Alleged ASUS AMD X570 Motherboard Price-list Paints a Horror Story

[FlanK3r]

Bah, its nonsense article.
All vendors will have more expensive new MBs, because u need better switches for PCIe 4.0 etc, there is also better VRM and you could to know, drmosfet is between 1.1-2.5 dollars for one. ALso active cooling is not for free . Only logic.
ANd AMD is stronger and stronger, so we can expect higher price in future with new products.

 

[phill]

And your level of experience in PCBA manufacturing is?
There might be one or two 10 layer consumer boards, but that's it, it simply doesn't make sense.
Most are four or six layer boards, eight is in fact quite extreme.
However, this is the first generation of consumer boards that need low loss materials. Some details here, albeit a bit old https://www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/research/iemrc/documents/EventsDocuments/2012 conference/presentations/A Morgan Low Loss High speed laminates - What is really needed.pdf
This is a fairly big transition in terms of PCBA manufacturing materials, but I guess you wouldn't know much about that, as I presume you haven't actually been involved in making any hardware.

Also keep in mind that ASRock has a $999 board...

Likewise, do you have any experience there? There's no need to be rude or abrupt about a comment.. I believe I have a few 8 or 10 layered motherboards at home, I'd have to check to make sure.

I'm not looking at $999 priced motherboards, if that Asrock board is the water cooled RGB affair, I wouldn't even go near it. It's simply not my style or tastes.

I'll wait and see what is happening on release but if they want to charge that amount of cash for a board good luck to them, I won't be buying one. I can only guess that they charge what they like if it's AMD now being the top dog over Intel, got to cash in.. Cynical I know but still, I'm sure these prices aren't priced for the good of the products or the consumers.. But still, I don't see the need to price so high and that's just my personal opinion. Kind of off sets the price of the setup then if the motherboards are crazy priced and then CPUs cheaper.. But I digress....

 

[Kapone33]

I thought some of the higher end Asrock boards are 10 layers or more? They aren't as expensive.. It just seems like such a price hike for nothing more than greed to me. Yes the newer advance tech might cost a little but not as much as Asus are supposedly selling it for.
That just seems a OTT....

There is no pricing on As Rock boards other than the one with a mono block that will be $1000.00 and there . As a sub of Asus they do generally have cheaper boards but the Taichi and up will not be cheaper than the Asus Prime board (based on X470 prices).

 

[turbogear]

I am not sure if less than 10 layers is enough for PCB with this complexity. I would believe that these boards have more than 10 layers.

At these speeds signal integrity becomes challenging. You often need to go for better PCB material with lower Er values which will make PCB more expensive.
I myself being hardware project manager and designer in the area of high frequency and high speed have to deal with such topics. At certain signal speeds PCB becomes one of the expensive parts of the BOM.

In one of the projects I worked on containing multiple 10Gbit/s high speed links with FPGA, DDR3, high speed DAC and ADC and RF signal at 2.7GHz frequency, we needed 16 layer board with 2.5 Er which costed alone around 60 Euros per PCB.

 

[Kapone33]

I am not sure if less than 10 layers is enough for PCB with this complexity. I would believe that these boards have more than 10 layers.

At these speeds signal integrity becomes challenging. You often need to go for better PCB material with lower Er values which will make PCB more expensive.
I myself being hardware project manager and designer in the area of high frequency and high speed have to deal with such topics. At certain signal speeds PCB becomes one of the expensive parts of the BOM.

In one of the projects I worked on containing 10Gbit/s high speed link with FPGA, DDR3, high speed DAC and ADC and RF signal at 2.7GHz frequency, we needed 16 layer board with 2.5 Er which costed alone around 60 Euros per PCB.

Nope the highest PCB is 10. The other thing is that 10GBit do not require what you are saying with X570 as PCI_E 4.0 provides more than enough bandwidth to be over saturated by 10GBit. Even some of the X399 boards have 10 Gbit and are nowhere near 6 PCB layers.

