ASRock Unveils B450 Steel Legend Series: Shiny and Chrome for ATX and microATX
by Gavin Bonshor on January 25, 2019 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- ASRock
- MicroATX
- ATX
- AM4
- B450
- Steel Legend
Today ASRock has announced two brand new motherboards based on AMD's B450 chipset. Notably, both the ASRock B450 and B450M Steel Legend feature the company's "Full Spike" ESD protection for the boards' USB, Ethernet and audio ports, and utilize 60 A power chokes and Nichicon 12 K black capacitors for voltage regulation.
Essentially the same motherboard available in two differnt form factors, the ASRock B450 and B450M Steel Legend motherboards use silver XXL aluminium heatsinks on both the power delivery and chipset. As an added kicker, the chipset heatsink and rear panel cover both include integrated RGB LEDs as well. ASRock has gone with what resembles a digital camouflage patterning which covers the majority of the PCB to make the Steel Legend boards stand out from the crowd.
ASRock B450 Steel Legend ATX (left) and ASRock B450M Steel Legend microATX (right)
Some of the Steel Legends' core features include full lightning/ESD protection across the USB, Ethernet and audio ports. For stability when overclocking, both the B450 and B450M Steel Legend make use of 60 A power chokes and 12 K Black capacitors for voltage regulation. Both boards include a single 8-pin 12 V CPU power connector and are advertised as having a 6-phase power delivery system. Other benefits include AMD StoreMI support, which is native to the B450 chipset, and PCIe Steel Slot protection on the top full-length slot on both the ATX and microATX Steel Legends. A total of four memory slots with support for dual-channel DDR4-3533 and capacity of up to 64 GB is also present.
ASRock B450M Steel Legend microATX motherboard
As for integrated components, the ASRock B450 and B450M Steel Legends share the same controllers including a Realtek ALC892 audio codec, Realtek RTL8111H NIC, and two PCIe 3.0 M.2 slots (one x4 and the other x2). Both models also include four SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays. Cooling connectivity is catered for with five 4-pin fan headers on both boards. In fact the only differences between the two boards is their size and the resulting number of PCIe slots available; the mATX board otherwise includes everything found on the full ATX version. To that end, the B450 and B450M Steel Legends both feature two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots (x16 and x8/x4) and a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, while the ATX sized model adds three more PCIe 3.0 x1 slots.
ASRock B450 and B450M Steel Legend share the same rear panel
On the rear panel, both motherboards share the same layout with one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port, one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port, four USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. A single Ethernet port, five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are taken care of by a budget-friendly Realtek pairing (RTL8111H and ALC892). Two video outputs consisting of an HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2, with a PS/2 combo keyboard and mouse port rounding off the connectors. Users can expand on the rear panel USB with two USB 2.0 headers and a single USB 3.1 header which are available on both models.
As it stands there's no information on the availability or the pricing of the B450 Steel Legend motherboards, but they are expected to filter into retail channels soon.
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stanleyipkiss - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Mad Max reference right thereDragonstongue - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
call it "legend" but use a run of the mill audio solution 892 CODEC, instead of say an 1150 or 1220, doing so would add to the cost ~0.35 so maybe $2 to end user.the rest of the board looks nice seems "quite" high end considering the various additions, but sadly that audio or lack thereof is what the hell because these seem to be "no compromise" or they would appear as such, lack of a higher codec IMO for my wallet means no more than $200 CAD or they enter a why bother when others out there do..shame really because the component selection etc otherwise is awesome.
Also, I really wish more of these "hey check out our new product" would also have an MSRP/MSEP/SEP attached to them or not be able to be listed/shown that really grind my gears.
limitedaccess - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
$200 CAD would be too high. There are $150 CAD ITX b450 boards with AC1150 audio and an Intel NIC including Asrock's own ITX board. There are also $150 ATX boards with the same.No mATX boards with the above but that's more so that b450/x470 boards are all lower end targeted with the most expensive one being only $130.
Murloc - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
anybody who cares about audio surely doesn't use the analog audio outputs of a motherboard, as they're not usuable on their own in a decent sound system, at which point you might as well use a digital output and let the AVR handle the analog part.prtskg - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
ALC 1220 provides best bang for buck as far as audio codecs are concerned. So motherboard manufactureres should use it for some budget quality motherboards.artifex - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
AsRock actually has the 1220 on their Fatality B450 Gaming ITX board. Not sure why their bigger versions don't. Especially since I got the mini-ITX one for about $75 USD during a sale last November. I guess maybe "market segmentation?" Same reason they have several different micro-ATX B450s now, that seem almost identical.limitedaccess - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
If you look at mATX in general for Ryzen none have 1220 or even Intel NICs I think. It looks like every manufacturer is targeting mATX as a budget option while higher ITX boards serve more premium builds for those wanting less size.rgba - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
Asus TUF B450M-Pro Gaming has ALC1200. Not sure how it compares to the ALC1220San Pedro - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
Looks like it is assuming to take on the MSI B450 Tomahawk. If this would've came out in December I would've likely gave this much consideration, but if the ATX board really only has four SATA ports then that is a deal breaker.The_Assimilator - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
So happy to see a board with display outputs that doesn't include DVI. Would've been happier if they'd made better use of the space to stack the HDMI and DP and add another two USB 2.0 ports on the rear."In fact the only differences between the two boards is their size and the resulting number of PCIe slots available; the mATX board otherwise includes everything found on the full ATX version."
Wrong, mATX version omits two of the SATA ports.