# GIGABYTE AMD B550 Motherboard Pricing Revealed



## btarunr (May 28, 2020)

A GIGABYTE Community Manager on Reddit updated the "cheat sheet" of the company's AMD B550 motherboard lineup with MSRP Pricing. While prices of these boards start at USD $99, they go all the way up to $279. The top model, the B550 AORUS Master, leads the pack with a USD $279 price that puts it firmly in the premium segment where it matches features with boards based on the X570 and Intel's Z490 chipset. The B550 AORUS Pro AC is the next best model in the lineup, priced at $189. Its sans-WLAN twin, the B550 AORUS Pro, goes for $10 less at $179. The B550 AORUS Elite is priced at $159. The B550 Gaming X is part of the company's mainline brand, and goes for $139. The micro-ATX B550M AORUS Pro goes for $129, and the B550M AORUS Elite goes for $109. There's a token "sub $100" product, the B550M Gaming, at $99.

These prices indicate that B550 motherboards are on average 20% higher than B450 motherboards. For example, a reasonably well-endowed board like the B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC could be had for $150, as could the ASUS ROG Strix B450-E, and a decent board like the ROG Strix B450-F Gaming could be had at $130 even before "Zen 2" hit the market. Plenty of B450 boards could be had under the $100-mark. It looks like $99 will be a token value at best, with board vendors releasing only their most stripped down products at that that price. Find the GIGABYTE B550 motherboard cheat sheet in the source link below.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## cucker tarlson (May 28, 2020)

not that much to save there

140 for the cheapest full atx that's barely enough and needs a better audio anyway


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## $ReaPeR$ (May 28, 2020)

Let's see what happens when everyone has their boards out. I'm waiting for the taichi version, I suspect it will be in the 170 region.


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## cucker tarlson (May 28, 2020)

more.way more.220-250.


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## Metroid (May 28, 2020)

Let's hope they are as good as MSI boards because the gigabyte b450 was a disappointment.


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## $ReaPeR$ (May 28, 2020)

cucker tarlson said:


> more.way more.220-250.


That would make it a pointless product, the x570 taichi I have was 280 if I remember correctly, so why would I buy the inferior b550..? Pointless. Hell, I got my x470 for 200 bucks.



Metroid said:


> Let's hope they are as good as MSI boards because the gigabyte b450 was a disappointment.


How so?


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## TheLostSwede (May 28, 2020)

Ok, the Master is WAY more expensive than I expected. That's simply a no buy for anyone going B550.


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## ARF (May 28, 2020)

Metroid said:


> Let's hope they are as good as MSI boards because the gigabyte b450 was a disappointment.




How so ?

Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro is perhaps the best B450 board out there..


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## dyonoctis (May 28, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> Ok, the Master is WAY more expensive than I expected. That's simply a no buy for anyone going B550.


Gigabyte is probably using the x570 version as a reference point... The E.U price is going to be awfull.


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## sutyi (May 28, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> Ok, the Master is WAY more expensive than I expected. That's simply a no buy for anyone going B550.



The B550 MASTER is basically a lower I/O  entry level X570 with great VRM and cooling.
Although not sure if its worth picking up over an MSI X570 Tomahawk per se.


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## TheLostSwede (May 28, 2020)

sutyi said:


> The B550 MASTER is basically a lower I/O  entry level X570 with great VRM and cooling.
> Although not sure if its worth picking up over an MSI X570 Tomahawk per se.


But the way they wired it up, makes it a really weird choice over almost any X570 board imho. I mean, who wants three PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives, but are willing to compromise on the graphics card lanes to x8? Yes, I know it makes nearly no difference whatsoever in game, but considering how many people out there are screaming that Intel is better for gaming because you get 2-3% more performance on average, then this would give you a further 2-3% disadvantage.
I just find it a really odd product in every way possible.


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## ARF (May 28, 2020)

Look at the specs, though 

128 GB DDR4-5200 for normal Ryzen, DDR4-5400 for Ryzen APU 









						B550 AORUS MASTER (rev. 1.0) Specification | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global
					

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...




					www.gigabyte.com
				











						B550 AORUS PRO AC (rev. 1.x) Specification | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global
					

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...




					www.gigabyte.com


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## Metroid (May 28, 2020)

ARF said:


> How so ?
> 
> Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro is perhaps the best B450 board out there..





ARF said:


> How so ?
> 
> Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro is perhaps the best B450 board out there..



There were many professional reviewers that made a deep analysis of b450 motherboards and msi was on top, they even said that only b450 MSI was worth buying. Now, on the rx 570 boards that was different, out of 12 gigabyte boards, 10 were pretty good boards.


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## Buftor (May 28, 2020)

There are a several mATX boards listed in that document that were not announced yet, all under $129. But since there are no descriptions, these might just be temporary place holders. 
MSI reveled their B550 pricing yesterday, at the MSI Insider live broadcast. The MSI B550M Mortar was quoted at $159. I think the B450M Mortar was around $110 at launch. That's a huge jump in prices. 
Asus listed the very similar TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS at $159. Let's see how much ASROCK lists the B550M Steel Legend, which is also very similar.


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## ARF (May 28, 2020)

Metroid said:


> There were many professional reviewers that made a deep analysis of b450 motherboards and msi was on top



Professional is misleading. They very often consider things out of pure bias and irrelevant for an average consumer.


