AMD’s funds motherboard vary is usually at instances extra profitable than the larger, full fats variations. Users have prior to now bought nearly all the identical chipset options on these motherboards than they did on the X-series vary. That modifications with the brand new B500 sequence as shoppers not have PCIe 4.Zero on the chipset, as a substitute reverting again to PCIe 3.0. This finally shouldn’t be a problem, as funds builds are unlikely to have a number of PCIe 4.Zero add-in drives, for instance. Nonetheless, the excessive vocal demand for B550 motherboards, particularly after AMD launched Ryzen 3, has not gone unnoticed, and there are over 40 new fashions out there, most of which ought to be on sale from at present.
B is for Budget, Right?
One of the principle complaints in regards to the AMD X570 motherboard line was the extensive variation in pricing. As we reported in our X570 motherboard overview, overlaying over 35 motherboards, the variation in value from the most affordable to the costliest was fairly eye-watering.
The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
On the excessive finish, we had the restricted version ASRock’s X570 Aqua, a board we went on to evaluate and name a shocking collectors piece, but it surely was priced at $1000.
On the low-end, we noticed a couple of motherboards go just below $200:
In earlier years, this value vary was once the notorious battleground the place top-end chipsets would battle it out within the mid-range, not be the entry level right into a market. However, X570 did convey numerous new advantages, comparable to PCIe 4.Zero from the processor, PCIe 4.Zero from the chipset, and an elevated bandwidth to and from the chipset.
So for AMD’s extra budget-oriented centered line of motherboards, we should always anticipate to see designs extra pleasant to these cost-sensitive builds, and for customers that don’t want oodles of PCIe 4.0, proper? In earlier years, we’ve got seen the funds line of motherboards come down as little as $65, which when utilizing a $99 processor, might be the right inflection level.
For our overview at present, the most affordable motherboard we have been informed pricing about prematurely appears to be $115. That’s about $50 an excessive amount of on the low finish.
But the costliest motherboard is $280. That value, with out any context, sounds insane. For that value the person would possibly as effectively choose up an X570 motherboard, proper? It would appear that the GIGABYTE B550 Aorus Master has to supply one thing particular with a purpose to justify that amount of cash. Fortunately, this part is a distinctive motherboard amongst B550 and effectively price studying up on.
Chipset Differences
One of the important thing methods for AMD to assist cut back the price of its funds boards is to cut back the quantity of options on the chipset in comparison with the X570 fashions. The easiest method to do that is to take away PCIe 4.Zero from the chipset, pushing it again to PCIe 3.0: the processor nonetheless presents PCIe 4.Zero use, however something powered by the chipset will likely be restricted to PCIe 3.0. This has the additional benefit of lowering the facility consumption of the chipset down to five W, somewhat than 10 W, which signifies that not one of the B550 motherboards include a chipset fan as normal.
ASUS ROG Strix B550F-Gaming Wi-Fi
The cheaper chipset typically doesn’t include SLI certification by normal, whereas X570 does. This means there was no SLI licence payment to pay, until the motherboard producer goes out of its option to certify it board-to-board. Given that that is the funds board, and the way restricted multi-GPU setups are past compute workloads lately, the pickup of such a characteristic was prone to be restricted on B550 anyway.
Another facet impact of making an attempt to cut back prices is a diminished IO help. AMD permits for numerous configurations with B550:
- CPU
- x4 PCIe 4.Zero NVMe
- x2 PCIe 4.Zero NVMe + 2 x SATA
- x2 PCIe 4.Zero NVMe + x2 PCIe 4.0…