 

[phill]

There is no pricing on As Rock boards other than the one with a mono block that will be $1000.00 and there . As a sub of Asus they do generally have cheaper boards but the Taichi and up will not be cheaper than the Asus Prime board (based on X470 prices).

Just basing the costs of boards on current X470 boards, the Asrock V Asus are a fair bit different. I'm been considering Asrock for a while as I have a few motherboards already from them. I'll grab a snip from Scan (UK) and show what I mean..

For how I'm looking at things are the Taichi at £190 ish, is like the Hero and then the Taichi Ultimate at £230 is like the Hero Wi-Fi... I do think that the Ultimate board does seem to give a few more features such as 10Gb as an example.. Both Taichi boards do come with Wi-Fi as standard from the bit of text above...

Meh, what do I know

 

[R-T-B]

I'm curious to how much the IC cost?
MBs ranging $150 - $700.

Did AMD make you (MB MFGs) sell that high? I don't remember AMD sold the MBs to you? NO?!
YOU made them and decided to sell them that MUCH and cry foul on AMD???

NO, seriously?! what's wrong with this picture?

Mining prices on the Video reminded me all over again...

Sighs!

AMD dictates X570 must support PCIe 4.0.

PCIe 4.0 needs at least a 6-layer board for signaling.

6-layer (minimum) boards cost a lot more.

Do the math.

40 MM Fans are expensive you know...

1.) No they aren't

2.) Wrong thread maybe?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Likewise, do you have any experience there? There's no need to be rude or abrupt about a comment.. I believe I have a few 8 or 10 layered motherboards at home, I'd have to check to make sure.

I'm not looking at $999 priced motherboards, if that Asrock board is the water cooled RGB affair, I wouldn't even go near it. It's simply not my style or tastes.

I'll wait and see what is happening on release but if they want to charge that amount of cash for a board good luck to them, I won't be buying one. I can only guess that they charge what they like if it's AMD now being the top dog over Intel, got to cash in.. Cynical I know but still, I'm sure these prices aren't priced for the good of the products or the consumers.. But still, I don't see the need to price so high and that's just my personal opinion. Kind of off sets the price of the setup then if the motherboards are crazy priced and then CPUs cheaper.. But I digress....

As a matter of fact, I do. I try to share information here, but it seems people are more interested in bickering here than to pause for a second and read up on things, as well as trying to understand why things are the way they are. Apparently sharing knowledge gets you nasty comments instead, which is great, so yes, my posts have become rude and abrupt because of it.

Eight layers, I wouldn't doubt, 10, hmmm, not so likely unless you have some super high-end workstation or server boards.

Neither am I, just pointing out that Asus is not the most expensive when it comes the X570 boards, since they seemingly got a lot of flack here.

It's not that simple, as the X570 chipset itself is comparable to Intel's Z390 in terms of cost (I'm afraid I don't have exact numbers, but same ballpark), but the addition of the PCIe 4.0 redrivers/retimers adds about $10-20 in cost to each board. On top of this, a lot of new, but maybe not very obvious board design changes have had to be developed for PCIe 4.0, which costs R&D time and money and the boards makers seemingly wants to recuperate that money as quickly as possible. This all leads to higher priced retail products, especially when the board makers knows that AMD has a good CPU coming, so they try to see what the market will bear. This happens time and time again, so nothing new there.

As a sub of Asus they do generally have cheaper boards but the Taichi and up will not be cheaper than the Asus Prime board (based on X470 prices).

ASRock hasn't had anything to do with Asus for around a decade, so please update your memory banks...
ASRock is owned by Pegatron which was entirely separated from Asus in 2012 and ASRock has been independent since the split between Asus, Pegatron and Unihan in 2008.

 

[Kapone33]

Just basing the costs of boards on current X470 boards, the Asrock V Asus are a fair bit different. I'm been considering Asrock for a while as I have a few motherboards already from them. I'll grab a snip from Scan (UK) and show what I mean..

View attachment 124741

For how I'm looking at things are the Taichi at £190 ish, is like the Hero and then the Taichi Ultimate at £230 is like the Hero Wi-Fi... I do think that the Ultimate board does seem to give a few more features such as 10Gb as an example.. Both Taichi boards do come with Wi-Fi as standard from the bit of text above...

