Sunday, February 4th 2024
AMD Readies X870E Chipset to Launch Alongside First Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" CPUs
AMD is readying the new 800-series motherboard chipset to launch alongside its next-generation Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors that implement the "Zen 5" microarchitecture. The chipset family will be led by the AMD X870E, a successor to the current X670E. Since AMD isn't changing the CPU socket, and this is very much the same Socket AM5, the 800-series chipset will support not just "Granite Ridge" at launch, but also the Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael," and Ryzen 8000 series "Hawk Point." Moore's Law is Dead goes into the details of what sets the X870E apart from the current X670E, and it all has to do with USB4.
Apparently, motherboard manufacturers will be mandated to include 40 Gbps USB4 connectivity with AMD X870E, which essentially makes the chipset a 3-chip solution—two Promontory 21 bridge chips, and a discrete ASMedia ASM4242 USB4 host controller; although it's possible that AMD's QVL will allow other brands of USB4 controllers as they become available. The Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" are chiplet based processors just like the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," and while the 4 nm "Zen 5" CCDs are new, the 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD) is largely carried over from "Raphael," with a few updates to its memory controller. DDR5-6400 will be the new AMD-recommended "sweetspot" speed; although AMD might get its motherboard vendors to support DDR5-8000 EXPO profiles with an FCLK of 2400 MHz, and a divider.
The Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" will launch alongside a new wave of AMD X870E motherboards, although these processors very much will be supported on AMD 600-series chipset motherboards with BIOS updates. The vast majority of Socket AM5 motherboards feature USB BIOS Flashback, and so you could even pick up a 600-series chipset motherboard with a Ryzen 9000 series processor in combos. The company might expand the 800-series with other chipset models, such as the X870, B850, and the new B840 in the entry level.
Sources:
Moore's Law is Dead (YouTube), Tweaktown
Apparently, motherboard manufacturers will be mandated to include 40 Gbps USB4 connectivity with AMD X870E, which essentially makes the chipset a 3-chip solution—two Promontory 21 bridge chips, and a discrete ASMedia ASM4242 USB4 host controller; although it's possible that AMD's QVL will allow other brands of USB4 controllers as they become available. The Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" are chiplet based processors just like the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," and while the 4 nm "Zen 5" CCDs are new, the 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD) is largely carried over from "Raphael," with a few updates to its memory controller. DDR5-6400 will be the new AMD-recommended "sweetspot" speed; although AMD might get its motherboard vendors to support DDR5-8000 EXPO profiles with an FCLK of 2400 MHz, and a divider.
216 Comments on AMD Readies X870E Chipset to Launch Alongside First Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" CPUs
As I said before, I usually buy higher end boards and enjoy the increase connectivity options as well as increased fit and finish. Before the ASRock B650E PG Riptide WiFi (with RyZen 7950X) my daily driver was an ASRock X570 Taichi (with RyZen 3950X) and the difference between the two is noteworthy IMO.
It would have been better suited to my current use case (Xonar Xense and 6xSATA) but not for future.
I really don't understand why they made one M.2 in my X670E-Pro with Gen3x4 or SATA, two lanes of that shared with two SATA-Ports. Why only two lanes? Why not give the board 6xSATA and make all four lanes of that M.2 shared? Because switch-ICs are that expensive?
Also, since up to very recently I had to depend on WiFi, I thought it was neat to have WiFi integrated in the I/O-panel, even though it was complicated swapping the wifi-NIC, but now I see it as just a waste of one Gen3-lane.
- all Gen4 lanes are busy, so you can't have more Gen4 lanes available for any devices
- some lanes are shared. On the chipset, PCIe 3.0 and SATA could be shared as those are provided on the same PHY root complex
- one Gen3/SATA lane from chipset 1 is not counted. It disappeared somewhere...
- there is something confusing on this board, namely Q-SW switch chip; it is fed by both chipsets, Gen3 x1 from PT21_1 and Gen3 x2 from PT21_2
- below it, there is M.2_2 slot, fed by two x2 Gen3 lanes from both chipsets
- when M.2 Gen3 runs in x4 mode, two Gen3 lanes from chipset 2 are not available for Q-SW and so two SATA ports do not work, Asus says
- what is confusing to me is that single Gen3 x1 lane from chipset 1 still feeds Q-SW, and there is another unaccounted x1 Gen3 lane on chipset 1. I cannot see the reason for those two SATA to be cut-off even if M.2 gets x4 bandwidth. Weird, unless Q-SW needs x1 lane to function beyond data transmission.
Here is a diagram for this board
Most AM5 boards have the CPU use one x16 for the GPU, two x4s for nvme, and everything else comes from the chipset.
