A new era is upon us, an era that involves a re-envisioned focus on performance and efficiency leadership in the CPU landscape. There are two companies that are battling hard to hold the throne of this segment but given the incremental (and sometimes revolutionary) changes that each chipmaker is bringing to the field in a span of a few quarters, there's no decisive victor. In return, the consumers keep on reaping the benefits of this heated battle between red and blue which is the most intense it's ever been.

While Intel may have managed to take the performance, value, and efficiency throne from AMD with its 12th-Gen Alder Lake lineup, AMD isn't going to sit silent. They planned two brand new CPU launches this year, one being a demonstration of how 3D V-Cache can allow gamers to benefit from faster performance in a mainstream package. But that's just one chip, The bigger and the main CPU launch has always been scheduled for the second half of 2022 in the form of Ryzen 7000 and it's going to fundamentally change everything for the Ryzen Desktop CPU platform.

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In the five years of Zen, the company went from performance leadership to core leadership, efficiency leadership, and gaming leadership. And today, the red team even manages to secure the clock speed leadership, something that we thought was impossible against a rival such as Intel. The clock leadership will be short-lived considering the competition has planned chips that are 6 GHz capable of launching next month but it's an impressive feat for AMD regardless.

Intel 12th Gen vs AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU Prices:

So this year, AMD has decided to launch a second architecture overhaul, and oh boy! It's a big one. Enter AM5 & Zen 4, a brand new architecture with a prime focus on efficiency and multi-threading performance, and comes with a brand new platform that is outfitted with next-generation features such as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. The AMD Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" lineup will include the top-to-bottom Ryzen 9, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 5 CPUs.

The main features of AMD's Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs include:

Up To 16 Zen 4 Cores and 32 Threads+29% Performance Uplift In Single-Threaded AppsBrand New Zen 4 CPU Cores (IPC / Architectural Improvements)Brand New TSMC 5nm process node with 6nm IOD25% Performance Per Watt Improvement Vs Zen 3>35% Overall Performance Improvement Vs Zen 3~13% Instructions Per Clock (IPC) Improvement Vs Zen 3Support on AM5 Platform With LGA1718 SocketNew X670E, X670, B650E, and B650 MotherboardsDual-Channel DDR5 Memory SupportUp To DDR5-5600 Native (JEDEC) Speeds28 PCIe Lanes (CPU Exclusive)105-120W TDPs (Upper Bound Range ~170W)

Today will be a bit different. Instead of focusing on the CPUs, the main focus would be four B650E & B650 series motherboards which are aimed at the mainstream segment. We will try to see what kind of value the new motherboards offer versus their X670E & X670 counterparts.

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Contents

1. Intro2. AMD B650 Chipset - AM5 For Mainstream3. AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU Family - Enter 5nm Zen 44. ASRock B650E Taichi Motherboard - Unboxing & Close Up Inspection5. B650 AORUS Elite AX- Unboxing & Close Up Inspection6. MSI MAG B650M Mortar Wifi Motherboard - Unboxing & Close Up Inspection7. ASRock B650E PG-ITX WIFI Motherboard - Unboxing & Close Up Inspection8. Test Setup9. CPU Performance Tests10. Gaming Performance Tests11. CPU Power Consumption Tests12. CPU & VRM Temperatures13. Conclusion - B650's In Various Prices & Designs

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