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The lack of B450 MB's on Amazon and other places?
- Thread starter DWD1961
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GoldenTiger
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They're getting set for b550 boards. There's also huge demand because of work from home and people with kits of free time.
It's everything... 3600's and 3600x, x570s, b550, they are all low stock. Not sure if it's just problems with distribution channels from the virus or what. I just picked up a b550, was going to paid with a 330x for my kid, but no stock.. 3600s where going for $200+, 3600x where pretty much back up to MSRP if you could find.... I ended up just ordering a damn 3700x for $273, wasn't worth screwing around waiting on stock and prices. Good luck finding what you want/need. I've seen a few b550s but lots out of stock too, but only zen2 and up only so you can't throw a 2600x in or anything like that.
thesmokingman
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Microcenter has stock on a couple x570 and B550. I was watching their stock today where they had 10 x570 Strix-F and 10 B550 Aourus Masters in the morning. PPL must be crazy because when I last checked a few hours ago there wrere 3 Strix-F's left to 7 B550 Masters. The kicker is they are both the same price, and some ppl actually bought the B550 board over the x570. Insanity... just checked again and all the Strix-F's are gone. The Strix-F isn't as good as the Strix-E but I sure as hell would get it over a B550, especially at the $280 price point.
Yeah, the closest one to me is 3 1/2 hours one way... It wasn't worth $75 to drive there.to buy the slower CPU at that point. I got a B550 with WiFi and 2.5gbe and a USB 3.1 gen 2 header.... Know how many x570s have gen 2 headers? Barely any of them. I resorted to making a spreadsheet and finding all the boards I could from x470 b550 and x570s. I'll save the next guy some time, MSI put it on almost every single B550 they sell. Other brands had it on only their top end stuff, and even that was very hit or miss.
Well, I was wondering if it were just me. I had to send my Gigabyte Aorus ITX back for repair here in CA, and I know they are NOT probably going to fix the problem. Oh, they'll send it back 'repaired' all right, and it won't work, just like two other boards I had to send back to Gigabyte. So I was looking for another board, and found zero ITX boards (Never again will I buy Giagbyte. They have lost a lifetime customer).
From here out it will be either MSI or ASUS. Incidentally, that 130 dollar ITX board has now cost me 156.00 because I had to ship it back on my cost, and it's less than 6 months old. No way. That's not the warranty I expect. The last time I had to do the same thing, and that cost me 45.00 in shipping for an ATX board (size really does matter when you ship), I got the board back and all they did was repackage it and round trip it--still didn't work. That's because the way they do things is something like my friend and I had explained to us back when I was living near Industry CA (around 2002) and got to go to the actual manufacturer shipping and repair sites in Industry. It was pretty eye opener, and interesting. We did this for a monitor and a motherboard.
In that experience, the tech met us in the warehouse and we started a dialogue with him-really cool dude. He told us they don't care what the customer says is wrong with the board becasue they customer doesn't have any idea. He showed us his bench setup and said they just bench the board, energize it for a heat and short test, and look for faults on a scope. They put it through general tests and if it passes all tolerances, back it goes. So, if the board actually has a defect (Something like the electrical engineering is problematic), it never gets tested for that specific problem, because on the bench it is "within tolerance."
In this specific instance, the board was incompatible with a piece of hardware it should have been ok with. My friend was a genius at troubleshooting things like that and put it on his own scope before taking to repair. What he found is that the board was indeed engineered incorrectly and all of the boards they made in thta revision were defective. Some statement, right? Well, the tech said he would test specifically for that and that we could tell his manager what my friend found. The manager was really cool too and was amazed at what he found, saying something like, "Wow, if you actually did find that, we really screwed up." Well, corporate got in touch with my friend, and admitted that they knew the problem was there and they were sorry and would replace the board with REV 2 where they fixed it.
