AssimilatorCould be worse, could be better. I personally have no use for the MCIO or SlimSAS ports, but there's enough lanes allocated to more useful places that it won't kill me. The price on the other hand...

TheLostSwedeHere's the block diagram btw.

TheLostSwedeThere's more to it, but I can't go into any more details without stirring up shit for various USB-IF members, which is not someting I' inclined to do.

Tek-CheckThe paradox is that board vendors rushed with PCIe 5.0 support across GPU and NVMe slots, and almost nobody in the world uses those capabilities, while gatekeeping TB4 to top and halo designs only. Absurd.

AssimilatorThe laptop does have a built-in RTX A2000... but its outputs route through the Intel iGPU, so the bad Intel driver remains in play, and the memory remains leaking.

AssimilatorBAM I have full output of all my monitors being driven by the offboard RTX A2000

AssimilatorThis is the kind of connectivity that professionals like myself don't just expect, but demand from our systems, because why the hell shouldn't we? And that kind of connectivity is what Thunderbolt provides, and what USB4 should provide, and that's why the lack of TB4/USB4 on so-called "high-end" motherboards, in both the standard consumer and now HEDT space, is so freaking bizarre.

TumbleGeorgeSo, I can't be wrong if I say that AMD and partners failed miserably with the chipset we call "South Bridge" in all segments with this generation? It is true that there are many lines and controllers in the I/O chiplet (North Bridge) of the CPUs, but this is not a sufficient excuse.

TumbleGeorgePerhaps your so-called profit by transferring more and more chiplet controllers to the central processor is actually one of the reasons for the increase in both financial and energy costs. This did not, as we know, reduce the price of the motherboards, due to the simplification of the south bridge. On the contrary, motherboards are also significantly more expensive, most noticeably in the price-sensitive budget segment of the market. Tragically stripped of components and interfaces, motherboards with A620 are priced on par with B550 and even higher than B450, which have a richer configuration.

Tek-CheckSo, TRX50 and WRX90 chipsets are basically B650 Promo21 chip from AM5, right?
Another regression from Zen3 to Zen4 high-end platforms is that chipset link speed has been halved! Oh dear... ‍♂️

TumbleGeorgePerhaps your so-called profit by transferring more and more chiplet controllers to the central processor is actually one of the reasons for the increase in both financial and energy costs.

TumbleGeorgeThis did not, as we know, reduce the price of the motherboards, due to the simplification of the south bridge. On the contrary, motherboards are also significantly more expensive, most noticeably in the price-sensitive budget segment of the market.

TumbleGeorgeTragically stripped of components and interfaces, motherboards with A620 are priced on par with B550 and even higher than B450, which have a richer configuration.

• CPU socket is large.
• Since the TDP is so high, the cooling mechanism is large.
• Only 7 PCIe sockets can be installed at most.
• Even a normal graphics card requires 3 sockets
• M.2SSD also takes up space. Especially if there is more than one.

mosawoBy the way, both ASRock, Gigabyte, and probably ASUS have a large number of unused lanes on their TRX50 motherboards. ASRock has 12 lanes unused and Gigabyte has 18 lanes unused. They are in a situation where they cannot use it even if they want to, I think so.

TheLostSwedePart of the problem is actually the now really old and pretty bad ATX motherboard standard. If we moved the CPU to the middle of the PCB, things might get a bit better, at least in terms of lane routing.

ADB1979I have come up with ideas/designs for a replacement to the ATX form factor and associated standards. The problems are however many, and in multiple fields. Case design and motherboard design are the primary ones, but some of my ideas/designs would or could effect various other components, such as add-in cards, nVME, motherboard I/O panel, front I/O potentially, and depending on the final design standards also potentially effecting water-cooling and PSU's, but that would simply be down to placement and tube/cable lengths, so nothing major. Unlike with ATX, it would be a good idea IMHO to create smaller/larger standards from the outset rather than years later.

