AMD X570 Unofficial Platform Diagram Revealed, Chipset Puts out PCIe Gen 4

[TheLostSwede]

problem is all currently released GPUs are using PCIe 3.0 standards, so why the reveal that it has PCIe 4.0? Unless AMD releases a GPU that leverage the new tech, I'm all ears about it. Until then, having it now is a little pointless.

So we should stop at PCIe 3.0 and call it a day? Motherboards have always been ahead of graphics cards, be it when VL-Bus, PCI, AGP or PCI Express came out.
It's kind of how it has to work. Obviously with PCIe, we haven't had to change the physical interface for a few generations, so it has been a lot easier than in the past to transition to a new, faster version. Pointless is a very strong word in this case and you also seem to have missed the fact that there will be PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs coming out soon, which will reap benefits from the faster interface. How useful the extra speed will be to most people is a different matter. Also, as I mentioned elsewhere, this will allow for a single PCIe lane on 10Gbps Ethernet cards which might make them more affordable and more common.

 

[s3thra]

So we should stop at PCIe 3.0 and call it a day? Motherboards have always been ahead of graphics cards, be it when VL-Bus, PCI, AGP or PCI Express came out.
It's kind of how it has to work. Obviously with PCIe, we haven't had to change the physical interface for a few generations, so it has been a lot easier than in the past to transition to a new, faster version. Pointless is a very strong word in this case and you also seem to have missed the fact that there will be PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs coming out soon, which will reap benefits from the faster interface. How useful the extra speed will be to most people is a different matter. Also, as I mentioned elsewhere, this will allow for a single PCIe lane on 10Gbps Ethernet cards which might make them more affordable and more common.

Indeed. A platform change has to start somewhere, so it has always been logical that this begins with the motherboard.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Yes the physical appearance of the PCIe slot doesn't need major changes like USB. I don't really mind getting my hands on the latest tech. For 10GbE NIC cards, finding reasonably priced ones on e-tailer sites isn't hard but the downside is always the cables since they're still expensive to get one. On top of that, very few ISPs are utilizing 10Gbps & if there's one, it's only for the super-rich.

 

[mat9v]

I wonder, why the CPU does not have any SATA ports on this diagram. Wouldn't it break compatibility with x370/x470 chipset based boards if CPU did not have SATA controller?
All NVMe ports on this diagram (be it from CPU or chipset) are either PCIEx 3.0 x4 or PCIEx 4.0 x2 - that's what 32Gbps stands for.
Should we understand that Ryzen 3xxx CPUs will not have USB Gen2 support built-in and will depend on chipset to provide one? Why?
Why use ASM1143 to provide only one USB Gen2 port?
This whole thing makes no sense to me.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yes the physical appearance of the PCIe slot doesn't need major changes like USB. I don't really mind getting my hands on the latest tech. For 10GbE NIC cards, finding reasonably priced ones on e-tailer sites isn't hard but the downside is always the cables since they're still expensive to get one. On top of that, very few ISPs are utilizing 10Gbps & if there's one, it's only for the super-rich.

What does 10Gbps have to do with internet speed? I connect my PC to my NAS via 10Gbps. I think most people want it for shuffling large files around their local network, not for the internet access. And Cat 6A cabling is pretty cheap imho.

I wonder, why the CPU does not have any SATA ports on this diagram. Wouldn't it break compatibility with x370/x470 chipset based boards if CPU did not have SATA controller?
All NVMe ports on this diagram (be it from CPU or chipset) are either PCIEx 3.0 x4 or PCIEx 4.0 x2 - that's what 32Gbps stands for.
Should we understand that Ryzen 3xxx CPUs will not have USB Gen2 support built-in and will depend on chipset to provide one? Why?
Why use ASM1143 to provide only one USB Gen2 port?
This whole thing makes no sense to me.

Hard to say, the whole layout looks like a bit of a mess imho.
It seems like a lot of things are labelled wrong as well. Maybe someone forgot to update the numbers?
The chipset to CPU link is also too narrow in terms of GT/s.
No, the two ports below the ASM1143 are Gen 2.
No logic as far as I can tell.
Again, poorly designed board, it happens...

As I pointed out, this is not really representative of the X570 chipset based on what I know.

 

[Vya Domus]

55mm fan on every motherboard hype

You should make a script or something so that you don't have to do all this hard work spamming every thread.

 

[btarunr]

Math doesn't add up. 16 + 4 + 4 = 24, just like X370/X470.

x16 for PEG, x4 for M.2, x4 for internal "Taishan" SB, x4 for external SB = 28.

AM4 platform has two southbridges, one on the CPU silicon, one on the motherboard. The one on the CPU silicon talks to the K17 iNB over 4 PCIe lanes that are abstract. On a Threadripper or EPYC, the internal SB is disabled on all but one of the "Zeppelin" dies on the MCM. So those lanes are freed up.

