First $125 AMD Ryzen 7000 Motherboard Is Back With High Platform Prices

When AMD launched its first Ryzen 7000 processors, technical bulletins and promotional fanatics have been informed they may get a brand new AM5 motherboard “beginning at $125”. AMD’s CVP and GM of the Ryzen channel enterprise thinks ASRock has lastly delivered on that promise a couple of months later with the ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2. David McAfee. In fact, it is truthful to surprise what ASRock may need carried out – sacrificed – to get to this key value level.

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 desktop processors have not fairly achieved the gross sales success they may have, and that is largely because of the previous, thorny pricing concern. After years of admirable adherence to the AM4 platform for a lot of CPU generations, it is lastly time to alter the tub water.

The design of highly effective Zen 4 processors required some premium decisions on the motherboard facet of the equation. AM5 motherboards required comparatively expensive choices similar to a revamped energy distribution system, they got here with a brand new socket mechanism and holder, and the platform didn’t enable customers to make use of their previous DDR4 RAM. On the excessive finish, there have been much more additional prices to be incurred, with some fashions requiring a number of chipsets to ship the total portfolio of anticipated options.

Turning our focus again to the ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2, it isn’t stunning that this can be a pretty fundamental AM5 product. It’s a Micro-ATX type issue with solely two DIMM slots and two M.2 slots that may accommodate a 2280 storage gadget (one PCIe Gen 5×4, one other PCIe Gen 4×4). The VRM energy design can be easy, with just some small, budget-style coolers showing.

Some customers might also really feel that solely seven USB ports (4 of that are USB 2.0) are caught. Equally, there are solely 4 SATA drive connectors. The onboard audio is the somewhat previous Realtek ALC897 chip and naturally no RGB right here.

On the plus facet, glad that this motherboard affords 2.5 Gigabit LAN. One other constructive level is that the graphics card slot has been strengthened for sturdiness. It is also nice to have the simple and handy BIOS flashback function. B650M-HDV/M.2 from ASRock It has each HDMI and DP ports prepared for iGPU output and has a pre-installed I/O defend – much less of a problem when assembling trendy PCs.

Curiously, there are antenna mounting factors when you determine to put in a Wi-Fi card, and an M.2 WiFi slot is offered on the motherboard only for this function. So you would doubtlessly seize one thing like this WiFi 6E adapter (opens in new tab) Use it for $36 and with the ASRock card. In fact, you then’d be spending $161 in your AM5 motherboard, which considerably defeats the aim of getting an inexpensive beginning value within the first place. It is good to have flexibility although.

Hopefully different motherboard producers will observe in ASRock’s footsteps quickly and it will likely be attention-grabbing to see how they compete. These in search of a very new platform and unsure whether or not to decide on AMD or Intel may even wish to try the aggressive specs of Intel LGA1700 motherboards (for Alder Lake / Raptor Lake). Try the Greatest Boards for Gaming 2023 by Socket and Chipset for extra particulars on the professionals and cons of the varied choices.