Motherboard Shipments Plummet by Ten Million Units in 2022: Report

News
By Mark Tyson
published

The combined hit for Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock reportedly around 10 million.

motherboards
(Image credit: MSI)

For the big four motherboard makers, 2022 will certainly be remembered as an annus horribilis. According to upstream supply chain sources talking to Taiwan’s DigiTimes, the year saw motherboard shipments by Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock drastically decline by around 10 million units. The observed “feeble demand” for motherboards spanned the whole year, said the report, and was impacted by the usual suspects; workers returning to the office, the crypto-slump, and the economic downturn.

We have seen some great new motherboard releases in 2022/3 and some impressive new processors, but PC enthusiasts and DIYers seem to be holding back for now. Specifically, Intel’s 700 series LGA1700 motherboards and AMD’s 600 series chipset AM5 motherboards haven’t done the numbers they might have been expected to do. In Intel’s case, this is more understandable as previous-gen motherboards (from Alder Lake systems) can be upgraded to the latest Raptor Lake parts. For AMD it is more concerning as it changed socket last year (after years on AM4), but people held back as it made the upgrade quite an expensive jump (processor, motherboard, and the necessary DDR5 memory).

In its report, DigiTimes shared some figures for the respective big four motherboard makers' 2022 shipments. Some of these Taiwanese brands saw their shipments drop very dramatically. 

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Brand

2021 Units (M)

2022 Units (M)

Percent change

Asus

18+

13.6

-25%

Gigabyte

11

~9.5

-14%

MSI

9.5

5.5

-42%

ASRock

~6

2.7

-55%

It looks like the biggest two brands have been the least affected by the situation in 2022, but have by no means remained unscathed. Probably the biggest upset is the slide by MSI, which has been gaining a good reputation in recent years but still suffered almost as badly as ASRock.

Lastly, with regard to the above comparison, 2021 still benefitted from some of the positive effects that the pandemic and WFH visited on the tech industry. However, all the 2022 figures were still worse than in 2018 (though we lack MSI motherboard shipment data for 2018). Looking forward to the coming year, most of the brands are expecting to hold, or improve upon, 2022 shipment figures.

motherboards

(Image credit: ASRock)

Earlier in the week, we reported on some of the grimmest findings about the state of the PC industry we have seen. Mercury Research published a report which stated the PC x86 CPU market has just endured “the largest on-quarter and on-year declines in our 30-year history.” The declines may even be the worst in the history of the PC, but Mercury’s pedigree doesn’t extend that far back in history.

Despite all the gloom, there are still plenty of businesses and commentators looking for a turnaround sometime in mid-2023. We always hope that a new wave of PC sales and upgrades can be inspired by some thrilling new components, and some cut-throat competition would be appreciated too.

Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
Freelance News Writer

Mark Tyson is a Freelance News Writer at Tom's Hardware US. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

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75 Comments Comment from the forums
  • COLGeek
    Given the costs to build a system, with all the price gouging and supply chain issues, does this really come as a surprise? Especially in light of global inflation and the increased cost of living?
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    I still say it's more the fact that Zen 3 and Intel 10th gen and newer aren't slow enough to justify replacing your core system. Even if current generation parts cost the same as the previous generation, AMD especially, that's still a lot of money to pour in for a small gain, which for most cases is no noticeable gain.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    COLGeek said:
    Given the costs to build a system, with all the price gouging and supply chain issues, does this really come as a surprise? Especially in light of global inflation and the increased cost of living?
    The biggest factor is the 60+ million sales bubble from COVID. That is ~60 million out-of-cycle upgrades that won't be happening again within the next 3-10 years.

    Of course, wall-to-wall $50-200 price increases on motherboards, CPUs and GPUs as average people's disposable income falls through the floor cracks don't help.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Articles like this really feel like salt in the wound to someone who's been waiting most of 2022 for two specific motherboards to come (back) into stock. Granted, they're fairly specialty boards, but still seems pretty ridiculous.
    Supermicro X13SAEASRock Rack X570D4U-2L2TThe Supermicro finally achieved good availability sometime in Q4 2022, but then I was stuck waiting for ECC DDR5 UDIMMs, which I couldn't find until January. So, I'm finally unblocked on that upgrade and plan to commence imminently. Now, I'm just waiting to see if the announced Alder Lake price cuts affect the retail boxed CPU I want, but I'll probably pull the trigger within the next month. That was actually the lower-priority upgrade, which is why I still haven't done it.

    Meanwhile, the ASRock Rack board hasn't come back into stock pretty much at all, in more than a year! My hopes were briefly boosted when they announced a version with a Broadcom MAC, the X570D4U-2L2T/BCM, but even that version cannot be found.

    Since the base X570D4U is easier to find, I really wonder if it's just something weird going on with the 10 gigabit MAC market. Looking at 10 gigabit NIC prices seems to confirm that pricing is still elevated for whatever reason. Any thoughts about why? Could these be largely manufactured in fabs now being hit with sanctions?

    BTW, the X13SAE's fastest network port is only 2.5 Gbps, so I don't mean to include it in the discussion of 10 gigabit parts. However, its availability indeed seemed to lag that of some other W680 chipset boards, for whatever reason.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    I still say it's more the fact that Zen 3 and Intel 10th gen and newer aren't slow enough to justify replacing your core system. Even if current generation parts cost the same as the previous generation, AMD especially, that's still a lot of money to pour in for a small gain, which for most cases is no noticeable gain.
    I already corrected you on this at least once before. The 7950X gets a multi-application average benefit of 45% better multithreaded performance than its predecessor, while the 7600X is about 35% faster than its predecessor. These are pretty astonishing single-generation improvements, for CPUs with the same core/thread count.

