Gigabyte B760 AORUS Elite DDR4 Motherboard Leaks – More Bad News for AMD?

It’s widely expected, to the point of almost being a foregone conclusion, that Intel will launch not only more Raptor Lake processors at CES 2023 (possibly all remaining models) but also their lower-tier motherboard offerings. Yes, it feels like an age, but B760 designs are very nearly upon us and with these typically offering a more attractive price point than Z790, we daresay that the launch of these, alongside new Raptor Lake CPUs, will result in a nice upturn in business for Intel.

Just in case you needed confirmation that B760 models were on the way, however, following a report via Videocardz, images of the upcoming Gigabyte B760 AORUS Elite motherboard have appeared online. And in something of a roundabout way, this could spell more bad news for AMD.

Gigabyte B760 AORUS Elite DDR4 Motherboard

Although not much is currently confirmed regarding any upcoming B760 motherboard designs, it’s understood that while they’ll feature notably less accessibility in terms of overclocking and PCIe lanes, they’ll still easily cover the vast majority of points that the typical enthusiast gamer will want. – Not least of all, as mentioned above, a significantly more affordable gateway to Raptor Lake (or Alder Lake since it’s sharing the same LGA1700 socket).

While no prices are yet confirmed, the images of this Gigabyte design do, however, clearly indicate that those people who have been waiting might shortly have their chance to strike.

Bad News for AMD?

Now, you might at this point be wondering why the B760 platform could be problematic for AMD. Well, as noted on the packaging of this Gigabyte model, Intel has shown significantly more interest in retaining support for DDR4 memory whereas AMD Ryzen 7000 offers no compatibility at all. – For Team Red’s latest CPUs on the AM5 socket, it’s DDR5 or nothing!

And here we hit on what has arguably been the biggest reason why Ryzen 7000 has been selling so poorly. Put simply, making the transition to it (as a current or potentially new Ryzen owner) is an expensive process. New CPU, new motherboard, and new RAM. It all adds up and it seems that this is a key reason why people have ultimately been reluctant to make the move. And such reluctance clearly gives Intel a pretty firm, and somewhat rare, advantage of at least having some backwards compatibility options for components.

What do you think though? – Let us know in the comments!