How Much Does it Cost to Build a P55 Motherboard?

[taltamir]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...ts/showdoc.aspx?i=3624

The list is ridiculous, 105$ cost eh? lets see if we can adjust that some...
5$ SLI fee to nvidia for the LOW end? screw that, SINGLE 16x GPU only. if i wanted SLI i'd get an X58 mobo. And even if I wanted it on P55, I'd expect it on the mid or high end P55, not the lowest possible end.

3.5$ GigE chip? why? the P55 has built in gigE.

How much is misc components gonna go down if you eliminate the second PCIe video slot?

18.5$ labor, overhead, logistics, sales... well this is just gonna vary all over the place. Some will have it higher, some lower...

the biggest chunk is the P55 PCH... 40$... there is mention of intel rebates which can reduce those, but weather it happens or not is a mystery.

Overall I am inclined to accept the costs suggested by anandtech, but this article shows ridiculous assumptions... like the lowest end having a second gigE chip and SLI.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: taltamir
Overall I am inclined to accept the costs suggested by anandtech, but this article shows ridiculous assumptions... like the lowest end having a second gigE chip and SLI.

I agree, there are some far stretch assumptions there IMHO and if some of these manufacturers are paying these "prices", they need to fire their buyers.

 

[lopri]

I asked him for similar articles on CPU, GPU, and SSDs. :laugh:

 

[faxon]

yea i want to know how much it actually costs to make a high end GPU these days. i have heard that the 4890GPU costs aprox $35 per GPU right now, and the cost of a 4890 with a good aftermarket cooler is $200 right now on newegg. that's after everyone's slice of the pie profit wise. how much does such a card actually cost to make? it would be especially interesting if they can have the article ready prior to the 5870 launch with data for the new cards listed, and they could release it in tandem to their launch review

 

[v8envy]

RE: SLI fee. Some manufacturers have clued in and are offering X58 boards identical to SLI versions with multiple X16 slots yet not certified for SLI, at a reduced cost. Needless to say they don't include an SLI bridge. My X58 DS3R is one of those boards.

I don't care about paying NV for SLI since that's not a feature I will ever use. If I'm ever nuts enough to want multiple graphics cards Crossfire is good enough. Fortunately, it seems I'm not the only one with this viewpoint.

I got a chuckle out of the $6 for low end board heatsinks. Wow, that sure is expensive aluminum... Also, with the P55 chipset costing the same amount as the P45 it would be reasonable to simply take a look at current P45 boards with features similar to the new P55 boards. Plenty of those under $100, including some under $80 from the less trusted manufacturers. And with reasonable power circuitry and cooling to boot.

 

[taltamir]

I got a chuckle out of the $6 for low end board heatsinks. Wow, that sure is expensive aluminum... Also, with the P55 chipset costing the same amount as the P45 it would be reasonable to simply take a look at current P45 boards with features similar to the new P55 boards. Plenty of those under $100, including some under $80 from the less trusted manufacturers. And with reasonable power circuitry and cooling to boot.

nice catch... id say that the integration of northbridge into CPU should actually make it CHEAPER to make a P55 board than a P45

 

[lopri]

Basically Intel raised the price of ICH by 10+ folds. Unbelievable.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: lopri
Basically Intel raised the price of ICH by 10+ folds. Unbelievable.

what?

 

[nyker96]

personally i think base cost of these is probably like 80s. especially if the manufactures built them in large quantities, they get to negotiate discounts for the parts.

 

[v8envy]

Overall that article makes little sense because it mixes "hard" costs like the cost of materials with "soft" costs such as administration, advertising, R&D, software, QA, support, licensing, overhead etc. Add to that uncertain amounts of $ for kickbacks, rebates, bundling and the overall value of the exercise is questionable.

My pulled-out-the-ass guestimate is roughly $60 in materials and machinery costs to build each low end board and around double that for the high end, assuming "non-MSRP" pricing from suppliers and chipset rebates comprable with P45. Which means some manufacturers will definitely have the option of hitting a $100 price target at the 'egg with their entry level products.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: lopri
Basically Intel raised the price of ICH by 10+ folds. Unbelievable.

wait... was it 40$ for both north AND southbridge in the P45 but 40$ now for the southbridge alone in P55 (since the northbridge has been integrated into cpu)?

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Which means some manufacturers will definitely have the option of hitting a $100 price target at the 'egg with their entry level products.

Well if they don't hit the $100 price tag then I won't be buying, it's as simple as that for me.

And give me a board with just single PCI-e and without all the legacy crap like IDE, floppy, ps/2, etc.

In fact maybe I'll just buy an Intel board since they're the only ones with the sense to make a legacy-free motherboard.

 

[lopri]

Taltamir: According to the article you linked,

X58 IOH: $70.00
P55 PCH: $40.00
P45 MCH: $40.00
ICH10R: $3.00

Since P55 PCH is but a revised ICH10R, I figured the price went from $3.00 to $40.00.

 

[lopri]

Found this somewhere but can't remember where.

GPU Cost

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: lopri
Basically Intel raised the price of ICH by 10+ folds. Unbelievable.

wait... was it 40$ for both north AND southbridge in the P45 but 40$ now for the southbridge alone in P55 (since the northbridge has been integrated into cpu)?

If the Core i5/1156 CPUs communicate with the rest of the system over DMI, and if the older ICH9R and ICH10R chipsets also use DMI... what's to stop someone (ASRock?) from engineering a REAL budget 1156 mobo using the older ICH? It sounds like an interesting possibility to me.

 

[taltamir]

wow... thats a 13.3x increase not a 10x increase... utterly ludicrous.

the s1156 have the CPU communicate with the ICH via DMI. the s1366 have the CPU communicate with the X58 via PQI chip which then communicate with ICH via DMI... the x58 has exactly 4 connections, two 16x pciev2, 1 PQI to CPU, 1 DMI to ICH. Clarkdale type s1156 will actually use QPI internally to communicate between the GPU and CPU on the same "chip", but DMI to communicate with ICH.
The x58 is basically intels version of the NF200 chip

what's to stop someone (ASRock?) from engineering a REAL budget 1156 mobo using the older ICH? It sounds like an interesting possibility to me.

AFAIK intel made some slight modifications to make their new chips incompatible with old ICH
Also there are contracts and patents to take into account, the law givens intel a legal monopoly on those things. nVidia is currently barred from producing compatible chipsets, and of course from producing compatible cpus... although I think i read nvidia saying it will just ignore it and make a cpu anyways