Sunday, June 27th 2021
AMD 4700S 8-core Processor Desktop Kit Listed as an Official AMD Product
Back in May, pictures surfaced of a curious-looking Micro-ATX motherboard featuring a so-called "AMD 4700S" SoC. At the heart of these boards were an SoC not unlike the one that powers the Xbox Series X, except that the integrated GPU is completely disabled, with no onboard display outputs. The board is very likely a means for AMD to harvest Xbox Series X/S SoCs with broken iGPUs. It now turns out that the board is an official AMD product, named "AMD 4700S 8-core Processor Desktop Kit."
The board provides an 8-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, no iGPU, but a PCI-Express x16 slot that's electrically PCI-Express 2.0 x4, a handful USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, two SATA 6 Gbps ports, onboard 1 GbE LAN and 6-channel HD audio. The SoC comes with its own unspecified amount of onboard memory in the form of hardwired DDR4 memory chips surrounding it; there are no additional memory slots. The Xbox Series X SoC features a 256-bit wide memory bus, so it will be interesting to see if AMD has maximized it. AMD didn't reveal pricing or availability information, although they way this is marketed, the board will very likely be available in the retail channel.
Source:
AMD
The board provides an 8-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, no iGPU, but a PCI-Express x16 slot that's electrically PCI-Express 2.0 x4, a handful USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, two SATA 6 Gbps ports, onboard 1 GbE LAN and 6-channel HD audio. The SoC comes with its own unspecified amount of onboard memory in the form of hardwired DDR4 memory chips surrounding it; there are no additional memory slots. The Xbox Series X SoC features a 256-bit wide memory bus, so it will be interesting to see if AMD has maximized it. AMD didn't reveal pricing or availability information, although they way this is marketed, the board will very likely be available in the retail channel.
33 Comments on AMD 4700S 8-core Processor Desktop Kit Listed as an Official AMD Product
It's possible to get a far better deal going with some small minipc like AsRock X300, adding 4750G and 2x8GB SO-DIMM DDR4-3200 CL16 plus up to two M.2 drives that will blow this 4700S away. Likely not costing too much more (becase a person would have to spend on dGPU with 4700S and prices of dGPU's are still inflated). Even faster and more on par with price of 4700S when going with 4650G (~200) or waiting for 5600G (260) in August.
4700S: 250 minimum price + dGPU that costs 150 minimum. Add to that an mATX case (30) and a PSU (50) and it comes in at 480. Thats the best case scenario assuming 4700S does not cost above 250.
X300 (case and PSU included - 150)+5600G (260)+2x8GB RAM (90)+1x M.2 SSD (70): 570
If it had an iGPU it would find plenty of use cases but 2021 is not the year to expect people to buy their own dGPU.
No iGPU likely means that you can't use it in an office rig and no extras on the board also means that it's not gonna work as a headless server.
PCIe 2.0 x4 also hints that it won't be a gaming rig.
Rudimentary audio implementation also deters HTPC as a potential use case.
There are also lots of questionable things on this board, like having PCIe lanes on an SoC, but using 2.0 lanes off the chipset for GPU(while the FCH is quite outdated too), and a USB-based AX88179 ethernet controller with its "legendary performance and reliability".
Also, there is a question of how GDDR6 will behave in a desktop environment....
It's got to be very cheap in order to sell, otherwise you won't have any impulsive buyers who'll get it first and figure out the use case later.
EDIT: To my surprise - it is actually quite cheap. At least according to overclockers.ru and Toms it retails for $317 in Finland (probably incl. VAT), which is cheaper than either 4750G or even 3700X on its own.
If you can put up with shitty NIC, no expandability, no modern I/O and questionable architecture, then GT1030 for mini-home-server it is...
P.S. Also note that on the product page a dude is assembling an Intel rig :D
It's indeed a very odd product that doesn't seem to have a niche and never will have one.
A decent 4750G build costs about 500-700.
if the price is right, Im sure they could run doom on there too. not just forte nite.
