News ASRock Ditches Intel Ethernet, Cuts Price of Threadripper Pro Motherboard by $356

[Admin]

ASRock quietly launches WRX80 Creator revision 2.0 motherboard with Marvell 10GbE controller at $899.

ASRock Ditches Intel Ethernet, Cuts Price of Threadripper Pro Motherboard by $356 : Read more

 

[cyrusfox]

Pretty sure Intel isn't charging $350 for a 10GBe NIC chip(A 2 port add on card is only $150).

Is this just Asrock cutting price to be competitive while changing out a mildly cheaper 10GBe to try to keep margins somewhat healthy?

 

[Eliad Buchnik]

True the controller itself costs 130$ at intel ark information:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...-10-gigabit-ethernet-controller/ordering.html
ASRock can save few bucks. The price reduction probably comes from other places mostly.

 

[thestryker]

The regular retail price on the original version was also $900, the $1256 quoted in this article is from a third party seller. This is just ASRock making the margin higher by putting a worse controller on the board.

 

[rluker5]

The regular retail price on the original version was also $900, the $1256 quoted in this article is from a third party seller. This is just ASRock making the margin higher by putting a worse controller on the board.

Nice find.
I searched and #2, Amazon was out so I went to #4: ASRock WRX80 CREATOR Motherboard For AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO CPUs Now Available For $899 US (wccftech.com)
And the title was enough 😛

 

[slash3]

The regular retail price on the original version was also $900, the $1256 quoted in this article is from a third party seller. This is just ASRock making the margin higher by putting a worse controller on the board.

I seriously don't understand how things like this keep making it into news posts here on Tom's. It takes literally three seconds to see that the retail price hasn't changed, and that it's a 3rd party seller, as you say.

Someone needs to have a staff meeting; it's getting out of hand.

 

[thestryker]

I seriously don't understand how things like this keep making it into news posts here on Tom's. It takes literally three seconds to see that the retail price hasn't changed, and that it's a 3rd party seller, as you say.

Someone needs to have a staff meeting; it's getting out of hand.

Yeah it's still notable due to the NIC change, but the price change bit is a big miss.

 

[Foeke]

We are grossly overestamating the impact of the BOM on the actual price.
Come on guys, We just had a year where I could sell my 7 year old videocard for more than I bought it for. (I actually gave it away to do my tiny part in stopping this nonsense).
We are paying double the fuel price but the oil price is less than between 2010 and 2014.
Prices are based on fate and/or crooks.

 

[bit_user]

We are grossly overestamating the impact of the BOM on the actual price.

Having seen the other side of this, I can tell you that you're grossly underestimating what happens in the event of a parts shortage.

My employer sells "appliances" based on PCs. We work with contract manufacturers and while I'm not dealing with them myself, I hear a bit about some of the problems. It seems some Ethernet chip (a PHY, I presume) has been the chief issue for us. What happens is that when a given part starts to have longer and longer lead times, the companies using it will up their orders to try and ensure they have enough inventory to fulfill their orders. Pretty soon, scalpers catch wind of the situation and buy up all the supply of it they can find. Now, what should be a $1 part is selling for $100s, if you can even find them. Just because they can.

We are paying double the fuel price but the oil price is less than between 2010 and 2014.

I'm not an expert on oil, but there are complicated dynamics in this market. Shipping can be a bottleneck, as can refinery capacity and costs. The specific type of oil can also vary more than the "Texas light sweet crude" or whatever they quote as the indicator you hear on the news.

The free market for these big commodities tends to work very well when the situation is fairly stable. Then, the bottlenecks tend to get ironed out and we have lower & more uniform prices all the way out to the gas pump. However, when you throw a wrench into the works by having like 1/3rd of the oil consumers suddenly switching where they're trying to source oil from, it creates huge bottlenecks in shipping, distribution, refining, etc. because market dynamics don't incentivize keeping a lot of spare capacity in those areas.

Prices are based on fate and/or crooks.

When supply disruptions meet inelastic demand, get ready for some fireworks. And yes, there are definitely some bad actors that make the situation even worse.

 

[bit_user]

I find it odd how Intel rarely (never?) uses Intel Ethernet MACs in their on NUCs.

 

[Foeke]

Having seen the other side of this, I can tell you that you're grossly underestimating what happens in the event of a parts shortage.

My employer sells "appliances" based on PCs. We work with contract manufacturers and while I'm not dealing with them myself, I hear a bit about some of the problems. It seems some Ethernet chip (a PHY, I presume) has been the chief issue for us. What happens is that when a given part starts to have longer and longer lead times, the companies using it will up their orders to try and ensure they have enough inventory to fulfill their orders. Pretty soon, scalpers catch wind of the situation and buy up all the supply of it they can find. Now, what should be a $1 part is selling for $100s, if you can even find them. Just because they can.


I'm not an expert on oil, but there are complicated dynamics in this market. Shipping can be a bottleneck, as can refinery capacity and costs. The specific type of oil can also vary more than the "Texas light sweet crude" or whatever they quote as the indicator you hear on the news.

The free market for these big commodities tends to work very well when the situation is fairly stable. Then, the bottlenecks tend to get ironed out and we have lower & more uniform prices all the way out to the gas pump. However, when you throw a wrench into the works by having like 1/3rd of the oil consumers suddenly switching where they're trying to source oil from, it creates huge bottlenecks in shipping, distribution, refining, etc. because market dynamics don't incentivize keeping a lot of spare capacity in those areas.


When supply disruptions meet inelastic demand, get ready for some fireworks. And yes, there are definitely some bad actors that make the situation even worse.

I'm not underestimating the effect of supply shortages. You call them scalpers, I call them crooks.
Tomatoes Tomatoes.
But in this case, there is no shortage. At least not that it's mentioned in the article.
I bet most TR pro motherboards will drop in price at the same rate.
And it has nothing to do with the Intel NIC.
I think those two are not even related, but journalist try to make sense out of everything, and try to see relations even when they are not present.

 

[bit_user]

You call them scalpers, I call them crooks.

Scalping is generally legal, as far as I know. Not all criminals are sociopaths, and not all sociopathic behavior is criminal.

But in this case, there is no shortage. At least not that it's mentioned in the article.

I wish I had more details about the chip that was affecting us, because AFAIK it could be affecting not only this board but lots of things. In another thread, I noted how the successor to the multi-gigabit Ethernet switch I bought in March of 2020 is now selling for 2x as much. And that's first-party pricing data from both Newegg and Amazon.

And it has nothing to do with the Intel NIC.

They must've had some reason for dropping it, and it's hard to see a reason other than supply or pricing.

I think those two are not even related, but journalist try to make sense out of everything, and try to see relations even when they are not present.

This is generally a fair point. And, as others have noted, the pricing data cited by the article was that of 3rd party sellers. So, even that much is unreliable.