Meh, what do I know

The X470 Taichi has a weaker wireless card than the Master SLI. The Asus X470 Crosshair is the only board that supports 2 NVME drives in RAID 0 at PCI 3.0x4. The only real difference between the Taichi and the Ultimate is indeed the 10 Gbit. The only thing I give Asus over As Rock for AMD boards is that their BIOS are more granular. Not that As rock has bad BIOS.

As a matter of fact, I do. I try to share information here, but it seems people are more interested in bickering here than to pause for a second and read up on things, as well as trying to understand why things are the way they are. Apparently sharing knowledge gets you nasty comments instead, which is great, so yes, my posts have become rude and abrupt because of it.

Eight layers, I wouldn't doubt, 10, hmmm, not so likely unless you have some super high-end workstation or server boards.

Neither am I, just pointing out that Asus is not the most expensive when it comes the X570 boards, since they seemingly got a lot of flack here.

It's not that simple, as the X570 chipset itself is comparable to Intel's Z390 in terms of cost (I'm afraid I don't have exact numbers, but same ballpark), but the addition of the PCIe 4.0 redrivers/retimers adds about $10-20 in cost to each board. On top of this, a lot of new, but maybe not very obvious board design changes have had to be developed for PCIe 4.0, which costs R&D time and money and the boards makers seemingly wants to recuperate that money as quickly as possible. This all leads to higher priced retail products, especially when the board makers knows that AMD has a good CPU coming, so they try to see what the market will bear. This happens time and time again, so nothing new there.



ASRock hasn't had anything to do with Asus for close to a a decade, so please update your memory banks...
ASRock is owned by Pegatron which was split off from Asus in 2012 and ASRock was independent from Asus before that.

Thanks for the update. I was not aware of that

 

[TheLostSwede]

I am not sure if less than 10 layers is enough for PCB with this complexity. I would believe that these boards have more than 10 layers.

At these speeds signal integrity becomes challenging. You often need to go for better PCB material with lower Er values which will make PCB more expensive.
I myself being hardware project manager and designer in the area of high frequency and high speed have to deal with such topics. At certain signal speeds PCB becomes one of the expensive parts of the BOM.

In one of the projects I worked on containing multiple 10Gbit/s high speed links with FPGA, DDR3, high speed DAC and ADC and RF signal at 2.7GHz frequency, we needed 16 layer board with 2.5 Er which costed alone around 60 Euros per PCB.

To my knowledge, there will at least be 6 and 8 layer boards. Again, they've changed the PCB material to a higher grade material that still allows for the same amount of PCB layers as before.
Please see the link in my earlier comment.
Layers are usually not added for the hell of it, as it makes for quite and expensive PCBA really quick.
16 layers must've been some seriously special gear.

 

[turbogear]

To my knowledge, there will be 4, 6 and 8 layer boards. Again, they've changed the PCB material to a higher grade material that still allows for the same amount of PCB layers as before.
Please see the link in my earlier comment.
Layers are usually not added for the hell of it, as it makes for quite and expensive PCBA really quick.
16 layers must've been some seriously special gear.

16 layer board was containing both high speed digtal signal and an RF ( analog radio frequency up to 2.7GHz).
It is hard to believe that they use 4 or 6 layer board.

4 layer would mean only 2 layers for routing. How do they rout all signals out of processor with only 2 layers available?
Furthermore, you need refernce ground layer and also you have to put power plane layers.
4 layers would mean most of signals on top/bottom layer with reference in 2 and 3 layers.
Power planes also sharing ground layer in 2 and 3 or?

DDR routing is also usually very critical. These are usually impedence controlled lines needing proper reference planes which means in that area where they are routed the refernce plane in not allowed to be broken with other signals passing through. This would be a challange in board with 4 laers only.

6 layers could work with having dedicated layer for power planes but challenging for routing all signal out of processor. Maybe could work by using micro-vias which are also expensive.

