Intel 500 Series Motherboards to Supposedly Arrive on January 11th

[bug]

Nothing like getting a new mobo that you know in advance won't support the next gen CPUs (because of DDR5).

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Also, I should mention that initially when Intel was pushing Comet Lake, Mobo Manufacturers werent given much info till later that if the CPU was PCIE 4.0 or not. Only one that was informed apparently at a specific time was ASUS since apparently none of their boards or maybe 1 board at best, has PCIE 4.0 hardware on it. Thus those with ASUS Z490 boards would have to upgrade if they want PCIE 4.0. MSI, Gigabyte and others were not informed so they had put the PCIE 4.0 compliant hardware on their mobo's.

I struck it lucky with the MSI Gaming Plus z490 as it was cheap and apparently after getting it and reading this, it should work with rocket lake and PCIE 4.0. But judging so far of performance of PCIE 4.0 vs 3.0 and its usefulness mix in with lower core count of Rocket Lake, I may just skip it and go with a 10900 ES I can find on Ali.

ASUS Z490 Motherboards Severely Lack Behind In PCIe 4.0 Support Compared To Competitors, No Proper Hardware-Level Integration For Rocket Lake CPUs

The PCIe Gen 4 integration on several Z490 motherboards from ASUS, ASRock, MSI & Gigabyte has been detailed for upcoming Intel 11th Gen CPUs.

wccftech.com

I read that piece from WCCFTech some weeks ago, and given I run an ASUS board, I was a bit peeved to read that all but one (maybe 2) of their current crop of Z490 boards has the necessary hardware to be 4.0 compliant, should the user decide to move to RKL because Comet Lake doesn't support it whatsoever. Since reading that, I've been going back and forth between selling my Intel platform and going back to Ryzen, or just keeping it and living with the fact that my upgrade path is next to nil. And while some might argue that AM4 is also a dead socket, that only really applies if you already have the best of the best Ryzen CPU. But if you start with something like a 3600 and sometime down the line feel a upgrade is in order, look at all the options you have! 3700, 3800, 3900X, 3950X, not to mention the 5000 series! Best of all, all those CPUs will work on the same board with a BOIS update here and there. I mean, that's an amazing amount of choice you have. With Intel, since I have a 10700K, my "upgrade" path is either the 10850K or the space heater that is the 10900K, which would mean I'd most likely have to also upgrade my AIO.

So yeah, I'm really struggling with what to do about it. Though, even if I sold the Intel stuff, I'd still have my HP Envy 360 to use while waiting for Ryzen stock to regenerate.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Oh look another new MB for a tweaked 14nm+++++++++++++++++++ vomit lake processor, to be replaced in 6 months by Balderdash Lake 600 series chipset.

 

[sepheronx]

I read that piece from WCCFTech some weeks ago, and given I run an ASUS board, I was a bit peeved to read that all but one (maybe 2) of their current crop of Z490 boards has the necessary hardware to be 4.0 compliant, should the user decide to move to RKL because Comet Lake doesn't support it whatsoever. Since reading that, I've been going back and forth between selling my Intel platform and going back to Ryzen, or just keeping it and living with the fact that my upgrade path is next to nil. And while some might argue that AM4 is also a dead socket, that only really applies if you already have the best of the best Ryzen CPU. But if you start with something like a 3600 and sometime down the line feel a upgrade is in order, look at all the options you have! 3700, 3800, 3900X, 3950X, not to mention the 5000 series! Best of all, all those CPUs will work on the same board with a BOIS update here and there. I mean, that's an amazing amount of choice you have. With Intel, since I have a 10700K, my "upgrade" path is either the 10850K or the space heater that is the 10900K, which would mean I'd most likely have to also upgrade my AIO.

So yeah, I'm really struggling with what to do about it. Though, even if I sold the Intel stuff, I'd still have my HP Envy 360 to use while waiting for Ryzen stock to regenerate.

I am kinda in the same boat but I at least have a better upgrade option as I am going from a 3.7GHz 10500 ES chip that wont accept RAM speeds beyond 2666, to which I can go to something like a 10850. But I am waiting on Rocket Lake and 1 other thing, to see if PCIe 4.0 NVME will actually matter in gaming in the next couple of years because of texture streaming possibility that is being pushed by consoles. If it doesn't matter and the difference in speed is nothing in texture streaming, then why bother? I can just get a much cheaper 10850 (by then) or whichever, and use my current Mobo. Why upgrade again in a year or two for next to no real performance upgrade?