Is not the point of an internet cafe that you can go and play all sort of games at higher settings that you cant do at home? Not just fortnite or dota2 at low.
Northbridge ID confirms it's the SoC from the PS5 and not the XBOX.
Rumour says, Sony demanded from AMD to disable the iGPU and PCIe4 lanes to be able to sell it.
Even ignoring that elephant in the room, there's also the issue that this isn't really a PCIe graphics slot. It's 1/16th the bandwidth of a modern PEG slot and whilst it's true that GPUs don't need all the bandwidth of a 4.0 x16 slot, it's been proven many times PCIe 3.0 x8 starts to see impact on high-end cards and PCIe 3.0 x4 significantly hurts even the midrange GPUs. At 2.0 x4 and shared with all the other things the chipset is doing, that slot is of very limited use for a graphics card other than mining.
The only few advantages deskmini has over this is size and modularity (and more cache on the CPU side of things).
And if you count the cheapest DIY ITX rig, it'll be even more expensive. 4750G prebuilts also aren't cheap.
I also like 4750G, but in my region the cheapest listing is over $400. Hence, I've settled on a hotbox 3800X for my main rig upgrade.
GPU is a bummer, but if this pricetag is real - it gives us some financial room to wiggle :D
Hopefully by the time it hits the mainstream market, GPU prices will get sorted out a little bit and you'll be able to get a GT1030 for $70-75 new once again.
Not much cheaper even tho includes the board and memory. X300 is around 150.
geizhals.eu/?cat=WL-2128880 > 718€
geizhals.eu/?cat=WL-2128889 > 287€ plus 317€ for 4700S equals 605€.
So 4700S is slightly cheaper but has no expansion and faster dGPU's wold be horribly bottlenecked. Also is limited to SATA so no DirectStorage support in the future.
Granted. I did not choose the cheapest components for either one. Rather i went for decent (and well reviewed) components from known manufacturers.
Also a bad idea to pair Ryzen with only single 8GB DIMM. That would leave a lot of performance on the table. Plus most SO-DIMM kits are 3000Mhz CL22 or worse. I chose the best one that's on the market. In August there will be retail 5700G for 360 (MSRP) that is cheaper than 4750G now. Tho when Renoir came out i got one for liittle over 300€. The prices have gone up since then reflecting poorly on 4750G. Underservedly so. With 300€ like it was last year the total build cost would be roughly equal to 4700S.
Why do you think most servers come with at least something rudimentary, like matrox G200e?
Yes, there are some AM4/115X boards that can post without a GPU (in CSM/Legacy mode only, and requires some hoop-jumping for OS installation), but I have a strong feeling that this board is not one of them (given recent trends I doubt it even has CSM mode).www.newegg.com/black-fractal-design-node-202-integra-sfx-450w-psu-mini-itx/p/N82E16811352059
Pretty sure the stock cooler is small enough to fit 56mm clearance.
Alternatively you can get something compact and semi-decent in uATX form factor, like Rosewill FBM-X2, or one of many cheap ITX cube cases for under $60. Combo it with EVGA BQ or something along these lines and you have a winner. Another option is FSP CST110(which coincidentally is my new el-cheapo favorite for office SFFs), which can be paired with FSP SFX Pro/Dagger or generic Seasonic SFB series for under $110 total.
Worst case, since we are hypothetically on a tight budget, is a generic uATX SFF case with built-in 300-400W PSU for under $35-$40 (FSP, Gamemax, Intertech, or gazillion OEM and unbranded chinese models with questionable PSUs). :D :D :D
There are always options.
That thing is made out of old A77 Fusion chipsets and defective PS5 SoCs. It's gonna have a bog-standard Aptio-V firmware with half the functions disabled. Probably no CSM mode.
EDIT: Just downloaded a C06 firmware from the support page, and there is no CSM options in menu, nor is there a typical set of CSM modules showing in MMTool.
Personally i dont see the appeal of 4700S to many people. It's too unbalanced with 8c/16t CPU but no iGPU. If they had released something like 6c/12t with the iGPU intact that would have been a far more potent combo.