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AMD has halted production on its B650 chipset, according to Chinese tech forum Bobantang. The B650 has been the midrange chipset for the AM5 socket since its introduction in 2022 and has been one of the most popular options for PC users upgrading to AM5 processors.
In the original forum post (accessed via ITHome), the author claims that AMD has begun the shutdown stage of B650 production, and has informed its board partners of the change. While mass production has ended, supply of the chipset and motherboards using it is expected to remain high beyond this production halt.
Via machine translation, the post reads in English:
"AMD's B650 chipset production line has announced the shutdown, and has officially entered the digestion stage of tail stock, until the digestion of AMD and various motherboard manufacturers' stocks is closed, but it is necessary to pay attention to the following two major trends of the B650 series chips:
1. After AMD's B650 chip production line is shut down, its inventory is expected to be large. According to AMD, the B650M series inventory sales plan will probably end in the third quarter.
2. It is expected that the digestion time of the tail stock of the B650 series motherboard will be longer, at least there will be inventory to sell in the second quarter, but the inventory of B650M chips will become more and more scarce as time goes by."
The last waves of B650 and B650M motherboards from AMD's partners are likely to arrive around the Q2/Q3 mark supposedly set by AMD. Bobantang, the forum originating this claim, has been correct about previous leaks regarding product discontinuation, including Nvidia's discontinuation of the RTX 3060 back in August.
The AM5 platform utilizes a multi-chiplet-style solution for its chipsets, using one ASMedia PROM21 chip to power its B650, B650E, B850, and X870 chipsets, and daisy-chaining two PROM21's together for the flagship X670, X670E, and X870E chipsets.
The discontinuation of the B650's production surely does not mean anything about the fate of the rest of the PROM21-based AM5 chipsets, with the move more likely indicating a push from AMD to shift more fully towards its 800-generation chipsets. If this is true, expect to see a corollary decline in stock of B650E boards as well.
With the B850 expected to become the de facto budget/midrange chipset for AM5 chips, we also hope to see a long-awaited decline in price of the 800-series, and resultingly, a more accessible path to PCIe Gen5 for both storage devices and GPUs. With the current budget-branded B850 boards selling for above $200, a widespread discount would be greatly appreciated.
The B650 chipset was a hugely popular release, representing a sweeping majority of the most popular AM5 motherboards on PCPartPicker and other similar aggregators. As PC users and enjoyers, it's certainly the end of some kind of micro-era, as AM5 continues its long march forward into Zen 6.
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