First B650 Motherboard Pricing Detailed by B&H

[TheLostSwede]

US retailer B&H has kindly provided the first B650 motherboard pricing and it's something of a mixed bag. The company has listed no less than seven different models from MSI, ranging in price from US$199.99 to US$329.99. It doesn't appear as if any of these boards are based on the B650E chipset, but based on information TPU were given at Computex, we know that some higher-end B650 boards will cost around the same as some lower-end B650E boards.

As B&H has only listed key features of the boards, it's hard to tell what features some of the boards offer, but the base model is the mATX Pro B650M-A WiFi, which at the very least has one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x4 slot, one PCIe 3.0 x1 slot and two M.2 slots. The board obviously also has WiFi 6E and somewhat surprisingly has 2.5 Gbps Ethernet. On the other hand, it only has a front header for a USB-C port and none around the back. This type of board was supposed to start at or below the US$150 mark and we'll hopefully see a transition to there in due time.




A step up is the Pro B650-P WiFi which removes the PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, but adds a pair of unspecified full-length slots—most likely PCIe 3.0 based—as this is a full size ATX board. Here MSI has also added a rear mounted USB-C port that could be of the 20 Gbps variety. For an extra $20 over the mATX version, this seems like a more reasonable product offering overall in the now rather expensive budget segment.



At the $239.99 price point, MSI has two boards, the mATX MAG B650M Mortar WiFi and the Mini-ITX MPG B650I Edge WiFi. The boards have a pre-installed I/O shield, which helps identify the rear port configuration. As such, we know that both boards come with a 20 Gbps rear mounted USB-C port and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet. The Mortar has two full-length x16 PCIe slots, with the primary being a x16 slot. There's also a x1 PCIe slot, that is most likely PCIe 3.0, as well as two M.2 slots. The Edge only has a single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot due to form factor limitations, plus at least one M.2 slot and a small fan on the heatsink that appears to cover the chipset and the M.2 slot.



The next full-size board is the $259.99 MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi, which is pretty much an ATX version of the Mortar, with an additional M.2 slot for a total of three. At $289.99 sits the MPG B650 Edge WiFi, which alongside the MPG B650I Edge gets white/silver heatsinks. The overall board layout is almost identical to the Tomahawk, but here we know for sure that the top-most M.2 slot supports a PCIe 5.0 drive.



Finally MSI's top of the range B650 board in the line-up listed by B&H is the MPG B650 Carbon WiFi, which is a souped up version of the previous two boards, which gains a third M.2 slot and a bit fancier heatsinks. It also gains "proper" buttons around the back for the BIOS flash and clear CMOS buttons, but there's very little extra you get for the $329.99 asking price. All of the boards are listed as coming soon, so we don't have an actual retail date for B650 motherboards as yet.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[ZoneDymo]

so the more budget-line has the prices we expected/wanted/found normal for the more premium boards, great.

 

[Eskimonster]

Guess its the new normal, better quality cost more then thrash. /s

 

[phanbuey]

Guess its the new normal, better quality cost more then thrash. /s

No wonder evga left graphics cards… These profit margins look juicy.

 

[john_]

Expensive.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Terrible design on the new mortar. With that PCIe placement if you have anything over a 2 slot card you cant use any other expansion cards....they really couldnt even put that x1 slot above the x16 slot?

And those prices.....holy hell. $230 for a mid range chipset. My asus P8Z77 V-PRO cost $230 brand new... Looks like I'll be keeping my 5000 series until it cant boot anymore.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I really dont see the point of these boards if everything is going to remain last gen for all its features. shame, if your going next gen, dont do it half-assed and charge premium prices, so not worth the investment.

 

[kapone32]

Ok I am totally confused. Had they not convinced us that Mini ITX boards were more expensive than ATX boards and now we have this? I guess there will be no boards like the Asus Strix B450E with enough bandwidth for x8 add in cards. You could easily separate the top 2 expansion slots by 8 but I guess you have to pay for that by getting some X670E boards but even some of them are paltry in terms of lane allocation.

 

[trsttte]

Ok I am totally confused. Had they not convinced us that Mini ITX boards were more expensive than ATX boards and now we have this? I guess there will be no boards like the Asus Strix B450E with enough bandwidth for x8 add in cards. You could easily separate the top 2 expansion slots by 8 but I guess you have to pay for that by getting some X670E boards but even some of them are paltry in terms of lane allocation.

