ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi review

This is a micro-ATX board on AMD's B650 chipset with an AM5 socket. It takes DDR5 across four DIMM slots, in dual channel, up to 192GB, with speeds up to 7200+ listed as overclocked. For a build that needs plenty of memory capacity in a small case, four slots and a 192GB ceiling give room to grow.

There are three M.2 slots. One is a Blazing M.2 running PCIe Gen5 x4, one is a Hyper M.2 running PCIe Gen4 x4, and one is a standard M.2 running PCIe Gen4 x2. A separate Key-E slot handles the Wi-Fi module, so it does not take up one of the three storage slots.

Four SATA3 ports sit alongside those. With three M.2 drives and four SATA devices, this suits a small file server or a workstation that keeps several drives attached. The Gen4 x2 slot has less bandwidth than the other two, so it makes more sense for a secondary or bulk drive than a primary one.

Expansion is limited. The board has one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot. The listed slots are PCIe 4.0 and 3.0, so a PCIe 5.0 graphics card would not have a Gen5 slot on this board. A buyer planning a single GPU and perhaps one add-in card, such as a capture or network card, is the match here. Someone planning several cards should look at a larger form factor.

Wired networking is Dragon 2.5GbE using an RTL8125BG controller. Wireless is Wi-Fi 6E with Bluetooth. Wi-Fi 7 is not listed on the product page. The manufacturer's catalogue also states the Wi-Fi module is not included in the box, so a buyer who wants wireless from day one should check that before ordering.

USB is a mix of speeds. The rear has one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A+C port and two USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports. Four more USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports come from headers, and a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C header serves a front-panel connector. The specifications list nothing faster than USB 3.2 Gen2, so a buyer who wants USB4 or 20Gbps ports has no match here. With a single Gen2 rear port, the fastest external drive connection is shared by every device that needs it.

The board uses an 8+2+1 phase Dr.MOS design on a 6-layer PCB with 2oz copper, cooled by an aluminium heatsink. The multi-layer, heavy-copper PCB and the Dr.MOS stages are a sound basis for mainstream AM5 processors. The specifications give no detail on how the heatsink performs under a sustained load from the highest-end chips in the socket. A buyer pairing it with a top-tier processor and heavy all-core work should check compatibility and cooling plans before committing.

The latest BIOS listed is version 4.60, which updates AGESA to ComboAM5 1.3.0.1d. The support page labels it beta. A buyer who wants only stable releases may prefer to stay on an earlier version, and should check the support page before updating. No BIOS flashback feature is listed on the specifications.

The ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi gives a B650 buyer a Gen5 M.2 slot, three M.2 slots in all, four SATA ports and 2.5GbE in a micro-ATX board. Its limits are plain from the spec sheet: Wi-Fi 6E rather than Wi-Fi 7, USB speeds topping out at Gen2, a Wi-Fi module that is not in the box, and a PCIe 4.0 top slot. It fits a storage-focused compact build better than a build chasing the newest connectivity standards.