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## Metroid (May 28, 2020)

ARF said:


> Professional is misleading. They very often consider things out of pure bias and irrelevant for an average consumer.



If you think that then there is nothing else I can say, you should watch it, might help you to judge it.


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## Daven (May 28, 2020)

Interesting use of the word 'token'. Hmm... Does it work in other places?

Core i7
Core i5
Core i3
'token' Pentium/Celeron

Ryzen 7
Ryzen 5
Ryzen 3
'token' Athlon

Geforce 2080
Geforce 2070
Geforce 2060
Geforce 1660 ti
Geforce 1660
'token' Geforce 1650

Wow it does work everywhere. You just add 'token' to the cheapest part of every product line. I think it even works with candy bars

Toblerone
Ghirardelli
Snickers
Hershey's
'token' 100 Grand


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## Metroid (May 28, 2020)

I like these b550 boards because they don't use a fan and has pcie 4.0 cpu link, might be perfect cost benefit board for new nvidia gpu's.


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## Parn (May 28, 2020)

Metroid said:


> Let's hope they are as good as MSI boards because the gigabyte b450 was a disappointment.



Really? I love my Gigabyte B450 Aorus M in my home HTPC.


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## Metroid (May 28, 2020)

Parn said:


> Really? I love my Gigabyte B450 Aorus M in my home HTPC.


yeah they look pretty nice, I would buy a b450 gigabyte board until I spent a week researching about which one to buy, looks can be deceiving ehhe

Check that video I posted above, that is just one source, i read various sources.


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## ARF (May 28, 2020)

Every major reviewer is praising the B450 Aorus Pro.

*



			Final Words
		
Click to expand...

*


> Gigabyte offers a really decent performing B450 motherboard, there is a small exception here and there, but considering we're running the initial F1 BIOS, that's all looking good.  It functions well and offers a decent enough feature set. Please make sure that you flash the latest firmware to this new platform. At €159 we did expect a bit more though. We did not run into stuff that worried us though. The motherboard used seems pretty well tuned, we had no stability issues. We tried a 3200 CL14 kit, all works fine. Tweaking wise, the motherboard will not be any limitation either, not all Zen+ processors will reach that 4.2~4.3 Ghz domain, but I do not see this motherboard to become the actual bottleneck. Be warned though, tweaking has been limited more with the BIOS for this board, you cannot force a strict voltage on the CPU, but can apply an offset.











						Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro review
					

We review the Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro, optimized for Ryzen processors, and in specific the new Ryzen 2000 / Zen+. The new B450 series chipset based board offer some more appealing value, as budget wis... Conclusion




					www.guru3d.com
				






> Gigabyte’s *B450 Aorus Pro* attempts to offer a plethora of features for a comparatively low price point. In pure feature terms this motherboard is a success – there’s high quality Realtek ALC1220-based audio, quality Intel Gigabit networking, a pair of cooled M.2 slots and ample RGB lighting options both integrated into the motherboard and through expansion headers.
> If a prospective buyer just wants to drop in an AMD Ryzen CPU with some XMP memory and get going the *B450 Aorus Pro* is a tempting proposition. It’s priced at such a level where Z370 motherboards simply cannot compete on features – they sacrifice the quality of the audio or networking, or are unable to integrated advanced features like RGB lighting, M.2 cooling and USB 3.1/Type-C.
> 
> *Such a highly competitive level of features is not simply a result of AMD’s affordable B450 chipset, but a result of Gigabyte’s aggressive pricing strategy in the B450 market. Many B450 motherboards from rival vendors in the same price bracket do not offer all the features of the B450 Aorus Pro.*
> ...











						Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro Motherboard Review - KitGuru
					

AMD's B450 chipset has economic advantages over Intel's Z370 at the budget-end of the market. For eq




					www.kitguru.net
				






> I’ve not encountered any VRM issue despite having pushing the CPU to the limit beyond what most users would actually do. The board works great out of the box, comes with good set of features and is definitely of good value for money for builders on a budget.
> -- As reviewed by GoldFries











						Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro
					

Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro reviews, pros and cons. Liked: Performance on par with X470 Broad connectivity options Disliked: OC limits due to hardware and software implementation




					www.techspot.com


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## Caring1 (May 28, 2020)

Gigabyte clearly doesn't comprehend the meaning of the word Elite, when they place it mid range.


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## Parn (May 28, 2020)

Metroid said:


> yeah they look pretty nice, I would buy a b450 gigabyte board until I spent a week researching about which one to buy, looks can be deceiving ehhe
> 
> Check that video I posted above, that is just one source, i read various sources.



I thought your disappointment was to do with poor VRM design, or lack of key features on the gigabyte boards. But that's certainly not what was said in the video you posted. 

I got my B450 Aorus M for £89. It packed all the features I needed at a very reasonable price. MSI might be a bit cheaper for the same feature set (I didn't check the price), but I wouldn't call gigabyte "a disappointment" for that.


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## Assimilator (May 28, 2020)

B550 is DOA at these prices - $279 for a midrange chipset, you have gotta be kidding me. At least it will push X570 and B450 board prices down.