16x pcie lanes from the CPU for the GPU
4x pcie lanes from the CPU for nvme
4x pcie lanes from the cpu for USB
4x pcie lanes from the CPU dedicated to a 4x slot and not on a switch
4x pcie lanes from the chipset in a 4x slot
nvme storage drives can be hosted on the chipset
the problem is the wasted board relestate with the 2nd 16x slot 8 electircal swithced from the 16x GPU CPU lanes
That would be a proper high end chipset board
In what metrics does RAID 0 NVME drive benefit gaming latency? If it's purely drive space then I'd need more convincing when there are 4Tb drives on the market. On a side note I was running a scsi drive pre CS beta era (was more of a DOD player), maybe 2001 or 2002 ,, might of been a 15k 36g fujitsu or something so the idea of fast drive interface intrigues, please enlighten us.
In the current X670e market the only boards you can get with a 3rd PCIe CPU slot which is 4x electrical is the Meg Ace or Godlike. How are you running your setup? Off the GPU lanes on a switch?
Separating input peripherals on different USB CPU hubs is optimal vs both on 1 USB CPU hub. If any input device is off the chipset USB port it's not optimal. Of course higher polling rates adversely effect "PC latency" but unless you are on a HEDT like Threadripper in the end there will be some form of I/O used for gaming coming from the chipset, but that expanded dedicated CPU slot option is king. You could run your expansion card through a 4x electrical slot on one of those, they are full16x slots.
lol what are you talking about,,, gaming latency and being on HDDs
SLI/Crossfire does indeed suck. The frame pacing was never resolved.
Apparently Windows 10 has a write limit of 2 GB/s, and 11 is 3 GB/s. I learn something new every day /s :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
As far as SLI and Crossfire all I will say is that I made sure I got Games that supported Crossfire based on the Wiki page. So that meant that Sleeping Dogs ran over 200 FPS and TW Rome 2 doubled in FPS. Did you have Polaris cards in crossfire that was at the driver level and needed no bridge? As most of us were using 60hz panels (Unless you had one of those Korean that depended on the GPU for scaling) that led to most of the issues you describe. If SLI sucked why did Nvidia disable it on the GTS 450 without telling anyone?
You can make fun of me all you want all I am talking about is my real world experience. Do you have all of the different types of Drives I have? Do you know how SSD RAID 0 is better than NVME RAID 0? You don't get the drop off that you get with NVME. I guess you will tell me that after using a 5.0 drive for so long that there is no tangible difference between it and a high end 4.0 like the Seagate 530 2TB for daily use.
Sound card? Only a handful of audiophiles still use them. Graphics cards being able to process audio basically killed this market.
USB controllers for better input latency? You have a crapton of USB ports already running from the CPU, so how many more keyboards and mice do you want to connect?
Personally, I'm happy with the way things are. A separate OS and game drive is a must for me. In case of an OS drive failure, I can just reinstall it without having to wait 2-3 days for my game library to download. Yes, my internet connection is really that bad. And in case of a game drive failure, I can still use my PC as normal while my game library downloads again onto the new drive.
Ideal for me would be:
1x16/x8 Gen5 from CPU for GPU, 4xM.2 or 200GbE
1x8/x0 Gen5 from CPU for GPU, 2xM.2 or 100GbE
1-2x4 Gen5 from CPU, shared with 1-2xM.2, for NVMe, USB4v2/TB5 (or USB4/TB4 atm), 25/50GbE, SAS-RAID-Controller
2x4 Gen4 from PCH, shared with M.2 for 10GbE, USB4/TB4, SATA-Controller, HDMI-Video-Capture
2-3x1 Gen4 for Soundcard, TV-Tuner, SATA
X870E should atleast have 5GbE + WiFi7, but can have 10GbE (Marvell Aqtion AQC113C can use 1xGen4 or 2xGen3)SLI/Crossfire are dead and were never really useful. Gaming doesn't neet anything. You need a Gen4x16-Slot (next gen GPUs will use Gen5, but it won't make any difference with 16 Lanes) and one M.2-slot. Again, Gen3, 4 or 5 doesn't make any difference for games. As doesn't RAM-clock. Wake up, you only need 7800X3D (or 9800X3D), enough RAM, one NVMe and the rest of the budget should go into GPU.What are you talking about? GPUs processing audio? Only thing they can do with audio is outputting digital oudio via HDMI or DP. The days of PCIe-soundcards might be over in facour of USB, both only with audiophiles because onboard codecs on good boards are really good (ALC1220/4080/4082, not that ALC897-Crap), but every good pcie soundcard that anyone ever bought will allways be better than todays onboard codecs.
I have personally tested this.
Sure, if you're running low refresh rate RAM speed won't matter as much, but with 165 Hz+ averages go up, as do minimums with faster RAM tune, so you can still see benefit at 120 Hz or even 60 Hz. Getting sub 60 ns is important for either Intel/AMD. Peak tune is around 55 ns for AMD and 45 ns for Intel. Bandwidth also matters for some games, but latency matters more for most.
You're on a 144 Hz monitor, so your averages probably wouldn't be affected too much, but I'd wager almost anything you'd notice your minimum FPS dipping below 60 FPS quite frequently.
Regardless, RAM speed/latency objectively matters to gaming performance, even if you have an X3D chip, this is a statement of fact. Depending on your monitor refresh rate, your GPU power and the type of gamer you are, you may notice this more or less, but the underlying technical data is irrefutable.