Intel's Upcoming 800-series Chipsets Leak in Detail

[unwind-protect]

I'm surprised by the amount of sata ports on the z boards, I know SATA SSDs are still a thing but at this point who would have six sata SSD drives?

Well, in the period of 4 ports they apparently identified this as a competitivly mattering issue.

 

[Wasteland]

SATA ports matter to me, FWIW--not so much for my "main" rig, but down the line, the option to toss an old motherboard into a case with a bunch of HDDs could be the difference between keeping the old mobo around, or declaring it e-waste. Despite try-hard memes from the "gamer-enthusiast" crowd, hard drives are still quite useful to a lot of people, and they're more useful with parity, so the more ports, the better.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I'm surprised by the amount of sata ports on the z boards, I know SATA SSDs are still a thing but at this point who would have six sata SSD drives?

Most of the ports are up to. The HSIO design means that all SATA ports are shared with PCIe and in some cases also Ethernet, which means the motherboard makers have to decide which features to add to their boards.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Most of the ports are up to. The HSIO design means that all SATA ports are shared with PCIe and in some cases also Ethernet, which means the motherboard makers have to decide which features to add to their boards.

I'm looking forward to the death of onboard SATA. System resources can be put to significantly better use IMHO. That drive will also help push HDDs out of the market, SSDs are stagnated simply to justify HDDs at this point, particularly since SSD companies are also in the HDD business.

SATA ports matter to me, FWIW--not so much for my "main" rig, but down the line, the option to toss an old motherboard into a case with a bunch of HDDs could be the difference between keeping the old mobo around, or declaring it e-waste. Despite try-hard memes from the "gamer-enthusiast" crowd, hard drives are still quite useful to a lot of people, and they're more useful with parity, so the more ports, the better.

HDD docks are handy and very inexpensive. An USB 3.0/5Gbps dock will run practically any SATA HDD full speed. There are also kits to convert internal HDDs into external HDDs, I have a couple of those filled with anime and retro games - eSATA/USB 3.0, cooling fan included. Dirt cheap, no performance or compatibility issues. Since internal ODDs are out of style and as of late, effectively worthless (external, USB ODDs are also very inexpensive and widely available), onboard SATA can go. The only thing that remains are high-performance Blu-ray disc recorders but, I expect those to depreciate soon since Sony has announced they will stop producing BD-R media - and even then, if you absolutely must have internal SATA devices, PCI Express controller cards exist and are, again, very inexpensive.

Sony kills off recordable Blu-ray and optical disks for consumer market — business-to-business production to continue until unprofitable

You better stock up on recordable Blu-ray discs if you use it for archiving your data.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Wasteland]

HDD docks are handy and very inexpensive. An USB 3.0/5Gbps dock will run practically any SATA HDD full speed. There are also kits to convert internal HDDs into external HDDs, I have a couple of those filled with anime and retro games - eSATA/USB 3.0, cooling fan included. Dirt cheap, no performance or compatibility issues. Since internal ODDs are out of style and as of late, effectively worthless (external, USB ODDs are also very inexpensive and widely available), onboard SATA can go. The only thing that remains are high-performance Blu-ray disc recorders but, I expect those to depreciate soon since Sony has announced they will stop producing BD-R media - and even then, if you absolutely must have internal SATA devices, PCI Express controller cards exist and are, again, very inexpensive.

HDD docks can be flaky, certainly for 24/7 use, and they limit your options. I don't know whether you're using any kind of pooling or parity over USB, but I sure wouldn't. External HDDs can be useful, of course. If all you want is a simple, low-activity storage volume for your desktop, then an external HDD will work just fine. They're also excellent for offline backups; I have several of those. But external drives aren't great otherwise. You don't have to take my word for it: HDD manufacturers more or less acknowledge the flakiness of external HDDs via their warranty policy.

Expansion cards for SATA? Likewise flaky. Lot of pitfalls in that market, often having to do with the stealth inclusion of port multipliers. Your most reliable option if you need lots of extra SATA ports is an enterprise grade HBA, which can be bought used for a reasonable price from a reputable vendor on Ebay, but you do have to do your homework (e.g. make sure the product is in IT mode), and the total cost for this set up, once you factor in breakout cables, and possibly supplemental cooling (because HBAs can run hot), isn't trivial.