    Now, if you're talking about FPS, then sure. But, anyone using a slower GPU and/or higher resolution tends not to be very CPU-limited, anyhow. So, I think this really isn't about lack of improvements by AMD or Intel. Rather, it's more about single-generation upgrades generally not making much sense for most people.
    Reply
  • RichardtST
    Sure, everyone buying a new system in 2020/2021 had a lot to do with the current slump. But so does the fact that the latest technology costs twice as much for virtually no performance increase at all. Look at DDR5. It's crap. Look at pcie5 NVME drives. More crap. And the motherboards... OMG. Huge pile of crap for ungodly prices. And don't even get me started on GPUS. Beyond crap for absolutely stupid prices.

    Nah, the biggest factor in the current slump is that the big manufacturers simply got too full of themselves and jacked up the prices so high that we all balked. What you're seeing right now is a great big "NOPE" from the people. Get your products down into the realm of the reasonably sane or take the hit.

    Good news though, is that pcie4, AM4, and DDR4 are all dirt cheap. This part makes me happy. Ain't nothing wrong at all with gen4. I've been busy upgrading every computer I can find at home and the office.

    And no. I absolutely refuse to spend $1000 on a graphics card. I'll go buy a console and slap it on my bigscreen before that ever happens. $350 for your dang graphics card. Take it or leave it.
    Reply
  • lmcnabney
    While some other component pricing is up a bit (I'm looking at YOU AMD for requiring DDR5 and PCIe5 function and complexity for RAM and boards) a builder can still build a rock-solid PC at reasonable prices with a single exception.

    The GPU.
    Nvidia (and to a lesser extent AMD) are strangling the goose that lays the golden eggs by willingly sacrificing volume for margin. This can work in the short term, but the long term impact is the return to consoles. Even PC fanbois will eventually realize that they are getting screwed when it will cost around two grand to exceed the capabilities of a $500 console.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    RichardtST said:
    the latest technology costs twice as much for virtually no performance increase at all. Look at DDR5. It's crap.
    No, not if you're doing heavily-multithreaded work.
    Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core-i912900k-review-hybrid-performance-brings-hybrid-complexity/8
    So, that works out to 31.3% faster SPEC2017int and 37.4% faster SPEC2017fp. In Raptor Lake, the differences are surely even further amplified, but they didn't repeat the same test.

    People use these CPUs for more than gaming, you know? But, for the casual gamers, DDR5 is quite likely a boon for iGPU performance. You'd need a big iGPU which makes it harder to test, since those only shipped in the BGA laptop-oriented processors. Did any Alder lake 96 EU mobile parts ship in laptops with (LP)DDR4?

    RichardtST said:
    And don't even get me started on GPUS.
    Don't worry, I won't.

    RichardtST said:
    Nah, the biggest factor in the current slump is that the big manufacturers simply got too full of themselves and jacked up the prices so high that we all balked. What you're seeing right now is a great big "NOPE" from the people. Get your products down into the realm of the reasonably sane or take the hit.
    Sounds like wishful thinking, IMO. Sure, prices have had some effect on suppressing purchasing, but I wouldn't say that's the biggest.

    I think the biggest factors are that most upgrades happened back in 2020-2021 and the economic downturn/uncertainty. The latter had two effects: to put off anyone still in the market for an upgrade and to turn off the taps on corporate spending.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    lmcnabney said:
    The GPU.
    Nvidia (and to a lesser extent AMD) are strangling the goose that lays the golden eggs by willingly sacrificing volume for margin. This can work in the short term, but the long term impact is the return to consoles. Even PC fanbois will eventually realize that they are getting screwed when it will cost around two grand to exceed the capabilities of a $500 console.
    GPU prices are trending below MSRP, unless you insist on buying the latest generation.

    Also, I'm not sure where you get this figure of $2k to surpass a $500 console. The iGPU in the latest XBox Series X is a little more powerful than PS5's, and it's approximately equal to a RX 6750 XT that's selling for $410 new. On the CPU front, you can easily surpass it with a $200 5700G. If you then spend another $390 on AM4 mobo, case, powersupply, and RAM, you can build a comparable machine for $1k.

    I shouldn't have to spell this out, but where PCs get exciting is that $540 will buy you a new RX 6800 XT that handily beats a XBox Series X, should you happen to already have a PC with a decent enough CPU.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    bit_user said:
    I already corrected you on this at least once before. The 7950X gets a multi-application average benefit of 45% better multithreaded performance than its predecessor, while the 7600X is about 35% faster than its predecessor. These are pretty astonishing single-generation improvements, for CPUs with the same core/thread count.
    I upgraded from an i5-3470 to an i5-11400. The new i5 is ~2.5X as fast yet in most day-to-day tasks, the difference feels practically nil and an additional 50% on top of practically nothing would be meaningless.

    I think the point he was making is that for most people, there is little to no benefit to upgrading, especially for people who are already on new-ish stuff. Normal people don't do all that much time-sensitive compute-intenstive stuff and for what little they may do, they don't mind either waiting a bit or doing something else in the meantime. Most of my friends and family don't even own or use PCs anymore, they do most of their stuff on their smartphone.
    Reply