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## Metroid (May 28, 2020)

Parn said:


> I thought your disappointment was to do with poor VRM design, or lack of key features on the gigabyte boards. But that's certainly not what was said in the video you posted.
> 
> I got my B450 Aorus M for £89. It packed all the features I needed at a very reasonable price. MSI might be a bit cheaper for the same feature set (I didn't check the price), but I wouldn't call gigabyte "a disappointment" for that.



There are too many sources, this is another one.


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## Kissamies (May 28, 2020)

Let's hope that MSI's B550 boards are as good as their B450s. B550 will be my weapon of choice without a doubt.


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## Blaazen (May 28, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> B550 is DOA at these prices - $279 for a midrange chipset, you have gotta be kidding me. At least it will push X570 and B450 board prices down.



Well, you don't buy chipset, you buy motherboard. This one is the only B550 with 3x M.2 PCIe 4.0 connected directly to CPU. And 802.11ax wifi. There's no such X570 board for this price.


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## agatong55 (May 28, 2020)

The B550 AORUS Elite is actually look really nice


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## ShurikN (May 28, 2020)

The ITX board is $40 cheaper than its X570 big brother. And it looks it has the same 6+2 90A power delivery, the same rear IO, and the "B" board has 2.5G lan, while "X" has 1G.
The only downside (for me at least) is CPU support. "X" supports Ryzen 2000, "B" doesn't. But if I can get a 3300 for 100ish EUR, instead of a 2600, I will probably go for the B550.


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## Tomorrow (May 28, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> Ok, the Master is WAY more expensive than I expected. That's simply a no buy for anyone going B550.


Especially if one can get the X570 Tomahawk for around 230 and get full PCIe 4.0 support. I mean hell even half of Gigabyte's own X570 lineup would be cheaper with only Ultra, Master and Xtreme being more expensive. B550 should not exceed 175. From that point upwards it becomes very difficult for them to compete against X570 that has a superior feature set.


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## ObiFrost (May 28, 2020)

Unless Ampere and RDNA2 fully utilize PCIe 4.0 and someone desperately needs PCIe 4.0 NVMes for work multitasking, I don't see a proper reason to upgrade from B450. Might hold onto a little more and upgrade to AM5, because in current financial conditions, barebone amount of consumers will upgrade to Zen 3 + B550.


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## Tomorrow (May 28, 2020)

One more negative for B550 is the lack of support for 2000 series. Even MSI will not support those on their B550 according to the slide.


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## Rowsol (May 28, 2020)

I thought the entire purpose of this chipset is to allow an affordable entry into Zen 2. Where are the 60 dollar boards for the people buying the 3100/3300x?


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## sutyi (May 28, 2020)

Blaazen said:


> Well, you don't buy chipset, you buy motherboard. This one is the only B550 with 3x M.2 PCIe 4.0 connected directly to CPU. And 802.11ax wifi. There's no such X570 board for this price.



These should be midrange boards and midrange boards should not cost 200 bucks period. Do new X570 boards if you want to offer new connectivity.

Some of these boards cost almost the same money as an MSI X570 Tomahawk that has similar or better I/O, same or better VRM, also WIFI for 220US. Would you buy a B550 board at 200 instead of that?
These should've come in about 30 to 40US lower and then it would make sense as it would be still a noticable price bump over B450 boards, but you could say you are paying for PCIe 4.0 and longetivity.

Now if I want to buy a semi decent Gigabyte B550 Elite board to replace my 3 year old B350 Gaming-3 I would pay 70% more for it, better yet B450 Elite is still available and said B550 Elite would be a 80% price bump over it...

I was planing on getting an 3700X when ZEN3 hits the market, but at this rate I'll just update my BIOS and slap it in my current board...


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## Assimilator (May 28, 2020)

So now the question becomes, when can we expect X670? Or, a wave of X570 refreshes?


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## Blaazen (May 28, 2020)

@ sutyi

I agree that Tomahawk X570 is priced very well but it has worse VRM, has only two M.2 slots and has worse debug options.


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## sutyi (May 29, 2020)

Blaazen said:


> @ sutyi
> 
> I agree that Tomahawk X570 is priced very well but it has worse VRM, has only two M.2 slots and has worse debug options.



Thought the VRM on the MASTER was the same as the AORUS PRO, I was wrong.

Still by the time that 279USD B550 AORUS MASTER hits the stores here Euroland I'm looking at like 310-310EUR pricing. For that money I can buy an X570 AORUS ULTRA board where I don't need to worry about the slot bifurcation shenanigans going on with the B550 to provide them M.2 slots you mentioned. Even tho even restricting the main x16 slot to PCIe 4.0 x8 this way probably wouldn't be saturated for a while.


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## iuliug (May 29, 2020)

Hi,  

Beware! GB is not updating lower end 470,450 boards with the newest AGESA bios (F51) - only the higher end boards have received it so far. boards like https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B450-AORUS-PRO-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios and https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X470-AORUS-ULTRA-GAMING-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios which are Aorus and Gaming brands did not receive it.

Mind this when making a future proof GB purchase.


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## Chaitanya (May 29, 2020)

Here are prices for Asus B550 motherboards. Just divide these by 75 for USD.


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## AddSub (May 29, 2020)

Oh brother! Almost $300? I paid $240 for my Aorus Master.... my Z390 Aorus Master that is. And the Z390 Master is a OC  & feature-set beast. Like someone mentioned, where are sub $100 boards? Most of B550 boards should be sub $100, since this is a budget/entry level chipset. This is $200 worth of lipstick on a $79 pig. 


