The Intel B560 Motherboard Overview: 30+ Budget Models Starting from $75
by Gavin Bonshor on March 29, 2021 7:00 AM ESTASRock B560 Pro4/ac & B560 Pro4
A lot of Intel B560 models are micro-ATX sized, which is a stark contrast compared with Z590, where there are barely any. ASRock does have a couple of ATX sized B560 models including the B560 Pro4/ac and B560 Pro4, with the only difference between both models is the ac version includes an Intel Wi-Fi 5 CNVi. Focusing on the design, the B560M Pro4 pairing includes a grey and black patterned PCB, with silver heatsinks and a small section of integrated RGB LED's located in the bottom right-hand corner.
The ASRock B560M Pro4 ATX motherboard
Located towards the center of the board are two full-length PCIe slots and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. The top full-length slot operates at PCIe 4.0 x16, while the second slot is electronically locked to PCIe 3.0 x4. ASRock includes four memory slots with support for up to DDR4-4800, with a maximum combined capacity of 128 GB. For storage, both the B560M Pro4/ac and B560M Pro4 include threeM.2 slots, with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x4, one with support for PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA, and the third including support for PCIe 3.0 x2/SATA. The third M.2 slot shares bandwidth with one of the board's six SATA ports, which includes support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays.
ASRock B560M Pro4 rear panel (only difference is Wi-Fi 5 on B560M Pro4/ac)
On the rear panel is four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports, with three 3.5 mm audio jacks powered by a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec. Both models include an Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet controller, while the B560M Pro4/ac includes an unspecified Intel Wi-Fi 5 CNVi. Finishing off the rear panel is a pair of video outputs including one HDMI and one DisplayPort, as well as a PS/2 combo port for legacy peripherals.
At the time of writing, ASRock hasn't provided pricing information for the B560M Pro4/ac, although we do know the non-Wi-Fi variant, the B560M Pro4 has an MSRP of $110.
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Irata - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
Is that the other side though ? If they are in a „better at everything“ position, why should they charge bargain basement prices? And anti-consumer ? That would be paying / pressuring OEM and stores to not carry alternative products and that‘s not happening.And you actually have a choice - want the best ? There‘s Ryzen 5000 but it costs a bit more. Want budget ? There‘s Ryzen 3000 and 2000. They all fit the same motherboards with the exception of 2017 era 300 series boards.
What you shouldn‘t do is compare EOL close out prices to current products prices. I bought my 2700x new for €150 including Borderlands 3 and the stock HSF but it was so cheap because they were clearing out stock. The same thing is happening with Comet Lake but compared to Ryzen 2000 EOL prices you could even argue that they are still overpriced.
Either way, we‘ll see what RKL brings to the table, both as far as performance, features and price is concerned.
madseven7 - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
How do you figure that AMD is price gouging? Intel is late to the game, underperform, runs hot and you have to get a new motherboard for every new cpu that Intel releases. AMD has supported new processors on the same motherboard since 2017. AMD are faster and run cooler. Just because AMD decided to increase prices by $50 the first time in years they're gouging customers? Every new Intel CPU release increased the price from $10-$30laduran - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
Real men own fabs. Jerry Sanders. AMD.Samus - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
This is a huge problem for AMD. The last few PC’s I’ve built during the pandemic have all been Intel because the platform cost is so much cheaper, and Intel had still competitive chips in the $150 range that you can actually get for MSRP. Meanwhile there are no AMD boards for under $100 unless you want an old platform, and their ~$120 chips are selling for $200.Basically at the low end you can build an Intel system equivalent in performance to an AMD system for nearly $100 less. Obviously you are throwing future proofing out the window when it comes time to upgrade your CPU to something high end but I rarely see people replace CPU’s without replacing their motherboard anyway...which is kind of sad :(
siggidarius - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
Future proofing and cpu upgradeability is fiction IMO, save for some edge cases. Usually CPU we buy is enough for some time, and after that it makes more sense to buy new mb+cpu+ram combo, especially now, when we are at the end of DDR4 era.My current platform is based on x570 and Ryzen 3600, but I'm not planning on switching to ZEN3 or ZEN3+ if it ever comes out, and same is with Intel.
Also with current market integrated GPU is a nice thing to have for a fresh build, and here AMD just doesn't provide anything meaningful - it's all either old or expensive (and still a little worse then GPU-less CPUs due to less cache).
eastcoast_pete - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Hi Gavin, your last table (audio) has a legacy headline (Z490..).Question: which HDMI-out standard is supported by these MoBos? Are they all 2.0b? Thanks!
dullard - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Multiple tables on the first page have the wrong headline (Z590 instead of B560).yeeeeman - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Frankly, the 100 bucks motherboards are quite nice if you pair them with a non K CPU. With 300 bucks you end up with a pretty powerful system. Similar IPC to zen 3 parts and cheaper. No matter how much you despise intel, these are quite attractive.Samus - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
I agree. I just built an H310 system ($56 motherboard brand new) with a new old stock i5-8500T? Maybe 8600T? I forgot. But $130 new on eBay, and threw a $10 cooler on it good for 65w (it’s a 35w CPU)It’s for my torrent PC/HTPC that was still sandy bridge and running a GT430 for video, new system will use around 1/3rd the power at load and 1/8th the power at idle. Total cost for board cpu and 8GB DDR4: $200.
Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, April 8, 2021 - link
completely agree, was looking at a 10400 or 10600 and a b560 from asrock actually not bad