With B850 and B840 chipset: New, cheaper AM5 motherboards are delivered 99 comments
Image: Asus/AMD
Since the end of September, new AM5 motherboards of the 800 series have appeared, although their X870E and X870 chipsets are old friends (details: X870(E), X670(E) and B650(E) in comparison). What is new is the obligation to offer USB 4. Cheaper motherboards with B850 and B840 are expected at CES. Delivery has now started.
B850 and B840 at CES 2025
VideoCardz shows the image of a white Gigabyte Aorus B850M Elite WiFi6E Ice in Micro-ATX format – obviously a packaged commodity for sale.
AMD’s partners are therefore preparing availability in time for the presentation of the new class at CES 2025, perhaps even earlier. Because the cheaper cards do not match the expected presentation of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D.
Gigabyte Aorus B850M Elite Ice (Image: VideoCardz)
B850: B650 or B650E as a basis?
While the X870E chipset corresponds to the X670E and the Unlike the B650 motherboards, the B850 boards not only still offer PCIe 5.0 for an NVMe SSD, but also optionally PCIe 5.0 for the graphics card.
If they are connected only in PCIe 5.0 x8, this would also be possible with the B650, otherwise the B650E would have to be used. USB 4 is not mandatory in this class.
AMD B chipsets complete the X series (Image: Asus/AMD)
B840 only with PCIe 3.0
There will also be 840 class boards under the B850. According to the name, these models are closer to the larger ones than was previously the case with the A620, but this is misleading: unlike the A620, the B840 only offers PCIe 3.0 and not even PCIe 4.0 for graphics cards, which is especially true. When these cheap motherboards are combined with cheap graphics cards with only 8 lanes PCIe interface and little graphics memory, it can lead to performance issues.
Thomas analyses motherboards to reveal their secrets: performance, connectivity, and overclocking options.