It is preferable to have some amount of onboard SATA to work with before you have to resort to the aforementioned methods. Maybe not a ton, but some. I was happy with six as the standard. The Z890's "up to eight" sounds promising too. As @TheLostSwede says, it isn't a requirement to include eight ports, but why not have a couple of models that do?

I don't think your ODD analogy holds up. Maybe some day HDDs will be comparably superfluous, but today the comparison isn't even close. And we also still have SATA SSDs, which retain a fair bit of utility in large part precisely because they can be plugged in via SATA instead of taking up an M.2/PCIe slot. In any case, it's always struck me as bizarre when DIY PC enthusiasts argue for fewer options.

 

[Dr. Dro]

HDD docks can be flaky, certainly for 24/7 use, and they limit your options. I don't know whether you're using any kind of pooling or parity over USB, but I sure wouldn't. External HDDs can be useful, of course. If all you want is a simple, low-activity storage volume for your desktop, then an external HDD will work just fine. They're also excellent for offline backups; I have several of those. But external drives aren't great otherwise. You don't have to take my word for it: HDD manufacturers more or less acknowledge the flakiness of external HDDs via their warranty policy.

Expansion cards for SATA? Likewise flaky. Lot of pitfalls in that market, often having to do with the stealth inclusion of port multipliers. Your most reliable option if you need lots of extra SATA ports is an enterprise grade HBA, which can be bought used for a reasonable price from a reputable vendor on Ebay, but you do have to do your homework (e.g. make sure the product is in IT mode), and the total cost for this set up, once you factor in breakout cables, and possibly supplemental cooling (because HBAs can run hot), isn't trivial.

It is preferable to have some amount of onboard SATA to work with before you have to resort to the aforementioned methods. Maybe not a ton, but some. I was happy with six as the standard. The Z890's "up to eight" sounds promising too. As @TheLostSwede says, it isn't a requirement to include eight ports, but why not have a couple of models that do?

I don't think your ODD analogy holds up. Maybe some day HDDs will be comparably superfluous, but today the comparison isn't even close. And we also still have SATA SSDs, which retain a fair bit of utility in large part precisely because they can be plugged in via SATA instead of taking up an M.2/PCIe slot. In any case, it's always struck me as bizarre when DIY PC enthusiasts argue for fewer options.

I don't think it's fewer options when I mean that I'd rather have another PCI Express slot or NVMe slot rather than any number of onboard SATA ports, sure, if you deal with a large volume of data, I suppose it can still be appealing, although if said data was supremely important to me (as in, life and death situation) I'd likely be using a business-grade host controller anyway.

SATA's just... done IMO. It's become like USB-A 2.0 or the mp3 format, we know it's obsolete and that it has been surpassed in practically every way, but at the same time, it's good enough and also, convenient. Remember SATA Express? It died within a generation. U.2? You only saw adoption of that on consumer-grade boards with the Intel X99 platform. Also gone within a generation, still used in the enterprise every now and then, niche format. My personal needs with SATA are entirely addressable through docks and external adapters, and when it comes down to it, I'd argue the vast majority of people's as well. Time to leave some room for the next generation of storage to grow, IMO.

 

[chrcoluk]

I'm surprised by the amount of sata ports on the z boards, I know SATA SSDs are still a thing but at this point who would have six sata SSD drives?

SATA isnt just for SSD, I expect there is a fair few people who will have more than 4 SATA drives, might also include an optical drive as well. This forum is mostly those on the technological edge so e.g. a higher than average take up of NVME. But there is also other types of users, and bear in mind SATA ports are tiny, they cheap to add and take almost zero footprint, so adding that to a board is unlikely hurting you.

DIY NAS community have been moaning about modern boards with lack of SATA and PCIe slots as an example. So its kind of reversal of expectation.

See the rig in my sig, even my main rig is still using 5 SATA devices as well (for some reason I missed out the SATA 860 EVO on main rig spec list so thats the 5th).

