Friday, June 7th 2019

MSI CEO: AMD Plans to Stop Being the Value Alternative, X570 Motherboards to be Expensive

Jun 7th, 2019 16:00 Discuss (151 Comments)

MSI's CEO Charles Chiang, quoted by Tom's Hardware at COMPUTEX 2019, laid out what we were already seeing with motherboard designs from all vendors of AMD's X570-based motherboards: pricing is likely increasing across the board, and AMD's market positioning won't be of the alternative, lower-value brand.

As quoted, Chiang said that ""Lots of people ask me, what do you think about today's AMD? I say today's AMD is completely different company compared to two, three, five years ago. They have nice technology and they are there to put the higher spec with the reasonable pricing. But right now they say, "Hey Charles, let's push to marketing to the higher [end]. So let's sell higher-pricing motherboards, higher-spec motherboards, and let's see what will happen in the market. So I don't think that AMD is the company that wants to sell low cost here, low cost there." Which does make sense: AMD isn't in the position of the underdog anymore -at least technology and product-portfolio wise when it comes to consumer CPUs. With better products, comes a desire for higher margins, and a change in direction for a company that was basically forced to almost cut itself out of the market in terms of profits with its previous, non-competitive CPU designs.

Efforts to survive on AMD's part have been immense, with the company severely tightening its belt in all fields, including R&D, in the times leading to the launch of their previous-gen architecture, Bulldozer. And with the way that one architecture panned out in the market, AMD didn't really find a way to dig itself out of the trenches. No like it has with Zen: a lithe, small, highly efficient design that allowed the company to not only make up lost ground on technology and CPU performance but also on profits. That the company wants to price its products in higher segments, alongside their performance improvements and competitiveness against Intel's slow-moving lineup, makes all sorts of sense from a business perspective.

Charles Chiang said that there a multitude of factors contributing to the higher pricing of X570 motherboards: that AMD is planning to charge more for each chipset (compared to the ASMedia-designed X470), but also because of the integration of PCIe 4.0. PCIe 4.0 support has meant a higher-TDp chipset (which has required a throwback to the days of old with active cooling over AMD's chipset, which has increased its TDp up to 10 W compared to the previous gen's X470's 3 W); and because PCIe switches are another best entirely in terms of complexity and power delivery capabilities. All of these add cost, and this cost will end up being passed on to end users (at least partially): as it always is.

Source: Tom's Hardware

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151 Comments on MSI CEO: AMD Plans to Stop Being the Value Alternative, X570 Motherboards to be Expensive

#26

bug

GoldenXMore, faster swap for the Swapgod.

Not swap, but if you need a lot of disk space, two drives can be had for less than a single drive of equal capacity (if that's even available).
But for the masses, PCIe 4.0 will do nothing for at least a couple more years.

#27

NdMk2o1o

bugAnd there are real hardware limitations that prevent offering some of the features. And iOS is just software. AM4 is no different: the socket is reusable, but some features, like PCIe 4.0 are not.

So no pcie4 = bad

bugBut for the masses, PCIe 4.0 will do nothing for at least a couple more years.

but no pcie4 = no big deal :confused:

#28

bug

NdMk2o1oSo no pcie4 = bad

but no pcie4 = no big deal :confused:

My first post was about CPU backwards compatibility always coming with caveats. No need to read it any other way.

#29

RichF

The tiny fans are expensive. All that innovation to pay for.

Also, this is what happens when you've got duopoly. It's nicer than monopoly but hardly the same thing as adequate competition. There is a less room for luxurious margin increases when there is more competition.

#30

NdMk2o1o

bugMy first post was about CPU backwards compatibility always coming with caveats. No need to read it any other way.