Anyway, as far as the monitor goes, I took one back and went through the same thing with the tech. He put it on his scope and tested all the parameters, and said it was perfectly in tolerances, but the monitor was made specifically for 800x600 resolution, and that's why when I drove it to 1280 it got a little less sharp on the text. He put up three monitors just like the one I had and took on to 600x400, 800x600, and 1280 just to show us what he meant. Then he showed us his screen and scopes and explained each one and we could see clearly the monitor was indeed working perfectly.
The point is what we see has no bearing on what the techs do because they are operating at a electron level and we're operating at the observation level. They only reason they have you fill out the "problem" report is to screen if they are going to actually RMA it before they put it though their basic bench tests.
In my case, with the wifi losing 50% of it's download speed when using the 2.4Ghz band, when BT and WIFI are both active, that's, in my opinion, a board design, and they fucked up the implementation of the Intel combo WIFI/BT card. That's going to bench as "normal" wen it's a design flaw in the board. I can actually plug in a Wifi Dongle to the Boards' USB port, and I get NO decrease in WIFI speeds when the boards M2 Intel BT is active, and its WIFI is inactive. So I know it has to do with the M2/Board implementation.
The only other thing they may have to fix is that the RGB header caps actually melted. That's a physical thing so the will catch that benching it. I just can't believe they would take the time to actually re-solder the caps rather then just send a new board out.
From here out it will be either MSI or ASUS. Incidentally, that 130 dollar ITX board has now cost me 156.00 because I had to ship it back on my cost, and it's less than 6 months old. No way. That's not the warranty I expect. The last time I had to do the same thing, and that cost me 45.00 in shipping for an ATX board (size really does matter when you ship), I got the board back and all they did was repackage it and round trip it--still didn't work. That's because the way they do things is something like my friend and I had explained to us back when I was living near Industry CA (around 2002) and got to go to the actual manufacturer shipping and repair sites in Industry. It was pretty eye opener, and interesting. We did this for a monitor and a motherboard.
In that experience, the tech met us in the warehouse and we started a dialogue with him-really cool dude. He told us they don't care what the customer says is wrong with the board becasue they customer doesn't have any idea. He showed us his bench setup and said they just bench the board, energize it for a heat and short test, and look for faults on a scope. They put it through general tests and if it passes all tolerances, back it goes. So, if the board actually has a defect (Something like the electrical engineering is problematic), it never gets tested for that specific problem, because on the bench it is "within tolerance."
In this specific instance, the board was incompatible with a piece of hardware it should have been ok with. My friend was a genius at troubleshooting things like that and put it on his own scope before taking to repair. What he found is that the board was indeed engineered incorrectly and all of the boards they made in thta revision were defective. Some statement, right? Well, the tech said he would test specifically for that and that we could tell his manager what my friend found. The manager was really cool too and was amazed at what he found, saying something like, "Wow, if you actually did find that, we really screwed up." Well, corporate got in touch with my friend, and admitted that they knew the problem was there and they were sorry and would replace the board with REV 2 where they fixed it.
Anyway, as far as the monitor goes, I took one back and went through the same thing with the tech. He put it on his scope and tested all the parameters, and said it was perfectly in tolerances, but the monitor was made specifically for 800x600 resolution, and that's why when I drove it to 1280 it got a little less sharp on the text. He put up three monitors just like the one I had and took on to 600x400, 800x600, and 1280 just to show us what he meant. Then he showed us his screen and scopes and explained each one and we could see clearly the monitor was indeed working perfectly.
The point is what we see has no bearing on what the techs do because they are operating at a electron level and we're operating at the observation level. They only reason they have you fill out the "problem" report is to screen if they are going to actually RMA it before they put it though their basic bench tests.
In my case, with the wifi losing 50% of it's download speed when using the 2.4Ghz band, when BT and WIFI are both active, that's, in my opinion, a board design, and they fucked up the implementation of the Intel combo WIFI/BT card. That's going to bench as "normal" wen it's a design flaw in the board. I can actually plug in a Wifi Dongle to the Boards' USB port, and I get NO decrease in WIFI speeds when the boards M2 Intel BT is active, and its WIFI is inactive. So I know it has to do with the M2/Board implementation.