...
..
.


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## Cranky5150 (May 29, 2020)

Yeah i think i will sit this whole B550 thing out...When I'm  ready i will just go X570..


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## Rothbardian (May 29, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> But the way they wired it up, makes it a really weird choice over almost any X570 board imho. I mean, who wants three PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives, but are willing to compromise on the graphics card lanes to x8? Yes, I know it makes nearly no difference whatsoever in game, but considering how many people out there are screaming that Intel is better for gaming because you get 2-3% more performance on average, then this would give you a further 2-3% disadvantage.
> I just find it a really odd product in every way possible.


I actually think it's a very clever way of wiring up and using all the available resources of Ryzen SOC + B550. Ryzen SOC provides 20 usable PCIe gen4 lines, B550 provides 10 usable PCIe gen3 lines, of those 10, 2 are shared with the 5th and 6th sata ports. This board wires 4 of the gen4 lines to the first m.2 slot and the other 16 of the gen4 lines go to the GPU slot, or 8 to the graphics slot and two x4 to the m.2 slots 2 and 3 if used. 8 of the gen3 lines of the chipset are wired to the other two expansion slots.
The interesting thing is this: The first m.2 slots is x4 dedicated to the CPU. Now if you want additional m.2 drives you have the option of them being gen4 using the provided m.2 slots but obviously, as there are no more dedicated gen4 lines available, you have to share the ones to the GPU, so the GPU runs at gen4 x8. If the GPU supports gen4 like the RX 5700 of AMD and the upcoming nvidia generation then you have the same badnwidth as gen3 x16 which is more than plenty. But you have the option of pluggin the m.2 to the other expansion slots wired to the chipset as gen3 using one of these very cheap pcie->m.2 adaptors.
So, long story short, this board in my opinion offers the best possible use of the available resources in B550: first m.2 gen4 dedicated, the others could be gen3 with adaptor on pcie slot or gen4 sharing gpu bandwidth. Now that gpu cards are supporting gen4 this is a non issue.
P.S: We are talking about the B550 AORUS Master, forgot to add.


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## Gmr_Chick (May 29, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> *B550 is DOA at these prices - $279 for a midrange chipset, you have gotta be kidding me. *At least it will push X570 and B450 board prices down.



Word. The Asus STRIX Z490-G Gaming (Wi-fi) I recently picked up didn't even cost that much. m-ATX board, but still. On the Z490 chipset.


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## Chrispy_ (May 29, 2020)

I guess B450 will carry the midrange until AM4 gets replaced when Zen4 and DDR5 are here.

AMD needs reasonable sub-$100 motherboards to go with its sub-$200 processors. Nobody allocating their budget sensibly is going to buy a high-end motherboard to drop a 3300X into it, let alone a 3200G or 3100.


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## cucker tarlson (May 29, 2020)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Word. The Asus STRIX Z490-G Gaming (Wi-fi) I recently picked up didn't even cost that much. m-ATX board, but still. On the Z490 chipset.


wow 6x sata on a matx,nice looks,reasonable price.


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## Assimilator (May 29, 2020)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Word. The Asus STRIX Z490-G Gaming (Wi-fi) I recently picked up didn't even cost that much. m-ATX board, but still. On the Z490 chipset.



The issue is that AMD's chipset market segmentation isn't clearly defined. For example, X570 is supposed to be the high-end yet we now have the supposedly midrange, but newer B550 with better features (e.g. 2.5G LAN). It ends up creating confusion for buyers while forcing them to make unnecessary choices.

Intel's rigid chipset segmentation and re-releasing gets a lot of flak for some deserved reasons, but at the end of the day you know that a Z-series will have overclocking while a Q- and H-series won't, and that if there's a Z490 at the high-end there will be a H390 for the midrange (even if that H490 is just a rebranded H470).

What AMD should have done, IMO, is released B550 as B650, as well as a slightly updated X570 as X670 at the same time.


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## cucker tarlson (May 29, 2020)

it is what it is,pick whatever you like most at your chosen pricepoint.


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## Assimilator (May 29, 2020)

cucker tarlson said:


> it is what it is,pick whatever you like most at your chosen pricepoint.



With Intel Z/H + Q, and AMD X470/B350 and earlier, the price point was a good indicator of the chipset and thus feature set. With this X570/B550 mess, that's no longer true. Staggered chipset launches don't work because they confuse consumers - Intel has learned this, AMD has not.

The differentiation between AMD's high-end and midrange chipsets has always been blurry due to the fact that both support OC, this blurs the line even more to the point where I question the value of having separate chipsets at all. Design one with a fuse that controls whether it behaves like high-end or midrange and ship it, job done.

I'm not sure when X670 will be released but I really hope that we will see B650 at the same time, even if the latter is just a reskinned B550.


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## Tomorrow (May 29, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> The issue is that AMD's chipset market segmentation isn't clearly defined. For example, X570 is supposed to be the high-end yet we now have the supposedly midrange, but newer B550 with better features (e.g. 2.5G LAN). It ends up creating confusion for buyers while forcing them to make unnecessary choices.
> 
> Intel's rigid chipset segmentation and re-releasing gets a lot of flak for some deserved reasons, but at the end of the day you know that a Z-series will have overclocking while a Q- and H-series won't, and that if there's a Z490 at the high-end there will be a H390 for the midrange (even if that H490 is just a rebranded H470).
> 
> What AMD should have done, IMO, is released B550 as B650, as well as a slightly updated X570 as X670 at the same time.


