Pros: - Plentiful fan headers located throughout the board enable good cable management - Two M.2 slots including a Gen 4 slot with a heat cover that one day will come in handy for storage expansion, standoffs for these slots were pre-installed which was a nice bonus - MSI BIOS very easy to navigate, posted with all components functional on first try, no issues - Looks very sleek, love the pre-installed IO Shield and touch of addressable RGB

Cons: - If you're looking for stunning RGB, the lights on this board are very subtle and relegated to the chipset on the lower portion of the board, which gets mostly obscured by anything but the smallest GPU - The cost is right on the verge of overpriced when looking at competitors - I'd give the manual a 6/10 for clarity. I was able to follow it but I had also done a ton of pre-build research, which helped immensely.

Overall Review: This was my first ever build. I can't stress enough how nervous I was unpacking everything and putting it all together. Since I'm hoping my PC to last me for the better part of a decade, I thought the B550 made sense for forward compatibility without the excessive pricing of 570 boards. I back ordered this board the week that it came out when it only had one very unhelpful 5-star review that simply said "Good board", so I was definitely taking a bit of a gamble. But I had done months of research and MSI always seemed to have a terrific reputation, so I took a shot with it since it was in my budget range. It took about two weeks from the time I hit back order to when I had the box in my hand, and then another few weeks before I was able to get all the components together for the build. Now that it's done, I'm so happy I went with this board. It was ideal for a beginner like me, having tons of fan headers and a good enough manual to help me through those inevitable moments where you suddenly have no idea what you're doing despite watching hours of PC assembly videos over the prior months. Functionally, I wouldn't change anything about the board. I also think it looks sleek. It has that touch of RGB to make the lower part of the MOBO glow without being excessive. The heatsink and IO shield and covered M.2 Gen 4 slot give it the look of a much more expensive board as well. The headers were all clearly marked and easy to connect to. The BIOS was easy to navigate and the PC posted on my very first boot up! After comparing this with a few other competitor B550 boards, I do think this is at the higher end of a "budget" B550 board, but considering how user-friendly and nice of an experience I had with it, I certainly think it was worth the money. Highly recommend!

Pros: - Less than 310mm is great for smaller cases with front fans installed - Power draw is fantastic for performance - A tasteful touch of RGB adds some flair - Never breaks 70 degrees even at 99% with full RT enabled - Whisper silent

Cons: - RGB is not addressable - Price is still a tad too high

Overall Review: Upgraded to this card from an MSI Gaming X 1660 super after having three great, problem-free years with that card. I knew I only wanted another MSI gaming variant for my upgrade because I've simply had a good experience with all MSI products I have purchased. While the price is still probably around $100 higher than it should be, this is just the GPU market we're in now, so such is life. Even with that in mind, I certainly have no complaints about the performance. Plays Alan Wake 2 at full path and ray tracing, highest settings, using DLSS Quality and gets 70-130 frames depending on the environment. Even at 1080p, it is simply the most gorgeous gaming experience I have ever witnessed and is the first experience where I have seen the full capabilities of Ray Tracing and the power of DLSS. It's legitimately mind blowing how far technology has come in just the past decade, and how beautiful games can look. No doubt this card is overkill at 1080p, but I am looking to upgrade to a 1440p monitor next and have no question this card will be able to drive high settings with ray tracing on any game I toss at it due to DLSS, which whether you agree with developers' decision to depend on DLSS to make games perform, I personally see absolutely no difference between using DLSS at high settings versus lower settings at native res. As with my last MSI card, this one has no coil whine and runs cool and quiet. Hassle-free install and driver updates. I contemplated going AMD for this generation but now that I've seen the power of ray tracing and DLSS, I'm very glad I waited for the right version of this card. Maybe I'll regret that when the Supers drop, but for now, very happy customer.