When Alder Lake was launched and mobo prices were unexpectedly high, you wrote a report stating that CPU socket were a very expensive component, contributing a lot to the price. Are we looking at a similar case again with AM5?
That's one of many parts that's likely to have increased motherboard costs overall, although I haven't been given any specifics, but I should ask around.
As I mentioned the MSRP of some of the high-end SKUs have incrased by as much as $100, so every step in the chain before you end up buing a board, has tagged on extra profits.
Some of the blame, from what I understand, in the case of AM5 boards, is that the board makers don't get any kind of MDF (Market Development Fund) from AMD, whereas Intel is quite generous with their MDF and it's seen as an important source of revenue for the board makers. This could at least in part, be why the board makers hiked the board prices, but I guess they didn't anticipate everyone else to also take a bigger cut than in the past, which has lead us to the current situation.
I just looked over the data I got from Computex and the most basic, stripped down B650 board I have pricing for, was supposed to have an MSRP of $120, with another five SKUs under $200. I honestly don't have the full picture, but something has gone seriously wrong.
This board is at the new MSRP, but it was most likely supposed to be lower, but not much lower, as even with the "old" pricing I had, this board is likely to have been over $250, but under $300 and it's retailing for $290, which is the curent MSRP.
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