2.5G is not standard feature on all B550 boards. The same way it's not standard on all X570 boards.
X570 is still the high end chipset being a complete top to bottom PCIe 4.0 solution and giving out much more 3.1g2 USB ports etc.

Infact for the price B550 is inferior because it does not support cheap 2000 series CPU's.


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## Assimilator (May 29, 2020)

Tomorrow said:


> 2.5G is not standard feature on all B550 boards. The same way it's not standard on all X570 boards.



2.5G is a high-end feature and thus should only be available with high-end chipsets. Except there is no new high-end chipset to release it with, only a midrange one. So now we have high-end features on midrange boards which makes those board look higher-end, which makes the lesser-featured high-end boards look middle-range, and the whole thing is just a mess.



Tomorrow said:


> Infact for the price B550 is inferior because it does not support cheap 2000 series CPU's.



X370/B350 aren't supposed to support Zen 2 yet literally every motherboard manufacturer has released BIOSes that do. I can guarantee you that B550 will support Zen+ and possibly even Zen in the same way.


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## Vayra86 (May 29, 2020)

Wow... so in the discussion on Intel / AMD and favoring the price cuts of AMD... and in the recent discussion on the cost of Z-boards and cooling for Intel 10th Gen....

This is reality, right here. Good luck with that 99 dollar board, you know what'll happen with 8c16t on it... FX all over again. So bottom line you're looking at similar price for the platform between both camps, where Intel has the good old distinction on the Z boards that guarantee strong VRM sections.

History repeats.


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## Assimilator (May 29, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> Wow... so in the discussion on Intel / AMD and favoring the price cuts of AMD... and in the recent discussion on the cost of Z-boards and cooling for Intel 10th Gen....
> 
> This is reality, right here. Good luck with that 99 dollar board, you know what'll happen with 8c16t on it... FX all over again. So bottom line you're looking at similar price for the platform between both camps, where Intel has the good old distinction on the Z boards that guarantee strong VRM sections.
> 
> History repeats.



Another way of looking at it, and also one I agree with. Threads where people buy trash-tier B450 and plead for advice on how to make it overclock better (and/or complain about how it doesn't overclock well) are only entertaining the first dozen or so times.

We as enthusiasts despise market segmentation, but there is no denying it has an important place. It worries me that I can see this when AMD's supposed super-duper marketing team cannot.


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## Vayra86 (May 29, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> Another way of looking at it, and also one I agree with. Threads where people buy trash-tier B450 and plead for advice on how to make it overclock better (and/or complain about how it doesn't overclock well) are only entertaining the first dozen or so times.
> 
> We as enthusiasts despise market segmentation, but there is no denying it has an important place. It worries me that I can see this when AMD's supposed super-duper marketing team cannot.



Hopefully they learned and consider a well placed 'optimal for .... CPUs' sticker on each board. Not holding my breath...


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## Chrispy_ (May 29, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> Wow... so in the discussion on Intel / AMD and favoring the price cuts of AMD... and in the recent discussion on the cost of Z-boards and cooling for Intel 10th Gen....
> 
> This is reality, right here. Good luck with that 99 dollar board, you know what'll happen with 8c16t on it... FX all over again. So bottom line you're looking at similar price for the platform between both camps, where Intel has the good old distinction on the Z boards that guarantee strong VRM sections.
> 
> History repeats.


MSI's $99 B450 had decent VRMs.
I've run 3900X in B450M Mortars without any issues. It's a known good board with decent VRMs and cooling. Buildzoid (one of the authorities on VRM quality and capability) tested one in depth with worst-case (high end CPU, PBO+, no VRM airflow in a closed case with an AIO) and it was fine. He was very positive about it, despite it not being a fancy 6-phase design.

Perhaps the issue is that $99 MSRP price point doesn't translate in all regions? I picked up one for a build about a month ago at £92 in the UK, which includes 20% sales tax so we're talking $95 in the US exluding tax.


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## Vayra86 (May 29, 2020)

Chrispy_ said:


> MSI's $99 B450 had decent VRMs.
> I've run 3900X in B450M Mortars without any issues. It's a known good board with decent VRMs and cooling. Buildzoid (one of the authorities on VRM quality and capability) tested one in depth with worst-case (high end CPU, PBO+, no VRM airflow in a closed case with an AIO) and it was fine. He was very positive about it, despite it not being a fancy 6-phase design.
> 
> Perhaps the issue is that $99 MSRP price point doesn't translate in all regions? I picked up one for a build about a month ago at £92 in the UK, which includes 20% sales tax so we're talking $95 in the US exluding tax.



The issue is that you have to resort to a review on each particular board for its end performance. That is not good, IMO. Not every customer is as keen as us to figure out which board is OK or not. Or simply not knowledgeable enough to even think of it.

The response to that will be that AMD once again suffers the perception of a platform that isn't super friendly like Intel has it. Uncertainty is not good.


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## AddSub (May 29, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> 2.5G is a high-end feature and thus should only be available with high-end chipsets.



