The motherboard market is so bad that flagship boards are selling at entry-level prices

The motherboard market is currently facing severe challenges due to persistently high prices for RAM and SSDs, leading consumers to delay PC upgrades and significantly reducing motherboard sales—repor... Read original →

Soaring DRAM and NAND prices are triggering a technical collapse in the motherboard market. With upstream memory suppliers maintaining elevated pricing due to misaligned capacity planning, consumer upgrade cycles have stalled—forcing ASRock, ASUS (Taiwan, China), and MSI to slash flagship Z890 and B650 board prices by up to 56%. This price inversion not only squeezes margins across the supply chain but also delays ecosystem adoption of PCIe Gen5 and Thunderbolt 4 on LGA 1851 and AM5 platforms. Tightening global export controls and rising RF certification costs for Wi-Fi 6E/Bluetooth 5.2 further burden mini-ITX designs. In response, MSI may accelerate ODM outsourcing, while ASUS could double down on ROG’s premium segment. If memory prices remain stubbornly high over the next 12–24 months, expect a structural shift toward budget chipsets, slowing high-end innovation and locking the industry into a low-margin, volume-driven stagnation.