Intel B760 Motherboards Reportedly Receiving 10% Price Increase Over B660

News
By Aaron Klotz
published

Intel creates competition in its own lineup

MSI MAG B660M Mortar WiFi DDR4
(Image credit: MSI)

According to a report by ITHome, Intel's upcoming B760 chipset motherboards will receive a price hike when they launch early next year. Prices will reportedly increase 10% over Intel's previous generation B660 platform. This will represent a 10% higher cost-to-entry for Intel's latest mainstream CPU platform, and potentially result in some competition within Intel's own walls between B760 and B660 - both of which support Intel's latest Raptor Lake CPUs.

Unfortunately, details on B760 remain minimal since the launch of Raptor Lake. But what we do know is that B760's feature set will remain largely the same as B660, with the only changes that we know of consisting of PCIe Gen 4 and PCIe Gen 3 reconfigurations. This will include a PCie Gen 3 degradation from eight to four lanes, but a PCIe Gen4 upgrade from 6 to 10 lanes.

As a result, B760's may be more of a sidegrade than an upgrade for most users. B760 will be able to operate more PCIe Gen 4 enabled devices, but it will be limited to the same amount of connectivity as B660 if there are no PCIe Gen 4 devices installed.

This may make B760's higher price harder to justify for potential buyers. B760's Gen 4 capabilities on the chipset will rarely ever be needed for system's Intel's B series platform targets, including cheap gaming machines, and cheap workstations. Machines such as these need little more than enough PCIe lanes for the graphics card, and enough USB ports for a keyboard, mouse and headset - and those PCIe lanes the GPU requires come from the CPU anyways.

On the bright side, the B760, will potentially have its Raptor Lake support baked in with BIOS's already prepped from the factory to support Intel's latest CPU lineup. But this will only work if most B660 motherboards don't already have Raptor Lake supported BIOS updates from the factory.

Another potential advantage for B760 will be any potential feature upgrades motherboard manufactures make to these boards themselves, over their own B660 counterparts. This could take the form of superior power delivery setups, better integrated audio gear or better rear I/O. In any case, it would be optimal for motherboard manufacturers to make their B760 boards stand out over their older B660 versions, so as not to cannibalize their own sales.

B760's price hike is not looking good no matter what potential advantages B760 can offer. With B660 being capable of housing Raptor Lake CPUs, B760 will be always be competing with B660 in some way or form.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

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

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9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 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.
    Reply
  • 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?
    Reply
  • 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."
    Reply
  • samopa
    DataMeister said:
    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.
    Reply
  • DavidLejdar
    DataMeister said:
    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.
    Reply
  • Lafong
    DataMeister said:
    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.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    DavidLejdar said:
    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.
    Reply
  • 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.
    Reply
  • 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.
    Reply