Asus refreshes B450 Motherboards

[GreatnessRD]

Summary

Asus decides to refresh their B450 motherboards. Strix, Tuf, and Prime line of boards

 

Quotes

Quote

 Going with one of our refreshed B450 boards for the foundation of your build gives you more flexibility in how you allocate resources in your next Ryzen system. You might be able to choose a faster processor, a boosted graphics card, a bigger, future-proof power supply, or quieter, more robust CPU cooling. The latest Ryzen 3000-series processors will be right at home in our buffed-up B450 boards, and you can still install first- and second-generation Ryzen CPUs in these boards if need be.

 

My thoughts

This looks pretty good, in my opinion. I wonder was this done to help with upcoming 5000 series as well? Should definitely have a solid customer base for these boards, too.

 

Sources

 https://videocardz.com/press-release/asus-refreshes-amd-b450-motherboard-series

[HenrySalayne]

Quote

We’re boosting the bang-for-the-buck of this platform with a refreshed family of ASUS B450 motherboards.

There you go. B550 probably cut into B450 mainboards and the "new and refreshed" variants are needed to fill the entry level spot in the line-up. They're likely cutting manufacturing costs and also the price.

[Fatih19]

Damn, motherboard is getting refreshes too now?

Quote

The latest Ryzen 3000-series processors

Not for long!

[Lord Vile]

Seems a bit dumb with new chips being released soon and B550 being a thing 

[HenrySalayne]

1 hour ago, Lord Vile said:

Seems a bit dumb with new chips being released soon and B550 being a thing 

I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe X570 will be the next chipset for 5000 series CPUs. And they might introduce a X590 with a four extra PCIe4 lanes to accomodate more fast storage. They launched B550 pretty late and I don't think there is any reason for a new chipset with the new generation of CPUs. B450 might stick around for some time as the entry level solution.

[Lord Vile]

1 minute ago, HenrySalayne said:

I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe X570 will be the next chipset for 5000 series CPUs. And they might introduce a X590 with a four extra PCIe4 lanes to accomodate more fast storage. They launched B550 pretty late and I don't think there is any reason for a new chipset with the new generation of CPUs. B450 might stick around for some time as the entry level solution.

Maybe but they were shifty with supporting the B450 boards at all

[hollyh88]

52 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe X570 will be the next chipset for 5000 series CPUs. And they might introduce a X590 with a four extra PCIe4 lanes to accomodate more fast storage. They launched B550 pretty late and I don't think there is any reason for a new chipset with the new generation of CPUs. B450 might stick around for some time as the entry level solution.

No I agree it's pretty stupid to do this whole debacle when they just released b550 boards that support the new processors from the get go. 

[HenrySalayne]

54 minutes ago, hollyh88 said:

No I agree it's pretty stupid to do this whole debacle when they just released b550 boards that support the new processors from the get go. 

And the press release sounds just like the new standard BIOS for B450 will also support Ryzen 3000 from the get go.

 

6 hours ago, GreatnessRD said:

The latest Ryzen 3000-series processors will be right at home in our buffed-up B450 boards, and you can still install first- and second-generation Ryzen CPUs in these boards if need be.

 

[GreatnessRD]

The real question is how much is these going to cost? Since its supposed to be entry level, I have a hard time believing it will be more than $110 USD. If any higher than that, I don't see why anyone wouldn't go for a B550 board. But I guess its allure would be for those wanting to move up for A320 and still using Zen/Zen+ while getting updated features. 

[Bombastinator]

7 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

There you go. B550 probably cut into B450 mainboards and the "new and refreshed" variants are needed to fill the entry level spot in the line-up. They're likely cutting manufacturing costs and also the price.

I see b450 as sort of sitting between b550 and a520, with a520 being not really up to snuff.   Could be theyre seeing a situation where people think a520 is too crappy to buy but they’ll still buy a b450 so the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[Vishera]

Probably leftovers,getting rid of old stock.