I share the sentiment but this is only the first sample of B650 boards and none of them are the supposed B650Extreme

 

[Zareek]

I've been building my own PCs since the 90s. Never, can I recall a competitive AMD platform that offered less value versus the Intel competition. I always choose the best value for a given level of performance. Intel has certainly offered much better performance at times over the years, and that pushed me toward building Intel rigs because AMD wasn't even competitive. I really don't feel like my rig is too slow, but I always at least entertain an upgrade with each new generation. This one has me thinking I might grab a 5800X3D and keep my current platform. I guess we'll see here shortly what cards Intel will play. I think we might see Intel out price AMD!

 

[Icon Charlie]

HAHAHAHA. I said... "Wait to you see the "B" Series motherboard cost". Guess I was right again. Oh and the B-"E" Series of Motherboards will stupid high as well.

When I get the right information and the apologists started mouthing off about how CHEAP the B series motherboards are you KNOW THERE ARE PROBLEMS. I am now in my 34th year in this industry and I've seen it all.

I knew what Dr. Lisa Su was going to do as I've been watching her/AMD business/financial moves for the past 2 years.

So as I was stating before. AMD is going to make their money off of the sales of the Chipsets to the Motherboard Companies.

There is already a push back from people siting low CPU sales in Europe, because.. well you are going to have to basically build yourself a BRAND NEW computer instead of plopping a new CPU into an existing set up. The Excuses of the Excessive Temps and excessive wattages is utter crap. This in many ways reminds me of AMD's BullDozer CPU years ago. It was not that bad CPU but damn it was hot and watt pig.

I fully expect a decrease in CPU Price by $50. And the Reason why I am thinking of this is because of the financial data I've collected from AMD. I'll be somewhat surprised if this did not happen a few months down the road so they can make their 4th quarter performance look good on paper.

People forget that they did not have a good 2nd quarter and it looks like they are going to miss market expectations for the 3rd quarter.

Again it is going to cost $1000 more than the cost of my current rig if I want to get that top end type of build. I sure as hell not going to buy that and I can afford TOP END equipment. But I rather save my money and put it into something else.

This type of board was supposed to start at or below the US$150 mark and we'll hopefully see a transition to there in due time.

Well... Sorry to tell you this but my information was way above the $150 mark. That is why I got so pissed off. This is just price gouging by AMD.

Again I bought the X570 MSI A-Pro for $125.00 and it has ran beautifully, REGARDLESS what the talking heads on YOUTUBE have stated on this board.

"B" Series of motherboards were at the $80 to $100 at the time of purchase.

Everything is essentially Double the cost than last generations costs. For around 30% increase in overall performance??? Then add the heat issues and wattage to the mix?

THEN trying to sell this to a market that is in a GLOBAL RECESSION??? Yea... Real Smart. People are just not going to buy this right now.

If anything the market will dictate the price. Just like the CPU's the motherboard Prices will probably go down a bit. Maybe at the $150 mark a few months down the road. But this is a "B" series of mother board and there is no big deal to them.

BUT again I will take my money elsewhere. This IMHO this is again price gouging. AMD is not the only company guilty of this, just look at Ngreedia right now.

But because of looking at the financials of the company and how Dr. Su is running it, then getting the information I found. well...

This is what I fell you can expect. Excessive high prices.

 

[AsRock]

Every time i go B&H they seem to be more expensive, with that said seeing there prices like this gives hope that there be better prices.

 

[kapone32]

The 5800X3D is $499 CAD. It is the the first time I have seen it on back order on Newegg. As more news comes out and more prices drop, as the 5900X is $10 more than the X3d chip, this platform will look less and less appealing. I would put the MSI X570S Ace Max up against any board that I have seen for AM5 but if MSI thinks that I am going to pay basically double for the same board is crazy. The next thing is how fast these PCIe updates are happening. As an example. I had a Seagate 530 2TB that was my boot drive. One week about 3 weeks ago I started getting blue screens. These blue screens were so fast that I could not even get the key. The funny thing was Windows would show no errors. I thought it was my GPU driver, nope. I thought it could have been my PSU, nope. I thought it could have been my MB, nope. I had a 660P sitting around with a copy of WIndows so I swapped out the 530 with that and got the system back up. My other drives were all foreign that were not SATA but we were good. After about 3 days I then formatted the 530 using an external M2 adapter. I then put the 530 in a M2 slot on my board and used Seagate tools to clone the OS on the 660P to the 530. I get my Windows going and we are happy when after about 2 hours here come the blue screens again. Now I know that you can get lemons but do we not fear the prospect of ambient (in the case) temps in the 50s for the M2, CPU and GPU with these new systems. There is a Youtube channel called Testing Games. They had the 5900x, 12700k and 7900x. The thing was that the 3090TI was drawing about 30-40 Watts more power than the other CPUs (It was also producing 30-40 more FPS in most of the Games too).

