As the days tick towards the launch of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series processors and AM5 platform, many users are starting to think about a potential upgrade path. The first wave of X670 and X670E motherboards look mighty (opens in a new tab), but they will be expensive. Fortunately, users won’t have to wait long to see the mid-range cards. AMD is expected to host a livestream on October 4, where vendors will showcase their more affordable B650 and B650E options.
AMD’s Meet the Experts presentation is titled “An exclusive first look at the B650 and B650E AM5 motherboards (opens in a new tab)‘ and it is set to take place on October 4 at 10:00 a.m. CDT. AMD will invite presenters from Asus, Asrock, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI to demonstrate the features and capabilities of their cards.
The B650 will certainly generate a lot of interest. AMD’s X670 cards include advanced connectivity features, including support for PCIe 5.0. But given the high price of DDR5 memory and the $299 starting price for the Ryzen 5 7600X (opens in a new tab), buying the new platform with an X670/E card will be expensive. It’s understandable that many users want to wait a bit for more affordable options.
Interestingly, AMD is accelerating the launch of the B650, surely in order to reduce the total cost of the platform. While B550 motherboards were released almost a year after X570, this time the gap is expected to be a few weeks.
Unless you’re planning on building a truly high-end system, early indicators are that the B650 cards won’t be lacking all that much. (opens in a new tab) compared to their more expensive X670 siblings. The B650E cards will still include support for PCIe 5.0 graphics and SSDs while losing some USB and SATA ports, and a few chipset PCIe 4.0 lanes. This means that a user with a next-gen GPU and PCIe 5.0 SSD will potentially lose nothing by choosing a B650E card over an X670E.
The non-E B650 loses PCIe 5.0 support, as does the non-E X670, but for most users this won’t be a problem, at least not in the short term. The only exception is if you plan to run more than one PCIe 5.0 drive or really need a stack of fast USB ports.
The launch of the Ryzen 7000 series is scheduled for later this month. The PC Gamer team will have full coverage from day one.
Oh, and the launch of competing 13th Gen Intel ‘Raptor Lake’ processors (opens in a new tab) and 700 series motherboards also come close. PC gaming enthusiasts have some tough (yet enjoyable) decisions to make.
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