ASRock B450 Steel Legend

ASRock makes some of the very best budget motherboards in the market. Among the entire B450 lineup, the B450 Steel Legend is undoubtedly one of the most affordable premium boards. It costs $130 and packs every major feature you could ask for in an ATX motherboard. However, there is a catch. The VRM heatsinks aren’t sizable, and quality suffers. Although you get decent quality VRMs at this price point, stock cooling any processor in the low to mid-range won’t be a problem. But, the board starts to suffer as you go up to the performance or enthusiast processors. This is why I won’t ever recommend pairing the B450 Steel Legend with a Ryzen 7 3800X or the latest Ryzen 7 5800X, although the onboard AM4 socket supports up to a Ryzen 9 5950X. However, the board is a very good recommendation for value-for-money processors like the Ryzen 5 3600 or the latest Ryzen 5 5600G.

The B450 Steel Legend comes in both ATX and micro-ATX form factors. The smaller form factor does not deprive the micro-ATX Steel Legend off of many features. It still has two PCIe x16 slots (one PCIe Gen3 x16, and another PCIe Gen2 x16), but, one M.2 slot is cut down to provide space for the more important components.

The B450 Steel Legend is a very aesthetically pleasing board. It is painted in black camo, with a black, silver, and white accent. The entire board along with the rear I/O shield is covered with this camo theme. The board stresses aesthetics more than performance. The board has two RGB headers, one of them being the addressable type. This makes the B450 Steel Legend the only budget B450 board with an ARGB header.

The build quality is solid. It has 6 layers of PCB, pretty standard for any decent modern motherboard. It also has one steel-reinforced PCIe Gen3 x16 slot to prevent heavy graphics cards from bending and damaging the PCI express slot. The second slot is however deprived of this feature in both the ATX and micro-ATX boards. The ATX board also has two M.2 slots, with one of them having a dedicated heatsink in place. The first M.2 slot supports PCIe Gen3 x4 (speeds of up to 32 Gbps) with Matisse, Picasso, Summit Ridge, Raven Ridge, and Pinnacle Ridge CPUs. If the board is on an Athlon or a Raven Ridge 2 CPU, transfer speeds on the first M.2 slot are limited to PCIe Gen3 x2 (up to 16 Gbps). While the second M.2 port supports PCIe Gen3 x2 (speeds of up to 16 Gbps) in all AM4 supported processors.

The ATX variant is filled with 6 SATA 3.0 connectors, with transfer speeds of up to 6 Gbps. The board also has 1x TPM header, 1x 8-pin CPU power connector, 1x 24 pin ATX Power Connector, 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 5 Gbps (Superspeed USB) header, 3x Water Pump / Chassis Fan Connectors (4-pin with SMART Fan Speed Control), 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector, and 2 x USB 2.0 Headers (Support 4 USB 2.0 ports with support for ESD Protection).

When it comes to in-built chips and hardware, the Steel Legend is laid with AMD’s Promontory B450 chipset as its Southbridge. Audio is powered by Realtek ALC 892/891 audio codec, which although isn’t the latest and greatest, can deliver 7.1 channel HD output. When it comes to memory, it can support up to DDR4 3600MHz speeds, even if they are overclocked. The board also has a Quad CrossFireX™ chip onboard. Thus, we can CrossFire up to four AMD GPUs together. But, CrossFireX technology is almost dead these days.

The rear I/O is filled with 4x USB 3.2 Gen1 5Gbps (Superspeed USB) ports, one Display Port, one HDMI port, two USB 2.0 ports, one PS/2 port, one USB 3.2 Gen2 10Gbps (Superspeed USB 10Gbps) Type-A port, one USB 3.2 10Gbps (Superspeed USB 10 Gbps) Type-C port, one Gigabit RJ-45 LAN port, one Optical SP/DIF port, one speaker, microphone, central, bass, and line-in port. All of the five audio jacks are made of gold. However, the board does not support the ACPI wake-up function.

However, the 4+2 power design is concerning. The board also bundles the ASRock Polychrome Sync software which is pathetic. However, Polychrome Sync is a piece of software, and it can be fixed by ASRock via a future update. Also, considering the awesome value proposition of this board, this can be a suggestion for RGB lovers and people on an extremely tight budget. However, everyone looking for performance on a budget must not consider this board. The Tomahawks are for you.

Specs