I say just stick with what you got for now. We do not know the full results of everything (or any results for that matter). So patience.

 

[watzupken]

Relax guys. The article says "supposedly". Good chance it never hits shelves.

I beg to differ. In fact looking at Intel's historical trend, there is a good chance they will introduce a new chipset. Just hope they don't force you to get the new chipset with some artificial reasons.

 

[EarthDog]

I read that piece from WCCFTech some weeks ago, and given I run an ASUS board, I was a bit peeved to read that all but one (maybe 2) of their current crop of Z490 boards has the necessary hardware to be 4.0 compliant, should the user decide to move to RKL because Comet Lake doesn't support it whatsoever. Since reading that, I've been going back and forth between selling my Intel platform and going back to Ryzen, or just keeping it and living with the fact that my upgrade path is next to nil. And while some might argue that AM4 is also a dead socket, that only really applies if you already have the best of the best Ryzen CPU. But if you start with something like a 3600 and sometime down the line feel a upgrade is in order, look at all the options you have! 3700, 3800, 3900X, 3950X, not to mention the 5000 series! Best of all, all those CPUs will work on the same board with a BOIS update here and there. I mean, that's an amazing amount of choice you have. With Intel, since I have a 10700K, my "upgrade" path is either the 10850K or the space heater that is the 10900K, which would mean I'd most likely have to also upgrade my AIO.

So yeah, I'm really struggling with what to do about it. Though, even if I sold the Intel stuff, I'd still have my HP Envy 360 to use while waiting for Ryzen stock to regenerate.

Nothing like getting a new mobo that you know in advance won't support the next gen CPUs (because of DDR5).

AMD is like that too.

I domt get the pcie 4.0 and ddr5 angle though. We know pcie 4.0 isn't useful in gaming even with a 3090, but for faster and more flexible storage options (which most dont need that flexibility or would notice the speed in many cases between 3.0 and 4.0 drive.

Ddr5 isn't going to make things much faster...ram isn't limiting anything.

I'm sure we'll see these announced at 'ces' on the 11th, but I don't imagine availability for weeks to months after...much closer to release of the cpu.

My point is if you're rocking a 3.0 board, you're fine until the next significant cpu upgrade anyway.

We will see these announced on the 11th but

 

[londiste]

Ddr5 isn't going to make things much faster...ram isn't limiting anything.

There are definitely use cases that benefit from more memory bandwidth. This includes some games among other things. Whether or not more bandwidth is worth the hit on latency is a different matter and it is again very situational.

 

[EarthDog]

There are definitely use cases that benefit from more memory bandwidth. This includes some games among other things. Whether or not more bandwidth is worth the hit on latency is a different matter and it is again very situational.

They are few an far between and once you're sitting at 3600 on both platforms, it's negligible. All I am saying is that for most people, DDR5 isn't worth waiting for. Quite obviously if your (few and far between) use case can benefit, of course it makes sense to wait... I didn't feel the need to spell that out. Apologies for the blanket statement. Im well aware that are situations where it will be helpful.

 

[bug]

AMD is like that too.

I domt get the pcie 4.0 and ddr5 angle though. We know pcie 4.0 isn't useful in gaming even with a 3090, but for faster and more flexible storage options (which most dont need that flexibility or would notice the speed in many cases between 3.0 and 4.0 drive.

Ddr5 isn't going to make things much faster...ram isn't limiting anything.

I'm sure we'll see these announced at 'ces' on the 11th, but I don't imagine availability for weeks to months after...much closer to release of the cpu.

My point is if you're rocking a 3.0 board, you're fine until the next significant cpu upgrade anyway.

We will see these announced on the 11th but

Well, yes, you may be perfectly fine with DDR4. But if you buy into Rocket Lake, you know in advance that your next upgrade will require you changing the whole platform.

I know backwards compatibility is hard, but for the time being Intel is in a hole, they can't afford many more moves like this.

 

[EarthDog]

Well, yes, you may be perfectly fine with DDR4. But if you buy into Rocket Lake, you know in advance that your next upgrade will require you changing the whole platform.

I know backwards compatibility is hard, but for the time being Intel is in a hole, they can't afford many more moves like this.

