Thursday, December 30th 2021
Some ASUS B660 and H610 mATX Motherboard Pricing Leaks
With less than a week to the expected announcement for the rest of Intel's Alder Lake family of CPUs, as well as accompanying motherboards, pricing has leaked on a few ASUS B660 and H610 motherboards from a somewhat more unusual location, namely Ecuador. Courtesy of @harukaze5719, who tends to leak all sorts of things on Twitter, we now have a rough idea of what some of ASUS' upcoming motherboards will cost.
The models leaked are the Prime B660M-A WIFI D4, Prime B660M-A D4 and Prime H610M-E D4, all of which are fairly basic models and maybe the most noteworthy thing about them is how little you get for your money. The Prime B660M-A WIFI D4 is listed for US$191.11, which includes 12 percent VAT, although the official currency in Ecuador is US dollars. That said, electronics are normally more pricey in Ecuador than the US, so this should also be taken into account here.
Going without WiFi brings down the Prime B660M-A D4 to US$165.56, which suggests the cost of products with WiFi are higher in Ecuador than in most other countries. Finally we have the Prime H610M-E D4, a board that doesn't deserve to have the word prime in its model name, which is listed at US$121.11. It's possibly the most basic motherboard we've seen in a while and we'd be surprised if it would allow the higher-end Alder Lake CPUs to boost to their full potential.
The Prime H610M-E D4 lacks PCIe 5.0 support and apart from the x16 PCIe 4.0 slot for the GPU, there's a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. The lack of slots is not due to a wealth of M.2 slots either, although the board does at least have two of those, but we can't make out if they're PCIe 4.0 or 3.0 from the silk screening on the motherboard. Furthermore we're looking at two DIMM slots, four SATA ports and a whopping two rear USB 3.0 ports, with a further two from a front panel header. At least the board has both DP and HDMI display outputs, as well as a VGA connector, so this board could be ok for a basic office PC.
The Prime B660M-A boards also lack PCIe 5.0 support from what we can tell and aren't all that much more well equipped. The boards have two additional, physical x16 slots, but they appear to be x1 and x4 electrically and at least the top one is only PCIe 3.0. At least one of the two M.2 slots come with a heatsink here and it's pretty clear that that slot is PCIe 4.0. Again, we spot four SATA ports, but here we get a full set of four DIMM slots. In the USB department things aren't much better here, but around the back there are at least two USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports, with a front header for a further two, plus a single header for USB 3.2 20 Gbps port. Two HDMI ports and a DP port rounds off the feature set.
Sources:
TecnoMega Store, via @harukaze5719
The models leaked are the Prime B660M-A WIFI D4, Prime B660M-A D4 and Prime H610M-E D4, all of which are fairly basic models and maybe the most noteworthy thing about them is how little you get for your money. The Prime B660M-A WIFI D4 is listed for US$191.11, which includes 12 percent VAT, although the official currency in Ecuador is US dollars. That said, electronics are normally more pricey in Ecuador than the US, so this should also be taken into account here.
The Prime H610M-E D4 lacks PCIe 5.0 support and apart from the x16 PCIe 4.0 slot for the GPU, there's a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. The lack of slots is not due to a wealth of M.2 slots either, although the board does at least have two of those, but we can't make out if they're PCIe 4.0 or 3.0 from the silk screening on the motherboard. Furthermore we're looking at two DIMM slots, four SATA ports and a whopping two rear USB 3.0 ports, with a further two from a front panel header. At least the board has both DP and HDMI display outputs, as well as a VGA connector, so this board could be ok for a basic office PC.
The Prime B660M-A boards also lack PCIe 5.0 support from what we can tell and aren't all that much more well equipped. The boards have two additional, physical x16 slots, but they appear to be x1 and x4 electrically and at least the top one is only PCIe 3.0. At least one of the two M.2 slots come with a heatsink here and it's pretty clear that that slot is PCIe 4.0. Again, we spot four SATA ports, but here we get a full set of four DIMM slots. In the USB department things aren't much better here, but around the back there are at least two USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports, with a front header for a further two, plus a single header for USB 3.2 20 Gbps port. Two HDMI ports and a DP port rounds off the feature set.
30 Comments on Some ASUS B660 and H610 mATX Motherboard Pricing Leaks
Also, is this settled now? We get B660 and H610 and H670 got the axe? My 12600k is still looking for a mobo...
Edit: I missed that this is about Asus boards. Shave off at least $20 to get the prices from every other manufacturer.
For some reason where I live the Intel mobos are more expensive than the AMD mobos in the same category/brand/feature set. 'and then AMD CPUs cost a lot more so theres that..'
If I bought/switched into a new platform then I would want at least that kind of mobo.
Considering that I paid around ~130 $ for my B350 F Strix back in 2018 May and its still serving me well and thats about the max I'm willing to pay for a mobo.
Serious question, does anybody alive today own AND use a ps2 mouse or keyboard? I'm guessing nobody still has a ball mouse kicking around in use, can we just get extra usb ports here in the year 2021/2022 where that port has been unused for 20 years or more?
I miss the days when $200 got you an ABit NF7 or DFI LanParty which where cream of the crop. But here we are today :(
Edit: While we're at it, let's also keep a moment of silence for SoundStorm ;)
So $400 for a 12400 + B660 (with WIFI)
sure there's the back but just no.
plenty of space actually even on matx front PCB. just the matter of mobo vendors' willingness.because mobo vendors are saving costs by not adding pcie switches there.
not to mention 14 pcie lanes are not fully utilized on lots of b660.
go get an add in card for $10 if it's that important.
have a nice day. :)
Higher prices for copper
Higher shipping prices
Limited workforce
Rising wages
Rampant inflation
Millions of consoomers willing to pay $3000+ to build a PC
Asus under the influence of "we are worth more $$$" disease.
Take your pickHopefully, but while we've gotten leaks and lists of B660 and H610 boards, H670 boards have been suspiciously absent.
It was RIPOFF.
Why does ASUS do this? Why do all of their sub-models in every lineup suck donkey balls for asinine reasons? Why do I need to pay for a useless WiFi module no desktop should ever need just to get a basic heatsink included on my VRMs?It's a $50 board with ASUS brand tax (so 20-30% more expensive than similar-spec boards from Gigabyte/Asrock/MSI) and then you have to add 50% more for the supply issues affecting all new boards right now.
Even so, that would make the expected street price of that Prime H610 $99 or so against $79 competition from the other three. At $120 it's just a joke.
*most of the time. But even if you need it, chances are you already have a WiFi adapter, so you can still forego wireless on your new mobo.