Motherboards used to be $100, $200 for the high end. Now they want $300+, ram is crazy, storage, video cards, etc. I'm not surprised sales for these components is hitting a wall.

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Aurornis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Motherboards used to be $100, $200 for the high end. Now they want $300+

Entry level motherboards are still $100.

$300+ is a very high end motherboard.

The existence of very high end products is confusing because it can give the impression that you have to buy a $300 motherboard because it exists. If you compare features side by side you're rarely missing anything important for the entry level motherboards.

Some people really want the best of the best and feel the need to buy motherboards with Thunderbolt 4 and other future-proofing measures just in case they might need them, but it's premium and luxury territory.

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reactordev 3 hours ago | parent [-]

If you’re dropping that kind of cash, you definitely want to future proof it and not go with the budget lastgen motherboards.

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Aurornis 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Future proofing is an expensive way to pay for features you don't need and will probably never use.

It's smarter to buy a cheap motherboard that meets your needs now. If in the future you find the need for USB4 or some other feature, upgrade the motherboard.

More often than not, builders will try to future proof for eventualities that don't arrive before it's time to upgrade to the next CPU socket anyway. There are a lot of people with expensive, outdated "futureproofed" builds who would have been better off saving the money on the original purchase so they could upgrade sooner instead.

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the__alchemist 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's a gamble. I take the opposite mindset now; scarcity mindset.

"$1600 is too much for a video card" - me a few years ago on not buying an RTX4090 from nvidia's website.

"I only need 32Gb of RAM. If I want more later, I'll just updgrade" - Me a year ago.

Both mistakes, with hindsight. I will always future proof from here on out.

	▲	iamnothere 38 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I future proofed by stepping back to high end components from last generation (except for GPU). My memory speed is slightly lower, but I have 32 cores and 128 GB ECC RAM on 4 channels. I doubt I will need to upgrade this thing any time soon for my typical use cases. Note that this was before the RAM shortage, but I bet you could still do this now and save a little versus mid-tier current gen gear.
	▲	kergonath 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		When you try to future proof, you are basically hedging. It’s a kind of insurance; sometimes it pays off, sometimes it does not. Having more disposable income now than I did 10 years ago I tend to pay more attention to this sort of things, but everyone can choose where they put the cursor. Someone who overestimated their RAM needs when buying a computer last year are probably pretty happy about it, but it could have swung the other way.
	▲	zahlman 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Counterpoint: "$100 is a reasonable amount for a video card, I know this is on the budget side but at least I have a card this way" — me 12 years ago. "I guess it's worth it to spring for 8GB of RAM..." — me 12 years ago. Still using the same machine, with no regrets (just the occasional bit of envy). Different people have different expectations and requirements.

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ryukoposting 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This. In 2017 I bought the cheapest AM4 motherboard with a USB-C port (a Gigabyte X370 Aorus Word Salad). I'm still using it because BIOS updates gave it Zen 3 support.

Wanna guess how many times I've used that USB-C port? Maybe once or twice in the 9 years I've owned it. Never needed it. I also couldn't tell you what X370 is getting me that B350 wouldn't have gotten me.

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estimator7292 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Buy a $300 motherboard now in case you need future features, or buy a $100 motherboard now that does everything you currently need and then buy a second or even third $100 motherboard if you ever actually need those future improvements.

Then you get a new board designed for the new features instead of something several years old and you come out $100 on top.

Futureproofing is nonsense. PCs just don't work that way, and haven't for decades.

	▲	chainingsolid an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The only 2 parts that even make sence to "future proof" are power supply and case.
	▲	kergonath 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Buy a $300 motherboard now in case you need future features, or buy a $100 motherboard now that does everything you currently need and then buy a second or even third $100 motherboard if you ever actually need those future improvements. Right, but the problem is that by now your $100 new motherboard requires a new CPU and new RAM. Which is very much not $100. In the past we got away with PCI cards to add features without changing the motherboard, but we still ended up changing everything every 2 years anyway…

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cryo32 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Buying whole 2020 era PCs here for around $200 mark. As long as you don't need crazy CPU or GPU grunt, which is most people, they are almost indistinguishable from a new one.

