MSI Z890 and X870 Motherboards Spotted at an Australian Retailer Starting at $385

[Nomad76]

Intel is set to launch its Arrow Lake processors on October 24th, likely alongside the official release of the Z890 motherboards. Meanwhile, AMD is expected to launch its new X870 and X870E motherboards on September 30th. Ahead of these dates, we've already seen many of them showcased at Computex, however, today an Australian retailer listed several MSI motherboards, including one Z890 model (MSI Z890 Carbon WiFi) and three X870/X870E models (MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi, MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi, and MSI PRO X870-P WiFi).

MSI Z890 Carbon WiFi
This is a mid-range motherboard, however without an official spec sheet, we're left trying to decipher details from the pictures. From what we can see, it offers a solid set of features, including USB 3.2, USB Type-C ports, BIOS Flash, Clear CMOS, and Smart Buttons. The board itself includes an 8-pin PCI-E connector and at least three M.2 slots. Currently, there is no information about its retail price.





MSI revealed more details about their upcoming X870/X870E motherboards a few days ago, as we reported earlier. In addition to images, the latest information includes pricing listed by an Australian retailer, which is as follows:

• MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi: AU$909.56 ($613 US)
• MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi: AU$625.02 ($420 US)
• MSI PRO X870-P WiFi: AU$571.84 ($385 US)

MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi



MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi



MSI PRO X870-P WiFi)



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[Chaitanya]

Just noticed that X870e Carbon has crippled PCIe layout in form of x16+x4+x4 slots instead one seen on X670e Carbon which was x16+x8+x4.

 

[Makaveli]

I may end up going with X670E which should be heavily discounted in the new few months.

Not expecting good pricing on these.

 

[Assimilator]

Holy shit, motherboards with more than a single type-C connector. It only took 5 generations since X370 for this to happen.

Just noticed that X870e Carbon has crippled PCIe layout in form of x16+x4+x4 slots instead one seen on X670e Carbon which was x16+x8+x4.

Because ASM4242 consumes four of those lanes and AMD, in their infinite wisdom, decided to (a) tie it to the CPU instead of the chipset, so that it consumes valuable PCIe 5.0 lanes even though it only needs PCIe 4.0 (b) release Zen 4 crippled in terms of PCIe lane functionality and stick to the same socket for 3 generations, meaning they have no leeway to increase that lane count (c) not upgrade the chipset from Zen 4 to Zen 5 either.

 

[Dristun]

Holy moly, $600+ for Carbon! I expected a price hike but not almost 40%.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Holy shit, motherboards with more than a single type-C connector. It only took 5 generations since X370 for this to happen.

My board has two, plus one for the case (which my case supports).

Holy moly, $600+ for Carbon! I expected a price hike but not almost 40%.

It's Australian pricing, computer gear is super expensive there.

 

[Makaveli]

Holy moly, $600+ for Carbon! I expected a price hike but not almost 40%.

lol not much better here.

this is what the X670E carbon cost in canada.

The X870E version will be cost $799 CAD easily.

 

[persondb]

Holy shit, motherboards with more than a single type-C connector. It only took 5 generations since X370 for this to happen.


Because ASM4242 consumes four of those lanes and AMD, in their infinite wisdom, decided to (a) tie it to the CPU instead of the chipset, so that it consumes valuable PCIe 5.0 lanes even though it only needs PCIe 4.0 (b) release Zen 4 crippled in terms of PCIe lane functionality and stick to the same socket for 3 generations, meaning they have no leeway to increase that lane count (c) not upgrade the chipset from Zen 4 to Zen 5 either.

I would guess is because AMD doesn't want to deal with complaints about USB4 bandwidth, which if it was in the chipset it would be certain to happen.
But did they mandate it to be tied to the CPU lanes? I thought it was an implementation choice of he MB OEM. They did increase the PCIe lane count from 24 to 28 in AM4 to AM5 though.

Intel has the same 28 in LGA1700, though I remember seeing that for the next socket it will be 32 for the Z890 (20 CPU PCie 5, 4 CPU PCIe 4 and 8 DMI) chipset and 24 (20 CPU PCie 5 and 8 DMI) for B860. For whatever reason, they seem to remove the 4 additional PCIe 4.0 from the CPU if using the B860.

Intel's Upcoming 800-series Chipsets Leak in Detail

What appears to be the full details of all of Intel's upcoming 800-series chipsets have leaked and although we've already seen what the Z890 chipset will offer, no details of the other SKUs have leaked to date. Maybe the biggest news is that there won't be an H870 chipset this time around...

www.techpowerup.com

Though Intel does have USB/Thunderbolt integrated into the CPU, even in the LGA1700 ones, so IO wise it's more favorable as it seems(since 1 USB4/TB is equivalent to 2 PCIe 4 lanes).

 

[KLMR]

The incredible shrinking PCIE freak.
Come and see, the fabulous X870!
Its a motherboard? Its a dock-station? Its rigid pcie-usb cable extension?

And bundled with every X870 the amazing: PCIE lane express operation game! Guess what PCIE_slot is disabled when you plug something.

 

[Assimilator]

They did increase the PCIe lane count from 24 to 28 in AM4 to AM5 though.

