ASRock B450M Steel Legend (AM4) Motherboard Review

Features and Specifications

Overview

Tough as Steel – True Legend

Steel Legend represents the philosophical state of rock-solid durability and irresistible aesthetics. Built around most demanding specs and features, the Steel Legend series aims at daily users and mainstream enthusiasts! Providing a strong array of materials/components to ensure a stable and reliable performance. A motherboard that fulfills every task – with style!

Rule Your Own Lighting Way – Polychrome RGB

Steel legend motherboards deliver stunning performance and superior aesthetics to rule your own colorful lighting way! ASRock offers a very comprehensive control to perform the built-in RGB LEDs or the connected LED strips, CPU fans, coolers, chassis and any RGB devices smoothly. Devices can be synchronized across the Polychrome RGB Sync-certified accessories as well.

Dual M.2 For SSDs

Two of the world’s fastest M.2 slots. One delivers up to PCIe Gen3 x4 32Gb/s transfer speed, the other one supports SATA3 6Gb/s mode.

Dual USB 3.1 Gen2 (Type-A + Type-C)

This motherboard has a pair of onboard Type-A and Type-C USB 3.1 Gen2 ports built on the rear i/o for supporting next generation USB 3.1 Gen2 devices and to deliver up to 10 Gbps data transfer rates.

2oz Copper

It comes with 2 ounces copper inner layers, using only carefully selected copper materials for PCB layers, delivering lower temperature and higher energy efficiency for overclocking.

Premium 60A Power Choke

Features

• AMD AM4 Socket
• Supports DDR4 3533+ (OC)
• 1 PCIe 3.0 x16, 1 PCIe 2.0 x16, 1 PCIe 2.0 x1
• AMD Quad CrossFireX™
• Graphics Output: DisplayPort, HDMI
• 7.1 CH HD Audio (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec), Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps
• 4 SATA3, 1 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4), 1 M.2 (SATA3)
• 2 USB 3.1 Gen2 (Rear Type-A+C)
• 6 USB 3.1 Gen1 (2 Front, 4 Rear)
• Realtek Gigabit LAN

*For Ryzen Series CPUs (Raven Ridge), ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.
Please refer to below table for AMD non-XMP memory frequency support. For more details, please refer to the QVL on ASRock’s website.Ryzen Series CPUs (Pinnacle Ridge):
Ryzen Series CPUs (Summit Ridge):
Ryzen Series CPUs (Raven Ridge):
SR: Single rank DIMM, 1Rx4 or 1Rx8 on DIMM module label
DR: Dual rank DIMM, 2Rx4 or 2Rx8 on DIMM module label**Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows^® 32-bit OS. For Windows^® 64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation.

• BIOS
  – 128Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with multilingual GUI support
  – Supports “Plug and Play”
  – ACPI 5.1 compliance wake up events
  – Supports jumperfree
  – SMBIOS 2.3 support
  – DRAM Voltage multi-adjustment
• Graphics
  – Integrated AMD Radeon™ Vega Series Graphics in Ryzen Series APU*
  – DirectX 12, Pixel Shader 5.0
  – Shared memory default 2GB. Max Shared memory supports up to 16GB.**
  – Dual graphics output: Support HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 ports by independent display controllers
  – Supports HDMI 1.4 with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096×2160) @ 24Hz / (3840×2160) @ 30Hz
  – Supports DisplayPort 1.2 with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096×2160) @ 60Hz
  – Supports Auto Lip Sync, Deep Color (12bpc), xvYCC and HBR (High Bit Rate Audio) with HDMI 1.4 Port (Compliant HDMI monitor is required)
  – Supports HDCP 1.4 with HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 Ports
  – Supports 4K Ultra HD (UHD) playback with HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 Ports

  *Actual support may vary by CPU

  **The Max shared memory 16GB requires 32GB system memory installed.

• Audio
  – 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec)*
  – Premium Blu-ray Audio support
  – Supports Surge Protection
  – Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps
  – PCB Isolate Shielding
  – Individual PCB Layers for R/L Audio Channel
  – Gold Audio Jacks

