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MSI MAG B550M Bazooka Overview – Best Affordable VRM Motherboard for Ryzen 5000 / Zen3

The Ryzen 5000 series is just around the corner. So it’s time to check out another B550 board. This time I have MSI MAG B550M Bazooka.
It’s more of a budget and one of the best value-oriented mATX motherboard that provides excellent VRM performance.
You can use it with Ryzen 5 or even Ryzen 9 CPUs as it can handle any of these. So if you are up for building a smaller AMD based system, this board might be for you.

But if this is your first time on our site, On Epic Game Tech I share my passion in PC Builds, Unboxing parts and helping you guys by posting simple How-To Guides. So if you find these topics interesting, please bookmark my blog and consider checking my YouTube channel.

So probably you are wondering what kind of motherboard you should get for Ryzen 5000. B550 is a good pick not only for Zen3 but it’s also a good choice for Ryzen 3000 build as-well. Previously, I did an overview of an ATX board ASRock B550 EXTREME4.
It’s a really good motherboard for any Ryzen processor especially if you are planning to overclock it. So in case you want to check it out, please visit this post.
Let’s get back to MSI B550M Bazooka. I will do a quick unboxing, walk through its features and motherboards IO.

Unboxing

At first, let’s have a look at what accessories are included in the box.

  • An MSI sticker. Basically, it can boost your performance by a few percents, but a guide on how to do it lies somewhere in Youtube archives. Use it at your own risk.
  • A disk with drivers and utilities. Probably, you will do it anyway, but I want to be sure – guys please download the latest drivers from an official website instead of using this one.
  • Some AD material to show off some of the MSIs products and a loyalty program they run.
  • One of the best friends when assembling a PC – boards manual. Especially when plugging PC Case front IO connectors.
  • Additionally, there is an included quick guide with quite clear CPU installation details.
  • B550M Bazooka comes with two included SATA cables for your SSD or a hard drive.
  • A few included m.2 screws.
  • And an IO shield.

The motherboard itself is nothing fancy, but it has quite a few nice heatsinks, including m.2 shield. So it’s a bit of aggressive gamer’ ish but neutral colour looks and it will definitely fit most of the PC Build themes.

Features

Moving forward, let’s go through the main features this motherboard can offer.

  • First of all, as for its price, Bazooka has quite a performing VRM with beefy heatsinks. And so this board can handle any Ryzen CPU at stock speed. With a decent airflow, it can handle even an overclocked 3950x with no probs.
  • There are a few m.2 slots one of which is covered with a nice shield and supports currently the fastest Gen4 m.2 drives.
    I’m not yet convinced anyone needs those crazy expensive SSDs, but still, you will have this feature in case you need it someday.

  • Regarding USB headers, the board features one USB 3.2 Gen1 and a few USB 2.0 headers. But that’s not all, USB Type-C internal header is found only on a few micro ATX motherboards. So this is a nice feature to get. And in case you have a few USB type-c accessories, be sure to get a PC case that has a type-c connector in order to use this feature.
  • In case you decide to get some RGB Fans or LED strips, this board has two RGB and two Addressable RGB headers.
  • And speaking of Fans, it features CPU, pump and three additional fan headers (5 fan headers in total).
  • We will get into an IO soon, but I need to mention a BIOS flash button feature. It’s always handy for an easier BIOS update process.

IO connectivity

Moving forward, let’s have a look at motherboards IO. Connection wise, It is quite a standard one if compared to the same budget motherboards.

  • We have a BIOS Flash button I’ve mentioned previously.
  • A display and HDMI 2.1 ports in case you decide to use a CPU with integrated graphics.
  • Four 3rd gen USB Type-A ports.
  • Then a PS/2 port.
  • Two 2nd gen USB Type-A ports.
  • A Gigabit LAN.
  • And 7.1 digital audio.

MSI B550M Bazooka sells for around $130. It’s one of the best choices in case you want to get a good budget micro ATX board and plan to overclock your Ryzen CPU. Even if you get Bazooka for a Ryzen 5 today, you can be sure, it will handle Ryzen 9 when you decide to upgrade later on. Just be sure to take into consideration if you’ll need Wifi since this board does not have one.
Also, it’s a micro ATX motherboard, so if you wish to build in ATX PC Case, you should consider ATX motherboard as well.

But as always, I will share a few more mATX recommendations for a lower and higher budget.

Alternative motherboard options

Let’s start with a low budget recommendation. Honestly, the cheapest and still decent motherboard I would recommend is ASRock B550M Pro4. It’s around $105 and would pair well with Ryzen 5 or even Ryzen 7 processors.

However, in case you are planning to go for a Ryzen 9 CPU and overclock it, I would suggest looking into MSI B550M MORTAR.
Design-wise it’s very similar to B550 Bazooka, pretty much the same style, but this board features a better VRM and so you can overclock Ryzen 9 CPU with no issues. Also, you get faster 2.5-gigabit LAN, better audio and a USB Type-C port. And it’s around 160 dollars US or 170 for a wifi version.

For an ATX form factor B550 recommendation, you can get MSI B550-A PRO motherboard. It’s around $10 or $15 US dollars more than a Bazooka. But A PRO has a better VRM so you could potentially overclock Ryzen 9 3950x. Feature-wise, both boards are pretty much the same.

And as always, I will leave links to all of these B550 motherboards in the description below.

In case you have any questions or doubts regarding any board, just leave a comment under my video and I will get back to you guys.

I hope you guys enjoyed MSI B550M Bazooka motherboard overview and you can find even more PC unboxing posts here.

Motherboard links @ Amazon

MSI MAG B550M Bazookahttps://geni.us/vdTpR

Asrock B550M Pro4 – https://geni.us/prRTpi (cheapest best)
MSI B550M Mortar – https://geni.us/RYWuGKI (best mATX VRM)
MSI B550-A PRO – https://geni.us/S352aX (Bazooka ATX alternative)


Disclosure: EpicGameTech gets a small commission when you purchase something via our Amazon links. It doesn’t cost you anything extra since that comes from Amazon’s end. So, please be aware, the links provided to Amazon are affiliate links.

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