The internal SB puts out SATA6G (two ports), USB3, LPCIO (Legacy/ISA), and HD Audio buses. The external SB augments additional SATA, USB, and downstream PCIe for things such as WLAN, GbE-PHY, USB3.1, etc.

 

[chaosmassive]

TDP of the AMD X570 chipset to be at least 15 Watts, a 3-fold increase over the X470 with its 5W TDP. This explains why every X570-based motherboard picture leak we've seen thus far shows a fan-heatsink over the chipset.

can we have passive cooling for those chipset? any kind of moving parts tends to fail due to wear and tear, and it doesnt good for long term investment
I mean its just 15W TDP, surely it is possible, right?

 

[TheLostSwede]

can we have passive cooling for those chipset? any kind of moving parts tends to fail due to wear and tear, and it doesnt good for long term investment
I mean its just 15W TDP, surely it is possible, right?

*sigh*

Yes, it's possible.

 

[Mysteoa]

Recently Buildzoid made a video regarding the x570 and talked about the fan. He was told from MB vendors that it get hot during raid operation with M2 SSD.
What I speculated is for MB vendors to implement hybrid fan curve, to not spin until necessary, which should be most of the time.

 

[nemesis.ie]

Yes the physical appearance of the PCIe slot doesn't need major changes like USB. I don't really mind getting my hands on the latest tech. For 10GbE NIC cards, finding reasonably priced ones on e-tailer sites isn't hard but the downside is always the cables since they're still expensive to get one. On top of that, very few ISPs are utilizing 10Gbps & if there's one, it's only for the super-rich.

10GbE will work fine with e.g. Cat6 and likely 5e too, certainly if you are not running 20m+ lengths and keep to the usual 3 to 10m that most homes need.

What are these expensive cables you are talking about? an SFF+ to SFF+ cable (~€50) works out a lot cheaper than buying two copper NICs for example too.

 

[Imsochobo]

10GbE will work fine with e.g. Cat6 and likely 5e too, certainly if you are not running 20m+ lengths and keep to the usual 3 to 10m that most homes need.

What are these expensive cables you are talking about? an SFF+ to SFF+ cable (~€50) works out a lot cheaper than buying two copper NICs for example too.

cat5e works fine for me.

 

[FYFI13]

Recently Buildzoid made a video regarding the x570 and talked about the fan. He was told from MB vendors that it get hot during raid operation with M2 SSD.
What I speculated is for MB vendors to implement hybrid fan curve, to not spin until necessary, which should be most of the time.

That was exactly my thoughts. On most systems passive cooling should do the job.

 

[Aquinus]

I mean its just 15W TDP, surely it is possible, right?

So are a lot of laptop CPUs. 5 watts isn't a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but mind you that 15 watts is a 200% instead over what it used to be and heat is going to scale with that. It's not so much about not being a lot of heat, it's more about how much heat can convection and conduction get rid of until it builds up to a point that's hotter than the max temperature you want, because if CPUs could run at 180*C, we wouldn't need active cooling because the difference in temperature would probably actually be good enough for a lot of cases, but it's not.

So just because 15 watts isn't a lot, it can easily become a lot if you have no airflow. Just check out literally every fanless laptop that gets placed under load.

 

[Valantar]

So are a lot of laptop CPUs. 5 watts isn't a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but mind you that 15 watts is a 200% instead over what it used to be and heat is going to scale with that. It's not so much about not being a lot of heat, it's more about how much heat can convection and conduction get rid of until it builds up to a point that's hotter than the max temperature you want, because if CPUs could run at 180*C, we wouldn't need active cooling because the difference in temperature would probably actually be good enough for a lot of cases, but it's not.

So just because 15 watts isn't a lot, it can easily become a lot if you have no airflow. Just check out literally every fanless laptop that gets placed under load.

That's true. Still, it ought to be possible to keep the chipset at or below 85-or-so C if it's hooked up to the VRM heatsink with a decent heatpipe and there are ... you know, actual fins on the heatsinks. Revolutionary, I know, but it's possible. Of course, a fan that stays off except under heavy loads won't hurt anyone either, and a 15W TDP does after all not equal 15W constant power draw. Consindering that the majority of this chipset seems to be a PCIe 4.0 switch, I'm guessing that is where the power draw comes from, meaning it won't be an issue unless there are a lot of fast PCIe devices being taxed.

problem is all currently released GPUs are using PCIe 3.0 standards, so why the reveal that it has PCIe 4.0? Unless AMD releases a GPU that leverage the new tech, I'm all ears about it. Until then, having it now is a little pointless.

The Radeon VII is already PCIe 4.0 compatible. It's likely Navi will be too, although I guess we'll know for sure in a week or three.

 

[ppn]

And for what. DDR5, PCIE 5 and 5-nanometer technology are just around the corner.

 

[Imsochobo]

And for what. DDR5, PCIE 5 and 5-nanometer technology are just around the corner.

