MSI MAG B550M Mortar Review

Up Close – Part 2

Amidships we have a system fan header just nestled between the 24pin ATX power input and the USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C header. As we’ve seen if you’ve been following along with all our B550 content, the front panel Type-C is a rarity on the B550 platform, so we’re pleased to see it here.

  

Moving to the bottom corner we have four of the six SATA 6Gbps ports sitting alongside the USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A front panel header.

  

At the bottom right we have a couple of vertical SATA ports – a common orientation on smaller PCBs – alongside a front panel header. Lastly on this photo the USB 2.0 front panel header.

  

Lastly the Rainbow RGB and standard header sit either side of another system fan header, with the Realtek ALC1200 sitting on a separate trace as is the modern custom.

  

The power comes from a 8+2+1 Duet Rail Power System, with 8 digital 60A power stages, 2 SOC and 1 APU. There certainly is plenty of cooling here as well from the heatsink ‘eye’ test. It’s funny after seeing some motherboards with endless rows of MOSFETs on the northern side of the PCB to just see a couple peeking out from under the heatsink. The Tomahawk had massive success with it’s 10+2+1 setup utilising the same components, so hopefully the Mortar is just as capable.

  

Lastly the backplate and straight away we notice the return of the combined PS/2 port we’ve recently been confused about seeing on the Intel Z490 motherboards. Is there a sudden revolution in PS/2 peripherals about which we’re unaware? I review every peripheral that comes through the OC3D machine and literally can’t remember the last PS/2 one I saw. Away from there there is a DisplayPort, HDMI, 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A and one Type-C, as well as a single Gen1 Type-A. There is the all important RJ45 for the Realtek RTL8125B 2.5G LAN and the ALC1200 audio jacks.