Yea I get that totally :toast: it's just you're damned if you do and damned if you don't really, though it's totally a good thing that 4/3 series motherboard owners can still upgrade to Ryzen 2 with their current boards and RAM etc which is pretty sweet, even if there is some new and fancy feature available on the latest and greatest that's always going to be a caveat as otherwise there would be no reason to move to 570 from x470/x370 etc so best of both worlds, those that have to have the latest greatest etc buy a x570 motherboard, those that don't and just want to pop in an upgrade to their current Ryzen CPU = win

#31

TheGuruStud

phanbuey2019 going on 2006

" That being said, our overclocked E6300 was able to equal and in all cases but one outperform AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62. In fact, in quite a few benchmarks, the overclocked E6300 is essentially out of reach of anything AMD can offer with their current K8 designs. At $183, the value here is tremendous, and if you're willing to overclock the benefits don't get any clearer than that. "
www.anandtech.com/show/2051/12

The super shill days of shrimpi and toms. I still have a bad taste in my mouth. Quite a few of the big sites LOVED those synthetics, b/c it made netburst look good. Of course, they were as accurate as a Flat Earthers calling NASA fake.

Core2 systems were too pricey. I OCed the cheapo athlons in many gaming PCs and they performed flawlessly for many years. (Rinse and repeat with phenom II and C2D).

#32

Crackong

It is not Intel, for Intel you always have to buy the newest expensive chipest for new CPUs until the cheaper chipset arrives like 6 months later.
For AMD, you can always pick the B450 for cheap alternative right now for Ryzen 3000.

#33

GoldenX

C2D was only good at high frequencies (final and FSB). The lower end Pentiums and Celerons (800MHz FSB) were trash, beaten by a lot older (and cheaper) Athlon 64 X2 models. The only great good thing about them was the lower power consumption

Anyway, on topic. This is meh for us that don't worry about high end stuff. PCI-e 4 will be mostly irrelevant for a couple of years, so right now, it's just maketing to sell new boards. Unless, of course, you need a 15GB/s SSD for your work, or as @bug says, you can do some smart saving on high end stuff with it.

I would like a new line of AM4 ITX cheap boards without chipsets please, a la AM1. A400 or A500?

#34

s3thra

phanbuey2019 going on 2006

" That being said, our overclocked E6300 was able to equal and in all cases but one outperform AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62. In fact, in quite a few benchmarks, the overclocked E6300 is essentially out of reach of anything AMD can offer with their current K8 designs. At $183, the value here is tremendous, and if you're willing to overclock the benefits don't get any clearer than that. "
www.anandtech.com/show/2051/12

Ah the good old days. It's exciting to see things competitive again after all these years.

#35

lexluthermiester

GoldenXShow some more performance numbers, AMD.

The reviews will be out soon and the numbers will become known.

s3thraAh the good old days. It's exciting to see things competitive again after all these years.

Right?

#36

renz496

bugThis should be a reality check for those that thought AMD was undercutting Intel's prices out of the goodness of their hearts. But it won't be.

if you think it logically it should be like this. even when AMD is not the best option they already make few moves to optimize their profit. but some people still think "no AMD is no greed company like intel or nvidia there is no way they going to charge crazy price". AMD try to stop being the value brand after 2011. remember $550 7970? i still remember how in forums when some people defending that "AMD will not going to charge more than $400 for s single GPU no matter how fast they are". AMD, intel, Nvidia. All of them are profit making company.

#37

Fergutor

HA!

...oh, the fanboys...

#38

Bones

MSI looking for an excuse to charge more for the new boards to go with the new chips while still using garbage-grade components (Nikos).
Charge more for less, pass the reasons "Why" along as AMD being responsible.....

Yeah, makes the bottom line look really good.
That's how I see it anyway.

#39

kapone32

X570 boards have Wifi 6, 6 to 8 layer PCBs, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 16 Phase VRM controllers. They will be more costly than X470 simply because of those and other factors.

#40

moproblems99

danbert2000I see no issue with AMD wanting top dollar for their chipset that beat Intel to PCIe 4.0. Especially considering that they're not forcing people to adopt X570 to use Ryzen 3000 CPUs like you know Intel would have. You can get a cheap B450 board and still be able to get top performance with M.2 NVMe, a high-end GPU, and a 12 core processor. I don't understand what people are complaining about here. If you don't want to pay the high price, then don't. Expecting everything that comes out from AMD to be budget priced is toxic to the concept of technological advancements. Rich enthusiasts can buy the X570 boards, and everyone else will benefit from the profit margin on those boards when AMD puts that money towards R&D. We're not actually missing out on anything, people. If you must overclock to the max and have your PCIe 4.0, pay for it.

