One of the perks of AMD is lower pricing, but that appears to be changing.
MSI CEO Charles Chiang has pointed out that X570 boards will be significantly more expensive. And not just top-tier, enthusiast models. Lower-end boards will cost more than previous-gen (X470) parts, too.
AMD’s X570 motherboards may end up being priced similarly to Intel’s Z390 parts, or even higher.
“I would like to say the price would be comparable, and even higher for some SKUs,” Chiang said. “But I can tell that if an X570 is compared to our Z390, if the specs are equal and everything, I don’t think we [are] going to price AMD lower. I don’t think that’s realistic because the cost of the motherboard [will] be higher, and maybe the pricing [of] the chipset [is] higher.”
Chiang claims AMD is trying to become a premium brand, moving away from being a value alternative.
“Lots of people ask me, what do you think about today’s AMD? I say today’s AMD is completely different company compared to two, three, five years ago,” Chiang said. “They have nice technology and they are there to put the higher spec with the reasonable pricing. But right now they say, “Hey Charles, lets push to marketing to the higher [end]. So let’s sell higher-pricing motherboards, higher-spec motherboards, and let’s see what will happen in the market. So I don’t think that AMD is the company that wants to sell low cost here, low cost there.”