AMD's Budget B650, B650E Motherboards Top Out at $450

MSI's MAG series motherboards
(Image credit: MSI)

A flood of new AM5 B650 motherboard listings has appeared on Newegg, from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, and ASRock, including board prices. But these boards are anything but cheap. The cheapest motherboard in AMD's B650 lineup starts at $169.99, with no boards coming close to AMD's official starting MSRP of $125. At their peak, B650E flagship boards sell at a whopping $450+.

These incredible price hikes represent a considerable change in purpose for AMD's entire chipset lineup. All of AMD's chipset models compete with each other now, with prices overlapping between B650, B650E, X670, and even X670E chipset boards. As a result, shoppers now need to pivot and start looking at motherboard model names first to find a good value. As a result, looking at the chipset name exclusively is almost pointless.

It means all motherboard models ranging from B series to X series boards will probably have nearly identical feature sets, despite the chipset name differences. The main difference between the chipset names now comes from connectivity, and that is it.

Starting at the low end, ASRock's B650M PG Riptide is the cheapest B650 motherboard, starting at $169.99. Stepping up to the mid-range boards, all these boards sit in the $199-$300 price bracket. They include models such as the Asus Prime series, Asus TUF series, Gigabyte Aorus Elite boards, ASRock Riptide (ATX versions), and MSI Mortar, Tomahawk, and Edge variants. All range from ATX, microATX, and mini-ITX models. To be precise, these board versions include both B650 and B650E chipsets.

These mid-range boards will probably be your best all-rounders, for best-bang-for-buck on the AM5 platform; these boards all come with good USB connectivity, Wi-Fi 6E support, several M.2 slots available to the user, and in general, have good quality power delivery systems, adequate for general overclocking use.

Once you go beyond $300, you get into the ridiculous category of B650/E motherboards. The amount of USB connectivity you get becomes very extreme, and borderline overkill for anything but the highest-end power user. The same goes for everything else, including, audio, M.2 storage, and more.

The only exception is for overclockers, where you get some of the best power delivery systems AMD's AIB partners can offer. A good example is ASRock's B650E Taichi which provides the same 24+2+1 power delivery system as the X670E variant. So overlockers can opt for AMD's flagship B650E offerings and probably get the same overclocking experience as on flagship $1,000 X670E versions unless you're chasing world records.

X670 prices start to overlap at $250, which is where X670 prices start and end at $450, where the B650E flagship boards top out. In this $250 to $450 price bracket, shoppers will need to judge whether or not they want extra PCIe connectivity over additional features B650 might offer. For the most part, X670/E equivalent boards with the same branding name, feature a $50-$80 price hike over their B650/E equivalents.

But, beyond or below this price bracket, is where the chipset names will make an actual difference. Below $250, you'll only find B series motherboards, and above $450, you'll only find top-tier X670/X670E motherboards. With some going as high as $1,000.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • drajitsh
    When can we expect B650/E motherboard round.
    I would be interested in B650 motherboards below 250$ and B650E motherboards below 300$
    Reply
  • peachpuff
    I paid $200 for a x570 asus board, no way I'll pay more than that for a midrange b650 board.
    Reply
  • Gpz1100
    Early adopter tax. Wait a year, prices will become more competitive. I paid $280 for a strix x570e board back in 2019. Today that same board is ~$350 (USD), $330 if bought with a processor at microcenter. Still on the high side, but considering inflation/recession, marginally acceptable. $500 for a board. No way!

    I think we might see some sales in the next 2 months, but I don't expect anything significant. Expect my x570/5900x build to last at least another 3 years. Then will decide which platform (amd/intel) to go with.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    $250 got me a mid range Zen 3 full featured MB.


    if a "budget" zen 4 MB can cost up to 450.....the platform will not thrive.
    Reply
  • btmedic04
    motherboard manufacturers are trying to scalp the consumers hard on this platform. they saw the money printing press during the pandemic and dont want to stop printing record profits. The only way prices come down is if we as consumers vote with our wallets
    Reply
  • BogdanH
    btmedic04 said:
    ...they saw the money printing press during the pandemic and dont want to stop printing record profits. ..
    -fully agree on that.

    No matter what "experts" may say, there's no reason for such high prices. 5 years ago, the "latest tech" (good!) midrange mo-bo was about $250, now they want $400. Because it has much better specs? Well, 5 years ago, mo-bo's at that time also had "much better" specs.
    Speaking for me, I have time waiting to upgrade... we'll see how long sellers can.

    Just my 2c,
    Bogdan
    Reply
  • daworstplaya
    At those prices they can keep those motherboards and CPUs. Vote with your wallet folks, let the manufacturers know that $100 range motherboards is what we the consumers need.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    I paid $390 for my high end X570S Aorus Master motherboard, and I'm not paying even more for that for a BUDGET B series board.
    Reply
  • DavidLejdar
    Sure wouldn't mind a bit cheaper version, particularly as I don't need WiFi 6E support, and I don't even necessarily need SATA anymore. Around 200 is what I was counting with for a motherboard in my new rig though (with my old rig being mostly almost a decade old). So it seems I may find something in that range.

    And if it is true that Intel's motherboards for Raptor Lake will have support for PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots on the high-end motherboards only, going AMD seems to be a lot cheaper at least so far as the motherboard is concerned.

    (And the several Alder Lake motherboards with PCIe 5.0 for M.2, they apparently take 8 lanes away from the GPU, so not really an option for me, and not exactly cheap.)
    Reply
  • $169 is in US without tax. The cheapest B650 I found was ASUS PRIME B650M-A and it's $227. That's including VAT. I'm talking about EU, Poland.
    There's no way I'm paying that much for PC components. The pandemic 2 years make the corporate people high on revenue. Tough luck for them. The economics for average person are worse than two years ago. Let's see them sell those... :)
    Reply