I never understood the whole deal with ASUS charging such a higher premium. Over-rated if you ask me.

Mb price have risen in the last five years like crazy . Before that you could find a decent mb at 140 ... Now over 240 - 300 . Guess we have to comply with them for this more and more expensive hobby of ours

jbscotchman:

I never understood the whole deal with ASUS charging such a higher premium. Over-rated if you ask me.

I think it depends on the country. I got Strix B450-F for about the same price as the MSI B450 Tomahawk wich has piss-poor features compared to Strix

If something's expensive, you don't buy it. It's the only thing we consumers can do.

Notice that it is AUD not USD..

jbscotchman:

I never understood the whole deal with ASUS charging such a higher premium. Over-rated if you ask me.

I bought the Asus TUF B450M Pro because it was the only that looked solid and had the features I wanted. If I had gone with ATX, I'd probably avoid Asus. Their low-mid tier boards are priced reasonably, difference in quality is huge compared to the small price you pay compared to low-mid boards from other vendors. That said, their high end stuff is expensive af.

jbscotchman:

I never understood the whole deal with ASUS charging such a higher premium. Over-rated if you ask me.

They ARE over-rated but THAT verdict really depends on what you use your PC for. If your pushing the limits of your system, or run 24/7 AVX work-loads on it, you might want to pony up for that ASUS fancy motherboard, going as high-end as you can afford. If you're just creating content/gaming, leaving BIOS at defaults short of memory XMP settings, and not overclocking, any decent-brand motherboard will do fine provided it has the features you require of it. I just create content, and I set myself a decent budget (around 1500 for the complete system), so going for a 3700x / Asrock Phantom Gaming 4 x570 / 32gb set-up to enable me to get the 2070 Super, too was a no-brainer. I could have gotten a mid-tier ASUS model z370/z390 and a 9900kf / 9700kf and big cooler to attempt to cool that chip, and a 2060 / 2060 Super, too - for around the same price. I would have needed a fancier motherboard on the intel as the power requirements (and hence VRM cooling requirements, too) were notably higher. With a Ryzen left at stock you don't need a fancy motherboard, as all the x570 boards are validated with a 3950x. So unless you're overclocking a Ryzen (why?) or an intel chip (must you?), you can get by with some fairly run-of-the-mill stuff just fine for many years until it's out of date. Why so against fancy expensive motherboards? My last PC before this one was a 4790k, 16gb (later updated to 32gb) of 2400mhz cl-11 memory, Asus Maximus Z97 Hero motherboard, and a 100$ Phanteks designer air-cooler (almost as good as a Noctua of it's class, but not quite). I had to delid that chip and put liquid metal on/under the IHS just to get it to run at a decent temperature at stock settings, the chip was an absolute pig and refused to overclock more than 100mhz... I could have just gotten by with a basic motherboard and half-decent not-near-as-fancy air cooler. I REALLY felt shafted by spending the extra money on 'fast gamer stuff' and 'intel K-series' chips. Never again. NONE of the fancy lighting tricks / bling bling made it go faster, either. So, long story short, when I built this one, unless it made the computer go faster, or more useful, it did NOT make the cut. So yeah, if you're just gaming with a Ryzen or an Intel and mostly leaving it all stock settings, regardless of your cooling solution, just get whatever brand has the features you want, as it doesn't really matter. If you're overclocking trying to set world records, or trying to heat the whole house in the dead of winter with just a single PC tower, then maybe get something fancy. Buying a binned CPU off silicon lottery? Maybe get something fancy then yes I would agree. So, yay for B550 because we need a new email computer in the den to replace the dusty-but-not-dead-yet Athlon II system out there (I think it's a Regor core, it's OLD, like 11 years OLD). For what it's worth, that computer has had the same cheap Asrock motherboard with non-solid capacitors in it for 11 years. So yes, if you take care of it, and you aren't pushing to break records and over-working the thing outside of it's design specifications 24/7, you don't NEED to spend a ton, it's not like it used to be when SiS/VIA chipset boards were a thing. Motherboards have come a long way, heck even BIOSTAR makes a decent motherboard for the gaming crowd now - it's not perfect - but it's WAY better than their low end stuff even 10 years ago was. Cheapie motherboard or not, I still did pony up the extra 20$ for a Seasonic power supply (over whatever store brand or Corsair brand models there were), that I can see to spending a little extra on, but it wouldn't be worth spending double (VS Corsair brand price) on. Fancy brands having 3 or 5 years of warranty VS cheap brands having 1 year of warranty is also something worthy of spending a little extra on for piece of mind, especially if you're not rich. --Cheers!

bobblunderton:

Why so against fancy expensive motherboards?

It's not that at all. I guess my dislike for Asus stems from my past customer services experiences that really left a bad impression on me. Enough so they I just decided to steer clear from them in general.

So 175 Ish Euros. Better than 400 and having a silly 40 MM Fan.

I forget, does the B550 support PCIe 4.0? Because if it doesn't then the pricing isn't much of a surprise. I'm never buying another Asus motherboard or system with an Asus motherboard in it (including laptops or OEM PCs). You're either getting something good but very overpriced, or something distinctly worse than the competition. There is no middle ground. Not that many people here care, but they're also one of the most Linux-unfriendly manufacturers. Only with Asus (on several occasions) have I had some major Linux struggles. I will, however, buy any other product Asus makes. I've been very satisfied with other things they make.

IchimA:

Mb price have risen in the last five years like crazy . Before that you could find a decent mb at 140 ... Now over 240 - 300 . Guess we have to comply with them for this more and more expensive hobby of ours

Well, CPU sales for both Intel and AMD have gone up, so rising demand will mean rising prices. Besides, chipsets are becoming more complex and more demanding, which requires more expensive parts.

jbscotchman:

I never understood the whole deal with ASUS charging such a higher premium. Over-rated if you ask me.

