Packaging and Accessories
The box for the ROG Strix B550-I Gaming doesn’t really look any different from any of the ROG Strix ITX boards I’ve seen for the last 4 or 5 generations. This includes the black background with the ROG logo with that Strix rainbow effect and then the picture of the board on the front. Beyond that the model name is easy to read, then down along the bottom, you have smaller logos for the chipset, the Ryzen logo, and even one showing the board has PCIe 4.0. Around on the back are more pictures of the B550-I, including a top-down view and a view of the rear I/O which help you see a lot of the board features. Around that, they have a specification listing as well. Then below that Asus included pictures of a few key features with labels on what each is.
Inside the B550-I comes wrapped up in a static protective bag and in its own cardboard tray that can be pulled out. That tray also has its own lid as well. Then up under that Asus has all of the accessories and documentation.
Speaking of documentation, the B550-I comes with a full user guide, and inside Asus slipped the driver/software disk as well as a paper thanking you for the purchase. Along with that they also include a half-page of ROG and Asus stickers which are all on a semi-metallic finish along with the cable labels as well in case you need those.
To start off the accessories you do get a rear I/O shield which I was a little surprised about. It feels like most boards recently have had them pre-attached. That said it is all black with white legends and one ROG logo. Then around on the back, it has the foam padding which is a lot nicer than the metal springs that tend to catch inside of plugs and cause you to have to pull a completed build all the way back apart to fix.
You get four black SATA cables which do give you the option to use a right angle cable or not. Asus also included a small bag of black zip ties, you don’t see these with a lot of motherboards so that is a welcome addition. I’m guessing they want to make sure you tuck the wiring away so the B550-I can breathe a little. There are to sets of M.2 screws which include the standoff as well. There is also a small bracket for M.2 as well. Rather than include their normal Q connector for the front panel connection, they give you a short cable that does the same job but lets you hide the connections away from the motherboard itself. There is then one extension cable for addressable RGB LEDs and then an unusual one, a Type-C to audio adapter cable. I will have to take a closer look at why this is included in the next section. But I can say that the I/O panel does have one of the Type-C connections labeled as the audio one, so make sure you use it on the correct plug.
There is also an antenna included for the built-in Wifi 6. This is just the standard Asus antenna. It has magnets in the back edge so you can stick it to the side of your case, but they aren’t very strong. Beyond that I’ve not been a huge fan of this design, the base isn’t wide and they tend to fall over.