 

[Why_Me]

I wonder how Intel's B760 boards will compare price wise.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1730066-REG/msi_b650pwifi_pro_b650_p_wifi_am5.html
MSI PRO B650-P WIFI $219.99 USD
Audio Codec: Realtek ALC897

Asrock boards are usually cheap (in more ways than one).

ASRock AMD B650 motherboard specs leaked, B650E Taichi is E-ATX with 27 phase VRM - VideoCardz.com

ASRock’s mid-range B650 motherboard series exposed The Taiwanese company is preparing at least seven models of B650 motherboards, including three of the “Extreme” variant. We have already shared pictures of three B650 motherboards from ASRock, but now we have a full list. We can now confirm...

videocardz.com

And for $60 USD more an MSI Z790 DDR5 board and not the cheapest one offered by far.

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144569
MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI $279.99 USD
Audio Chipset: Realtek ALC4080

PRO Z790-A WIFI

PRO series motherboards tuned for better performance by 16 Duet Rail Power System, DDR5 memory, Lightning Gen5 PCIe, Pre-installed IO, Extended Heatsink, M.2 Shield Frozr, Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5G LAN, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2

www.msi.com

 

[john_]

I was calling the majority of X570 boards "microATX boards at ATX form", because most of them where connecting only the top PCIe X16 slot on the CPU and the rest on the chipset. There where boards with 4 PCIe X16 that where connecting 3 of them on the chipset. I see the trend continues and none of these can split the 16 lanes of the CPU to 2 PCIe X16 slots and have 2 PCIe X8. Hope this time the chipset has enough PCIe lanes to not have to choose what it will get disabled when something else is used.

 

[jeremyshaw]

I was calling the majority of X570 boards "microATX boards at ATX form", because most of them where connecting only the top PCIe X16 slot on the CPU and the rest on the chipset. There where boards with 4 PCIe X16 that where connecting 3 of them on the chipset. I see the trend continues and none of these can split the 16 lanes of the CPU to 2 PCIe X16 slots and have 2 PCIe X8. Hope this time the chipset has enough PCIe lanes to not have to choose what it will get disabled when something else is used.

B550
8 PCIe 3.0 lanes (often used by WiFi, Ethernet, a second M.2 key M slot, etc)
2 PCIe 3.0 lanes that can also become 2 SATA ports
4 SATA ports
Bunch of USB.

B650:
8 PCIe 4.0 lanes
4 PCIe 3.0 lanes that can also become 4 SATA ports (IMO, board vendors will go with 4 SATA). Can also do 2 SATA with 2 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
Bunch of USB

My guess is a slight regression for most boards, if 4 SATA ports are still presented. Furthermore, in AM5, the CPU socket no longer presents any SATA interface either, whereas AM4 could have 2 SATA ports (at the cost of 2 PCI lanes).

AFAIK, Intel's B660 isn't much better off, since it shares its PHY assignments with USB 3 ports as well. Z790 doesn't seem to fundamentally change that, so I'm not expecting much of the future B760 either.

EDIT: B550 and X570 slides have some notes at the bottom, which are to be read as representing the entire platform's IO, not just the chipset. B650 slide doesn't have those notes.

EDIT: just for fun, X570.

X570:
8 PCIe 4.0
4 PCIe 4.0 or 4 SATA
4 PCIe 4.0 or 4 SATA (again)
4 SATA

 

[AusWolf]

This is not good. Not terrible, but not good.

£100-120 used to be my budget / HTPC price point, £180-200 for my main desktop. It looks like everything went up by 100 quid (1 USD MSRP usually equals 1 GBP store price).

 

[trsttte]

B550
8 PCIe 3.0 lanes (often used by WiFi, Ethernet, a second M.2 key M slot, etc)
2 PCIe 3.0 lanes that can also become 2 SATA ports
4 SATA ports
Bunch of USB.

B650:
8 PCIe 4.0 lanes
4 PCIe 3.0 lanes that can also become 4 SATA ports (IMO, board vendors will go with 4 SATA). Can also do 2 SATA with 2 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
Bunch of USB

My guess is a slight regression for most boards, if 4 SATA ports are still presented. Furthermore, in AM5, the CPU socket no longer presents any SATA interface either, whereas AM4 could have 2 SATA ports (at the cost of 2 PCI lanes).