While their boards could be cheaper, they're also very solid. I never had an Asus board fail on me in the last 10 years. Meanwhile I lost 2 MSIs Z77 and a Gigabyte Z97 after a couple years of use each. My grandpa is using a Phenom II x4 945 with an Asus board for the last... 13 years I think, and also running strong.

schmidtbag:

I forget, does the B550 support PCIe 4.0? Because if it doesn't then the pricing isn't much of a surprise. I'm never buying another Asus motherboard or system with an Asus motherboard in it (including laptops or OEM PCs). You're either getting something good but very overpriced, or something distinctly worse than the competition. There is no middle ground. Not that many people here care, but they're also one of the most Linux-unfriendly manufacturers. Only with Asus (on several occasions) have I had some major Linux struggles. I will, however, buy any other product Asus makes. I've been very satisfied with other things they make.

I believe B550 does support PCIe 4....at least for the M.2 slot and first PCIe slot. I could very well be wrong about the PCIe slot though. I've had 2 Asus laptops..... Definitely won't buy a third.... At the same price point, you can get considerably better quality from other companies....and sometimes, even better features..... If all goes to plan, my last Asus motherboard will be thrown out later this week and replaced by an ASRock B450 board.... It wouldn't let me into UEFI without pulling the CMOS battery (kept asking for a password that was never created in the first place), and now it won't boot Windows without BSoD after a non-reversible firmware update....

schmidtbag:

I forget, does the B550 support PCIe 4.0? Because if it doesn't then the pricing isn't much of a surprise..

B550 motherboards will support PCIe 4.0 for first PCIe x16 slot (GPU) and for first M.2 slot (SSD). Support will go directly from CPU because B550 chipset will still be PCIe 3.0 only CPU-Chipset connection will still be PCIe 3.0 x4 so all devices connected to chipset will work at 3.0 speed. This will also mean that Chipset cooling will be passive becouse no extra heat from 4.0 workload

stating that asus is overpriced is ridiculous. everybody elses top-tier feature-packed mobos cost about the same as stated before I bought strix B450-F for about the same price as msi's tomahawk. strix ridiculises tomahawk in terms of features.

apoklyps3:

stating that asus is overpriced is ridiculous. everybody elses top-tier feature-packed mobos cost about the same as stated before I bought strix B450-F for about the same price as msi's tomahawk. strix ridiculises tomahawk in terms of features.

Asus have always charged more for the same X or Y at any given price category except the very top luxury level. To say it's ridiculous is ridiculous when anyone with memory can tell you it's a fact. 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, go back as far as you want, there's always been a "Fuck you, you, we're Asus, pay us!" tax. Just because two things priced similarly seem to be similar doesn't mean they are. Look deeper and you're always getting less for your money when it comes to Asus versus, say, their sister company ASRock. Exceptions to that which I remember are few and far between. I bought an X570 board from them thinking it was my best choice (almost no choices) in terms of what I wanted when it came to price/features/performance... but that's because X570 prices are absolutely 100% retarded BS to begin with.

Now to make the decision, get a 3800x or wait for Ryzen 4000, i don't "have" to upgrade. It's just the voice in my head saying: "Your CPU is 7 years old, time to replace.".

Neo Cyrus:

Asus have always charged more for the same X or Y at any given price category except the very top luxury level. To say it's ridiculous is ridiculous when anyone with memory can tell you it's a fact. 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, go back as far as you want, there's always been a "frack you, you, we're Asus, pay us!" tax. Just because two things priced similarly seem to be similar doesn't mean they are. Look deeper and you're always getting less for your money when it comes to Asus versus, say, their sister company ASRock. Exceptions to that which I remember are few and far between. I bought an X570 board from them thinking it was my best choice (almost no choices) in terms of what I wanted when it came to price/features/performance... but that's because X570 prices are absolutely 100% retarded BS to begin with.

this is the second asus board in a row I get for my system. I'm not a fan boy, my first PC was a prebuilt with AMD Duron processor that had a SOYO mobo. I since owned PCs with gigabyte, msi and asrock boards. I'm a bang for the buck guy. Every time I chose the board that offered the best features for the money. It might be a thing related to the prices of Asus boards in your country, but don't make it sound as an absolute truth. I just accessed the most famous e-store in my country and selected asus,asrock,msi and gigabyte, AM4 platform and sorted by decreasing prices. Asus was third in the list. I stand by what I said, RIDICULOUS !

Its just the b450 with the pcie4 support. Idk why it was so late.

Undying:

Its just the b450 with the pcie4 support. Idk why it was so late.

Chip contracts for the older chipsets needed to be fulfilled + not too much of a pricing gap between low end x570 boards and slightly-better-made mid-grade b450 / x470 boards. So many 4xx boards in circulation and still 3xx series boards, there really wasn't 'room' for it on the shelves, so to speak.

jbscotchman:

It's not that at all. I guess my dislike for Asus stems from my past customer services experiences that really left a bad impression on me. Enough so they I just decided to steer clear from them in general.

I haven't personally had a bad issue with ASUS RMA department, but I've only had to use them once. However, and a BIG however at that, is that I have heard A LOT of horror stories from folks who have (or have claimed to) use ASUS RMA department. So I won't argue here a bit. I will mention though, conversely; Seasonic RMA department is about as golden as you can get. Maybe motherboard RMA folks can take a lesson or two from Seasonic. I am only putting that in here even though it's a motherboard-related article, hence off-topic a bit, due to the fact that Seasonic service department is just THAT good. It really was hassle free. So DO support the good guys if possible. Vote with one's dollar - the best type of vote there is out there.