Sometimes that happens (next upgrade change the platform). That doesn't take much away from the existing platform, however. By the time DDR4 actually becomes long in the tooth for most users, you'll be ready to upgrade to DDR5. That said, AMD has the same issue too. X570 is the end of the road for DDR4 there and 5000 series...nothing wrong with Intel RL and Z590 DDR4 for years to come.

 

[bug]

Sometimes that happens (next upgrade change the platform). That doesn't take much away from the existing platform, however. By the time DDR4 actually becomes long in the tooth for most users, you'll be ready to upgrade to DDR5. That said, AMD has the same issue too. X570 is the end of the road for DDR4 there and 5000 series...nothing wrong with Intel RL and Z590 DDR4 for years to come.

The difference being X570 can run several generations of a pretty good CPU, whereas Z590 will run exactly one generation of a long in the tooth CPU.
Rumor has it RL will pretty much suck (die too big, power hungry, Intel won't be able to make many of them - no capacity). They need everything around RL to be top notch.

But whatever, I wasn't buying anyway.

 

[EarthDog]

The difference being X570 can run several generations of a pretty good CPU, whereas Z590 will run exactly one generation of a long in the tooth CPU.

ftr, z590 runs two gens... comet lake and rocket lake. Comet lake is a bit slower than amd in most cases...competitive on the performance front, but you're already calling RL long in the tooth when rumor has it IPC uptick is significant. Who knows... but its going to be pcie 4.0 and not entirely different than what amd has on the table.

Backwards compatibility isn't relevant in a discussion about moving forward. You're moving the goalposts.

 

[bug]

ftr, z590 runs two gens... comet lake and rocket lake.

Backwards compatibility isn't relevant in a discussion about moving forward. You're moving the goalposts.

Well, Zen3 wasn't around when X570 was released, so that's forward compatibility.
But good point about Z590 also being able to run CL, it slipped my mind they're both LGA1200.

 

[EarthDog]

Well, Zen3 wasn't around when X570 was released, so that's forward compatibility.
But good point about Z590 also being able to run CL, it slipped my mind they're both LGA1200.

RL wasn't around when z490/comet lake/lga 1200 came out either...but all z490 boards support the RL chips with many of them fully supporting pcie 4.0 as well.

Hkw many gens does X570 will support 2 or 3? zen2, zen3...zen+? Why can't 8 recall offhand?? Lol

 

[bug]

RL wasn't around when z490/comet lake/lga 1200 came out either...but all z490 boards support the RL chips with many of them fully supporting pcie 4.0 as well.

True, but I was talking about how Z590 looks like a pretty poor launch to me. I'll have to check what it really brings to the table if Z490 can already run it.

Hkw many gens does X570 will support 2 or 3? zen2, zen3...zen+? Why can't 8 recall offhand?? Lol

I believe it's Zen+, Zen2 and Zen3. With the caveat that you lose support for Zen+ when you flash a BIOS that adds Zen3 support. It's not like you're going to go back from Zen3 to Zen+ (you could, if your Zen3 suddenly craps out and you still have your Zen+ around), but it's not what you typically expect from a BIOS flash either.

 

[SL2]

LGA 775 saw the pentium 4, pentium D, Pentium core, and two significant generations of core 2 duo and quads.

Same sockets on paper, like you suggested. IRL it was way messier that that. You needed one specific motherboard model in order to be able to use either netburst or core, IIRC.
For most it was two sets of motherboards with 775, with one supporting netburst, and the other supporting core. Two generations each.

AM4 is not the only socket AMD has ever made. The likes of socket 754, 939, AM2, and AM2+ had comaprable lifespans to intel products. And should we forget how FM1 saw a SINGLE processor generation? Same with FM2. And AM1. ONE GENERATION. Intel only did that twice, once with socket 7 back in the 90s and once with the disasterous williamette launch.

Talk about splitting hairs.

Same goes for LGA1156. Now someone might say it was two generations, but with one being 2C with IGP, and the other 4C without IGP, I just don't see it. Also, the 4C was launched first, so it didn't even make sense as an upgrade path.
Otherwise we might count AM4 APU's and CPU's separately as well, that's eight CPU's and counting (as in expecting Cezanne to become the ninth next year) .

While those AMD sockets you mention only had one generation, we're talking about pretty obscure sockets, as opposed to Intel's one generation sockets that were mainstream sockets.

