Mid-January Launches for AMD B850 and B840; and Intel B860 and H810 Motherboards

[btarunr]

In the first week of the 2025 International CES, Intel and AMD are expected to expand their desktop processor product stacks, with the introduction of 65 W models; and with them, more affordable motherboard chipset models. AMD is expected to launch the AMD B850 and AMD B840; while Intel debuts the Intel B860 and H810. Board Channels, a site that tracks hardware launches at the retail channel level, says that AMD is expected to set January 15 as the market availability date for motherboards based on the AMD B850 and B840. The chipset will be announced at AMD's January 7th event.

Meanwhile, Intel is expected to announce its mid-range Intel B860 and entry-level Intel H810 on its own event slated for January 7, but with product availability on January 13. The AMD B850 is essentially a rebadged B650, but motherboard vendors can optionally enable Gen 5 PEG instead of Gen 4, at which point the platform would essentially be an AMD X870, but without the mandatory discrete USB4 host controller. The AMD B850 supports CPU overclocking. The AMD B840 lacks this, and is functionally similar to the AMD B550 chipset from the Socket AM4 platform, except that it lacks CPU overclocking support. Meanwhile, the Intel B860 is expected to feature a similar I/O as the Intel B760 from the Socket LGA1700 platform. The H810 is expected to be a lean entry-level option. Both the Intel B860 and H810 are expected to lack CPU overclocking support, but the B860 probably retains memory overclocking capability.



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[Bobaganoosh]

B860 Battlemage? /s lol I think it's kind of hilarious how much overlap/similarity all the different model numbers have these days.

 

[mechtech]

Hopefully it has at least 4 m.2 slots..........even if they are gen 4 that's fine.

 

[ymdhis]

Please release more B850M boards and give them at least 3x m.2 slots. And the ability to bifurcate the x16 slot. I'd ask for 7.1 analog audio output (with gold plated jacks and a SPDIF port) but I know that's unrealistic - even if my B550M has the latter.

But, I know that in reality, all we will get is a rebrand of all B650 boards with USB4 tacked on, no new feature sets whatsoever, so the best choice I'll get will still be the Asrock B650M Pro RS (the Biostar B6500EGTQ would have been perfect but it's not available anywhere).

 

[Chaitanya]

B860 Battlemage? /s lol I think it's kind of hilarious how much overlap/similarity all the different model numbers have these days.

Intel uses 3x0, 5x0 and 7x0 number preceded by Alphabets for their GPUs. compared to their current CPU naming thats far more sensible.

 

[kapone32]

Yes now B650 boards can get even cheaper!!!

 

[_roman_]

Finally cheap mainboards for those buyers who complain about high mainboard prices. Maybe we will see 30€ mainboards again. Some want cheap 30€ mainboard, with a cheap psu, expensive graphic card, cheap ssd and cheap ram stick.

rebrand of all B650 boards with USB4 tacked on,

For the entry level chipsets there will be no USB 4 requirement. I doubt a 80€ mainboard will get usb 4 chip.

 

[Ten Shin Han]

I don't understand what is the real news here, as the aforementioned chipsets are already listed (for quite some time in fact) on AMD website:

https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/chipsets/am5.html#specs

is it about real market availibility (i.e. mass production) ?

 

[kapone32]

I don't understand what is the real news here, as the aforementioned chipsets are already listed (for quite some time in fact) on AMD website:

https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/chipsets/am5.html#specs

is it about real market availibility (i.e. mass production) ?

If you think about the release date is 2 weeks from now.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Yes now B650 boards can get even cheaper!!!

My B650 LiveMixer was only $150. After getting past some doubts I'm totally happy with it and saved some cash too.

 

[kapone32]

My B650 LiveMixer was only $150. After getting past some doubts I'm totally happy with it and saved some cash too.

I bought the Pro RS Wifi for $159 Canadian during BF. It was for my 8600G build. That is actually an impressive chip for what it is. It makes the 5600G seem not obsolete but not as good. I want to get into selling AM5 systems but I need cheap good MBs to cover the costs. We already have so many CPU choices on AM5.

 

[LabRat 891]

Why is everyone asking for more M.2 slots?
Y'all realize AMD has broad PCIe bifurcation support and that passive (un-switched) Gen3, Gen4, and often even Gen5 M.2-PCIe adapter-expanders are *very* affordable ($20-50), right?