 

[Minus Infinity]

Thunderbolt is all about certification, so as long as Intel certified the motherboard or laptop, there's no reason why an AMD device can't support it.
However, AMD will never have native Thunderbolt support, unless Intel changes its licensing. So far only Intel and Apple has native Thunderbolt.
Any device can support USB4 and considering that USB4 is compatible with Thunderbolt, there shouldn't be much you lose out on.
Most of the "downsides" of USB4 are just Intel propaganda. USB4 has the advantage of being able to tunnel 40 Gbps of PCIe, whereas Thunderbolt 3/4 can only do 32 Gbps.

Ah I see, thanks for the info.

 

[Athlonite]

Why haven't USB2.0 ports been done away with by now like WTF 14 USB2.0 ports who the hell needs that many, USB3.x Gen X ports are where it's at more Type C and A the better

 

[AleXXX666]

Well i usually always go for a Z chipset, so why change

I'd prefer W for ECC. OC is dead.

 

[Hervon]

OC is dead indeed but undervolt is not completely dead.

 

[chrcoluk]

Why haven't USB2.0 ports been done away with by now like WTF 14 USB2.0 ports who the hell needs that many, USB3.x Gen X ports are where it's at more Type C and A the better

Do all USB 1/2 devices work on USB 3 ports?

One reason I can think off is when using a case with USB 2 ports, if USB 2 headers got removed *boom* ports useless.

I dont think any board has ever added connectivity for the max amount of ports.

 

[phints]

Wake me up when Intel releases an actual new desktop CPU on an actual new lithography. Not wasting my time with BS rumors.

 

[Athlonite]

Do all USB 1/2 devices work on USB 3 ports?

Yes they do that's the good thing about USB3.0 it's backward compatible with all USB devices down to USB1.1

 

[Scour]

Still up to 8x SATA in Z890?

Great, another new Intel-platform which allows me to use my many Videostorage-HDDs in internal HDD enclosures without additional SATA-controllers

And we also still have SATA SSDs, which retain a fair bit of utility in large part precisely because they can be plugged in via SATA instead of taking up an M.2/PCIe slot

So true!

I have many SATA-SSDs, big HDDs for Data-Storage, NVME M.2 will be never my choice of Long-time-data-storage.

And Hot-swap which I use more than 15 years is still not possible with NVME M.2 and probably it will never be possible. And for me it´s a basic feature

 

[FoulOnWhite]

I have sata on my board disabled. I use a slot in usb 3 caddy for my loose sata hdds and use my nas for external store.

In my PC i only use m.2 for storage, sata hdd's/SSD's are too slow for me, but i get some others still use them in their rigs.

 

[Scour]

Dunno why you need speed for storage, but everyone have it´s own favorites

USB3x was never so stable as SATA, and I have many many external drives also

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Dunno why you need speed for storage, but everyone have it´s own favorites

USB3x was never so stable as SATA, and I have many many external drives also

My usb 3 docking station is useful, and fast enough for reliable external storage. I't probably as quick as a sata drive is plugged inside the PC, and saves the resources used by havining the sata controller active.
Sequential read/write is just over 200MB/s which is good enough.

 

[Scour]

I have HDDs (6 max concurrent )in internal HDD enclosures with switches.

Sunnytek/Jou Jye ST-2131 schwarz | Preisvergleich Geizhals Deutschland

✔ Preisvergleich für Sunnytek/Jou Jye ST-2131 schwarz ✔ Bewertungen ✔ Produktinfo ⇒ Typ: Backplane • Anschlüsse intern: 3x 3.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s • Anschlüsse extern: SATA 1.5Gb/s • Hot-Swap: Ne… ✔ Wechselrahmen ✔ Testberichte ✔ Günstig kaufen

geizhals.de

I don´t want to eject/insert everytime single HDDs or want to place on my desk 6 docking station

You maybe see know, different requirements


@Topic

Nice to see Intel allow up to 8x SATA, I remember Intel were very fast with removing IDE/PATA from it´s chipsets

But I´m not sure which Mainboard-manufacturer will use this possibility, maybe Asrock could be again the one