B650 Chipset and Micro-ATX Form-factor Dominate Socket AM5 Motherboard Sales: Research

[Random_User]

Maybe because they are cheaper.

AM5 AMD MB prices has gone full retard. Way overpriced that's why people did not move on from AM4 not worth the price.

Yeah, This is shame. For years AMD motherboards were cheaper, and more or less comparable to the intel counterparts, with enough quality and features. And intel almost exclusively used to be associated premium MB ranges. Thus AMD products being of lower class. But the funny thing is, intel still secured the premium treatment, with a bit cheaper prices, while AMD's solutions have became even more expensive, while the quality is even worse than before.
The problem is it's hard to tell if this was AMDs own deliberate dumb move, rather than another "cooperation" between intel and their partners.

I agree, my MSI B450 Tomahawk was around 100€, Asrock's B450 Pro4 was even cheaper, now the cheapest ATX Asrock B650 board is the ASRock B650 PG Lightning and is 170€. MSI B650 Gaming Plus WIFI 165€.

Even though Ryzen 5 7600 and X are below 200€, 32gb DDR5 is still much more expensive (from 120€) than DDR4 (from 60€).

Platform longevity goes out the window and gets negated when you/we/i can only buy into the platform lately and expensively.

Though i admit going from 7600 to 7800x3d is probably a pretty major (and expensive) jump.

​

It was definitely cheap, and bang for the buck, with B550 more or less following the suit. The problem is, the "current" B650 and even X670 have the feature set as bleak as the eight years old budget motherboard. Even considering the inflation, there's no way the current B650 series MBs have the manufacturing cost higher, than X570/X470 ones. Especially those lacking PCIE 5.0 slots.

I considered buying AM5 motherboard and B650 not E would be my choice as well. Unfortunately manufacturers add WiFi to the better ones increasing the price. I'd like one like Asrock B450M Steel Legend, but the B650 version is way to expensive.

Unfortunately the list doesn't end here. The motherboard makers for a very long time, deliberately "degraded" the cheaper motherboards quality, especially of those with lower class chipsets, treating them and their buyers as a second class citizen. But what happens now is too much, and is inacceptable. The irony is, that this time, the "lower" class AMD chipsets are not actually anywhere inferior, they are the same. The "next" gen 800 series are seems to have the better/sane features and options. But here's no guarantee, that this won't lead to the further price increase.
Surely, it's understandable that this is pointless to add some features and options to the motherboards, which chipsets are unable to utilize. But there's no excuse for deliberately turn every MB into trash, just beacuse their price is below $700. The connectivity, PCB thickness, VRM design are subject of a price, not the MB class. Either it's all max everything for PCIE 5.0 elite boards, or cheaped out barren boards if they include previous PCIE gens. Simple as that.

.I have said that many times - for both CPU vendors, the “enthusiast” X/Z chipsets don’t really make sense anymore. You pay significantly more of a premium for… what, exactly? Most consumers run one GPU, one or at max two NVME drives and don’t OC. There is nothing that they would get by buying into a more expensive chipset. And some benefits are dubious anyway, even on the 650E - more or less nobody needs a Gen5 M.2 slot considering how overall stupid and useless Gen5 drives are.

Although I agree with your sentence, that the modern MBs have enough connectivity for the most users. However this isn't the guilt of the buyers, that the MB makers decided to flush their product features and quality down the drain. So people who actually need such connectivity and features/option, have to pay through the nose, in order to have those.

Spoiler

ATX is not obsolete. It moved away from regular user. Who needs a Full Tower at their home? It takes up space and there's not much use for the extra slots on the mainboard. I tried to fill extra PCI slots on old Athlon board and there wasn't anything interesting to populate them. It is the same case with contemporary hardware. Unless you need extra everything for professional use, mATX is the best format.

I understand the wish of the lesser PC footprint. But that is not always a case (no pun intended). There are several reasons:
1. The SFF often is much more luxury hobby, than to build in an ordinary ATX case, with ATX motherboard, with both having the same price or cheaper, than mATX and SFF chassis.
2. The SFF chassis take not much more horizontal desk space than an avarage medium tower, as it mostly takes up the vertical space, which is a non issue, if ofc, the user doesn't live with a celling right above head.
3. Considering the price on the ATX motherboards is usually is the same, as decent mATX and mini-ITX ones. Hence the connectivity and features of "bigger" ATX MBs comes for free.
Again, this is obvious, that many people woud like to reduce the footprint of their PCs, considering the advancement in the technology, this became even more possible. But unfortunately, this still is a premium endeavor, and the space that being excluded from the size of the case and motherboard, might eventually return in the form of additional devices and hubs, etc, which in its turn raises the expences even more.
4. SFF cases do not suit everywhere. Considering, that it often takes a decent medium tower, with a lot of cooling capabilities to tame the powerful GPUs and CPUs. Doing the same in a tiny box might be a torture for the HW, unless it has its performance manually and deliberately reduced. This is just physics. There must be the room for breath, even for PC components.
Of cource, there are many cases with good ventilation, but almost all of them are supposed to avoid any dust filtering, as it will drive them moot otherwise. And there are areas, where the cases without filtering are incceptable. Not because the owners don't clean their rooms, but the air outside is dusty.

That unfortunate A620 is even on the list. Such poor performing MBs. People like Sub $100, and they get a sub $100 product lol.