Pointless feature really. Feature fluff. I find it bizarre that no reviewer points out that consumer grade routers supporting anything above 1GbE are rare and expensive even in 2020. In fact your average "enthusiast" is not even using self-bought and configured routers or switches and most are using whatever modem/router/all-in-one their ISP provided. Usually substandard stuff to begin with and almost guaranteed to be 1GbE at very best. Some ISPs are still pushing hardware that has 10/100Mbps ports!

Heck, over at the ServeTheHome Forums, where the real networking geeks hang out, finding someone running a router/switch combo with 2.5GbE/5GbE/10GbE is not all that common. I mean, the most you will see an "enthusiast" doing is teaming with a couple 1GbE ports, and that's probably like 1-2 people out 300-400.

Asrock is king in this sort of stuff, the feature fluff. (anyone remember their built-in motherboard de-humidifier? ) All of the manufacturers do it though. More shiny colorful badges on the motherboard box, the better. Having 2.5GbE or 5GbE or 10GbE or even all of them at the same time as some motherboards seem to do, is like having a toaster built into the motherboard PCB. You will never use it. And the random person out of a hundred (let's be honest here, out of a thousand) whos serious about networking in their home, well they are buying surplus enterprise grade networking stuff off of eBay or their local recycling plant, and running Cat7 through their walls. They are definitively not buying "gamer-cool" RGB overloaded motherboards.


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## Makaveli (May 29, 2020)

AddSub said:


> Pointless feature really. Feature fluff. I find it bizarre that no reviewer points out that consumer grade routers supporting anything above 1GbE are rare and expensive even in 2020. In fact your average "enthusiast" is not even using self-bought and configured routers or switches and most are using whatever modem/router/all-in-one their ISP provided. Usually substandard stuff to begin with and almost guaranteed to be 1GbE at very best. Some ISPs are still pushing hardware that has 10/100Mbps ports!
> 
> Heck, over at the ServeTheHome Forums, where the real networking geeks hang out, finding someone running a router/switch combo with 2.5GbE/5GbE/10GbE is not all that common. I mean, the most you will see an "enthusiast" doing is teaming with a couple 1GbE ports, and that's probably like 1-2 people out 300-400.
> 
> ...


Some good points you are right most don't have access to connections that fast.

I know of a few because my Fiber ISP actually offers a 1.5Gbps connections. Those speed will require either a PFsense built machine, or Enterprise grade hardware to handle the routing.  If you stay to 1Gbps which is the plan I choose I can just use a Fiber to Ethernet converter then go directly into my Asus router.

Asus does have a new router that will support 10Gbps Wan speeds but its 10/1 only it doesn't support 2.5 or 5.






						RT-AX89X｜Whole Home Mesh WiFi Systems｜ASUS Global
					

ASUS AiMesh WiFi routers and WiFi systems let you create a mesh network with no dead zones, using any AiMesh-capable ASUS routers. Their superb performance and rich features makes them the perfect solution for advanced users.




					www.asus.com


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## Tomorrow (May 30, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> X370/B350 aren't supposed to support Zen 2 yet literally every motherboard manufacturer has released BIOSes that do. I can guarantee you that B550 will support Zen+ and possibly even Zen in the same way.


But not for every board. And those are clearly labeled as Beta. And if you believe B550 will support Zen+ or even Zen then i have some bad new for you. MSI who has been the best in this regard has all but confirmed not to support anything exept Zen2 and newer on B550:


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## Assimilator (May 30, 2020)

Tomorrow said:


> And those are clearly labeled as Beta.



Absolute nonsense. I'm currently typing this on an Asus X370 board with a 3600 using a BIOS that is not marked beta in any way shape or form.


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## Tomorrow (May 30, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> Absolute nonsense. I'm currently typing this on an Asus X370 board with a 3600 using a BIOS that is not marked beta in any way shape or form.


Well ok that's for MSI's board then. Obviously ASUS calls them stable.


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## Chrispy_ (May 30, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> The response to that will be that AMD once again suffers the perception of a platform that isn't super friendly like Intel has it. Uncertainty is not good.


I think you've hit the nail on the head with that line. 

It's not the _*percetion*_ of an unfriendly platform - it *is* an unfriendly platform.


XMP - does your Intel XMP kit work with Ryzen at the claimed speeds and timings? Is the review of that kit even relevant any more or has it changed from Samsung to Hynix since then?
BIOS support for newer CPUs in older boards. Are they flashed to support the latest CPUs, and if not can the board flash itself without a CPU?
VRM quality - which seems to be widely variable from "unsuitable for some supported CPUs" to "overkill in a good way"

I really want Ryzen to be a stable, friendly platform, but it's not like Intel where you just drop in the CPU to any board and it POSTs, XMPs, and boosts as expected first time, every time - provided it's not actually broken and needing an RMA.


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## Space Lynx (May 31, 2020)

so b550 has pce gen 4 now, well some of them but not others? so what does x570 have now that b550 doesn't? just more usb ports and sata drives?


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## Tomorrow (May 31, 2020)

lynx29 said:


> so b550 has pce gen 4 now, well some of them but not others? so what does x570 have now that b550 doesn't? just more usb ports and sata drives?


