into which you could install an M.2 carrier board if you need your SSD on PCIe 4.0. Personally I'd try bifurcating the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and running a quad M.2 card there, and whatever other PCIe card in the x4 slot.
lightningz71 - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
Does this board even support 4way bifurcation of the PCIe x16 slot?Samus - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
The B550 can't bifurcate the x4 slot, but it apparently can the x16 slot. In the case of some boards with multiple PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 connectors, they start by cutting the x16 slot bandwidth, then after a third M.2 drive is installed they either totally disable the x4 slot or run the x16 slot at x4, configurable in the BIOS (in the case of the Gigabyte B550 Aurus Master)Samus - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
Personally no I'm not running any 2.5G stuff, and based on what you are stating, maybe that's why there hasn't been adoption. I agree going with a mature solution but 2.5G isn't exactly new and by now you'd think the bugs are worked out. 2.5G is, after all, based on a lower handshake of 10Gbe, and at long distances 10Gbe actually negotiates at 2.5G, and I have installed 2.5G cards in the field that connect to 10Gbe ports at 2.5G. It's the damn SFP adapters that are all proprietary with their individual standards so you just need to make those up with whatever chipset the NIC you are connecting has.Regarding NVMe on B550, I'm not sure what you are getting at. There have been B550 boards on the market for over a year that have not one, not two, but three native PCIe4 NVMe M.2 slots direct from the chipset. Obviously having many M.2 slots impedes on other PCIe x4\x8\x16 slot bandwidth because the consumer Ryzen's don't offer many lanes. But that doesn't mean this board should leave support out entirely as the M.2 could just cut into the x4 or x16 slot bandwidth.
mode_13h - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
> Do you have personal experience running 2.5GbE?Well, the main benefit is cable length and compatibility. If the speed is fast enough for you, then it seems an attractive option for those with legacy cabling.