ASRock B660 Steel Legend Motherboard Overview
March 25, 2022ASRock B660 Steel Legend, the mainstream motherboard of ASRock for the Intel Alder Lake CPUs. It follows the design, build quality, and feature set of this generation’s Steel Legend motherboards.
The B660 motherboard under the Steel Legend line has most of the gaming features and essentials that one would need for a gaming machine. You get almost the same set of features of the Z690, but with a lesser power phase design as this motherboard is really meant for mainstream users who do minimal to no overclocking. Users can still reap the benefits of manual or automatic overclocking with the B660, but with lower OC results and stability.
What’s in the box:
Some of the inclusions are what you’d usually expect from mainstream segment motherboards. But, ASRock adds a bit more stuff. While other brands include stickers and other branding assets, ASRock includes stuff that would be of use to users.
Inside the box, you’ll find a set of user manuals, a couple of SATA cables, M.2 screws and standoff, velcro cable ties, I/O Shield, and a CD Driver. In addition, and one of the cool stuff inside the box, are the Steel Legend branded keycap and keychain.
ASRock B660 Steel Legend: A closer look
When it comes to design, the B660 Steel Legend has a lot of similarities to the Z690 motherboard under the same model line. It has the same black PCB with an akin design to the Z690 Steel Legend. A very flexible colorway that will definitely complement any neutral or RGB builds.
It also features integrated RGB lightings on the brandings on the chipset heatsink and on the side of the motherboard. Furthermore, RGB headers and Addressable RGB headers, for additional RGB flair, are available on the top right and bottom row of the motherboard.
Similar but not the same
The superficial similarities between the B660 Steel Legend and Z690 Steel Legend does not stop there. As an ATX motherboard just like the Z690 Steel Legend, it has the same number of expansion slots.
The other M.2 slot is hidden under the M.2 Shield 
The number of USB ports on the I/O, on the other hand, is more on the Steel Legend B660. You get more USB ports from it, and still get the same amount of M.2 ports as the enthusiast tier Steel Legend Z690 motherboard. But the Z690 leads on SATA3 ports with 8 SATA3 available, while you only get 6 SATA3 ports on the B660.
The similarities extend up to its network connectivity options, as the B660 Steel Legend also has a Dragon 2.5G LAN port. Though it does not have a WiFi option available out of the box, it still comes with an M.2 WiFi Key-E slot that’s ready for any WiFi modules.
Moving forward, the new Intel 12th generation processors have ushered in new features that proved beneficial to a lot of users. Motherboard manufacturers align their motherboard’s features to take advantage of these new advancements in CPU. The B660 Steel Legend is no different as it has support for DDR4 memories with frequencies up to 5000MHz. However, do bear in mind that actual memory frequency support may still vary depending on the processor. Some processors might handle a high frequency memory out of the box, while some would need a little bit of tweaking.
Pricing and Availability
The ASRock B660 Steel Legend is available at your favorite local PC retail store, and will carry a price tag of around $160 USD. However, if you are in the UK and Scan is your go to online store then you’d see it go for £160.