PCIe 4.0 is only enabled from the CPU on B550. Meaning the first x16 slot and the first M.2 slot will get it but the chipset still output 3.0 to the rest of the board.

So X570's advantage is full 4.0 support both from the CPU and the Chipset. And thanks to that more USB, SATA and even M.2
Not to mention that unlike B550 the X570 also supports 2000 series Ryzen CPU's and depending on the board also select first gen Ryzen models.
B550 only supports 3000 and future models.


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## dicktracy (May 31, 2020)

Let's see them dump PGA socket with AM5 since AMD will no longer be the budget option. It makes no sense to charge than much on a lowly PGA socket.


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## Space Lynx (May 31, 2020)

Tomorrow said:


> PCIe 4.0 is only enabled from the CPU on B550. Meaning the first x16 slot and the first M.2 slot will get it but the chipset still output 3.0 to the rest of the board.
> 
> So X570's advantage is full 4.0 support both from the CPU and the Chipset. And thanks to that more USB, SATA and even M.2
> Not to mention that unlike B550 the X570 also supports 2000 series Ryzen CPU's and depending on the board also select first gen Ryzen models.
> B550 only supports 3000 and future models.




99% of people only need 1 gen4 m.2 and gen 4 video card.  so b550 sounds good to me.


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## Tomorrow (May 31, 2020)

dicktracy said:


> Let's see them dump PGA socket with AM5 since AMD will no longer be the budget option. It makes no sense to charge than much on a lowly PGA socket.


They already did...with Threadripper.
Honestly i kinda like PGA compared to LGA. The pins on the CPU are thicker than the pins on the LGA socket. And given the choice i would rather have damaged pins on the CPU than on the motherboard - easier to replace the CPU compared to the motherboard. Tho almost alweays CPU is more expensive than the motherboard.


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## watzupken (May 31, 2020)

Tomorrow said:


> PCIe 4.0 is only enabled from the CPU on B550. Meaning the first x16 slot and the first M.2 slot will get it but the chipset still output 3.0 to the rest of the board.
> 
> So X570's advantage is full 4.0 support both from the CPU and the Chipset. And thanks to that more USB, SATA and even M.2
> Not to mention that unlike B550 the X570 also supports 2000 series Ryzen CPU's and depending on the board also select first gen Ryzen models.
> B550 only supports 3000 and future models.



Unless there are changes to AMD's CPU roadmap, the B550 is likely going to end up supporting existing Zen 2 and upcoming Zen 3 processors. All existing B550 boards are for AM4 chips, and with Zen 4 expected to be using a new socket, the B550 is unlikely to have a long upgrade path.


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## Parn (Jun 1, 2020)

AddSub said:


> Pointless feature really. Feature fluff. I find it bizarre that no reviewer points out that consumer grade routers supporting anything above 1GbE are rare and expensive even in 2020. In fact your average "enthusiast" is not even using self-bought and configured routers or switches and most are using whatever modem/router/all-in-one their ISP provided. Usually substandard stuff to begin with and almost guaranteed to be 1GbE at very best. Some ISPs are still pushing hardware that has 10/100Mbps ports!
> 
> Heck, over at the ServeTheHome Forums, where the real networking geeks hang out, finding someone running a router/switch combo with 2.5GbE/5GbE/10GbE is not all that common. I mean, the most you will see an "enthusiast" doing is teaming with a couple 1GbE ports, and that's probably like 1-2 people out 300-400.
> 
> ...



Agreed. 2.5GbE is rare among the average users. When I speak to someone about "CATx cabling at home, patch panel, etc.", most of the time the answer I get is "I'm using WiFi. Why the hell you're still using network cables?". If manufacturers need feature fluff, I believe a decent 11ac or even ax chip built in would probably work better. 

Asrock is indeed the king of this sort of stuff. They claimed their 890FX boards supported Vishera FX, but in practice it's so unstable it's not usable.


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## sutyi (Jun 1, 2020)

Chrispy_ said:


> I really want Ryzen to be a stable, friendly platform, but it's not like Intel where you just drop in the CPU to any board and it POSTs, XMPs, and boosts as expected first time, every time - provided it's not actually broken and needing an RMA.



Actually we have like 3 revisions of Coffee Lake CPUs out there and not all are supported on the same BIOS version, not on B360 and Z390 boards at least. So you can go buy a 9400/9400F and have a no POST...


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## Caring1 (Jun 1, 2020)

Parn said:


> Agreed. 2.5GbE is rare among the average users. When I speak to someone about "CATx cabling at home, patch panel, etc.", most of the time the answer I get is "I'm using WiFi. Why the hell you're still using network cables?".


The obvious answer is speed and reliability of cable over wireless.
A salesman with good product knowledge would know that and convince the customer requiring a system for productivity to go that route.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 2, 2020)

sutyi said:


> Actually we have like 3 revisions of Coffee Lake CPUs out there and not all are supported on the same BIOS version, not on B360 and Z390 boards at least. So you can go buy a 9400/9400F and have a no POST...


TIL something!
Haven't built much Coffee Lake, AMD were already the obvious choice for rendering workstations at that point.


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## Parn (Jun 2, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> The obvious answer is speed and reliability of cable over wireless.
> A salesman with good product knowledge would know that and convince the customer requiring a system for productivity to go that route.



First of all I'm not a salesman. I was merely telling about my general experience whenever I got into a conversation with someone about cabled network.

