Gigabyte Adds the X670E AORUS Pro X to its AMD Motherboard Lineup, has Internal HDMI Port

[TheLostSwede]

Yesterday Gigabyte revealed a pair of AMD B650 motherboards in white/silver and today the company has added an entirely new X670E model using the same colour scheme. X670E AORUS Pro X doesn't have an equivalent black SKU and it's the first Pro model using the AMD X670 chipset, although the overall PCB appears to be based on the X670 AORUS Elite AX, with some interesting additions. The obvious changes include a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, courtesy of the X670E AORUS Pro X using the E version of the chipset and this also means dual PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 slots, as well as a pair of PCIe 4.0 ones.

For some reason, Gigabyte also changed the 2.5 Gbps Ethernet chip from Realtek to Intel, but the specific model isn't mentioned. WiFi will apparently be via a Qualcomm QCNCM865 module, or an MTK/AMD MT7927/RZ738 module, both options supporting 320 MHz wide WiFi 7 channels and Bluetooth 5.3. Gigabyte has also thrown in three extra fan headers, as well as headers for external temperature sensors. However, the one really peculiar feature that has been added to the X670E AORUS Pro X is an internal HDMI port. The internal port appears to be limited to 1080p30 and it's intended for use with a smaller display mounted in windowed cases for diagnostics data and we believe this was a feature ASRock was first with if memory serves. Gigabyte calls this feature Sensor panel Link, but it's unclear if Gigabyte will offer suitable displays or not. There's no word on pricing or an availability date.



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[Assimilator]

And two extra mechanically PCIe x16 slots... that are electrically 3.0 x4 and x2 respectively... so effectively pointless. I don't even know why the manufacturers bother.

 

[rv8000]

So discontinue the B650E Master, never release the Tachyon, and give people a white variant of an already eh board with Wifi 7. Doesn’t seem like the best plan…

 

[TheLostSwede]

And two extra mechanically PCIe x16 slots... that are electrically 3.0 x4 and x2 respectively... so effectively pointless. I don't even know why the manufacturers bother.

They're present on the Elite boards too.

So discontinue the B650E Master, never release the Tachyon, and give people a white variant of an already eh board with Wifi 7. Doesn’t seem like the best plan…

The Tachyon was released, in very limited quantities, mainly in Japan.
I could tell you why, but I'm not really allowed to, but let's call it a management decision.

 

[rv8000]

They're present on the Elite boards too.


The Tachyon was released, in very limited quantities, mainly in Japan.
I could tell you why, but I'm not really allowed to, but let's call it a management decision.

I have two guesses

1) Poor sales or product cannibalization in the line-up
2) Didn’t serve an initial purpose as higher DDR5 frequencies were unattainable upon platform release - not the case with newer agesa

It’s a shame because AM5 is left without a viable board for memory overclocking because both MSI and ASUS also bailed on unify/apex variants; sure the Gene exists but in a compromised form factor, meanwhile ASUS alone has 3 Apex variants for 12-14th Gen. Either way its very disappointing when AMD has been killing it with Zen, vendors have come a long way but platform parity is still lacking.

Side note, the B650E Master, from the limited testing Ive seen on OCN, is better than literally every ASUS board bar the Gene when it comes to memory overclocking. Meanwhile consumers just get a bunch of one off color/theme variants crammed down our throats without any real improvements.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I have two guesses

1) Poor sales or product cannibalization in the line-up
2) Didn’t serve an initial purpose as higher DDR5 frequencies were unattainable upon platform real -not the case with newer agesa

If only, but no. 1 is close though, but not in the way you think.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

Every board that releases seems like an almost carbon copy of another.
Nothing new, no reason to buy and they all cost stupid money.

Also no debug readout...

 

[TheLostSwede]

Every board that releases seems like an almost carbon copy of another.
Nothing new, no reason to buy and they all cost stupid money.

Also no debug readout...

Ok, so this isn't as good as a proper debug LED, but it does at least help narrow issues down.

 

[rv8000]

The post code readouts, Ive personally found, to be useless on AM5 so far. Half of them don’t even list details in the manual, aren’t listed, or are “future use”.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

The post code readouts, Ive personally found, to be useless on AM5 so far. Half of them don’t even list details in the manual, aren’t listed, or are “future use”.

https://download.asrock.com/Manual/B550%20Extreme4.pdf

Love my Extreme 4.

 

[Tigerfox]

Meh. Glad I didn't wait for that. They showed a X670 Pro and Aero D back at in May of 2022, but never released those.

Now, this is very similar to the X670 Elite and arguably only slightly better, but worse in some aspects. The internal HDMI ist vor video panels, is only HDMI1.4a and can only do 1080p@30Hz.