People had to, because their budgets and salaries do not magically inflate, the same way the companies do with their prices and profit margins. Considering, that not long ago, the B550 MBs were selling at ~$100-sh, and there even were ones of Z490 for the price of $150, seems these peoples wishes are not that unreasonable after all. Not to mention, that soon after the AM5 motherboards were released, the AM4 ones got their prices grown overnight as well, for no particular reason.
But I agree. The more people will buy the "cheapest" and worse products, the more it will put the bottom price in stone, and actually will give the companies an incentive to jack up prices on the higher end stuff, even more.

 

[N3utro]

I bought an asus X670E crosshair hero to go with my 7800X3D for $400.

That's twice the price of a B650 motherboard for the same performance, but seeing how long the AM4 socket lasted i thought it was worth it to get PCIE 5.0 and top quality components, plus it's usually easier to resell very high end motherboards on the long run because the demand for them is greater. Sold my evga X58 classified motherboard for an insane price 12 years later after i bought it lol.

 

[tommo1982]

.....
I understand the wish of the lesser PC footprint. But that is not always a case (no pun intended). There are several reasons:
1. The SFF often is much more luxury hobby, than to build in an ordinary ATX case, with ATX motherboard, with both having the same price or cheaper, than mATX and SFF chassis.
2. The SFF chassis take not much more horizontal desk space than an avarage medium tower, as it mostly takes up the vertical space, which is a non issue, if ofc, the user doesn't live with a celling right above head.
3. Considering the price on the ATX motherboards is usually is the same, as decent mATX and mini-ITX ones. Hence the connectivity and features of "bigger" ATX MBs comes for free.
Again, this is obvious, that many people woud like to reduce the footprint of their PCs, considering the advancement in the technology, this became even more possible. But unfortunately, this still is a premium endeavor, and the space that being excluded from the size of the case and motherboard, might eventually return in the form of additional devices and hubs, etc, which in its turn raises the expences even more.
4. SFF cases do not suit everywhere. Considering, that it often takes a decent medium tower, with a lot of cooling capabilities to tame the powerful GPUs and CPUs. Doing the same in a tiny box might be a torture for the HW, unless it has its performance manually and deliberately reduced. This is just physics. There must be the room for breath, even for PC components.
Of cource, there are many cases with good ventilation, but almost all of them are supposed to avoid any dust filtering, as it will drive them moot otherwise. And there are areas, where the cases without filtering are incceptable. Not because the owners don't clean their rooms, but the air outside is dusty.

Regarding 3rd point. I never understood why SFF is so expensive, considering it needs less components. Demand? I think there's plenty. Many people, who can do without a computer at all, would like to have a tiny box next to their TV to do the basic things, but the prices are not compelling at all. Unless you consider old Dell terminals with i3 or better. Ah, it's really a complex matter and thinking about it makes my head hurt.

 

[The Von Matrices]

What frustrates me most about recent motherboards is that manufacturers have prioritized M.2 slots over PCIe slots. These motherboards now only have 2-3 PCIe slots negating the main advantage of ATX over mATX which is the ability to use 3 extra PCIe cards.

I personally want a motherboard that exposes all the PCIe lanes as x4, x8, and x16 slots so that I can use regular PCIe cards for all of them. They way, I can use an m.2 adapter card if I want m.2 but also have the flexibility to use a disk controller card or network card or capture card or an extra GPU in the slots if I need it.

 

[tommo1982]

What frustrates me most about recent motherboards is that manufacturers have prioritized M.2 slots over PCIe slots. These motherboards now only have 2-3 PCIe slots negating the main advantage of ATX over mATX which is the ability to use 3 extra PCIe cards.

I personally want a motherboard that exposes all the PCIe lanes as x4, x8, and x16 slots so that I can use regular PCIe cards for all of them. They way, I can use an m.2 adapter card if I want m.2 but also have the flexibility to use a disk controller card or network card or capture card or an extra GPU in the slots if I need it.

Those M.2 adapter cards with two NVMe PCIe are expensive. I was looking for a used one with RAID, but even the used ones cost too much.
I buy stuff to play with hardware a little, get bored and sell it. It'd get really expensive with new stuff.

 

[The Von Matrices]

Those M.2 adapter cards with two NVMe PCIe are expensive. I was looking for a used one with RAID, but even the used ones cost too much.
I buy stuff to play with hardware a little, get bored and sell it. It'd get really expensive with new stuff.

The cards with more than one slot and a switch chip are expensive, yes. But you can just put in multiple single-drive cards which are dirt cheap since you have 7 pcie slots to work with on an ATX motherboard (maybe a few less if you have a GPU).


I have a stack of about 20 of the PCIe to M.2 cards that I no longer need if you want any. I used to need them for servers before M.2 boot ssd slots became normal and adapters were no longer required.

 

[tommo1982]

The cards with more than one slot and a switch chip are expensive, yes. But you can just put in multiple single-drive cards which are dirt cheap since you have 7 pcie slots to work with on an ATX motherboard (maybe a few less if you have a GPU).


I have a stack of about 20 of the PCIe to M.2 cards that I no longer need if you want any. I used to need them for servers before M.2 boot ssd slots became normal and adapters were no longer required.

I have a mATX board, Asrock B450M Steel Legend. That's why I was looking for two slot M.2 card with RAID.
Thank you for the offer, but the shipping costs would make it more expensive than the cards themselves, and lack of space on the board.
I live in Poland so.. shipping is expensive.