Windows 10 LTSC + Firefox + uBlock Origin on an i5-9400 feels faster than my M4 Pro MBP. Probably same or better on Linux.

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zahlman 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Windows 10 LTSC + Firefox + uBlock Origin on an i5-9400 feels faster than my M4 Pro MBP

I don't remember Win10 being particularly lean (although I'm sure 11 is worse). And the M4 is definitely a much more powerful CPU. Can you not run Firefox and uBO on that? Or have they really weighed things down that much with the OS somehow?

> Probably same or better on Linux.

Even with the Cinnamon desktop environment I can vouch it uses considerably less RAM for just the desktop (ordinary applications are probably about the same) and offers much faster filesystem access by default. I'm sure this is at least partly due to not being weighed down by built-in anti-malware (that would do basically nothing for people who are comfortable using Linux in the first place).

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toasty228 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Upgrade my cpu the other day, got a ryzen 5 5600 for ~$100 new, can't complain. Still on my rtx 2060, can't complain either. As long as you don't fall for the 120hz and 4k memes you can easily get by with 2020 hardware indeed.

	▲	zahlman 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I am "easily getting by" with 2014 hardware.
	▲	jay_kyburz 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I plugged a 60hz monitor in at work and discovered I can't ever go back. I need 32" 4k 120hz at least now.

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trashface 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Windows 10 LTSC isn't a realistic option for most people.

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2OEH8eoCRo0 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My parents bought a mid-tier PC for $3,000 (in 1995 dollars) and there was still a thriving PC industry at those prices! While things are getting more expensive now (and that sucks) we have had it really good for a long time.

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torben-friis 4 hours ago | parent [-]

How much money was left to spend on hobbies considering the cost of education and real estate at the time?

	▲	anakaine 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Similar boat here, and more than enough for hobbies. The difference between income and housing cost was significantly less.

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dessimus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean, if you think about all the motherboard does, and how many layers the PCB has to support all the features such that for a vast majority of users, the only things you need besides the motherboard is a CPU, some RAM, storage (either in M.2 or SATA) and maybe a dGPU, it's wild that it is often the cheapest item in the PC.

	▲	chainingsolid an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well to be fair processors, ram and modern storage are lithography required to make parts. Not sure how much lithography the chipset requires.

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dangus 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't really agree with this. Motherboard prices haven't been moved at all by AI.

I would also say that most consumers, who are almost exclusively buying gaming-oriented boards, do not need anything high end. They can pretty much buy the cheapest board available.

I am shopping around for a mini ITX board and the difference between something at $180 and something at $400 is basically one to two faster USB ports, which are pretty much irrelevant on desktop computers, and a few minor conveniences that I imagine most people can do without.

The higher-end chipsets add no discernible advantage and there are no CPUs that are unsupported by the lower end chipsets (on the AMD side, at least).

The high end stuff is just available for people with a lot of money.

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amluto 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I am massively sick of gaming focused boards. I don’t want my board to be “tough” or “mil-spec” or be extra shiny or have fancy-proprietary-auto-overclock. I want a reliable board that complies with all the specs it claims to support. Low idle power consumption would be nice, too.

This is obnoxiously difficult to shop for in the desktop/workstation space.

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greycol 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The PCIe lanes are the worst. You have x16 slots that run x1, you need to check slots with m.2 to make sure an x8 doesn't become x4 if you insert storage. Wait if I plug something into the thunderbolt port my 10g network card runs at half speed? Obviously these are actual physical limitation from PCIe lane counts, but it makes it impossible to search. Just painfull.

	▲	chainingsolid an hour ago \| parent [-]
		My advice to anyone doing motherboard shopping is to read the manual off the manufacture's site before deciding. The pcie lane tradeoffs tend to be in the block diagram next to the contents page.