I would say 8 layer would be more proper. 10 layer maybe needed to rout out all the signals out of so many processor pins.

 

[RoutedScripter]

Hahaha everyone angry on the Chipset Fan-cooling, I like it that it rubs your whiny mouths, I like that it's realistic and not some console-plug-n-play, they rather put a FAN on it then compromise the performance, that's the spirit!

I understand the only valid point of small fans being noisy, if they're not noisy then it's no issue, WE DON'T KNOW IF THEY'RE GOING TO BE NOISY YET, don't jump to conclusions. If they are noisy, petition the Mobo factory to FIX THE NOISE BY MAKING A BIGGER OR BETTER FAN BUT KEEP THE PERFORMANCE !!! But I know you whiners, if they added a GIANT fan on there you'd be complaining it's "OH MAY GAWD A BIG FAN ON THE CHIPSET" You just find ANYTHING to whine about that pertains nothing other than petty CONVENIENCE. Put the PC in a refrigerator then, that'll not only cool it but, but also keep the noise out, where's the PC-master-race-improvisation-tech-geek spirit, come on, FIGURE IT OUT.

It's like little kids from a kindergarden, as soon as something's a bit out the ordinary they have this stupid dumb OH MAY GAWD reaction. OH MY GAWD I NEVER SAW A LITTLE FAN BLOWING A LITTLE CHIP BEFORE.

OH MY GAWD IN ORDER TO GET TO THE MOON IN 10 MINUTES I HAVE TO COOL THE ION ENGINES WITH 300 COOLERS WAAAAAA .. because it's reality, it's not fairy tale land. Consoles come covered up in a box so it's not visible to the most users what goes inside, PC hardware comes relatively barebone, get on with the methods/culture of PC or GTFO I'd say

And the way the small cooler is hidden behind the chipset cooling apparatus/heatsink, I hardly even noticed it from the pictures if I didn't read about it it's there. There's SO many things they can do to make that presence of the fan and it's noise to be a moot point, that's the kind of stuff I'd rather see the community to cheer about, you don't have to remove the damn fan, all you need is a bit of inginuety to solve the problems in another way.



/rant

 

[RichF]

"You can very much do pair these processors with motherboards based on the older AMD X470 and B450 chipset motherboards."

But will they, especially the B450, handle the much in terms of RAM speed? RAM speed may become one of the crucial dividing lines, especially since B die has been EOLed.

Buildzoid also said that only MSI B450 boards, like the Tomahawk and Pro Carbon, have decent-quality MOSFETs, as I recall. I have read a report recently that MSI pulled a switcheroo on one of its boards (Intel perhaps), substituting junk MOSFETs in a 2.0 revision of "the same board". This sort of thing is, unfortunately, too common in our Wild West unregulated motherboard market. Companies get to pull switcheroos and flat-out lie about phase count. They have been caught so many times and simply say it's a mistake and apologize. I think Gigabyte is the latest company to blame its marketing department, or whatever, as if marketing employees ignore the information they're sent by the engineers and managers. Nvidia made the same bogus claim about the 970 during VRAMGate. The 2.0 version of the UD3P AM3+ board from Gigabyte was highly-touted in forums and marketing for having an 8 phase VRM. In reality, it was a 4 phase with a doubler and the 2.0 revision stripped components so the board wouldn't post past the 4.4 GHz multiplier. Gigabyte ignored the problem and never updated the BIOS to even prevent people from using higher than that multiplier. The big trick in recent times, though, has been to double up on chokes and other irrelevancies in order to mask the outright lie about phase count. At least a doubled 4 phase is somewhat an 8 phase. That kind of trickery wasn't good enough, apparently. Not even putting in a doubler became the next innovation.

"It's a mistake that we were caught. It will be a mistake the next time you catch us."

Hahaha everyone angry on the Chipset Fan-cooling,

Because they're a suboptimal kludge.

1) Prone to failure.
2) Noisy.
3) Dust.

PCIe 4.0 needs at least a 6-layer board for signaling. 6-layer (minimum) boards cost a lot more.

