It’s not the first time I’ve made an assembled computer, but every time I feel like it’s a moment where anticipation and sighing intersect. I’m excited about getting a new computer, but I’m also worried about how many hours it will take to complete and whether it will boot up in one go. From my experience of assembling computers several times, it seems that the difficulty of assembling is determined by three things: △motherboard △CPU cooler △case. In particular, for motherboards, the location of the cable connection terminals seems to greatly determine the difficulty of assembly.
The ASRock B650M PRO RS motherboard allows an M.2 wireless LAN card to be inserted directly below the graphics card mounting slot. However, the terminal for connecting the antenna is located at the top of the rear I/O shield. In other words, a cable must be connected between the wireless LAN card and the antenna terminal. There is one more line to sort out. Fortunately, the difficulty level is not difficult. All you have to do is remove the four screws that secure the rear I/O shield, connect the antenna cable to the shield, and then hide the cable well under the heat sink.
As the Ryzen CPU was upgraded to the 5th generation, the socket standard also changed from AM4 to AM5. The connection pins previously on the CPU were moved to the motherboard socket. It is known that when the cooler needs to be replaced or removed later, the ‘pulling out’ phenomenon, in which the CPU is pulled out due to the dried thermal paste, is reduced. Meanwhile, this motherboard can be equipped with up to 4 DDR5 RAMs, but if it is configured as a full bank, the RAM controller will not be able to support performance and the clock will go down, so it is better to install only 2.
The Asrock B650M PRO RS motherboard has three M.2 SSD slots. Supports up to △PCIe 5.0×4, △PCIe 4.0×4, and △PCIe 4.0×2, respectively. PCIe 5.0 SSDs produce terabyte (TB) speeds, but they also generate a lot of heat. A heat sink that quickly dissipates heat generated from the SSD is essential. Although a heat sink is provided as standard on the motherboard, if you are planning to use a high-performance SSD, it is a good idea to use a heat sink with a fan like the Asrock Blazing M.2.
It is expected that quite a few questions will be asked, “Is the AM4 cooler compatible with the AM5 socket?” Among AM4 coolers, coolers that do not require replacement of the ‘backplate’ on the back of the motherboard CPU socket can also be used in the AM5 socket. A representative example is the type that attaches to clips at the top and bottom of the socket, like Ryzen Gikul. I bought an AM5 compatible cooler just in case, but it turns out that the 2nd row cooler I already had can be installed on the AM5(;;) It’s a bonus that it’s noisier than water cooling.
Install the wireless LAN card on the motherboard in the following order: CPU → RAM → SSD → CPU cooler and secure the motherboard in the case. Since it is an M-ATX standard motherboard, it is compatible with most minitower and larger cases. After fixing the motherboard, simply pull the case and power cable and install them into place. The 24-pin terminals for motherboard power supply and 8-pin terminals for CPU power supply are located in similar positions to other motherboards, and the positions of the ARGB, USB3.0, and SATA terminals are slightly unique.
Once the cable connection is complete, insert the graphics card and complete assembly. Because the graphics card was long, I took out the Dark Flash DLM21 case I had previously used instead of the Jonesbo TK-1 fish tank case I had been using. The CPU cooler, RAM, and graphics card are all compatible with Asrock Polychrome (currently RGB sync), but only the front fan is rainbow RGB, so it feels a bit different. Since this is a temporary case, there is nothing we can do about it…
This was a minor thing I noticed while assembling it, but I liked it because most of the terminals for connecting external cables seemed to be pushed up and down. It feels like cable exposure is minimized. However, most of the 3-pin LED terminals are located at the bottom, so it was a bit disappointing that there was a possibility that the distance to the terminal would increase if an additional fan was installed. In some cases, if the upper and lower fans are not used in a daisy chain, there is a possibility that one LED terminal is missing.
Is it because they are the same manufacturer? When I installed the Asrock Radeon RX 7600 XT and Asrock Blazing M.2 SSD cooler on the Asrock B650M PRO RS, they fit together tightly with almost no steps. I especially liked that I could replace the SSD in slot 1 without removing the motherboard because there was no interference between the SSD cooler and the graphics card.
If the graphics card is not too thick, the third M.2 SSD located below the motherboard chipset can also be replaced without touching the graphics card. However, if you use a mini tower case, there is a possibility that you may have some difficulties due to limited space.
The time taken from unboxing the motherboard to successful booting after assembly was approximately 3 hours. There was a delay in installing the wireless LAN card and taking pictures for review, and since the cooler requires removing the motherboard socket and completely replacing the back plate, it took quite a long time to install, but it was completed much faster than usual. Personally, I think that the time required would have been greatly reduced by the fact that there were no parts that interfered with each other and that the cable terminals were clustered at the edge of the board, making them easy to install and organize. Good.
