MSI, ASUS Z590 Motherboard Lineup Surface; MSI Models up to €999, ASUS up to €1516

[Arcdar]

Intel appears to have moved all their boards up-market.

See Image below. The B560 has moved decidedly upscale. Gigabyte now has a 12+1 power stage VRM on its B560M Aorus Elite, which is better than any of the low end Z490s. The lowly DS3H B560 is now 6+2 while the old B460 was 4+2.

And the Z590, there's not really a direct comparison to previous gen boards there. WiFi 6E and some other connectivity upgrades are there, but the VRMs on these new boards... holy crap. The *lowest end* Asus Z590 Prime has 14+2 power stages. That compares to 8+1 for the Z490. I have the Z490 Prime, so comparing some features - 8+1 vs 14+2 power, 1Gbit Intel Ethernet vs 2.5Gbit ethernet, Dual M.2 on both (but PCIe 4 on the Z590), dual M.2 heatsinks on Z590 vs no m.2 heatsinks on Z490, Thunderbolt 4 header on Z590 Prim vs no thunderbolt on Z490 Prime,

So no, this stuff isn't quite the same.

The B560 / H570 are more comparable to the prior gen Z490s.

B560 supporting DDR4-4000 :
View attachment 184447

Prime Z590 with better VRM, 2.5Gbit Ethernet, thunderbolt 4 headers :

View attachment 184452

So you say, it's actually possible for "next gen entry level boards" to inherit benefits of "last gen's top boards" instead of stalling at no improvement whatsoever over generations or even reduced functionality (1xx series to 2xx series boards lost connectivity and functions in most cases for example) ?

Wow, that's totally new and not what should be expected, right? Because why would a new generation have new functions compared to the last one?!


And the power stages are a "very bad example". Why do they have those?
A) Look at the reviews of the last year …. Most entry level boards hat MASSIVE issues with power delivery (even not-oced), overheating VRM's or even cpu's which went into power-lock far below their general multi-core frequency because the board couldn't handle them.
B) the "power hunger" of the last few intel chips (which should have been 10nm for some time but got back-portet again and again to 14+++++++++++++++² nm more than once) grew massively. The new generation will not be less demanding than the last and the producers don't want to run into the same issues as stated in A)
C) VRM's are one of the more expensive elements on the board, besides the grams of copper inside the PCB and the licencing & purchase costs for the chipset, I get that - but again, the board overall still isn't more expensive than 50€, at most. Add another 50€ for production energy costs, labor and someone designing those fabulous packages they ship in and you should be good. Everything on top is overhead and a split revenue between the company producing them, the retailer and the shipping company (in unequal amounts of course). So listing VRM's as a good reason, why upper mid-range-boards went from 150-200€ to a starting point of >300€ is a very bad example