Who are madmen buying $700 motherboards?

I clearly remember paying $ 600 plus dollars 10 years ago for an EVGA SR-2 which I still have. Still worth that much today just about. I mostly build 2 processor servers and they are not inexpensive (WCG). Now for main stream I have a hard time paying more than $ 350 for a motherboard. I still find that expensive. Thing is some of the more expensive board do come with better features. That does cost some money in the end.
 
$700 is crazy money for a mainstream platform like AM4 or 1152.
I would not spend more than half that, and i'd expect something pretty special for $350 (~£275)!
Right now i'm looking at the Aorus Master as the minimum feature set i'd like to see in a next gen board, and as good as it is the £260 pricetag is making is a pretty unlikely prospect.

Re: the hunt for faster integrated ethernet - we have three emerging standards: 2.5Gb / 5Gb / 10Gb.
Is there any indication on which of them is going to emerge as the defacto consumer standard that replaces 1Gb?
i.e. the one that ends up in four port domestic fibre routers, and not consigned to expensive niche business use-cases.
 
My experience on the professional networking side of 10Gbs RJ45 was not great. The cabling standards and the standard to which SFP+ manufacturers are working toward are not the same. CAT6A cabling should be able to do 10Gbs to 100 meters; the SFP+ manufacturers are only spec'ing 10Gbs to 30 meters. They are also emulating fiber optic SFP+ (in the case of FS) so don't have a standard way of negotiating down to the same speed on both sides of the connection. If I need greater than 1Gbs, I'm getting a LAN card with an SFP+ slot and using fiber SFP+ modules; these work at 10Gbs and utilize less power in doing so. They also have slightly less latency.



$700 is crazy money for a mainstream platform like AM4 or 1152.
Is there any indication on which of them is going to emerge as the defacto consumer standard that replaces 1Gb?
i.e. the one that ends up in four port domestic fibre routers, and not consigned to expensive niche business use-cases.
 
Why? What is the reason to purchase a motherboard at twice the cost of the CPU?
Did the world go insane in the last 5 years?

Motherboards have hit pirces like this years ago. GIGABYTE's X58-UD9 was $700 and that was YEARS ago. Intel's D5400XS was around $600 initially. HEDT motherboards and even some mainstream boards have hit prices of close to $600. Most X570 motherboards aren't that expensive either.

Possible insanity. Honestly, depends upon how nuts people are about Zen 2. I would love to pick one up but funds are tight and I might get fired soon... lol. Paying over 299 bucks for a fully loaded Mobo is insane. Typically, I consider paying 200 bucks insane given my typical use scenario (1 M.2 SSD, 1 SSD Swap (SATA), 16-32 GB of RAM and a ballsy Video card (I can use damn near any Mobo with those requirements).

See above. $299 hasn't bought an ultra-high end motherboard in years.
 
Who are madmen buying $700 motherboards?

Those, whose "Easy-Go" is "Easy-Come", that 's who ! Those for whom, "More Money than Sense", is "The-AOK to Run-Amok".

As such, should "they" be "successful", watch-out for the $1k Mobo !!

When "Beggary-Thievery" is "rewarded", said "Beggary-Thevery ain't gonna be stopping anytime soon". Hands-up those who feel that InSane/InAppropriate comments like these "Ought to-be immediately Moderated" ! Well, what RU waitin'-for, then, "Forums" according to some avenues of "Yakity-Yak" being "A Place for Disseminating Truths"[of ALL sorts]. But NOT when "The-Forum" is a "Technical"/PC-Oriented One !!

Be Aware that when Energy is Free[d], what will be The-Problem? "GridLock". You know, when Freedom Results-in Chaos. The-Moment when Freedom liberates The Fear-Greed-Within.

Hands-up those who Feel-Strongly that, "Freedom Ought To-Be Dignified", another name for "Nazism" is Number-One-ing Running-Amok, aka "Control-Freaking Running-Amok". Isn't it a surprise to "learn"/uncover/"discover" then that "The-Other-Face-of" Control is Abandonment. You know, when "Comforting" merely liberates Complete-Lethargy. The-Moment when "Life" is gifted-to "Roboticas" like "Wide-Eyed Thangies". By "The-Living-but-Dead, no less. That is when Compassion is awarded/gifted to "The-Devilish" by those UnAble-To Absolutely Separate Fact/"Benevloence" from Fiction/"Malevolence". No wonder the other name for "The-Devil" [who exists] is The-Joker.
 
Ok, peeling my cramped GPU out of the way to get at the CMOS jumper on my pos cheapie board.

$700 may be outside the range most people need to go, but spending a little extra for debug led/readout, bios retry, and clear CMOS button really are luxuries worth having.

Having a bare ones nothing to indicate issues isn't worth it unless you want to year your box apart checking off troubleshooting boxes wasting time.

It's like when you decide you are at a point in life that you deserve higher quality socks, underwear, and toilet paper.

Arguably, most of those features, if all not, can be found on cheaper than $700 boards.

Some people are just stupidly wealthy. I've met a few who work high up in the financial services industry. 1000$ to them is like 10$ to regular folk.

Yes, know plenty that burn cash because they can.

