if someone wanted me to build them a Raphael E-ATX system this would be one of my recommendations for price/performance. as far as codecs go don't let mobo audio be a determinative factor. outboard DACs are always better and can be had for the cost differential (tho' i would still recommend one to someone buying a higher end board) i can't wait to see what they pull off in ITX as they impress the hell out of me @ that form factor.

I wonder what their definition of affordable will be? My AsRock X570 Phantom gaming 4 was only $150 by comparison.

my z1700 extreme 4 was $135 (probably $150 mrsp at time) try getting Extreme verison of current boasrd for that price currently the extreme board are like $260

Not seeing anything worth upgrading from X570s 3950x and 6950xt with DDR4 3600 14-15-15-35. If they can improve the latency on DDR5 then maybe....making it faster and increasing the latency does not impress me. I cant max out my current hardware and wont be able to for several years. Maybe a couple revisions down the road but gpus cant even utilize the PCIe 3 bandwidth and Idont use more than 30% cpu usage in any scenario other than benchmarks and those are only good to see the diminishing gains or losses from overclocking really.

Kool64:

I wonder what their definition of affordable will be? My AsRock X570 Phantom gaming 4 was only $150 by comparison.

Motherboard prices are going up. I would expect 25% increase from X570.