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| System Name | RBMK-1000 |
|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 7 5700G |
| Motherboard | ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming |
| Cooling | DeepCool Gammax L240 V2 |
| Memory | 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X |
| Video Card(s) | Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock |
| Storage | Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB |
| Display(s) | BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch |
| Case | Corsair Carbide 100R |
| Audio Device(s) | ASUS SupremeFX S1220A |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W |
| Mouse | ASUS ROG Strix Impact |
| Keyboard | Gamdias Hermes E2 |
| Software | Windows 11 Pro |
GIGABYTE B550 AORUS Master is the company's most premium socket AM4 motherboard based on the upcoming AMD B550 chipset. We described this board in some detail in our older article covering an assortment of top B550 motherboards from manufacturers, but missed a key bit. At the time we assumed that the PCI-Express lane switches located below the board's main PCI-Express slot merely split its x16 connection from the AM4 SoC down to two x8 connections to share between two slots, given that AMD allows multi-GPU (including SLI) with the B550. Apparently, the lane switches are there for a different, more fascinating reason.
A BenchLife.info report points to the possibility of all three M.2 slots on this motherboard having PCI-Express gen 4.0 wiring - something that shouldn't normally be possible, since all downstream PCIe lanes put out by the B550 are gen 3.0. The way we see it, the topmost M.2 slot has a direct PCI-Express 4.0 x4 connection from the AM4 socket (as it normally should). The second- and third slots, however, pull their wiring from a series of lane switches that split the main x16 PEG slot to gen 4.0 x8/x4/x4. It's possible that one of the two x16 (electrical x4) slots has a further lane sharing arrangement with one of the two M.2 slots.
When paired with a "Matisse" or "Vermeer" processor, the main PEG slot will run at full x16 bandwidth until one of the bottom two M.2 slots is populated, at which point the x8/x4/x4 configuration is engaged. When paired with a "Renoir" APU, however, it's likely that the bottom two M.2 slots are completely disabled, since the APU only spares 8 lanes toward PEG, which make up the first 8 (permanent) lanes on the PEG slot. The B550 chipset's 8-lane PCIe gen 3.0 budget is spent driving the board's various onboard controllers (except HD Audio, which is wired to the CPU), and one of the x16 (electrical x4) slots. GIGABYTE is expected to launch the B550 AORUS Master sometime mid-June, 2020.
View at TechPowerUp Main Site
A BenchLife.info report points to the possibility of all three M.2 slots on this motherboard having PCI-Express gen 4.0 wiring - something that shouldn't normally be possible, since all downstream PCIe lanes put out by the B550 are gen 3.0. The way we see it, the topmost M.2 slot has a direct PCI-Express 4.0 x4 connection from the AM4 socket (as it normally should). The second- and third slots, however, pull their wiring from a series of lane switches that split the main x16 PEG slot to gen 4.0 x8/x4/x4. It's possible that one of the two x16 (electrical x4) slots has a further lane sharing arrangement with one of the two M.2 slots.
When paired with a "Matisse" or "Vermeer" processor, the main PEG slot will run at full x16 bandwidth until one of the bottom two M.2 slots is populated, at which point the x8/x4/x4 configuration is engaged. When paired with a "Renoir" APU, however, it's likely that the bottom two M.2 slots are completely disabled, since the APU only spares 8 lanes toward PEG, which make up the first 8 (permanent) lanes on the PEG slot. The B550 chipset's 8-lane PCIe gen 3.0 budget is spent driving the board's various onboard controllers (except HD Audio, which is wired to the CPU), and one of the x16 (electrical x4) slots. GIGABYTE is expected to launch the B550 AORUS Master sometime mid-June, 2020.
View at TechPowerUp Main Site