If I ever upgrade to AM5, at this rate, I'll be stuck w/ an old B650 board, just for expansion...
-PCIe x16 RX 7900 GRE
-PCIe x1 Asus Xonar Essence STX
-PCIe x4/x8 Active (switched) M.2x4 Expander
-PCIe x4/x8 Intel dual 10Gbase-T card
More x4, x8 and x16 slots, plox and spank you.

 

[zo0lykas]

Why is everyone asking for more M.2 slots?
Y'all realize AMD has broad PCIe bifurcation support and that passive (un-switched) Gen3, Gen4, and often even Gen5 M.2-PCIe adapter-expanders are *very* affordable ($20-50), right?

If I ever upgrade to AM5, at this rate, I'll be stuck w/ an old B650 board, just for expansion...
-PCIe x16 RX 7900 GRE
-PCIe x1 Asus Xonar Essence STX
-PCIe x4/x8 Active (switched) M.2x4 Expander
-PCIe x4/x8 Intel dual 10Gbase-T card
More x4, x8 and x16 slots, plox and spank you.

cuz some people dont know the basis.. and are always moaning about everything.. :/

 

[Nostras]

Now we just have to wait another year for B850 motherboards to get a reasonable price as B650 and X670 boards are much more affordable now.
Neat.

About time for cheaper intel chipsets though, Arrow Lake is really hard to motivate as a value workstation with these asinine motherboard prices.

 

[Launcestonian]

Excellent news, I look forward to The AMD lineup for this event. X870(E) boards have features that are useless to my user case.

 

[_roman_]

Why is everyone asking for more M.2 slots?

short: some people have already two older m2 ssds.

I sold my AM4 B550 mainboard for the buggy INTEL WIFI module which crashed the hole machine, turbo boost amd agesa - msi mainboard bug and for the lack of m2 nvme slots.
B550 chipset can only do 4 lanes pcie 4.0 nvme and another 4 lane pcie 3.0 nvme. I started with a 1tb pcie 4 nvme. than i bought another 1tb pcie 4.0 nvme.
At the time i bought those 1TB NVME was very expensive. Two 1tB NVME had cost me as much as one Ryzen 5800X I had (the second one i bought for that price).

There was no space left for another m2 nvme on that mainboard. Pcie 3.0 was dated for the m2 slot. Intel wlan annoyed me. The lack of the turbo boost annoyed me. (Found much later, that it was fixed much much later with a agesa update)

Sadly some newer AMD mainboard these days have pcie 3.0 again for the m2 slot.

We had high prices for cpus, dram, ssds, gpus. But we had affordable mainboards and power supplies.

B650 board, just for expansion...

you mean x670, right? the second chipset gives you additional expansion slots.

cuz some people dont know the basis.. and are always moaning about everything.. :/

Not everyone has a small formfactor build with itx mainboard, 1 ram module, 1 graphic card, 1 nvme. That's perfectly fine for many, but not for everyone.

People are probably moving from SATA to m2. 4tb nvme is kinda affordable these days

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Please release more B850M boards and give them at least 3x m.2 slots. And the ability to bifurcate the x16 slot. I'd ask for 7.1 analog audio output (with gold plated jacks and a SPDIF port) but I know that's unrealistic - even if my B550M has the latter.

But, I know that in reality, all we will get is a rebrand of all B650 boards with USB4 tacked on, no new feature sets whatsoever, so the best choice I'll get will still be the Asrock B650M Pro RS (the Biostar B6500EGTQ would have been perfect but it's not available anywhere).

M2 slots on desktop boards are abominations...

More PCIe slots with proper lane sharing, then you can add whatever you want.

One M2 on board and call it a day...

 

[Nostras]

M2 slots on desktop boards are abominations...

More PCIe slots with proper lane sharing, then you can add whatever you want.

One M2 on board and call it a day...

As someone who wants 4 M.2 SSD's in his computer I respectfully disagree.

 

[ymdhis]

Why is everyone asking for more M.2 slots?
Y'all realize AMD has broad PCIe bifurcation support and that passive (un-switched) Gen3, Gen4, and often even Gen5 M.2-PCIe adapter-expanders are *very* affordable ($20-50), right?

If I ever upgrade to AM5, at this rate, I'll be stuck w/ an old B650 board, just for expansion...
-PCIe x16 RX 7900 GRE
-PCIe x1 Asus Xonar Essence STX
-PCIe x4/x8 Active (switched) M.2x4 Expander
-PCIe x4/x8 Intel dual 10Gbase-T card
More x4, x8 and x16 slots, plox and spank you.

