ASRock B850 Live Mixer WiFi, and B860 Live Mixer WiFi Series Pictured

[btarunr]

Here are some of the first pictures of ASRock's upcoming Live Mixer series motherboards based on mid-range chipsets from AMD and Intel. The Live Mixer brand of motherboards has a similar positioning in ASRock's product stack as Steel Legend, but with a variation in product design, and a mid-range onboard audio solution that uses audio codecs such as the ALC1200 or ALC4080. There's nothing that particularly stands out in this audio solution (no fancy amp circuits or exotic I/O). The B850 Live Mixer Wi-Fi is an ATX board based on the AMD B850 chipset. This is essentially a re-brand of the popular B650, but with out-of-the-box support for the latest Ryzen 9000 series processors, including the 9000X3D series. The board offers three M.2 NVMe slots, one of which is Gen 5, and the others Gen 4. The WLAN solution is very likely Wi-Fi 6E.

Next up, is the ASRock B860 Live Mixer Wi-Fi. This Socket LGA1851 motherboard is based on Intel's mid-range chipset for its "Arrow Lake" processors, the Intel B860. Much like the previous generation B760, it is expected to lack CPU overclocking support. This board visually looks a lot similar to its AMD B850-based sibling, you could almost confuse the two if you're not looking at the CPU socket. You get three M.2 NVMe slots here, too; one of which is Gen 5, and doesn't eat into the x16 PEG slot. We expect this board to offer Wi-Fi 6E, just like the B850 Live Mixer Wi-Fi. Lastly, there's the B860M Live Mixer Wi-Fi, a Micro-ATX variant of this board, with mostly the same feature-set, it's just that the third M.2 slot is without a heatsink; and the second PCIe slot is physically x8 instead of x16, which shouldn't matter since the slot is likely electrical x4 on both motherboard models. Intel and AMD are expected to debut the B850 and B860 in January.



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[Apocalypsee]

The naming reminds me of food processor lol

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Eh, on 2 of 3 boards batteries are in easy place. The MB for AMD must demount graphic card first to have access to battery.

 

[Shou Miko]

Hmm looks like the Live Mixer series has gone minimalist compared to the B650 board...

It's cool to see another micro-ATX board

 

[qlum]

Eh, on 2 of 3 boards batteries are in easy place. The MB for AMD must demount graphic card first to have access to battery.

Not undoable, in practice though battery replacements are not something you have to do often at all, maybe once a decade or so, no big deal to unplug the gpu for that.

i will say I do miss the whacky orange color scheme of the old livemixer.

 

[Ruru]

Hmm looks like the Live Mixer series has gone minimalist compared to the B650 board...

It's cool to see another micro-ATX board

That B650 version looked nice, something different than all the RGB gaming bling boards there are.

Not undoable, in practice though battery replacements are not something you have to do often at all, maybe once a decade or so, no big deal to unplug the gpu for that.

i will say I do miss the whacky orange color scheme of the old livemixer.

I prefer removing the battery when I need to do a CMOS reset, so it's not just for replacement in mind.

 

[Fatalfury]

Realtek audio codec 4080 or 4082 used is mid??
but those are kinda used in all flagship expensive boards.

 

[SandyBridgeEnjoyer]

it's pretty sad that they went minimalist given how cool the previous generation of LiveMixer boards looked, now it just feels soulless and looks like what a Pro RS board would look like
at least they added WiFi/BT which is definitely something

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Realtek audio codec 4080 or 4082 used is mid??
but those are kinda used in all flagship expensive boards.

And are utter garbage compared to external solutions. Onboard audio has gotten a ton better and is functional for gaming but gaming is still utter low end audio. What one of these companies needs to do is ditch the PC centric solutions and build an external item. As it stands onboard realtek gets slaughtered by stuff from Steelseries that still uses bog ass generic ESS solutions and can get it done from 150 bucks. That's with their inflated price and the inflated price most peripherals will charge. Someone like ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI could construct an ESS solution and rip it down to a sub 100 add-on.

 

[_roman_]

No more yellow colored mainboards. How boring. The original B650 asrock livemixer mainboard is a bit too expensive for my taste.

I did expect that those mainboards will show up in january or february. After that xmas money was spend.

Onboard audio has gotten a ton better and is functional for gaming but gaming is still utter low end audio.

Onboard audio caused me some headache. I do not need a crappy audio solution when they can not manage balanced audio outputs. Make mainbaords cheaper without useless features like onboard audio, usb 4, ... therefore expansion card exists.

Some usb audio interfaces are far cheaper as 150 bucks and far better.

 

[LabRat 891]

Like many boards, these are all quite lacking on expansion.
B650 had quite a few boards w/ some decent expansion. Hopefully, other brands will bring that forward.

 

[Launcestonian]

I don't give a stuff what the board looks like, its performance that counts & no one knows that until they are officially released & tested.

 

[Shou Miko]

That B650 version looked nice, something different than all the RGB gaming bling boards there are.

Yeah no rgb madness, I can admit that the original LiveMixer might was a bit too much difference but it was really cool if Asrock would continue the tent and wasn't afraid of being different.

To everyone else it's great to see the cmos battery in a different place so it's easier to get to.