GIGABYTE Lists AMD B550 and Intel Z490 Motherboards

[gamefoo21]

Dude, PCIe4.0 is already confirmed for Renoir APU...

Technically, there is nothing against the boards supporting Gen4 while the APUs only support Gen3. But I see what you are getting at, B-Series is more oriented to APU-Users then X570, so there will be less users missing Gen4.
The problem is, B-series is highly favorited even by Gamers, because while OCing works there too, unlike with Intel, and is useless anyway, their features are enough for most people. B450+Ryzen 3000 is the most recomended combo atm. So B550 would fit nicely there.

The only 4000 APUs out are the mobile variants and they are only 3.0.

The reason I based the board off the APU spec is because AMD wants these to sell lots of both while being cheap as possible. So if the APUs are only 3.0, they'll shave dollars. I also suspect that since X470/B450 are still selling well and they are capped at 3.0 for CPU slots and 2.0 for the chipset. I think that's why B550 will continue that trend but the chipset will get bumped up to PCIe 3.0 at the minimum.

I can buy Z370 and Z390 boards for similar money to X470 and B450 boards. Soo...

Anyways, I'd be massively surprised if B550 was anything but PCIe 3.0.

 

[TechLurker]

Something novel I'd like to see on B550 motherboards (or prosumer/workstation variants) is the possibility of taking all PCIe 4.0 lanes and convert them into PCIe 3.0 lanes (effectively doubling the available lanes), allowing for 2 full x16 slots and 2 x4 NVMe 3.0 slots, or 1 x16 and 2 x8 slots and 2 x4 NVMe 3.0 slots. Basically adding more slot expansion capability allowing for things like a GPU + SATA/SAS Raid card + 10GbE card + 2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSDs. Moreso since there are plenty of PCIe 3.0 cards available that would work fine on 3.0.

Beyond that, the only thing B550 is likely to bring is innate 1 x16 4.0 and 1 x4 4.0 slots for the first NVMe drive and the first slot (for GPUs), but will probably default to 3.0 for any remaining slots. It's going to be weird considering that it's basically a half-step up from X470 motherboards, going from PCIe 3.0 to 4.0 on the 1st NVMe and GPU slot and PCIe 2.0 to 3.0 on the remaining slots. The only things that benefit from 4.0 currently are NVMe SSDs and 4x NVMe cards, and the oddball 5500/5500XT 4GB due to the lack of VRAM.

 

[Tigerfox]

I would, too, if the chipset itself was more than Gen3, but if the entire board was Gen3, there would be to little difference to X470.

Also APUs don't really matter that much in this market, they are mainly sold in Laptops or really low-end office-PC. Noone in their right mind would chose an APU for gaming. BTW Renoir APUs will be the same for all applications, just with different TDP and clocks.

EDIT: @TechLurker: Yeah, just your wish is impossible, one lane will always be one lane, regardless of Gen. The only way for this is to use a PCIe-Switch-Controller, like the ones from PLX, which aren't really use anymore since PLX was bought by broadcom. They were used on a few occasions for a similiar job, just the other way round: Connecting multiple PCIe2.0x1 or x2 devices to one PCIe1.1x4 (Asus P55), Switching between many PCIe2.0x1 or x2-devices (using more than 4 Lanes total, like 6-8 lanes) connected to one x4-Port on many S1155-Boards because of to few Lanes on PCH, or connecting 2-4 Gen2/Gen3-GPU via 2x16 or 4x8 on an CPU with only one x16 (many very highend S1155/S1150-Boards, every Dual-GPU-Card).

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

if the B550 ever becomes a disappointment for me, then getting the X570 & discounted Ryzen 7 3700X would be my last resort pick as I'm still holding out.

 

[gamefoo21]

I think APUs represent a massive portion of the market.

They directly go against the Intel iGPU equipped office boxes.

Those Corporate sales are monstrous compared to the enthusiast market.

 

[Dammeron]

It really is sad that AMD mATX gets ignored. Look at z390 mATX boards, they may not be great, but they do get 4 phase VRMs with proper doublers that can handle the power draw of a OCed 9700k.

Thats all we want. A 4 phase doubler that can handle OCed 3950x CPUs. It sbeen dont in the past, we used to get full proper 8 phase VRMs on mATX boards, but for some reason the wholemATX community is withering, the good VRMs are either on mITX boards or full ATX boards. When a mITX board has better VRMs then the same brand's mATX boards, you know womething is up.

Like, the b450 pro4 motherboard is perfectly acceptable, just put a 4 phase with doubler, or 6 phase with doubler VRM on it! There is plenty of room! colorful seems to have made a proper x570 micro ATX board, but I just cant find any good teardowns or reviews of it, and at $269, thats too much $$$ to try it myself.

If it's no problem to make a Threadripper ITX board, manufacturers can handle a mATX X570/B550 one.

But I'm less concerned about the VRM. Z390 mATX MBs have all the goodies - wifi, good cooling, lot's of I/O ports and front panel headers... X570 got pooped on really hard in that matter, especially considering it's superior in specs in almost every way to Intel chip.

 

[TourDeForce]

B550 will be awesome for those not running a top line CPU, if it includes PCIE 4.0 for the storage solution and appropriate high speed memory support. I'd be in.
If you're not hard-core overclocking the VRMs won't have to be so robust, and the chipset will likely not require dedicated active cooling.
As of now I'm running a B350 with a Zen 3600 and 3200 Mhz RAM. I'd upgrade, for sure.