Whenever "speed and reliability" is mentioned, it will always be countered with "inconvenience" by those who support WiFi over cabled network.


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## sutyi (Jun 2, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> The obvious answer is speed and reliability of cable over wireless.
> A salesman with good product knowledge would know that and convince the customer requiring a system for productivity to go that route.



Problem is that most commercial routers (that don't cost a couple hundred bucks) are stuck with 1GbE ports on the back. So having 2.5GbE on a budget chipset is mostly bling at this point sadly.

I'm not really seeing workstations built around B550 boards to be honest...


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## AddSub (Jun 2, 2020)

sutyi said:


> Problem is that most commercial routers (that don't cost a couple hundred bucks) are stuck with 1GbE ports on the back. So having 2.5GbE on a budget chipset is mostly bling at this point sadly.
> 
> I'm not really seeing workstations built around B550 boards to be honest...



Nobody making money off of their machines or even being remotely serious about a hobby relating to their workstations is going to get a "gamer-cool" motherboard with blinding RGB and heatsinks shaped like skulls or swords. Definitely not something that amounts to a _beyoooond_ over-priced entry level chipset like B550. Most folks either source workstations from their employer which are usually are  *extremely* boring looking but ridiculously powerful  Z series HP XEON workstations or they get those same workstations 2nd hand from ebay or similar. (I did, entire thing has 48 XEON cores and 128GB of RAM for the price of a Ryzen 3800x or something ).

Which, and this is off topic, if you are serious about gaming or really like overclocking (I built a 9600k machine purely out of nostalgia for tweaking and got a 41% OC out of it, and with Ryzen's you are tweaking for stability out of the box, not for the extra MHz which Ryzens can't do anyway, not 40% at least!) you ARE going to go Intel, and if you are serious about rendering or general creative work, you ARE going to get a boring Z series HP workstation with a XEON and the entire thing that looks like it was put together in the 1990s, from your employer or otherwise, it's the standard. (Threadripper is exceedingly rare with OEMs). Everybody else is going by hype or wallet.

So people screaming about Ryzen's CPUs like the popular 3600X for "workloads" (I purely got a Ryzen to tweak and do some gaming) make me laugh. NOBODY other than some Fornite playing 17 year old posting Gimp made doodles on DeviantArt is using a off the shelf Ryzen for $170 for "productivity". How this buy "off-the-shelf-AMD-Ryzens-for-real-work" meme got started is nothing but fanboys doing their thing and guerilla Reddit marketing by AMD.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 2, 2020)

What, 48-core Xeon for the price of a 3800X? That configuration starts at about $7K from Dell, almost $8K from HP and there really isn't much on the ex-corporate market with 48 threads yet. That stuff is too new to be remotely worth looking at for the moment.
I believe you are trolling sir.

I am the person at work(s) responsible for buying and selling our workstations across 3 premises and whilst I do deal with Dell and HP for places that don't have onsite IT departments, our main office uses own-built machines because they're better than than pre-built workstations and certainly ahead of the used market.

Used, you can pick up a 2x12 core E5-2690 V3 workstation with 128GB RAM for around €2300 but that's not 48-core, that's a couple of twelve core processors from 2014 complete with 2014 IPC and 2.6GHz clockspeeds. $2300 is a lot of money compared to a 3800X which is the comparison you just made, but more importantly - if you're going to spend $800 on RAM, you should probably get a 3950X instead of a 3800X to make the most of it.

Our focus is on rendering which means that cores x clockspeed x IPC matters the most, and for two years we've been replacing Xeon farms with Threadripper farms, and now the 3950X has replaced threadripper. If money was no object we'd be installing racks full of 1P Rome servers (probably EPYC 7702P). Money is always important though, and 16C/32 running at 4GHz+ with a single massive 64GB L3 cache seems to get the best results for the money.


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## Makaveli (Jun 2, 2020)

Chrispy_ said:


> What, 48-core Xeon for the price of a 3800X? That configuration starts at about $7K from Dell, almost $8K from HP and there really isn't much on the ex-corporate market with 48 threads yet. That stuff is too new to be remotely worth looking at for the moment.
> I believe you are trolling sir.
> 
> I am the person at work(s) responsible for buying and selling our workstations across 3 premises and whilst I do deal with Dell and HP for places that don't have onsite IT departments, our main office uses own-built machines because they're better than than pre-built workstations and certainly ahead of the used market.
> ...



48-core Xeon that is based on the Sandybridge or Westmere cores that won't be a modern architecture for that price.

And then the line about tweaking for Stability out of the box on Ryzen is nonsense. Ryzen system are very stable and I know this because i've been one for the last 6 months and have not had single BSOD. The only tweaking to be done is with the ryzen Dram caluclator + PBO + Making sure you don't by cheap memory.

I'm glad someone posted that knows what they are talking about.


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## Turmania (Jun 3, 2020)

Msi x570 tomahawk is a gold board and should be taken as reference board at 200.


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## kanecvr (Jun 6, 2020)

ARF said:


> How so ?
> 
> Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro is perhaps the best B450 board out there..



Don't know about the Aorus Pro, but I got two Aorus B450M for me and my brother in law and they are great.


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## wiak (Jun 13, 2020)

cheaper than X570 right? XD


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