  *To configure 7.1 CH HD Audio, it is required to use an HD front panel audio module and enable the multi-channel audio feature through the audio driver.
• LAN
  – PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
  – Realtek RTL8111H
  – Supports Wake-On-LAN
  – Supports Lightning/ESD Protection
  – Supports Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az
  – Supports PXE
• Slots
  AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge)
  – 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x16 mode)*
  – 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3: x4 mode)
  AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Raven Ridge)
  – 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x8 mode) (If you use Athlon 2xxGE series APU, PCIE2 slot will run at x4 mode.)
  – 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3: x4 mode)
  AMD Athlon series CPUs
  – 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x4 mode)*
  – 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3: x4 mode)- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 Slot
  – Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™

  *Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
• Storage
  – 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug*
  – 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_1), supports M Key type 2242/2260/2280 M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s) (with Summit Ridge, Raven Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge) or Gen3 x2 (16 Gb/s) (with Athlon 2xxGE series APU and Raven Ridge 2)**
  – 1 x M.2 Socket (M2_2), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module**

  *M2_2 and SATA3_3 share lanes. If either one of them is in use, the other one will be disabled.

  **Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
  Supports ASRock U.2 Kit

• Connector
  – 1 x COM Port Header
  – 1 x TPM Header
  – 1 x Chassis Intrusion Header
  – 1 x Power LED and Speaker Header
  – 1 x RGB LED Header*
  – 1 x Addressable LED Header**
  – 1 x AMD Fan LED Header***
  – 1 x CPU Fan Connector (4-pin)****
  – 1 x CPU/Water Pump Fan Connector (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)*****
  – 3 x Chassis/Water Pump Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)******
  – 1 x 24 pin ATX Power Connector
  – 1 x 8 pin 12V Power Connector
  – 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector
  – 2 x USB 2.0 Headers (Support 4 USB 2.0 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
  – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Header (Supports 2 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)

  *Supports in total up to 12V/3A, 36W LED Strip

  **Supports in total up to 5V/3A, 15W LED Strip

  ***The AMD Fan LED Header supports LED strips of maximum load of 3A (36W) and length up to 2.5M.

  ****The CPU Fan Connector supports the CPU fan of maximum 1A (12W) fan power.

  *****The CPU/Water Pump Fan supports the water cooler fan of maximum 2A (24W) fan power.

  ******The Chassis/Water Pump Fan supports the water cooler fan of maximum 2A (24W) fan power.
  CPU_FAN2/WP, CHA_FAN1/WP, CHA_FAN2/WP and CHA_FAN3/WP can auto detect if 3-pin or 4-pin fan is in use.

• Rear Panel I/O
  – 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
  – 1 x HDMI Port
  – 1 x DisplayPort 1.2
  – 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
  – 2 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
  – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
  – 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
  – 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
  – 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
  – HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone (Gold Audio Jacks)
• Software and UEFI
  Software
  – ASRock A-Tuning
  – ASRock Polychrome RGB
  – ASRock XFast LAN
  UEFI
  – ASRock Full HD UEFI
  – ASRock Instant Flash
  – ASRock Easy RAID Installer

  *These utilities can be downloaded from ASRock Live Update & APP Shop.
• Support CD
  – Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version), Google Chrome Browser and Toolbar
• Accessories
  – Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
  – 2 x SATA Data Cables
  – 2 x Screws for M.2 Sockets
• Hardware Monitor
  – Temperature Sensing: CPU, CPU/Water Pump, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
  – Fan Tachometer: CPU, CPU/Water Pump, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
  – Quiet Fan (Auto adjust chassis fan speed by CPU temperature): CPU, CPU/Water Pump, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
  – Fan Multi-Speed Control: CPU, CPU/Water Pump, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
  – CASE OPEN detection
  – Voltage monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, Vcore
• Form Factor
  – Micro ATX Form Factor: 9.6-in x 9.6-in, 24.4 cm x 24.4 cm

More information can be found on ASRock’s website.