AFAIK, Intel's B660 isn't much better off, since it shares its PHY assignments with USB 3 ports as well. Z790 doesn't seem to fundamentally change that, so I'm not expecting much of the future B760 either.

EDIT: B550 and X570 slides have some notes at the bottom, which are to be read as representing the entire platform's IO, not just the chipset. B650 slide doesn't have those notes.


EDIT: just for fun, X570.

X570:
8 PCIe 4.0
4 PCIe 4.0 or 4 SATA
4 PCIe 4.0 or 4 SATA (again)
4 SATA

I don't really see the regression, more of a sidegrade perharps but only if you ignore the upgrade to pcie4.0 and 5gbps to 10gbps USB.

Between B550 and B650 you trade 2 pcie 3.0 lanes/2 sata ports for 1 20gbps/2 10gbps usb ports. Everything else is either the same or upgraded to a new standard (usb 5gbps are now 10gbps, 8x pcie 3.0 are now 4.0)

X570 - X670 haven't looked at it side by side, but x670 is MOAR USB!!! galore imo

 

[TheLostSwede]

I don't really see the regression, more of a sidegrade perharps but only if you ignore the upgrade to pcie4.0 and 5gbps to 10gbps USB.

Between B550 and B650 you trade 2 pcie 3.0 lanes/2 sata ports for 1 20gbps/2 10gbps usb ports. Everything else is either the same or upgraded to a new standard (usb 5gbps are now 10gbps, 8x pcie 3.0 are now 4.0)

X570 - X670 haven't looked at it side by side, but x670 is MOAR USB!!! galore imo

Plus four extra PCIe 5.0 or 4.0 lanes from the CPU, that may or may not be present on B650 boards.

 

[Vader]

It seems lately the sweet point for hardware is to buy last gen when new gen launches. Remember 5600X for 300? X570 only motherboards at outrageous prices? These parts are still excellent, have most of what you need in terms of I/O, and are almost half the price they where at launch.
For Ryzen 7000, I think for my use case (gaming) these parts don't offer enough performance for the asking price, so I won't buy it. You can do the same, no need to get angry. Companies follow the money, if parts don't move, they'll be forced to lower prices.

 

[MentalAcetylide]

Given the sizes of the new 4000-series graphics cards from Nvidia, I guess the ATX & E-ATX motherboards are the new Mini & Micro-ATX boards. It seems like they want you to purchase server towers now if you want more than one graphics card in a system, which means if the system needs to be serviced and you're not hands-on technically inclined, you're going to be paying extra for a tech to perform on-site service since there's no way in hell you're going to be carrying a heavy as **** tower into a repair shop.

 

[cvaldes]

Given the sizes of the new 4000-series graphics cards from Nvidia, I guess the ATX & E-ATX motherboards are the new Mini & Micro-ATX boards. It seems like they want you to purchase server towers now if you want more than one graphics card in a system, which means if the system needs to be serviced and you're not hands-on technically inclined, you're going to be paying extra for a tech to perform on-site service since there's no way in hell you're going to be carrying a heavy as **** tower into a repair shop.

None of the GeForce 40 Series cards have NVLink connectors, not even the 4090 models. Of the Ampere generation, only the 3090 and 3090 Ti had the NVLink connectors.

Besides, what percentage of consumers are going to have a dual 4090 system anyhow? Price, size, power requirements, lack of usage cases for gaming and productivity, etc.

Dual 4090 systems would be workstation class builds for content creators and technical users.

 

[spnidel]

$200 for a b650 mobo
ooook lol
generation: skipped!

 

[Garrus]

These are American prices. Most prices outside the US have risen an additional 20-40 percent higher than the American MSRP. Skip. $400 for low end motherboards where I am. No thanks.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

None of the GeForce 40 Series cards have NVLink connectors, not even the 4090 models. Of the Ampere generation, only the 3090 and 3090 Ti had the NVLink connectors.

Besides, what percentage of consumers are going to have a dual 4090 system anyhow? Price, size, power requirements, lack of usage cases for gaming and productivity, etc.

Dual 4090 systems would be workstation class builds for content creators and technical users.

Actually it doesn't even work for workstation cards anymore. Nvidia has removed all forms of NVlink even on their workstation cards of Ada Lovelace.
I was just reading a whole bunch of complaints about how they can't get enough memory out of single cards & having to buy this card isn't appiling to content creators.