Use x8x4x4 bifurcation, a horizontal gpu stand, and a m.2 key e to PCIe connector and you can actually fit all of those on a B650 board.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Really hope AMD has an integrated USb4 controller in the next generation of Zen CPUs. I was really hoping to see USB4 being a requirement if B850. I understand that a discrete solution adds significant cost, so integrating it into the SoC could solve that (so long as the real estate it takes up on the silicon isn't "too expensive" per mm^2).

 

[efikkan]

I'd ask for 7.1 analog audio output (with gold plated jacks and a SPDIF port) but I know that's unrealistic - even if my B550M has the latter.

S/PDIF(preferably TOSLINK) is great if you want a low-latency stereo connection for playback or to a mixer or other audio equipment, it's not well suited for surround or higher bit depths though.

I wish motherboards came without any audio circuitry at all, it's a waste of money and precious space. Analog built-in outputs will always sound crappy due to the high level of noise, and the adjustment of volume in software is terrible. Always use an external dac+preamp with volume adjustment there to get a clean sound.

If I ever upgrade to AM5, at this rate, I'll be stuck w/ an old B650 board, just for expansion...
-PCIe x16 RX 7900 GRE
-PCIe x1 Asus Xonar Essence STX
-PCIe x4/x8 Active (switched) M.2x4 Expander
-PCIe x4/x8 Intel dual 10Gbase-T card
More x4, x8 and x16 slots, plox and spank you.

Even with the top chipset on mainstream platforms the IO is severely limited, not to mention the "mid-range" chipsets are so limited it's almost useless for anything beyond basic office work and gaming. If you're lucky, you'll find a board that offers everything theoretically possible on the chipset, but even then, anything through the chipset will be sharing a x4 lane for AMD / x8 lane for Intel, so the conncted devices will not be running on the advertised speeds. (Plus for AMD, with lanes reserved for USB4, M.2 slot #2 and #3 will be sharing bandwidth with the GPU.)

I often find it hard to recommend any platform for people these days, as pretty much any option "sucks" unless you spend an exorbitant amount of money. If you want a mainstream platform, then pick your poison, and don't come here complaining a couple of years down the road when you can't add another SSD, HDD or add-in card without compromises. Some of these boards have 2 SATA ports for crying out loud.

short: some people have already two older m2 ssds.

For sure, when paying >$150 for a motherboard you should expect more than the very basics.
And when building a new PC, you want for sure to have at least 2 SSDs (probably 3-4 if you're a power user), as you should have 1 dedicated one for the OS (as this wears out quickly), and at least 1 for files/games/work/whatever.

But we don't want the crappy M.2 interface for numerous reasons;
- Most M.2 slots are placed underneath a giant heat spreader or where other cards will be placed, meaning you'll have remove a lot of things to do any changes to your setup.
- Most M.2 slots are placed in a way which leads to poor cooling.
- Most M.2 slots are limited to 2280 devices (some even shorter), when there are numerous high-performance 22110, especially enterprise ones, excellent for workstation use.
When the solution is much simpler; provide all PCIe lanes (CPU and chipset) as PCIe slots, and let the user turn this into whatever they need, incl. M.2, U.2, etc.
While some M.2 slots will be possible to turn back into PCIe or U.2 with an adapter cable, not all of them will allow that physically.

 

[_roman_]

I wish motherboards came without any audio circuitry at all, it's a waste of money and precious space.

I got headaches with the ASUS X670 Prime p Mainboard onboard sound (basically the same as the wifi version)

S/PDIF(preferably TOSLINK) is great if you want a low-latency stereo connection for playback or to a mixer or other audio equipment, it's not well suited for surround or higher bit depths though.

That stuff still need another device.

--

I bought second hand USB audio interface. Another word for a better usb sound card with "balanded" audio outputs. Those audio outputs and ~15€ per Audio - Speaker cable solved the headache issue.

I see it as a hidden defect from mainboards as most likely only passive speakers will work with the onboard audio soundcard. when it works with my usb audio interface, you know ASUS sold me a bad mainboard with a bad audio sound card

Just a picture to show how it should be done. You do not see the usual USB-a to usb-c mechanical usb2 cable. Yes it only uses usb 2. A big knob to turn the audio volume.

I do not see the need for optical. It's binary audio format in the first place. Than you need something to generate the audio before the speakers. Binary is loss less because it'S already in binary audio format. the last device which generates the audio signal should be very high quality. Same high quality as the cables and speakers in my point of view.