No? What on earth are you on about?

AM4 is at the end of the line. AMD gave it 4 years of support, that ends this year. Nobody is expecting ryzen 6000 to be on socket AM4.

No, it's 5 years, as AM4 debuted the year before Ryzen was launched. AMD gave it 4 years of support at the Ryzen launch in 2017. In total, 2016 to 2021.
Like I said, desktop Cezanne will most likely be AM4, given that it uses DDR4, and it won't be launched this year. Besides, it's not like the current 5000 lineup is complete, nobody believes that.

 

[EarthDog]

True, but I was talking about how Z590 looks like a pretty poor launch to me. I'll have to check what it really brings to the table if Z490 can already run it.


I believe it's Zen+, Zen2 and Zen3. With the caveat that you lose support for Zen+ when you flash a BIOS that adds Zen3 support. It's not like you're going to go back from Zen3 to Zen+ (you could, if your Zen3 suddenly craps out and you still have your Zen+ around), but it's not what you typically expect from a BIOS flash either.

It brings PCIe 4.0 on all boards and whatever other changes come with... move 2.5 GbE, faster wifi, better SATA port management due to more PCIe lanes/bandwidth, VRMs, aesthetics.. etc.

So it covers two gens at a time, basically... nothing different than AMD atm...

 

[watzupken]

ftr, z590 runs two gens... comet lake and rocket lake. Comet lake is a bit slower than amd in most cases...competitive on the performance front, but you're already calling RL long in the tooth when rumor has it IPC uptick is significant. Who knows... but its going to be pcie 4.0 and not entirely different than what amd has on the table.

Backwards compatibility isn't relevant in a discussion about moving forward. You're moving the goalposts.

But who will want to buy a Z590 and run Comet Lake when you can get a Z490 which is probably cheaper. The X570 however was launched along with Zen 2 chips, and supports Zen 3. The former is a case of backward compatibility, while the latter is forward compatibility. Intel generally have a problem of artificially limiting forward compatibility.

As to the performance of RL, I am looking forward to see what it will bring to the table. IPC uplift better be significant considering they have kept IPC stuck since Skylake through Comet Lake. That's 4 generations of Intel processor with 0 IPC improvement. Brute increase in clockspeed is not IPC improvement. Comet Lake mostly have the advantage when running AVX 512 applications and in games when we compare it against Zen 2. Zen 3 closed that gap and a big leap in single core performance. Perhaps RL may regain the gaming crown again, but by how much is the question.

 

[EarthDog]

But who will want to buy a Z590 and run Comet Lake when you can get a Z490 which is probably cheaper. The X570 however was launched along with Zen 2 chips, and supports Zen 3. The former is a case of backward compatibility, while the latter is forward compatibility. Intel generally have a problem of artificially limiting forward compatibility.

Depends on what your needs are... Z590 will fetch a premium I'm sure, but we'll see better power delivery (not that Z490 is weak), 2.5 GbE become standard, a different look... and CL is cheaper than RL. They may not be great reasons, but there are some.

If CL had PCIe 4.0 this wouldn't be a discussion as that is the only difference (within this motherboard context). It doesn't... but this all is in response to what bug said originally.

Nothing like getting a new mobo that you know in advance won't support the next gen CPUs (because of DDR5).

I mentioned AMD is in the same boat...then we went on a this vs. that spiral. In the end, AMD and Intel are in remarkably similar positions on the upgrade front.

 

[Caring1]

LGA 775 saw the pentium 4, pentium D, Pentium core, and two significant generations of core 2 duo and quads.

AM4 is not the only socket AMD has ever made. The likes of socket 754, 939, AM2, and AM2+ had comaprable lifespans to intel products. And should we forget how FM1 saw a SINGLE processor generation? Same with FM2. And AM1. ONE GENERATION. Intel only did that twice, once with socket 7 back in the 90s and once with the disasterous williamette launch.

Haswell says hello.

 

[bug]

Haswell says hello.

Haswell shared LGA1150 with Broadwell. Everybody forgets about that, because Broadwell had like 2 SKUs for desktop

But the point here is, if you look at history objectively, both parties have had various degrees of success supporting multiple CPU generations on the same socket. Personally, I don't blame them, this kind of compatibility is hard (just look at all the drama around backporting support for AMD's newer Zen chips). I'll take compatibility given a chance, I just don't rely on/plan for it.