Market research by Korean publication Danawa DPG provides valuable insights to how desktop AMD Ryzen processor users are charting their upgrade paths given the long upgrade longevity of AMD sockets. The research follows a 10-month date range from December 2022 to October 2023, and tracks the sales of motherboards based on various AMD chipset models. We're shown that toward the turn of the year, AMD B550 chipset motherboards sell the most. This is when AMD Ryzen 5000 Socket AM4 processors top sales for the company, Given that the B550 fully supports CPU overclocking, and that there are plenty of feature-packed B550 motherboard models, it explains why the B550 covers a wide price-band.

AMD launched the Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" to lukewarm response in September 2022, mainly because the platform lacked DDR4 memory support that was relevant at the time, and hence wasn't as flexible to consumers as Intel's LGA1700. Its launch caused price-cuts for Ryzen 5000 series processors, clearing out some upgrade headroom for those on the AM4 platform still using Ryzen 3000. Off to a slow start, we see its successor from Socket AM5, the B650 chipset, rise steadily over the time period, and for two reasons—DDR5 memory became affordable over the course of 2023; and AMD breathed life into the Ryzen 7000 series with the introduction of the Ryzen 7000X3D series, which restored gaming performance competitiveness to Intel's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake." The B650 has everything you need right now for a Ryzen 7000X3D build, given that both the GeForce RTX 40-series and Radeon RX 7000 series are PCIe Gen 4 graphics cards; and that the B650 has at least a Gen 5 NVMe slot. If you absolutely need a Gen 5 x16 slot, there's the premium B650E chipset to go with.As of August 2023, sales of B650 motherboards are shown beating those of B550. Although late to the market, the entry-level A520 chipset is seen beating the previous generation A320 early on, in April. This shows that the market is picking up on the Ryzen 7000 family and Socket AM5, despite its initial hiccups due to high platform costs. In the meantime, Socket AM4 chipsets such as the B550 and "others" (purple line), which could include the B450, continue to draw sales as buyers pick up discounted Ryzen 5000 series processors and dirt-cheap DDR4 memory; or bundles of the three.

The firm also drew up B650 motherboard sales by manufacturer. We see ASUS and MSI take turns to top the chart early on, but plateau alongside ASRock towards Q3, followed by a somewhat consistent rise in sales of GIGABYTE over the latter part of the research period. The second chart, above, shows average motherboard prices by chipset in Korean Won. We see prices of B650 chipset motherboards cut by as much as 29% over the research period. This, compounded by drop in DDR5 memory prices, and the advent of competitive Ryzen 7000X3D processors could be driving up sales for the B650. The B550 has seen a slightly less pronounced drop, over the period, probably because B550 motherboards were affordable to begin with (late 2022).