Gigabyte has quietly added two Socket AM4 motherboards to its lineup, based on AMD’s eight-year-old B450 mid-range chipset with support for DDR4 memory. These micro-ATX boards are minimalist, avoiding extravagant features and super-high-speed connections, which should make them fairly affordable.
Following the Wi-Fi 7-equipped B550 Aorus Elite and PCIe 5.0-ready B760M Gaming WiFi6E DDR4 Gen5, Gigabyte is turning attention towards users on tight budgets with the B450M D3HP and B450M D3HP WiFi6E. The main appeal of these new Gigabyte boards is undoubtedly their DDR4 memory support, which nowadays represents the cheapest entry into modern-ish platforms. With ongoing memory shortages wreaking havoc on DDR5 prices, more people are choosing to buy cheaper DDR4 memory, particularly if they already own some from a previous rig.
Aside from the presence of Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.4 on the D3HP WiFi6E, both boards carry identical specs, including a 4+2-phase digital VRM for CPU power, and four DDR4 DIMM slots supporting 32GB 3,200MT/s modules. Note that, while the board’s spec page only lists support for Ryzen 5000, 4000, 3000, and their G variants, the CPU support PDF does confirm compatibility with Ryzen 2000, 1000, and Athlon-series chips as well.
There’s not much in the way of support for the new connection standards, though. Regardless of the version you choose, you’ll find one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot for graphics, plus another PCIe 3.0 x1 slot for add-on cards. For storage, you get two M.2 slots, one running at PCIe 3.0 x4 speed, while the other chug along at just PCIe 2.0 x2 speed. Forget the latest PCIe 5.0 SSDs, you won’t even be able to run a PCIe 4.0 drive at full speed in these boards. Four SATA 6Gb/s ports are also available for those requiring more storage.
Despite the lack of new PCIe standards, the B450M D3HP and B450M D3HP WiFi6E do at least include several modern features. These include Q-Flash Plus for BIOS updating without needing a CPU or RAM, Smart Fan 6. which allows you to keep your curve profiles even after BIOS updates, and addressable RGB headers.
In terms of connectors, you get four USB 3.2 Gen 1 sockets and three USB 2.0 ports, all of which use the USB-A standard. There are also two HDMI 2.0b ports and a DisplayPort 1.2 connector for integrated graphics, plus three 3.5mm audio jacks and a Gigabit LAN port. While there’s no USB-C on the rear panel, you do get a USB 3.2 Type-C 5Gb/s header for your chassis, which is a nice addition.
Gigabyte has yet to announce official pricing and availability dates for these boards. That said, anything above £80 would make these unappealing, since superior B550 motherboards already exist in this range.