That's what Anandtech's writer said. However, in the same article it was mentioned that Gigabyte will be selling 4 layer 570s.

 

[Totally]

I don't remember Intel boarsmds ever being that pricey. Iirc $399 could get you just about any board with an Intel socket notable exceptions being some skulltrail boards or sr2 classified. I'll be honest my knowledge may be out of date and I'm not trying to hard bring to up to date because paying $350 for something that was once $200-$250 is not something I'll look forward to.

Inb4, motherboard makers report record lows sales despite record high profits.

 

[TheLostSwede]

16 layer board was containing both high speed digtal signal and an RF ( analog radio frequency up to 2.7GHz).
It is hard to believe that they use 4 or 6 layer board.

4 layer would mean only 2 layers for routing. How do they rout all signals out of processor with only 2 layers available?
Furthermore, you need refernce ground layer and also you have to put power plane layers.
4 layers would mean most of signals on top/bottom layer with reference in 2 and 3 layers.
Power planes also sharing ground layer in 2 and 3 or?

DDR routing is also usually very critical. These are usually impedence controlled lines needing proper reference planes which means in that area where they are routed the refernce plane in not allowed to be broken with other signals passing through. This would be a challange in board with 4 laers only.

6 layers could work with having dedicated layer for power planes but challenging for routing all signal out of processor. Maybe could work by using micro-vias which are also expensive.

I would say 8 layer would be more proper. 10 layer maybe needed to rout out all the signals out of so many processor pins.

You're right, four is unrealistic, but most consumer motherboards are still six layers, with higher-end models being eight layers.
Apparently EVGA is going for 10 on their high-end boards, something I'd missed.
Even something fairly high-end like this, is only six layers https://www.aorus.com/Z390-AORUS-ULTRA-rev-10

 

[jahramika]

Well I think I will stick with my X470 for now. Noo need for the PCIE 4.0 until when I upgrade M.2 NVME in the future. Unless PCIE 4 make the Video better than on PCOE 3.0

 

[Kapone33]

Well I think I will stick with my X470 for now. Noo need for the PCIE 4.0 until when I upgrade M.2 NVME in the future. Unless PCIE 4 make the Video better than on PCOE 3.0

There will be PCI_E 4.0 lanes in the CPU itself. I will be interested to see how these new chips work in AM4 boards. The biggest question for me is that will the addition of a Ryzen2 CPU to an X470 board allow those memory clocks (most top end X470 have support for as high as 4000Mhz in the BIOS) or will it require an X570 board?

Hahaha everyone angry on the Chipset Fan-cooling, I like it that it rubs your whiny mouths, I like that it's realistic and not some console-plug-n-play, they rather put a FAN on it then compromise the performance, that's the spirit!

I understand the only valid point of small fans being noisy, if they're not noisy then it's no issue, WE DON'T KNOW IF THEY'RE GOING TO BE NOISY YET, don't jump to conclusions. If they are noisy, petition the Mobo factory to FIX THE NOISE BY MAKING A BIGGER OR BETTER FAN BUT KEEP THE PERFORMANCE !!! But I know you whiners, if they added a GIANT fan on there you'd be complaining it's "OH MAY GAWD A BIG FAN ON THE CHIPSET" You just find ANYTHING to whine about that pertains nothing other than petty CONVENIENCE. Put the PC in a refrigerator then, that'll not only cool it but, but also keep the noise out, where's the PC-master-race-improvisation-tech-geek spirit, come on, FIGURE IT OUT.

It's like little kids from a kindergarden, as soon as something's a bit out the ordinary they have this stupid dumb OH MAY GAWD reaction. OH MY GAWD I NEVER SAW A LITTLE FAN BLOWING A LITTLE CHIP BEFORE.