+ X670E means PCIe5.0 x16 - Gigabyte was the only manufacturer to offer only very few and only highend X670E-boards
+ WiFi 7, which will be easily upfradeable on board with WiFi6

+/- Intel instead of Realtek 2.5GbE - I would normally prefer Intel, but i225/i226 is buggy

- only one M.2 Gen5x4
- both PCIe-slots are Gen3, while the Elite has one Gen4x4

Both are equally bad for offering low end ALC897 and marketing it as "HiFi Audio" in this price range.

 

[trparky]

For some reason, Gigabyte also changed the 2.5 Gbps Ethernet chip from Realtek to Intel, but the specific model isn't mentioned.

Good God! Why in heaven's name have they made that stupid decision? Intel's NIC is garbage, pure garbage.

 

[Tigerfox]

And two extra mechanically PCIe x16 slots... that are electrically 3.0 x4 and x2 respectively... so effectively pointless. I don't even know why the manufacturers bother.

I chose the Asus Prime X670E Pro because it was the only board that offered two true x4-Slots. I want to be able to plug in a 10GbE, a TB4/USB4-Adapter and/or a soundcard, maybe a video capture card. I hate that modern boards only have M.2 slots and fewer and fewer PCIe-Slots, let alone SATA. I had to buy a SATA to M.2-card for my six HDD.

 

[Assimilator]

Good God! Why in heaven's name have they made that stupid decision? Intel's NIC is garbage, pure garbage.

Isn't the latest revision supposed to be fixed, though?

I chose the Asus Prime X670E Pro because it was the only board that offered two true x4-Slots. I want to be able to plug in a 10GbE, a TB4/USB4-Adapter and/or a soundcard, maybe a video capture card. I hate that modern boards only have M.2 slots and fewer and fewer PCIe-Slots, let alone SATA. I had to buy a SATA to M.2-card for my six HDD.

WOW, you mean you actually use your motherboard for PERIPHERALS? Motherboard manufacturers today don't understand that's how PCs (are supposed to) work, sadly.

 

[kapone32]

Why do I feel that we are about to get a new AM5 CPU from AMD? New MBs now and a new BIOS for my board with just "Support for new Processors" means to me that it could be so.

 

[Assimilator]

Why do I feel that we are about to get a new AM5 CPU from AMD? New MBs now and a new BIOS for my board with just "Support for new Processors" means to me that it could be so.

Sauce?

 

[kapone32]

Sauce?

The meatballs seem to be cooking as the smell is growing. Just give me Phoenix already so I can build my dream APU SFF build that fits in my suitcase when I travel but blows a Steam Deck or ROG Ally out of the water.

 

[TechLurker]

I like the full-length PCIe x16 slots and one of the reasons I still buy Gigabyte here and there. They allow me to carry over legacy soundcards or older PCIe 3.0 RAID cards (or use older PCIe 3.0 NVMe cards) for upgrade builds.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Good God! Why in heaven's name have they made that stupid decision? Intel's NIC is garbage, pure garbage.

How the tables have turned...

Can't use the Intel NIC on my motherboard, revision 1 i225, keeps dropping the connection to my ISP provided router...

- only one M.2 Gen5x4

I chose the Asus Prime X670E Pro because it was the only board that offered two true x4-Slots. I want to be able to plug in a 10GbE, a TB4/USB4-Adapter and/or a soundcard, maybe a video capture card. I hate that modern boards only have M.2 slots and fewer and fewer PCIe-Slots, let alone SATA. I had to buy a SATA to M.2-card for my six HDD.

Uhm, all 10 Gbps cards to date are PCIe 3.0 x4, so for that part, it doesn't matter. For USB4 it'll matter, but no Thunderbolt card to date is anything more than PCIe 3.0 x4 as well.

 

[HBSound]

Clean!

 

[Random_User]

Seems like the same X570 AORUS Pro, but twice as pricey. Though, they could add DP and BIOS/UEFI buttons to the I/O too. Surely, DP can be used with USP4 port. But... still.

Overall the current gen X6** motherboards look... empty. The predcessors of the same series had much more features for way less money. But judging by the options and features, this feels like the motherboard from the nF4 era, but with some fancy Alu bricks and RBG installed. Sorry, just my opinion.

I wonder if the PCI-E slot, which is dedicated to the onboard Wi-Fi on all these motherboards, can be used for other expansion cards instead? Or it's rigged for just Wi-Fi card purposes?

How the tables have turned...

Can't use the Intel NIC on my motherboard, revision 1 i225, keeps dropping the connection to my ISP provided router...

Indeed. Back in the day, Intel NICs were considered top. I even needed 1Gbps PCI-E x1 network card and ended up buying server grade one, since there was no other options. Way better than anything onboard by that time.
Though, it seems the times really changed and manufacturers still use the outdated hype to install inferior chips. Might be huge contract with intel is the reason.

