These motherboards seem to be in a bad mood.
These motherboards seem to be in a bad mood.
It's unclear exactly how much money was invested in each stage—from manufacturing to design and production. The process involved significant expenses beyond raw materials, including utilities, labor, land, taxes, and specialized CPU development. The large silicon crystal required extensive steps like growth, slicing, diffusion, and nuclear processing before being transported globally for these operations. Successful companies must remain profitable to sustain their operations.
That's already part of the wafer price. AMD doesn't manufacture its own CPUs; they simply have them printed by TSMC, and that's all. They don't purchase raw wafers and then modify them. Instead, they provide the architecture to TSMC, which supplies the files. This process covers everything from design to packaging and shipping. The CPU itself is priced around $15-20 including all components, while the final product ranges from $150 to $1000.
They wouldn’t be willing to pay such a price if they realized it was so inexpensive, and no one would face hardship if they sold it cheaper. It’s not like anyone has to lose their life because they couldn’t afford food, or that it would impact loans. It doesn’t matter—the workers there aren’t getting enough from the cake.
If you look at the most affordable options for AMD versus what makes sense from an Intel perspective, that’s the situation. But honestly, I wouldn’t go for the 3700x. I’d pick something like the 5900x instead. It’s not about having more cores; it’s about how they’re packaged. In the end, I’d still have a cooler build because the included coolers are decent enough. You don’t need everything to be huge. The same goes for the board—good B550 boards cost a lot too. A B550 Unify X 250bucks is better than an Apex Z590 450bucks, even though it’s more expensive, but the Apex is still a much better choice overall.
Also worth mentioning are the B560 and B550 boards available for about $150.
I understand your perspective. They don't sell groceries, yet they can set prices based on what customers are willing to pay, and AMD has struggled with pricing its products over the years. I once wrote a research paper comparing ideal economic pricing with practical business pricing—both surprising and entertaining to see in action. Nvidia is doing a decent job, though their GPUs often miss the mark against MSRP.
AMD faced no option but to sell at a higher price. They launched Ryzen with affordable pricing, which quickly gained traction due to its solid economics. By focusing on the 5000 series, they managed to capture market share. If earlier models had matched gaming performance, they wouldn’t have priced them so low.