9 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Could be theyre seeing a situation where people think a520 is too crappy to buy but they’ll still buy a b450 so the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

B550 boards are more expensive than B450,the B450 Tomahawk at $114 is capable of running even a 3950X with good airflow no problem.

Show me a B550 board that is capable of this at that price point.

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Probably leftovers,getting rid of old stock.

B550 boards are more expensive than B450,the B450 Tomahawk at $114 is capable of running even a 3950X with good airflow no problem.

Show me a B550 board that is capable of this at that price point.

Show me an a520 that can do it at all.

[Vishera]

3 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Show me an a520 that can do it at all.

A520 is DOA

 

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Vishera said:

A520 is DOA

 

I could see a520 being simply killed off by the popularity of ryzen.  If you could get a $45 mobo that would take a $80 cpu and $50 worth of memory it starts to make sense.  The problem is most of ryzen CPUs are so popular they’re selling at stupid markup.  The 3300x was designed to sell for $120.  I see demands of $200.   Who’s going to put a $200 chip in a $45 motherboard?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

The 3300x was designed to sell for $120.  I see demands of $200.

you see 3300x cpus? they're out of stock everywhere in the US.

[krakkpott]

In certain regions, you see Asus B450 selling at B550 prices.

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

you see 3300x cpus? they're out of stock everywhere in the US.

I only see ads for em.  Really expensive ads. Apparently they exist just not in the US. 

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I only see ads for em.  Really expensive ads. Apparently they exist just not in the US. 

The 3300X is $140 in my country

[williamcll]

Well, B450 is probably still better than an A520.

[Bombastinator]

42 minutes ago, Vishera said:

The 3300X is $140 in my country

A mere 18% over list (assuming my math is right which I’m not sure of)

[hollyh88]

7 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

A mere 18% over list (assuming my math is right which I’m not sure of)

same here roughly 141 euros. 

[StDragon]

18 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe X570 will be the next chipset for 5000 series CPUs. And they might introduce a X590 with a four extra PCIe4 lanes to accomodate more fast storage. They launched B550 pretty late and I don't think there is any reason for a new chipset with the new generation of CPUs. B450 might stick around for some time as the entry level solution.

I doubt it. The X570 already requires active cooling, and the X590 will not be mainstream unlike the B550 for Ryzen 5000 series. I think this is the end of the line for AM4.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, StDragon said:

I doubt it. The X570 already requires active cooling, and the X590 will not be mainstream unlike the B550 for Ryzen 5000 series. I think this is the end of the line for AM4.

So AMD has repetitively said. They’ve already held am4 much longer than intel normally holds a board.  There is supposition that the next boards will be ddr5 anyway which blows am4 out of the range of bare possibility anyway

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

So AMD has repetitively said. They’ve already held am4 much longer than intel normally holds a board.  There is supposition that the next boards will be ddr5 anyway which blows am4 out of the range of bare possibility anyway

Exactly. DDR5 will be that push to AM5. I'm not sure they can squeeze more blood out of AM4 other than another chipset with reduced power requirements. But from a feature standpoint, AM4 is done.

 

The question is if AM5 will support PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 upon initial launch. Most likely 4.0 if I was a betting man.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Exactly. DDR5 will be that push to AM5. I'm not sure they can squeeze more blood out of AM4 other than another chipset with reduced power requirements. But from a feature standpoint, AM4 is done.

 

The question is if AM5 will support PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 upon initial launch. Most likely 4.0 if I was a betting man.

My suspicion is both or ddr5 only.  Some motherboards would be ddr5, some would be ddr4.  If it’s just ddr4 there’s not enough reason to do an am5.  Zen4 with ddr4, if there even is a zen4 and not something else, (whether it is called zen4 or not) would have to have really good stuff under the hood to make it worth it, and while AMD is reaping benefits from intel’s inability to make a useful die change for what is over 10 years now, that will likely eventually end. AMD said they would support am4 through zen3.  They did not say they would do more than that, and they’re already having problems with am4 maintainance