The only other thing they may have to fix is that the RGB header caps actually melted. That's a physical thing so the will catch that benching it. I just can't believe they would take the time to actually re-solder the caps rather then just send a new board out.
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It's nonsense to buy B450's right now, there's entry level B550 for less than 80$ and very solid mid range for 115$ like the B550 Phantom which is at the same price as some B450's.
Nothing yet on Amazon. I mean not much to choose from, and I don't even build with ATX anymore. I mean maybe if one of these days I wanted to build in a huge case for a show purpose of some sort acting as some sort of media like center and center of the media area, but other than that, I'm probably always going ITX from here out. That being the case, Amazon doesn't have any B-anything ITX boards as of when I started this thread.
somebrains
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My local stores have 3300x, 3600, motherboards, etc in stock.
It's like a whole generation of PC builders only know the big chains or online shopping.
Maybe they are in a gear desert that doesn't have local established PC brick and mortar.
Dunno.
It's not that I don't know Fry's is located in my city. It's the fact that when I buy from Amazon I always know where my receipt is--forever. They do free book keeping, you know.
somebrains
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Fry's is awful, I was wondering whether they'd still be in biz at the end of the year bc they were empty early this year.
It's 2020, have your local store email you a receipt.
I mean my stores ship too, bc it's 2020.
Mainly they're there for those people that need white box biz builds for a company full of non gear heads.
Legal offices, medical, real estate, etc that don't want to pay a VAR.
My son works for a local computer shop and they're turning away customers simply because they have a hell of a time getting parts and even when they can get parts the prices are so insane that it's not cost effective to build a machine for a customer. Once the price for a machine is known most customers agree it's insane and leave although there are a few who pay the massively inflated prices.
There are reasons most people are looking online and at large chains. Those are the companies which buy in large enough quantities to get priority on newly arrived shipments.
When the beer virus pushed businesses to have their employees work from home it effectively cleaned out any decent computers and parts from all local places in my area. After a while the word gets around there's nothing to be had and people likely stop checking except for larger businesses which do get stock occasionally.
I'd actually be wondering if your local stores have something wrong with them. If they're not selling out of high demand parts it's makes me wonder what the reason would be. Hell, at this point I could probably sell someone one of my old Q6600 systems and get a halfway decent price locally if I could resurrect a motherboard.
" I could probably sell someone one of my old Q6600. "
Probably not since everyone is basically unemployed or looking at that prospect. hahahahaa
I have an old X58 in a nice tower case that runs great. I jsut necroed it last year before I built my new rig. I should see what it would bring on CL. lol
somebrains
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I'm talking about stores that are small local chains.
They were around when I was building a p2 233.
They've weathered multiple recessions.
They were selling product at various times when no one was buying a given brand so their relationships expanded beyond the mom and pops that were reselling Ingram Micro back when CDW was only enterprise.
It's like gun stores now that can restock ammo and Glocks, the ones that managed relationships and market move product. Stores that can't stay closed up.
Can find a few, but not many options right now. If you have to have one you can get a b450i around $130 and a b550 or x570 between $200 and $240. So, not great, but not exactly zero options either.
Found zero for 130 on Amazon.
Nobu
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Not $130, but the Asrock B450 ITX/ac is $140. I got mine when they started coming back in stock a couple months ago, for $115+tax from one of Amazon's subsidiaries, came with all the accessories but no box.
If I'm going to replace my 6 month old Gig board with a new one, I'm going to go with ASUS this time. ASROCK and Gig boards have this funky circuitry going on for ARGB I want to avoid. ASUS doesn't have the problem, and they partnered with Corsair to make the Corsair LED devices compatible all the way around, including software. I won;t buy from 3rd parties aymore. I ordered teh wrong PCIe cable once and got charged shipping back and refunded minus shipping. Adn that was with the cables not even being opened.