Then, there are others that waste tons of cash, and live in debt, like idiots, because they didn't have the money in the first place.

Everything I've read that compares X570 to X470 and B450 mobos says they give you about 1-2% increase in performance for about a 100% increase in price!!! You better believe I'll be putting my (used in 3 years) R9 3900 on my X470 Taichi!!!!!

Makes sense brother.
 
I pay 210 or so for a microatx 2 nvme, x570, 8 sata, 1x 16x, 1x m2 wifi key, 1x 4x slot and a open 1x slot I believe.
+ more usb bandwidth.

That is a bit steep but "Ok"

Add 10gbit, 100 $.
Add 1-2 nvme more 50$ more.
Add premium sound 10-20$ more.
beefier vrm - 10$

400$ is the most I can think anyone would want to spend for a nichè in nichè market

which motherboard?
 
If by
top end, water cooling monster!
you mean

everyone else said:
motherboard designed by idiots who put a water block on very cool-running VRMs, and then decided to keep the 40mm fan on the chipset, thereby providing zero water cooling benefit while retaining fan noise

Then I completely agree with you.

On topic, C7H is ~$250 new, open box C7H wifi is ~$235 at the egg. I'll take the $400 and lose the fan, thanks.
 
If by

you mean



Then I completely agree with you.

On topic, C7H is ~$250 new, open box C7H wifi is ~$235 at the egg. I'll take the $400 and lose the fan, thanks.

Well, to each their own but, I think your opinion is wrong. (Although yes, the vrm's will run cool because of the water cooling, if you use it.)
 
Well, to each their own but, I think your opinion is wrong. (Although yes, the vrm's will run cool because of the water cooling, if you use it.)

Well I guess I better cite some sources then. While I'm at it, let me address that first thing you said:

I would imagine the underlying hardware is also improved as well as the bios firmware.
Would you imagine that the VRM differs between the two boards? This table at Anandtech indicates that the Hero and the Formula share the same VRM.

Here are Guru3d's thermal images of that VRM in their Hero review, so that is under air cooling.
Halway down this page, Bit-Tech notes 47C as the maximum observed temperature (chokes) during their testing of the Formula. VRM was air cooled. On the bright side, they say that the chipset fan noise remained below ambient.

I can't find any other decent reviews that address the VRM in particular, and it's a waste of time for me anyway, but I will also note that Gamer's Nexus took issue with the Formula's design choices in their X570 motherboard video for being crap. I don't really know what we're arguing here, but my position is that the Formula's design is stupid for not including a heatpipe to the chipset to eliminate the chipset fan, that the water block as implemented is less than useless (because let's add heat and restriction to our loop so that we can cool something that doesn't need it), and that the OLED debug screen and water block do not warrant an extra ~$350 over the Hero. One more opinion that you're welcome to disagree with is that the Formula's BIOS isn't going to have magical 4.7+ ghz fairy dust.
 
Depends on the motherboard whether I'd consider it. No way would I pay $700 for an x570 board. Would probably get more than I'd need spending half that.
 
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I think I will wait for the budget chipset boards to be released. X550? or whatever they will be named.
 
I think I will wait for the budget chipset boards to be released. X550? or whatever they will be named.

it'll be the b550 using an asmedia chip.. hopefully they come out pretty quickly but it'll be interesting to see if it's using pcie 4.0 or has a split pcie 4.0/3.0 configuration.
 
I would certainly consider $700 to not have a chipset fan. The extra $400 works out to a bit under $7/month or less for the lifetime I build for. It's not happening this time around, though; I might drop in a new CPU but I don't see a new motherboard in my future until AM5 (or retirement, whichever happens first).

So, who buys $700 motherboards? maybe someone who is a) easily annoyed or distracted by fan noise, b) earns their living by being on the computer all day long, and c) is going to keep the machine for a few years.
 
Because the Formula is a top end, water cooling monster! I would imagine the underlying hardware is also improved as well as the bios firmware. Beyond my budget and I do not water cool but, others do.

The waterblock is silly nonsense. ASUS actually has good VRMs this time around (been a few years since you could say that about an entire ASUS lineup) and the VRMs on the Hero/Formula barely need the heatsink as is. Even the crappy engineering sample 3950X chips don't stress that VRM. I don't think ANY X570 boards would make any practical use of a waterblock on their VRMs.
 
The waterblock is silly nonsense. ASUS actually has good VRMs this time around (been a few years since you could say that about an entire ASUS lineup) and the VRMs on the Hero/Formula barely need the heatsink as is. Even the crappy engineering sample 3950X chips don't stress that VRM. I don't think ANY X570 boards would make any practical use of a waterblock on their VRMs.
If they can make them so effective, why is it that a crappy 10W PCI-E 4.0 connector is impossible to overcome without a fan?
 
If they can make them so effective, why is it that a crappy 10W PCI-E 4.0 connector is impossible to overcome without a fan?

As Kelijan said, 10w in a small space is a lot of heat to dissipate. They can't just slap a big heatsink on there because there is no room due to the proximity to the PCIE slots. That leaves a fan or going the route Gigabyte does on their $700 Auros Extreme and using a heatpipe to connect it to a fairly good VRM heatsink.
 
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