OH MY GAWD IN ORDER TO GET TO THE MOON IN 10 MINUTES I HAVE TO COOL THE ION ENGINES WITH 300 COOLERS WAAAAAA .. because it's reality, it's not fairy tale land. Consoles are covered up where it's not visible to the most users what goes inside, get on with the methods/culture of PC or GTFO I'd say

/rant

Plus as I understand the 40MM are 4 pin PWM. So when you are doing some serious gaming the sound from the GPU fans should drown out anything the chipset fans apply. Neither is this the first implementation. I had a As Rock 890GX Extreme that came with a 40mm fan. It was not pre installed but part of the package.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I don't remember Intel boarsmds ever being that pricey. Iirc $399 could get you just about any board with an Intel socket notable exceptions being some skulltrail boards or sr2 classified. I'll be honest my knowledge may be out of date and I'm not trying to hard bring to up to date because paying $350 for something that was once $200-$250 is not something I'll look forward to.

Inb4, motherboard makers report record lows sales despite record high profits.

Did many of those 200$ boards have pciex4.

Think progress, you seam stuck on intels upgrade path , same shit year after year +10% and a new motherboard with only high speed usb4 alpha ports as an innovation.

When intel bring pciex 4 their board price WILL increase too.

 

[turbogear]

You're right, four is unrealistic, but most consumer motherboards are still six layers, with higher-end models being eight layers.
Apparently EVGA is going for 10 on their high-end boards, something I'd missed.
Even something fairly high-end like this, is only six layers https://www.aorus.com/Z390-AORUS-ULTRA-rev-10

Thanks.
It would be interesting to have a look at Gerber data of modern mainboards to see how they do the fan-out of all impedance controlled differential and single ended lines out of processor with 6 layers.

Maybe my layout colleagues can learn somethings.

In any case, I find Crosshair VIII Hero WIFI interesting but I am not too much in hurry to switch the platform.
I own 2700x with Crosshair VII Hero WIFI and Radeon VII watercooled.
I find 3800x as intersting processor but would like to see reviews how much it is faster than 2700x and if it makes any sense to switch.

 

[Eskimonster]

The hate against fan on the board is valid,i dont want another fail point added to my motherbord.
This new setup is gonna be expensive enough,so im defo going for no fan option.

 

[voltage]

they are the new Intel, ripping loyal customers. i might check on next gen Intel boards with 10th gen and buy Intel. These amd prices suck.

 

[Hifihedgehog]

@btarunr: Did you happen to get the price for the ITX board, the Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming?

 

[Totally]

Did many of those 200$ boards have pciex4.

Think progress, you seam stuck on intels upgrade path , same shit year after year +10% and a new motherboard with only high speed usb4 alpha ports as an innovation.

When intel bring pciex 4 their board price WILL increase too.

Don't see why pcie4 would add $100. Boards with Pcie3/usb3 didn't command a solid $100 premium when they were bleeding edge. If you want to line up and to get robbed by all means go ahead.

 

[Ahhzz]

There is no pricing on As Rock boards other than the one with a mono block that will be $1000.00 and there . As a sub of Asus they do generally have cheaper boards but the Taichi and up will not be cheaper than the Asus Prime board (based on X470 prices).

I'm looking at the Taichi as a possible for my next major upgrade, hoping it's not too far up the price tree. I don't need the wireless, and I'm hoping I can find a model somewhere in their line close to this without it. It's going to be painful enough upgrading when the time comes, but I do like the looks of moving to team AMD this next round....

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Don't see why pcie4 would add $100. Boards with Pcie3/usb3 didn't command a solid $100 premium when they were bleeding edge. If you want to line up and to get robbed by all means go ahead.

I doubt ill swap this crosshair tbh.

I hope to put a 3900x in it and be done.

Look at the market, Nvidia have upsold twice in the last few years, Intel prices have increased on mainstream and because they could they made hedt platform with higher pricing.

And intel were selling us quads for years man, with socket swaps that WERE NOT needed,, theses boards run up to 16 cores, I'm telling you as an engineer , pciex 4 takes more R and D, testing and more expensive parts including more parts (redriver chip/s).

With boards from 160-700 quid i don't see your point as valid.

As I said, watch intels prices , have you seen some of the boards you can buy Now for Intel chips.

Because you don't see it? , just means you don't see it.

There's a Bit of gouging going on but it's not Amd that Makes the boards.