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Comment by nirvdrum | Hacker News Reader

Not to take away from your numbers, but you should consider the cost of the motherboard, too. The HEDT Intel motherboards tend to be more expensive than what the Ryzen ones are going for and much harder to find replacements for down the line. Microcenter seems to only sell one X299 and it's at $310. Depending on your desired feature set, you can get a Ryzen motherboard for < $100.

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The MSI X299 RAIDER is the cheapest X299 board I can find at NewEgg and costs $219.99.

The GIGABYTE GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 is the cheapest Ryzen board I can find at NewEgg and costs only $94.99 by comparsion.

Therefore, there's an obvious savings of $124. Although, you can easily spend $189.99 or more on a higher-end Ryzen board given NewEgg's offerings.

So while there is a discrepancy, it's not massive.

Fair enough. I listed Micro Center because they routinely have the best deals on CPU prices and often have incredible CPU & motherboard combo prices. For a while you basically could get a Ryzen motherboard for free with the CPU and they took $50 off the MSRP of the CPU. I ultimately didn't go for it, but I was looking at an 1800X + motherboard for $500, which is $100 less than the i7-7820X alone.

But I agree that a $200 - $400 difference may not be substantial for a workstation in heavy use. Personally, I do still have concerns about availability over the life of the CPU. I currently have an X79 and was looking to replace the motherboard in its 2nd year of ownership. eBay is really the only option available and with a scarce 2nd-hand market, the boards don't depreciate much. It's gotten better over time, but I was looking at paying $400+ for a used motherboard. I decided to just deal with the quirks of my current one. The X299 is early in its lifecycle, of course, so I'd hope availability for a few years.

> ... they routinely have the best deals on CPU prices and often have incredible CPU & motherboard combo prices.

Agreed.

> The X299 is early in its lifecycle, of course, so I'd hope availability for a few years.

Same, here. I've seen ASRock Intel boards vanish from the market only a year after they debut.

It's disturbing. And moreover, it's detrimental to the lifetime of the board as driver and BIOS updates cease.

Hopefully this chipset and socket will last a bit longer.

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