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PCIe 4.0 support for selected X470 and B450 Asus boards?

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"Despite earlier rumors, it seems that even motherboards without X570 chipset can offer PCIe 4.0 on the Ryzen 3000 CPUs. AMD denied this during computex bit, Asus has now published a list of various X470 and B450 motherboards that should at least offer partially PCIe 4.0.

Remember that the option for PCIe Gen 4.0 popped up in several BIOSes on X470. Well, here it the thing, and as explained in our reviews the motherboard chipset chip and IO chip in the Ryzen 3000 processor, are the same thing. Yes, that's two 'chipset' chips. The one in the proc, thus is PCIe 4.0 and if you use X470 or another series 400 chipset, the interlinks are PCIe Gen 2.0. But that does mean that the CPU IO chip still can offer PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes to selected slots (graphics cards (x16) and one M2 slot (x4).

So basically ASUS has outed a series of BIOS/firmware updates in the past few weeks, and that PCIe Gen 4.0 option is back. In Asia, some people have been trying to enable it, and it works on selected motherboards it seems. After enablement, the processors themselves provide 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes for graphics cards and four more lanes for M.2 NVMe SSDs. Remember, due to the chipset chip an X570 platform has PCIe 4.0 everywhere; X470 and B450 even use the old standard PCIe 2.0 with whatever runs over the chipset.

X470 and B450 boards that provide PCIe 4.0 from the CPU
The PCIe 4.0 lines of the CPUs should be at least partially usable with a new BIOS on various Asus motherboards with X470 and B450 chipset. In Asia, the manufacturer has lists of published BIOS updates and models (see thumbnail). These show that a whole range of the older boards with PCIe 4.0 x16 (graphics card) and PCIe 4.0 x4 (M.2-SSD) can even use PCIe 4.0 on the Ryzen 3000 proc.
"

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"All this is even true for the cheaper B450 motherboards. Some folks have been actively testing, and while it is a bit of hit and miss, out of 13 models, 10 offer the full PCIe 4.0 package from Ryzen; three Strix models did not offer full PCIe 4.0 for graphics cards but did support PCIe Gen 4.0 on the primary M2 unit. Interestingly enough for the more expensive X470 motherboards none of the six listed models worked with PCIe Gen 4.0. For these, the graphics card slot was PCIe 4.0 but running x8 or had no PCIe 4.0 available. The option on PCIe 4.0 in the listed Asus motherboards gets enabled through a BIOS update. Whether this already applies to all BIOS updates distributed at the end of June is not clear just yet.

Mydrivers reports that a PCIe 4.0 SSD on the TUF B450M-PRO gaming is said to reach full performance of around 5.0 GB/s reading and 4.2 GB/s writing. With the PCIe 4.0 option, the older X470 and B450 boards could be even more attractive as a cheaper alternative.
"


 
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TheLostSwede

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Our plan is unchanged. For the reliability and consistency reasons cited at Computex, we still intend to disable PCIe Gen 4 for pre-X570 motherboards. That AGESA is being released to motherboard manufacturers soon.
plus if they are ,its by accident since to me they have made damn sure the top end boards wont work wtaf , it was said the first r3000 beta bios is your best bet , on my board that would be 2304 not the latest 2406 bios , definately i would be trying it but i have no pciex4 stuffs , ah well.
 
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For the reliability and consistency reasons cited at Computex, we still intend to disable PCIe Gen 4 for pre-X570 motherboards.
For me, the key word there is "disable". That suggests it's in there, just turned off.
 

TheLostSwede

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For me, the key word there is "disable". That suggests it's in there, just turned off.

Well, yes and no. The CPU obviously can do PCIe 4.0, but the issue is that a lot of boards prior to the X570 boards, weren't designed to meet the PCIe 4.0 specifications.
This can cause problems, mainly in terms of signal integrity. Fancy losing your data to that shiny new PCIe 4.0 SSD? Or having glitchy graphics in games?
For higher quality boards, you simply wouldn't reach full PCIe 4.0 performance.
However, the boards makers have no intention of certifying older boards for PCIe 4.0 either, so AMD had no choice but to say that they won't support it, as it's too much of a risk for them.
It's already been proven to work on some boards, but as to what degree, I don't know. You'd need some seriously expensive test equipment to actually test it as well.
 
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You are reading into my comment MUCH MORE than is there. My comment refers ONLY to that article and my comment clearly states it "suggests".

That simply "suggests" the support is in there. That does not mean it "absolutely IS" in there even though that article (and the word "disabled") "implies" it is.

My point - or perhaps "hope" would be better - is that the feature is indeed there, they just need to invest more time and money to tune, debug and refine the firmware so that it would be rock steady and maybe some time in the near feature, the feature can be "enabled".
 

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You are reading into my comment MUCH MORE than is there. My comment refers ONLY to that article and my comment clearly states it "suggests".

That simply "suggests" the support is in there. That does not mean it "absolutely IS" in there even though that article (and the word "disabled") "implies" it is.

My point - or perhaps "hope" would be better - is that the feature is indeed there, they just need to invest more time and money to tune, debug and refine the firmware so that it would be rock steady and maybe some time in the near feature, the feature can be "enabled".

It won't happen, as per my post above.

However, there might be new X470 and B450 boards that will be certified for PCIe 4.0, but that's a big might.
 
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For me, the key word there is "disable". That suggests it's in there, just turned off.

We are already rewriting BIOSs anyway, I'm sure AMD didn't intend this, but they have almost always left the door cracked open for the mod community.
 
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my aorus elite b450 has pci gen4 in the bios after the last bios update "f40" but im not convinced it will run it, the board was cheap "£120" and the VRMs don't seam to be too great , it runs a everyday overclock of 4.2 fine but the extra power draw id get from pci gen 4 might be too much. wish I had something to test it.
 
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