A brand new report confirms that MSI will likely be discontinuing the manufacturing of a number of DDR4-based Z790 and B760 motherboards sooner or later. Affected SKUs embrace the MPG Z790 Edge WiFi DDR4, Professional Z790-A WiFi DDR4, Professional Z790-P DDR4, and the DDR4 collection of B760 Mortar motherboards. The reasoning for the discontinuations is unknown, however there’s a rumor suggesting these discontinuations are based mostly on a plan to prioritize DDR5 motherboard manufacturing.
As an alternative of a date set for discontinuation, every MSI SKU will likely be discontinued as soon as inventory runs out. Making use of that, MSI has already ceased manufacturing of those DDR4 motherboards and is ready on provide to expire earlier than going public with the discontinuation.
MSI isn’t discontinuing all DDR4 motherboards, solely a choose variety of Z790 and B760 boards. We do not know why MSI is beginning with 700 collection DDR4 motherboards first, however this might be the beginning of a wider roll-out to cancel many extra 700 and 600 collection SKUs.
This transfer is not stunning in any respect in gentle of the rising DDR5 market. Earlier 2022 estimations predicted that DDR5 value decreases would trigger adoption charges to take off in 2023, and that is precisely what we’re seeing proper now. DDR5 pricing has by no means been this low-cost earlier than with most 32GB twin channel kits now promoting in the identical sub-$150 value bracket most 32GB DDR4 kits had been at not too way back. As an example, a equipment of G.Ability 6000MHz CL30 DDR5 reminiscence now prices simply $128 on Newegg.com (on the time of this writing) and options the identical 10ns true latency as DDR4 3600MHz CL18 or DDR4 3200MHz CL16.
Platform adoption has additionally helped develop DDR5 immensely. Intel and AMD’s newest consumer-based platforms all help DDR5 reminiscence, with AMD’s AM5 platform being DDR5 unique. The cellular and the server markets have all efficiently moved to DDR5 as properly within the type of SO-DIMM reminiscence for cellular platforms, and RDIMM DDR5 modules for the server house. The one platform falling behind the DDR5 pattern is the workstation phase, the place AMD’s Zen 3 based mostly Ryzen Threadripper Professional 5000WX dominates and solely helps DDR4 reminiscence. Even the workstation market will see the transition to DDR5 reminiscence very quickly as soon as Intel’s W3400 and W2400 workstation CPUs go mainstream, and AMD launches its Ryzen Threadripper 7000 CPUs code-named Storm Peak later this 12 months or subsequent 12 months.