BTW, is this an onboard i225 you mentioned? Same thing, but can't use the onboard realtek instead, as it turns off/drops connection after couple minutes of work. (Please, note, the motherboard is very old).

 

[TheLostSwede]

I wonder if the PCI-E slot, which is dedicated to the onboard Wi-Fi on all these motherboards, can be used for other expansion cards instead? Or it's rigged for just Wi-Fi card purposes?

How would you imagine that would work? I presume you haven't looked at a motherboard from the last 3-4 generations with the heatsinks removes so you can see the WiFi modules that are used now?
It's not a PCIe slot, but rather a a Key A+E M.2 slot which as you proposed is "rigged" for just WiFi cards. Well, there are some thing things that use the same slot, such as cellular data cards and some other things.
That is unless you have an Intel board, as then you need a CNVi type module.

CNVi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

BTW, is this an onboard i225 you mentioned? Same thing, but can't use the onboard realtek instead, as it turns off/drops connection after couple minutes of work. (Please, note, the motherboard is very old).

Realtek fixed that issue with the 2.5 Gbps parts, but they appears to have compatibility issues with either Aquantia/Marvell 10 Gbps cards or some switching ICs, as I got an external USB-C dongle with a Realtek chip for my laptop and it it wasn't behaving weirdly. I have a 10 Gbps card in my NAS and the NAS would happily receive data at 2.5 Gbps, but it would only send data at around 300-400 Mbps to the Realtek device. Didn't have anything but a Gigabit option to test towards an that was fine. Time will tell if Realtek fixed this on their 5 Gbps chips or not.

 

[Random_User]

How would you imagine that would work? I presume you haven't looked at a motherboard from the last 3-4 generations with the heatsinks removes so you can see the WiFi modules that are used now?
It's not a PCIe slot, but rather a a Key A+E M.2 slot which as you proposed is "rigged" for just WiFi cards. Well, there are some thing things that use the same slot, such as cellular data cards and some other things.
That is unless you have an Intel board, as then you need a CNVi type module.

CNVi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 318249

Realtek fixed that issue with the 2.5 Gbps parts, but they appears to have compatibility issues with either Aquantia/Marvell 10 Gbps cards or some switching ICs, as I got an external USB-C dongle with a Realtek chip for my laptop and it it wasn't behaving weirdly. I have a 10 Gbps card in my NAS and the NAS would happily receive data at 2.5 Gbps, but it would only send data at around 300-400 Mbps to the Realtek device. Didn't have anything but a Gigabit option to test towards an that was fine. Time will tell if Realtek fixed this on their 5 Gbps chips or not.

Thanks for clarification! This is what I was looking for. There's no leeway, as I though.

I just forgot to write the M.2, since I was thinking about it being PCIe connected, as it still is PCIe device after all.

 

[Hxx]

omg GB please make a white mini itx amd board!

 

[Tigerfox]

@TheLostSwede : Sorry, I seem to have confused the tabs for the X670E Pro X and X670 Elite AX in my Browser. You are right, the Pro hast two M.2 Gen5x4, the Elite only one Gen5x4 and one Gen4x4. I would love to have one Gen5x4 slot instead...

Uhm, all 10 Gbps cards to date are PCIe 3.0 x4, so for that part, it doesn't matter. For USB4 it'll matter, but no Thunderbolt card to date is anything more than PCIe 3.0 x4 as well.

Whatever are you refering to? I know that atm nothing uses Gen4x4 except SSD. ASM4242 USB4-Cards will be Gen4x4, while atm everything called USB4 is actually Maple Ridge TB4 with JHL8540 on Motherboards and expansion cards, using Gen3x4.
Marvells newest Aquantia NICs AQC113, 114, 114CS and 115C can use either "Gen4x1, Gen3x4, Gen3x2 oder Gen3x1, Gen2x2". I would say the bigger NICs, AQC113 (10GbE) and AQC114 (5GbE, both 12mmx14mm) can chose between the former three connection speeds, while the smaller AQC114CS (5GbE) and AQC115C (2.5GbE, both 7mmx7mm) can chose between the later two connection speeds.

Either way, Gen3x2 or Gen4x1 should suffice for one 10GbE-Port. Because of that, I considered the X670E and B650E Master, which offer one Gen3x4 or Gen4x4 plus one Gen3x2, which is shared with two SATA-Ports, but I chose the Asus Prime X670E-Pro because it was much cheaper and has two Gen4x4.
TB5 and USB4 V2.0 are just around the corner and with 80GBit/s synchronus or 120/40GBit/s asynchronus, what type of connection to the motherboard do you think they will need? Gen4x4 for 80GBit/s, Gen5x4 for 120GBit/s I would say.