Quite some time ago now GamersNexus asked their readers/viewers to help them select a manufacturer for a GamersNexus designed case. I tried contacting them repeatedly from two different e-mail addresses (I created one for just this purpose), and I e-mailed several of their staff and never got a response, they obviously were not actually interested.! That sparked my designing of cases, and as you would expect, the immediate problem was the numerous shortcomings of the ATX standard and various associated standards. Apple of course does not have this issue at all, and can create whatever they like.

Ultimately for this to actually get off the ground there would need to be involved, at least one of either AMD or Intel, at least one motherboard manufacturer, at least one case manufacturer, at least one OEM to bulk buy and put this out to the mass market, AND for all of these parts manufacturers to mass manufacture and sell their products to individuals, custom builders etc as apart from the OEM, the primary market in the beginning will be gamers, power users, and professionals, of which power users and professionals is exactly where this discussion started, and the primary points here have been around USB4/TB4, which is not relevant here, the lackluster I/O, the problems with front I/O, AsRock using multiple 40mm fans to cool the VRM's/MOSFETS, and of course the board layout, and the problems with the archaic ATX standard.

If a moderator wants me to, I can create a whole new thread for this topic, or just leave this here. Depending on the feedback I may just do that myself anyway, although I wont be able to do it until Monday.

mosawoMCIO and SlimSAS are good ideas.

There is definitely not enough space on the motherboard. Even if it's E-ATX size, it's a scramble for space.

• CPU socket is large.
• Since the TDP is so high, the cooling mechanism is large.
• Only 7 PCIe sockets can be installed at most.
• Even a normal graphics card requires 3 sockets
• M.2SSD also takes up space. Especially if there is more than one.

From the above, even if the CPU has a large number of lanes, it is extremely difficult to reflect them on the motherboard. One of the countermeasures is MCIO and SlimSAS. It is possible to "offload" the SSD to the outside of the motherboard.

By the way, both ASRock, Gigabyte, and probably ASUS have a large number of unused lanes on their TRX50 motherboards. ASRock has 12 lanes unused and Gigabyte has 18 lanes unused. They are in a situation where they cannot use it even if they want to, I think so.

kapone32ATX exists because there are still users who grew up on it and love it. However you are no longer constrained to ATX in MBs or Cases. There are other form factors that are gaining in popularity and just because some people are into Mini ITX and some of the wildest case designs are in cases that support Micro ATX as a max form factor and now we are seeing more Mini ITX only cases.

kapone32ATX exists because there are still users who grew up on it and love it. However you are no longer constrained to ATX in MBs or Cases. There are other form factors that are gaining in popularity and just because some people are into Mini ITX and some of the wildest case designs are in cases that support Micro ATX as a max form factor and now we are seeing more Mini ITX only cases.

ADB1979I have designs at the ATX size (aimed at gamers) that would allow a 300W GPU to be adequately cooled without sounding like a jet engine, cooling of a 280W CPU and still having space for additional PCIe slots.

This problem as you rightly say cannot realistically be done right now in the Workstation market without increasing the motherboard size, and STILL has shortcomings such as massive GPU's covering slots and making them unusable. These problems will continue as the CPU sockets continue to grow in size and add yet more memory channels. Forget thinking outside of the box, time to tear that box up and create a new one (almost) from scratch, it is rapidly becoming not fit for purpose, especially in the Workstation sphere, the Server sphere is very different and has seen the ATX standard being scrapped entirely in many products in recent years, the only real constraint there is the 19" rackmount standard.


That is true, but none of that addresses the people who have a Threadripper, a couple of add-in cards plus a couple of GPU's, and still need a heap of internal and external I/O.

The overlap between "gaming" systems and "pro" systems ends at the constraints of the physical size of modern high performance GPU's and the ATX standard. FYI: My original designs/ideas started with Gaming and relatively small changes, it is very clear to me that the ATX (or mATX, DTX, ITX etc) all have significant restraints with just the GPU and ATX standard. I did however move onto Workstations and their constraints and that is where I essentially ripped up the ATX standard and looked for solutions to everything that has come up in this thread (except for why there is a serious lack of USB4/TB4, I cant help there).

TheLostSwedeNone of those solve the underlying issues though.

kapone32I understand what you are both saying but at the end of the day there wont be enough sales of these unless the CPUs are accessible to the masses at reasonable prices.