As long as X470/B450 supports any new XFR and PBO, I'll buy one of those and then wait to see if X570/X550 have any merit.

#41

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

PCIe 1.0 = 2.5 GT/s
PCIe 2.0 = 5 GT/s
PCIe 3.0 = 8 GT/s
PCIe 4.0 = 16 GT/s
PCIe 5.0 = 32 GT/s

PCIe 4.0 represents the largest jump in PCIe performance ever to date and with that, comes costs. I think PCIe 4.0 is going to be niche for a long time. PCIe 5.0 may not become mainstream for a decade because it's an even bigger jump. PCIe 5.0 will probably be used exclusively in mainframes to drive PCIe cache drives for many years.

#42

Metroid

phanbuey2019 going on 2006

" That being said, our overclocked E6300 was able to equal and in all cases but one outperform AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62. In fact, in quite a few benchmarks, the overclocked E6300 is essentially out of reach of anything AMD can offer with their current K8 designs. At $183, the value here is tremendous, and if you're willing to overclock the benefits don't get any clearer than that. "
www.anandtech.com/show/2051/12

And that was stock clock speed, Conroe used to overclock 50% or higher.

I told many times here the x570 will cost an arm and a leg. Reason why I'm planning to buy a cheap b450. Pay attention, we are lucky amd is letting these new processors in old am4 chipsets, amd probably has had alot of complaints of motherboard manufactures. Those manufactures wanted only x570.

#43

Ruru

S.T.A.R.S.

PCI-E 3.0 is still fine for years with graphics cards: www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_RTX_2080_Ti_PCI-Express_Scaling/6.html

But yeah, NVMe drives are getting faster and faster, so having more bandwith with those is a great thing

RichFThe tiny fans are expensive. All that innovation to pay for.

Why they can't just go back ~10 years when motherboard had proper heatsinks AND they looked literally cool. Now they're almost always just chunks of aluminium. A decade ago it was hella rare to see a fan in a chipset heatsink.

MetroidAnd that was stock clock speed, Conroe used to overclock 50% or higher.

In some cases, even 100% OC was possible (Pentium E2140, C2D E4300, E6300 etc)

#44

RichF

I doubt B450 is going to have the memory clocking capability of X570. Losing B die (shuttering of production) might compound the problem.

Chloe PriceWhy they can't just go back ~10 years when motherboard had proper heatsinks AND they looked literally cool. Now they're almost always just chunks of aluminium. A decade ago it was hella rare to see a fan in a chipset heatsink.

Three highly-finned copper heatsinks connected with copper heatpipes. This was before the innovation of plastic shrouds, flat sinks with poor surface area, and rainbow LEDs. (Note, the board below isn't ideal but it's still better than some of the recent designs.)

#45

Metroid

Chloe PricePCI-E 3.0 is still fine for years with graphics cards: www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_RTX_2080_Ti_PCI-Express_Scaling/6.html

But yeah, NVMe drives are getting faster and faster, so having more bandwith with those is a great thing

Why they can't just go back ~10 years when motherboard had proper heatsinks AND they looked literally cool. Now they're almost always just chunks of aluminium. A decade ago it was hella rare to see a fan in a chipset heatsink.

In some cases, even 100% OC was possible (Pentium E2140, C2D E4300, E6300 etc)

So true, my old asus p6t was heatsink only. it cost an arm and a leg but it was high end.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_5_Series

X581

Tylersburg

SLGBT (B2),
SLGMX (B3),
SLH3M (C2)

AC82X58 (IOH)

November 2008

LGA 1366

QPI

36× PCIe 2.0 (IOH);
6× PCIe 1.1 (ICH)

Yes

None

6 ports

None

12 ports

28.6 W2

1366 tdp = 28.6 watts and the x570 is only 11 watts.

www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P6T_Deluxe/

RichFI doubt B450 is going to have the memory clocking capability of X570. Losing B die (shuttering of production) might compound the problem.