PCI-E 5.0 is probably not going to be very mainstream, I suspect SB will be 5.0 then spit out 4.0
+ Maybe first PCI-E and M2 but no devices will use it, gpu's hardly stress 16x 3.0.. mostly 8x is enough.

 

[newtekie1]

Still an unreasonably small number of PCI-E lanes coming off the Southbridge. We don't need PCI-E 4.0, we need more usable PCI-E lanes.

 

[Penev91]

15 watts is nothing if there's an adequate heatsink. X58 and 990FX were both above 20W and didn't have active cooling. This is just lazy design on the motherboard manufacturer's behalf.

 

[Valantar]

And for what. DDR5, PCIE 5 and 5-nanometer technology are just around the corner.

Yeah, let's just stop making new products with new technology because even better technology is arriving in the next couple of years. Good strategy. /s

In all seriousness, though: PCIe 5.0 is yet to be standardized, and given historical time spans from standardization to consumer hardware, we won't see that until late 2021 at the very earliest - and likely later than that given that it's heavily focused on server-specific functionality. DDR5 will likely arrive with AM5(?) and whatever consumer socket Intel launches in 2020-21. Intel tends to prioritize new RAM for HEDT and server, though, so we might have to wait longer than that. And where, exactly, is the harm in moving to PCIe 4.0 even if 5.0 were to arrive in just a few years? Someone has to start the push for faster interfaces on devices, and device manufacturers aren't going to invest in PCIe 4.0 controllers etc. if there are no PCs that support them. And given PCIe backwards compatibility, when 5.0 arrives this will mean that there's a decent selection of 4.0 devices on the market for those boards, rather than having to stick with 3.0 devices until 5.0 reaches GPUs, SSDs and the like. This is a win-win scenario, stop complaining.

Still an unreasonably small number of PCI-E lanes coming off the Southbridge. We don't need PCI-E 4.0, we need more usable PCI-E lanes.

...which is exactly what PCIe 4.0 allows for. How? By doubling bandwidth per lane. A PCIe 4.0 x2 SSD can match the performance of a PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD, meaning that you can run two fast SSDs off the same number of lanes as one previously. A single 4.0 lane is enough for a 10GbE NIC, where you previously needed two lanes. And so on and so forth. GPUs won't need more than x8 PCIe 4.0 for the foreseeable future (and in reality hardly more than x4 for most GPUs), so splitting off lanes for storage or other controllers is less of an issue. Sure, performance (or the advantage of splitting lanes) is lost if using PCIe 3.0 devices, but there is flexibility to be had - for example a motherboard might have two m.2 slots where they share the latter two lanes (switchable in BIOS, ideally) so that you can run either two ~3.5GB/s SSDs or one faster than that. Motherboard trace routing will also become less complex if the thinking shifts this way, leading to potentially cheaper motherboards or more features at lower price points.

15 watts is nothing if there's an adequate heatsink. X58 and 990FX were both above 20W and didn't have active cooling. This is just lazy design on the motherboard manufacturer's behalf.

Not if the fans only run when needed - if so, it's arguably smart design, not lazy. Still, I would entirely welcome a return to functional heatsinks on motherboards. The EVGA x299 Dark sets a good precedent.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Still an unreasonably small number of PCI-E lanes coming off the Southbridge. We don't need PCI-E 4.0, we need more usable PCI-E lanes.

Based on? It's 16 lanes in total. Eight for M.2, one for Ethernet, one for Wi-Fi and six for expansion slots. You need more?
Technically external USB controllers shouldn't be needed, as all the USB 3 ports are 3.1 G2 and the chipset should support eight of them.

 

[Valantar]

Based on? It's 16 lanes in total. Eight for M.2, one for Ethernet, one for Wi-Fi and six for expansion slots. You need more?
Technically external USB controllers shouldn't be needed, as all the USB 3 ports are 3.1 G2 and the chipset should support eight of them.

In addition to the four USB 3.1g2 from the CPU, of course. So 12 total. Ought to be enough for most people. Two internal headers + 8 rear ports?

 

[TheLostSwede]

In addition to the four USB 3.1g2 from the CPU, of course. So 12 total. Ought to be enough for most people. Two internal headers + 8 rear ports?

Right, I was just looking at the chipset itself. @newtekie1 was complaining about lack of PCIe lanes though.
It really comes down to what the board makers do with the available lanes, as AMD has added what seems to be more than sufficient lanes imho.
I don't think eight of them has to be used for M.2 devices either (not counting the additional four from the CPU).

 

[nemesis.ie]

Probably there will be a few USB2.0 headers on boards too.

If anyone needs more than this, there is of course Threadripper and with luck an X599 or the like in due course.

 

[Valantar]

Probably there will be a few USB2.0 headers on boards too.

If anyone needs more than this, there is of course Threadripper and with luck an X599 or the like in due course.

If the rumors of X570 being the EPYC chipset are accurate, there likely won't be any more I/O on an X599 chipset, but of course there'll be 64 or so CPU PCIe lanes to use for whatever. That ought to help, yeah