On the AMD side, ASRock is also offering its main series with B850 chipsets, but there will be no B840, at least not initially. We therefore find models from the Steel Legend, Phantom Gaming, Pro and LiveMixer ranges, as well as some rather basic boards, as with Intel’s offering.

AMD B850:

Two Steel Legend boards:

As with its Intel boards, ASRock offers two Steel Legend boards, one in ATX, the other in micro-ATX. There’s no big difference here, apart from the format. In layman’s terms, the two boards are more or less identical, with their 14 2 1-phase power supplies and max. 8000 MT/s memory. Networking remains identical to its Intel counterpart, with RTL 8125BG, while audio is handled by an ALC4082 chip. However, there are moreUSBs, including two 10 Gbps USB-Cs… Finally, for the ATX model.

Phantom Gaming, three different formats:

As far as the Phantom Gaming series is concerned, there’s not much difference with the Steel Legend range once again. Worse still, apart from the network part which changes on the B850 Riptide, the micro-ATX version will be strictly identical to the B850M Steel Legend, just a visual change.

However, the real novelty concerns the little B850i Lightning, an ITX version. Here, the board benefits from 10 1 1 phases of 110A power supply. In terms of memory, we find support for 8200 MT/s RAM. On the audio side, we find an ALC1220 chip and a 2.5 GbE Killer E3100G for Ethernet. Note that this is the same chip as the Phantom Gaming B850 Riptide.

The Pro range, still the most complete :

As with the Intel B860 versions, the B850 Pro series will feature the largest number of boards: 8 references. In simple terms, the series is organized around two major series: Pro RS and Pro-A, available in ATX and micro-ATX formats, with and without WiFi.

In fact, the ATX versions benefit from slightly more connectivity and larger power supply stages: 14 2 1 phases versus 8 2 1 phases. In addition, all these models benefit from the same 8000 MT/s RAM support, the same Ethernet part with RTL8125BG and ALC897 audio. Finally, the WiFi versions will feature the 6E standard and support Bluetooth 5.2.

LiveMixer, a single model:

At AMD, however, there’s no micro-ATX version here, only an ATX board. For this series, we find a full I/O shield with twelve USB ports of varying standards. This will be the main difference with the brand’s other boards.

Otherwise, AsRock integrates a 14 2 1 phase stage, 8000 MT/s RAM support, ALC1220 audio and RTL8125BG networking.

Clearly, on the AMD side, there’s not much to distinguish one board from another.

Two regular cards :

Last but not least, the B850M-X WiFi and B850M-X, two micro-ATX models, offer a low-priced board. We’re repeating ourselves, but these two models are identical, and only the presence or absence of WiFi will distinguish the two boards.

Factually, these two references benefit from 6 1 1 power supply phases and 8200 MT/s RAM support. On the audio side, we have an ALC897 against an RTL8125BG for Ethernet. Otherwise, the WiFi version will benefit from a 6E standard module. However, these entry-level models omit PCIe 5.0 for the graphics card, although it is present for the SSD.