 

[TechBuyingHavoc]

For sure, when paying >$150 for a motherboard you should expect more than the very basics.
And when building a new PC, you want for sure to have at least 2 SSDs (probably 3-4 if you're a power user), as you should have 1 dedicated one for the OS (as this wears out quickly), and at least 1 for files/games/work/whatever.

Which OSes are wearing out quickly which SSDs?

My 980 Pro has only gone down 1% in two years and the drive has seen intermittently heavy use. At this rate assuming that the actual endurance has gone down 2% in two years, it will take the rest of the 21st century before I need to replace this drive (just based on NAND endurance alone).

There are good reasons to have 2 SSDs, one for static data like files and games, but the reason to do so is because it is very easy to organize your data and to back it up. SSD endurance is not a great reason.

 

[efikkan]

That stuff still need another device.

Yes, but lots of audio equipment already have TOSLINK inputs/outputs, and it's much lower latency than the extra layer of USB if that matters for the setup. For a pure listening setup (pc->dac->preamp/amp->speakers) it's usually not a big deal.
While the quality is sufficient for "CD quality" audio, it's not high resolution for professional recording though.

I do not see the need for optical.<snip>

Except for the few cases where you have lot's of audio equipment hooked up together and you get some interference as a result, then it will help, but today most such eqipment have other issues.

I bought second hand USB audio interface. Another word for a better usb sound card with "balanded" audio outputs. Those audio outputs and ~15€ per Audio - Speaker cable solved the headache issue.

Pretty much any external audio interface at ~$100 is going to be supreme compared to onboard audio, but getting one with balanced outputs is certainly a plus if you're suffering with interference, even though it might drive up the cost.
Combined with pretty much any studio monitors(~$200 and up, to your liking) and you'll have a sound setup that beats any of those Logitech/Creative/etc. speaker setups.

I see it as a hidden defect from mainboards as most likely only passive speakers will work with the onboard audio soundcard. when it works with my usb audio interface, you know ASUS sold me a bad mainboard with a bad audio sound card

It's a line output, just an audio signal, not meant to be powering anything.
But the noise floor, hiss and hum is usually bad enough that you can never get a clean sound at lower volumes even if you plug it into a good amplifier. That's why you want to run the signal digital and at 100% volume into the DAC/preamp, and then adjust the volume to get low noise and "high resolution".

Which OSes are wearing out quickly which SSDs?

Windows and Linux, all brands; Samsung, Kingston, SandDisk, Intel(back in the days), etc.
Every tiny write will cause a cell to be rewritten, so any workload which causes lots of repeated writes or temp files will wear out the "endurance" much faster than you'd expect. Examples includes development, heavy surfing/YouTube, etc. Most people don't diagnose their drives and are unaware that their issues are caused by faulty drives.
By having all files on separate drive(s), you greatly reduce the risk of data loss from faulty drives, and for file system corruption.

 

[TechBuyingHavoc]

Windows and Linux, all brands; Samsung, Kingston, SandDisk, Intel(back in the days), etc.
Every tiny write will cause a cell to be rewritten, so any workload which causes lots of repeated writes or temp files will wear out the "endurance" much faster than you'd expect. Examples includes development, heavy surfing/YouTube, etc. Most people don't diagnose their drives and are unaware that their issues are caused by faulty drives.
By having all files on separate drive(s), you greatly reduce the risk of data loss from faulty drives, and for file system corruption.

This is a bunch of FUD, unless you have actual technical information on the topic. If you were posting this back in 2014, sure I would believe you just because SSDs were new and untested. There is just too much consumer experience with SSDs to make your worry about write endurance relevant at all for consumer workloads.

I will say it again, moderate use on my own SSD over 2 years has degraded it by less than 2%. For me, this drive will outlast the rest of my PC by decades.

Both drive failures and file system corruption by bit rot and flips can happen at any time on any drive. To mitigate bit rot, you are either using a combo of ECC memory and a filesystem that can check for bit errors like ZFS or you are not. Data loss from a surprise faulty drive should be addressed by regular backups, not by segregating data on a separate drive (not a backup).

Again, there are valid and good reasons to get a separate SSD but the idea that any OS will "wear" out the primary SSD in any reasonable length of time with a normal amount of use is ridiculous and you should not be getting a 2nd SSD just for this non-existent worry.