So it's not that there aren't any, it's you want a specific thing that you can't find. That's not how you worded it originally, "Try searching for ITX AM4 and see what you get. A big near ZERO!", so we were just pointing out their are options in ITX, although limited. If you want a specific board or manufacturer than that is something else.
Considering Asus hasn't even released their B550 itx (it's not listed on their site), it's hard to fault it on being sold out if it was never available.
https://www.asus.com/us/site/motherboards/AMD-B550/
I did find the x570 itx board, it's expensive but it's Asus ROG... Its going to be expensive like all ROG boards.
Anyways, they are minimally available in general, but still not great availability and if you are holding out for something specific no telling how long it may be.
Considering Asus hasn't even released their B550 itx (it's not listed on their site), it's hard to fault it on being sold out if it was never available.
https://www.asus.com/us/site/motherboards/AMD-B550/
I did find the x570 itx board, it's expensive but it's Asus ROG... Its going to be expensive like all ROG boards.
Anyways, they are minimally available in general, but still not great availability and if you are holding out for something specific no telling how long it may be.
I should have added "Try searching Amazon". . . .
The ROG ITX B450 I was looking at before the shortage was 140.00. That's okay. And yes, I mean they are minimally available. I do want something specific. Don't you? The options just aren't there, like they use to be, and I was just seeing if it were me or if others had actually experienced the diminished supply, too. I was never looking for a 550. It was out of my price range even 6 months ago. ASUS had the ITX 450 out and I did almost purchase it. I didn't ike teh sound options and the fact tehy were using 10 year old Bluetooth 4.1 technology on their wifi/BT combo M2 cards, whereas the Gig itx 450 was using the latest standards in hardware. Otherwise, I'd probably have gotten the ASUS board. The Gig board's wifi never worked correctly either, cutting wifi speeds by 40-50% when BT was active on the 2.4Ghz band.
Yeah, who knows how long.
Nobu
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Yeah, had just mentioned the asrock board because it is an okay board and didn't know if you knew it was in stock direct from amazon.
Only thing I don't really like about it is it doesn't support the a-series apus (found out the wrong way–after the fact), and the m.2 is on the back. BIOS seems full featured (although I haven't explored OC options) if archaic, and the layout isn't horrible. Intel LAN + wifi, not terrible builtin audio. Haven't tried the RGB stuff–nothing built in, I have no led strips, and I'm not interested anyway.
Only thing I don't really like about it is it doesn't support the a-series apus (found out the wrong way–after the fact), and the m.2 is on the back. BIOS seems full featured (although I haven't explored OC options) if archaic, and the layout isn't horrible. Intel LAN + wifi, not terrible builtin audio. Haven't tried the RGB stuff–nothing built in, I have no led strips, and I'm not interested anyway.
I do have ant something specific, the right features. I don't really care so much who has them. I have a healthy mix of gigabyte, Asus, MSI, and ASRock in service right now. Each one had a different reason for purchase (price, size, features). I want saying it's bad to want something specific, just that's not how you worded it. Also, Amazon is not the only place to purchase items and I never just check one place when I search. Alas, it's still very slim pickings either way, but the way it was worded sounded like you literally couldn't find anything and I remembered seeing a few.
Right and that's what meant too. "The right features." Sure, but the main point is slim pickens right now and it's annoying. I use to buy wherever I could find what I wanted, back in the 90s and early 2000s because that is about the only way you could put a system together. However, I shop 99% Amazon now because I know where to find all of my past purchases, not only for returns, but reminders and for clean book keeping.
I still search either pcpartpicker since it aggregates some of the more popular places like Newegg, Amazon, b&h in one place, or just a quick look on Amazon and newegg. Also, Amazon doesn't always have the best deals, so I check at least a few places. Now that inventories have been crappy I ended up buying my son a B550 on Newegg, and 3700x and ram on Amazon 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I check again and I ended up getting myself a 3700x from Newegg, lol. Amazing a few days difference and inventory and prices fluctuate. Luckily I didn't need a new board as I have a b450 (fatal1ty b450 itx) that can run it no issues. I looked around for a replacement board just to see and that's why I knew there were a couple around, but not great options or prices in general.
