justin.m.beauvais :
So, people are sounding off a lot about the cost of the motherboards, but you are saving hundreds of dollars on the CPUs vs Intel, so over all you are still coming out saving money. I'm not exactly sure what the problem here is. Yes, the motherboards are expensive compared to x299, but who is only buying a motherboard for their build? Replacing a motherboard would be costly, but that doesn't happen very often. In the end you pay $350 for the motherboard, $900 for the CPU (comparing the 16 more models here) for a cost of $1250 where a competing Intel setup would be $200 for the board and $1700 for the CPU for a cost of $1900. You are still $650 better off. That is a significant amount of money. I'm not seeing the issue here.
A motherboard Price is a Motherboard price and not CPU price.
You cant take the Total and say the total is less to justify the lack of cheaper Threadripper Motherboard.
Asus , MSI , and others can do it . but it seems AMD is not allowing them to make cheaper motherboards for some reason.
and it is not about saving money VS intel offerings , it is about people with tight budget who want 16 cores CPU. and AMD is losing these customers and they are ALOT.
Half the options on AMD Threadripper expensive motherboard will not be used any ways . they should make minimum options motherboards for ~200 ..
That is , 4 slots only (4x16=64 lanes) , 4 Dimms in 4 channel mode not 8 dimms , cheaper onbopard sound instead of ALC1220 , one LAN , and one M2 only instead of 3 or 2 , and no leds .. etc.