Well that is the plan however reviews can change my mind and I'm sure they will do tell us if x570 is worth or not.

brian111As even an AMD rep was reported to say during Computex, unless you are interested in PCI Express 4.0 it makes sense to get a X470 or B450 motherboard from a value perspective. Beyond that, I'm sure the X570 motherboards will begin to come down in price (to a degree) the longer they are out, as always.

I still have that 2 kilos pure copper thermaltake cpu cooler. It is amazing. Yeah right now it makes no sense a x570.

BonesMSI looking for an excuse to charge more for the new boards to go with the new chips while still using garbage-grade components (Nikos).
Charge more for less, pass the reasons "Why" along as AMD being responsible.....

Yeah, makes the bottom line look really good.
That's how I see it anyway.

And the interesting thing is that only msi comes publicly to say, you don't see asrock, gigabyte or asus bragging about it. Also remember that msi wanted to disable ryzen 3000 series support for its old am4 motherboards.

#46

phanbuey

RichFI doubt B450 is going to have the memory clocking capability of X570. Losing B die (shuttering of production) might compound the problem.

Three highly-finned copper heatsinks connected with copper heatpipes. This was before the innovation of plastic shrouds, flat sinks with poor surface area, and rainbow LEDs. (Note, the board below isn't ideal but it's still better than some of the recent designs.)

I used to have that exact board in a lian li v1000 case (upside down orientation) and the VRM heat would make it crash lol... I had to strap a fan on the CPU wb to make it stable.

#47

RichF

Personally, I would like to see AMD get one of the hybrid VRM coolers so I can easily and affordably hook the board up to my loop. I am not going to spend $1000 for a board just to get integrated water, like with that Aqua thing. ASUS and Gigabyte offered those hybrid sink boards for Intel quads with multiple iterations, at least from the ASUS end. Someone said hybrid sinks aren't very impressive when used with air but people can always use the tiny fan innovation to work around that. :laugh:

phanbueyI used to have that exact board in a lian li v1000 case (upside down orientation) and the VRM heat would make it crash lol... I had to strap a fan on the CPU wb to make it stable.

There shouldn't have been flat surfaces on the sinks as there are on that board. I also assume there could be more height on the main VRM sink. But, did you forget your Delta fans? :D

#48

Xzibit

FordGT90ConceptPCIe 1.0 = 2.5 GT/s
PCIe 2.0 = 5 GT/s
PCIe 3.0 = 8 GT/s
PCIe 4.0 = 16 GT/s
PCIe 5.0 = 32 GT/s

PCIe 4.0 represents the largest jump in PCIe performance ever to date and with that, comes costs. I think PCIe 4.0 is going to be niche for a long time. PCIe 5.0 may not become mainstream for a decade because it's an even bigger jump. PCIe 5.0 will probably be used exclusively in mainframes to drive PCIe cache drives for many years.

AMD chipset is going to be less congested
X470 - PCIe 3.0 / x4 = 4 GT/s
to
X570 - PCIe 4.0 / x4 = 8 GT/s

#49

silentbogo

Metroid1366 tdp = 28.6 watts and the x570 is only 11 watts.

Where did you get 11W estimate? AFAIK the only number I've heard was no less than 15W, and given the thermal density of x570 you'll probably need an active cooling system even at the most optimistic TDP.

#50

kapone32

FordGT90ConceptPCIe 1.0 = 2.5 GT/s
PCIe 2.0 = 5 GT/s
PCIe 3.0 = 8 GT/s
PCIe 4.0 = 16 GT/s
PCIe 5.0 = 32 GT/s

PCIe 4.0 represents the largest jump in PCIe performance ever to date and with that, comes costs. I think PCIe 4.0 is going to be niche for a long time. PCIe 5.0 may not become mainstream for a decade because it's an even bigger jump. PCIe 5.0 will probably be used exclusively in mainframes to drive PCIe cache drives for many years.

Um Intel will have PCI-E 5.0 on their 2020 release.

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MSI CEO: AMD Plans to Stop Being the Value Alternative, X570 Motherboards to be Expensive

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