A socket change a year keeps the goyim in fear, a monopoly in growing keeps the shekels flowing.
So here we are, just some months away before we can get our hands on what’s to be the biggest piece of shit that Intel have dropped since the release of their 11th generation “Rocket Lake” CPUs just six short months ago.
Intel’s 12th Generation Core processors aims to take back the synthetical performance crown as they’ve convincingly been absolutely thrashed where it matters the most, in gaming versus AMD’s latest Ryzen 5000 series processors.
With Intel’s previous attempt being a desperate backport of Ice Lake onto their aging 14nm processing node, the result was vastly superior synthetical performance over previous generation Skylake processors however in practice Rocket Lake was severely let down by disastrous core-to-core and memory latency in which case actual gaming performance was worse on 11th Gen processors compared to 10th Gen CPUs in a laughable display of how the tables have turned in comparison to AMD’s Ryzen processors.
Intel hopes to turn the regression around with Alder Lake, their first big.LITTLE architecture hopes to incorporate a combination of “big” cores paired with little Atom cores mainly to aid in efficiency and productivity providing that the Windows scheduler can allocate the vastly different cores effectively.
But I already know it’s shit. What with Alder Lake throwing efficiency out the window, even though the actual design resembles that of a mobile designed architecture yet being sold for the mainstream desktop. Rough pricing of Alder Lake processors for Europe also showcase the hilarious of the situation that Intel shall soon find themselves in as they’ve taken a page out of Bulldozer’s unique approach to what truly defines a “core” by pricing their 12th generation CPUs appropriately….
And by appropriately I mean well above the competition.
Such barbaric pricing isn’t also helped by additional platform costs for DDR5 memory if applicable and brand new motherboards to suit the new LGA 1700 socket which we’ve just had our first glimpse at pricing.
The listings showcase Z690 AORUS Master and AORUS Elite AX motherboards, both of which are listed to support DDR4 memory which is also compatible with Alder Lake CPUs mind you but considering the desired push for DDR5 support it seems that perhaps its board dependent rather than a one size fits all ordeal, which means that these motherboards should theoretically go for cheaper than those that otherwise do support DDR5 memory, so just keep that in mind.
Now then, the AORUS Master is effectively GIGABYTE’s flagship board and it was listed on UMart for the price of $768.90 AUD which converts to roughly $571 USD while the AORUS Elite AX is listed for $438.90 AUD or $326 USD.
Australian prices for just about everything is entirely out of whack compared to other western markets, just like the poor Grabblerropeans we too get shafted by mundane import fees and price gouging however when it comes to motherboards typically prices for those have been quite stable over the past couple years especially during the whole COVID planned-emic so to see such motherboards at such prices is quite a shock even for Australian standards.
Previously we’ve already seen some rather desperate attempts at manufacturers such as ASUS to increase profits derived from motherboards by hiking prices up, but not only that I’ve noticed a general trend corresponding with increased board prices when Z590 motherboards were seen to be hiked up to 30% over prior Z490 motherboards.
Understandable really, with every single company looking to take advantage of this bullshit pandemic and production shortages to milk the goyim for all they’ve got, but that’s not all to blame really as the general shift from Z490 to Z590 as it’s going to be with these brand new Z690 LGA 1700 motherboards is that require more extensive and beefier VRM solutions to handle the inefficient garbage that Intel intends to release for the new platform.
So unfortunately prices have to come up.
Such as what we see here with these Z690 listings, because also on UMart are you able to see the current pricing of equivalent Z590 motherboards from GIGABYTE. Where the Z590 AORUS Elite AX is listed for $369 AUD on special from $399 (274/296 USD) and how the Z590 AORUS Master had its prices slashed to 549 AUD down from 699 (408/519 USD).
Though don’t be surprised when I tell you that both motherboards can be found for cheaper on larger Australian retailers such as PCCG or Scorptec where the Z590 AORUS Master is listed for 469 AUD (348 USD), just above the price of the Z690 AORUS Elite AX which I’m sure will offer an inferior VRM solution in a direct comparison, though the saving grace being the AORUS Elite AX is listed by other outfits for just 299 AUD (299 USD).
Whether you wish to compare the prices of these Z690 motherboards to that of the Z590 equivalents on UMart or elsewhere is entirely irrelevant, there’s no actual special going on, UMart have held a consistent pricing from 639 AUD down to 599, 589 to finally what we see now at 549 AUD when logging prices since May.
Nothing short of marketing tactics to make the discount seem bigger than what it actually is, to push products out the door.
No matter how you look at it these Z690 motherboards are much more expensive than previous generation Z590 motherboards going anywhere from 40% higher judging by UMart’s pricing for the AORUS Master to a staggering 63.94% going by PCCG’s price tag.
UMart have only dropped the price of the Z590 AORUS Elite AX once from may, going from 380 AUD down to 369 AUD while others have dropped their pricing much lower than that, as things currently stand though the price hike for the illusive Z690 AORUS Elite AX is anywhere from 18.94% to 46.78% at other retailers.
With increased board prices going on with dramatically increased CPU prices in comparison to AMD Ryzen processors which offer more REAL cores and threads without consuming hundreds of watts without issue.
As I’ve made it perfectly clear before, not only will the performance of Alder Lake undoubtedly fall short upon release but its barbaric pricing is but a small caveat as Alder Lake requires yet another platform switch which as we’ve seen today certainly throws a spanner in the works for deranged consumers looking to make their annual switch supporting the largest corporate hacks in the industry.
Taking a page out of their books at least GIGABYTE is trying to save you some shekels with these overpriced Z690 motherboards as they’re DDR4(Peasants).
God, I don’t want to see how much a full Alder Lake platform change will cost once you throw in DDR5 memory and supported motherboard into the mix.