Nobody really knows how Fry's is staying afloat, ALL of their stores nation wide are stripped to the walls empty with nothing but a tiny selection of worthless garbage for sale. They have to be losing eye watering amounts of money keeping all of their stores open with nothing to sell.
somebrains
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My buddy texted me in late January about whether Fry's was going out of biz bc they were bare before Covid + lockdown.
Place was bare, he was just in there idling for an hour while his wife was at Bed Bath and Beyond or Target.
Last month I swung by Fry's on my way to pickup an overprice psu from a mom and pop chain. The empty parking lot at Fry's, but the line of people at Best Buy and the mom&pop to pickup orders was telling.
I think Fry's owns a significant amount of their real estate; and they're family owned, so there's not as much pressure to wrap things up before they run out of money. I'd love to see what their stores look like today; I was last in one around christmas time, and before all the lockdowns, their facebook page was saying that they were getting stock in the stores (I trust their facebook page as much as the Iraqi Information Minister though); but I'm now 2 hours from the only Fry's in my region, so it's not worth the drive.
Best Buy has really stepped up their game in the last couple years. The last time I went, they had two entire aisles dedicated to DIY PC building, which I've never seen them have in the 20 years of going to their stores. The prices weren't that bad either, and they did online price matching. They're basically the only place locally to get any PC goods these days, the small mom and pop shops died off over 20 years ago. It could be a local thing since they know Fry's is defunct and want to try and capture their business, or it could be them trying to compete with Amazon. In either case, it's nice to know if I need some part quick that I can get it from them.
Fry's is about 45 minutes drive from here, and they're not worth the gas to get there. Last time I went was early this year and they had nothing. Google reviews keep trickling in every few weeks that nothing has changed since then.
But even if they own their stores, it still costs thousands of dollars a day to keep a location open. Utilities, staffing costs and taxes don't go away.
CraptacularOne
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It's just a symptom of the current state of the world. The pandemic has crippled supply chains.
/dev/null
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I haven't seen any B550 under $100. Link please?
CraptacularOne
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Pretty sure he's just talking out his ass. The only B550 currently available on Newegg for less than $100 is this:
https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-b550m-ds3h/p/N82E16813145210?&quicklink=true
And the VRM is a joke if you want to run anything higher than a 8 core CPU on it.
/dev/null
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With shipping that is $99. LOL.
CraptacularOne
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LOL well that's still TECHNICALLY under $100
Yeah, but their "online price matching" doesn't even include Newegg... One of the biggest online stores. That said, I agree they have stepped up, they are about an hour away and I've used them in a pinch, prices were not horrible. Seeing as microcenter is 3+ hours away, it's about my only option if I don't want to wait on shipping.
There is an asrock board also, but availability has been horrible. Also, you're looking at $80 MBs... You expecting a 14 stage VRM for overclocking 3950x's??? It's a cheap board meant to be paired with a cheap CPU
.
CraptacularOne
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Why are you talking to me? And who the hell said anything about wanting to run a 3950X on a cheap ass B550 board?There is an asrock board also, but availability has been horrible. Also, you're looking at $80 MBs... You expecting a 14 stage VRM for overclocking 3950x's??? It's a cheap board meant to be paired with a cheap CPU
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I was qouting what you said about the VRMs and responding about only finding one board. The point was that we know (or should know) a < $100 MB is going to be saving money and have less than stellar VRMs. But they are still enough to run any stock CPU. If someone wants to do heavy overclocking, they shouldn't be entertaining an $80-$100 MB. The 3950x was an extreme example, but just heavy overclocking and cheap boards in general don't go together, but stock settings and cheap boards tend to work alright for basic systems.
It's a symptom of pandemic but supply chains aren't necessarily crippled like people think. Combination of many factors.
I was at Microcenter Tustin on a random weekday last week, walked in 10min after opening, the parking lot was more full than I'd ever seen and the checkout line stretched to the back of store. The why's are nuanced.