News Intel B760 Motherboards Reportedly Receiving 10% Price Increase Over B660

[Admin]

A new report claims that Intel is increasing the cost of its upcoming B760 motherboards by 10%, potentially creating competition between B760 and Intel's current B660 motherboards.

Intel B760 Motherboards Reportedly Receiving 10% Price Increase Over B660 : Read more

 

[Co BIY]

10% price hike effectively reflects inflation only in my mind. Additional lanes of PCIe 4.0 are a bonus.

Purchases to be made on avaialblility/price. B660 prices may rise to meet the market. Since they are so comparable.

 

[DataMeister]

The DDR5 600 series already seem to be marked up drastically. Why does DDR5 seem to add another $50 on top of the DDR4 version of the same motherboard? Is the DDR5 system licensed differently or are the electronics that much harder to manufacture?

 

[InvalidError]

This will include a PCie Gen 3 degradation from eight to four lanes, but a PCIe Gen4 upgrade from 6 to 10 lanes.

A convoluted way of saying: "Four lanes get upgraded from 3.0 to 4.0."

 

[samopa]

The DDR5 600 series already seem to be marked up drastically. Why does DDR5 seem to add another $50 on top of the DDR4 version of the same motherboard? Is the DDR5 system licensed differently or are the electronics that much harder to manufacture?

What can I see from my DDR5 module (compare to my old DDR4), the DDR5 module has IC to regulate the power in it, but you can Google it to make sure.

 

[DavidLejdar]

The DDR5 600 series already seem to be marked up drastically. Why does DDR5 seem to add another $50 on top of the DDR4 version of the same motherboard? Is the DDR5 system licensed differently or are the electronics that much harder to manufacture?

Generally, a DDR5 MB design needs to account for increased clock speeds and data rates, and for different channel architecture. Specifically, there are things such as DDR5 running at 2 channels per DIMM (instead of one with DDR4), featuring DFE (Decision Feedback Equalization), having temperature sensors, different power management, and running I3C (protocol of the SPD Hub), which the MB all needs to communicate with accordingly. This translates to i.e. need for improved DIMM connectors on the MB etc., the R&D put into it, and probably also some changes to the assembly line.

Whether that amounts to $50, I don't know. But there sure is more involved than just to swap out one part for another.

And basically similar is also the jump from PCIe 4.0 to PCIe 5.0 connectivity, where a MB needs to be more capable to handle signal integrity issues. Whether the price difference is more about cost of parts (from in-house or sourced), or about (initially) offsetting the investment into R&D and assembly line/s, I don't know. There certainly is a bit more refined hardware involved though.

 

[Lafong]

Why does DDR5 seem to add another $50 on top of the DDR4 version of the same motherboard?

I'd speculate that part of the reason is that the retailers believe that an increasing number of buyers want to move onto DDR 5 RAM (for good or bad reasons) and the price differential between DDR 4 RAM and DDR 5 RAM has been narrowing.

DDR 5 RAM forces you onto a DDR 5 motherboard. Price of the board itself has relatively low effect on demand for the board because the DDR 5 board and DDR 5 RAM would typically be bought in tandem....you buy both or neither. It's a study in inelastic demand. Retailers think it applies and if wrong they will adjust prices accordingly. Possibly day by day.

 

[InvalidError]

Whether that amounts to $50, I don't know. But there sure is more involved than just to swap out one part for another.

Practically everything about DIMMs happens between the CPU and the DIIMMs, possibly the chipset if the I3C controller is there instead of the CPU, the motherboard has very little to do with any of it besides providing the copper connecting the two (or three) together and I3C traces to the CPU or chipset are a trivial thing to handle. Having the memory VRM on the DDR5 DIMMs instead of the motherboard should actually reduce the motherboard's cost. As for the rest, narrower channels are easier to manage so DDR5 having two channels doesn't meaningfully affect cost. The frequency also doesn't matter much since the higher-quality PCB is already required for PCIe 5.0, so little to no incremental cost impact there.

The biggest cost drivers for budget motherboards is feature bloat: more VRM phases than most people can shake a stick at, bloated specs like USB 4.1v2-gen3x4b adding excessive support cost per port, mountains of RGB, etc.

 

[tennis2]

Seems like a 10% premium isn't bad at all. Probably worth the features mentioned.

OTOH, mobos are just plain too expensive in general nowadays. I get the additional signal integrity of DDR5/PCIe4.0/PCIe5.0, CPU power draw, etc, but it seems these inclusions have only extended on top of previous pricing instead of absorbing into the norm through economies of scale.

 

[JTWrenn]

This is just because they can. The whole industry and many of the corporations are raising prices because they can blame it on inflation, when in fact it just increases their bottom line. Studies are showing 52% of current inflation is just corporations realizing people will pay and they can get away with it. It sucks.