Oh wow, four whole extra lanes, almost enough for me to wipe my arse with. Meanwhile back in socket 939 days you could easily find boards with dual x16 slots.

since 1 USB4/TB is equivalent to 2 PCIe 4 lanes

Two lanes of PCIe 4.0 are only 32Gbps; you need another half lane to get to the full 40Gbps. Or to put it another way, 2 full USB4/Thunderbolt 4 ports = 5 PCIe 4.0 lanes. I don't actually think anyone gives you the full 40Gbps though, they all just weasel around with the "up to 40Gbps" bullshit. Which is another reason why it was stupid to make the USB4/TB4 standards be power-of-ten speeds when the underlying PCIe bus is power-of-two, but marketing once again ruins everything.

 

[TheLostSwede]

lol not much better here.

this is what the X670E carbon cost in canada.

The X870E version will be cost $799 CAD easily.

View attachment 363592

Not far off here, the equivalent of 649 of your moose dollars. However, that includes 25% VAT/sales tax. Most places want over C$700 though.

I would guess is because AMD doesn't want to deal with complaints about USB4 bandwidth, which if it was in the chipset it would be certain to happen.
But did they mandate it to be tied to the CPU lanes? I thought it was an implementation choice of he MB OEM. They did increase the PCIe lane count from 24 to 28 in AM4 to AM5 though.

Intel has the same 28 in LGA1700, though I remember seeing that for the next socket it will be 32 for the Z890 (20 CPU PCie 5, 4 CPU PCIe 4 and 8 DMI) chipset and 24 (20 CPU PCie 5 and 8 DMI) for B860. For whatever reason, they seem to remove the 4 additional PCIe 4.0 from the CPU if using the B860.

Intel's Upcoming 800-series Chipsets Leak in Detail

What appears to be the full details of all of Intel's upcoming 800-series chipsets have leaked and although we've already seen what the Z890 chipset will offer, no details of the other SKUs have leaked to date. Maybe the biggest news is that there won't be an H870 chipset this time around...

www.techpowerup.com

Though Intel does have USB/Thunderbolt integrated into the CPU, even in the LGA1700 ones, so IO wise it's more favorable as it seems(since 1 USB4/TB is equivalent to 2 PCIe 4 lanes).

Intel's DMI interface on the Z-series chipsets is also eight lanes since a few generations back, whereas AMD stuck with four lanes of PCIe. DMI is pretty much PCIe.
You got your lanes mixed up though, one USB4 port is 40 Gbps, not 32 GB, that's Thunderbolt 3/4. So it's more than two PCIe 4.0 lanes. The ASM4242 allows for one 40 Gbps and one 20 Gbps port at full speed over four PCIe 4.0 lanes, with a bit of bandwidth to spare.

 

[persondb]

Oh wow, four whole extra lanes, almost enough for me to wipe my arse with. Meanwhile back in socket 939 days you could easily find boards with dual x16 slots.

The chipsets that I could for that socket that fits that would be nForce4 SLI X16 and AMD 580X. Since the socket 939 has a 16-bit HT (https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/packages/socket_939), you would barely be able to use a single x16 as you would have 16 * 2000 MT/s = 4 GB/s or about 13 lanes or so of PCIe. It makes no difference if they were x16 or not.

The actual reason why they were x16 I believe was because of Crossfire/SLI, so the GPUs could communicate with each other through the x16 links, but to the CPU it`s nothing.

Two lanes of PCIe 4.0 are only 32Gbps; you need another half lane to get to the full 40Gbps. Or to put it another way, 2 full USB4/Thunderbolt 4 ports = 5 PCIe 4.0 lanes. I don't actually think anyone gives you the full 40Gbps though, they all just weasel around with the "up to 40Gbps" bullshit. Which is another reason why it was stupid to make the USB4/TB4 standards be power-of-ten speeds when the underlying PCIe bus is power-of-two, but marketing once again ruins everything.

USB4/TB does tunnelling, I don`t think they do more than 32 Gbps for PCIe.
In addition, USB4/TB chips also receive DisplayPort separately so it can give you 40 Gbps(counting overheads).

 

[TheLostSwede]

USB4/TB does tunnelling, I don`t think they do more than 32 Gbps for PCIe.
In addition, USB4/TB chips also receive DisplayPort separately so it can give you 40 Gbps(counting overheads).

USB4 does the full 40 Gbps, Thunderbolt is as you say, limited to 32 Gbps. Intel claims 40 Gbps with the addition of 8 Gbps worth of DP, USB4 does not include the DP signal, as it would be using tunnelling as you point out, there's no dedicated DP bandwidth when it comes to USB4.
I'd suggest you read this, instead of making assumptions.

USB4 is Coming - Everything You Need to Know

USB4 is the next evolution of the USB standard, but it's quite different from its predecessors as it brings with it support for DisplayPort connectivity, as well as optional PCI-Express and Thunderbolt 3 support. It tries to fix some technical issues, but adds a few of its own, but at least the...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[persondb]

Intel's DMI interface on the Z-series chipsets is also eight lanes since a few generations back, whereas AMD stuck with four lanes of PCIe. DMI is pretty much PCIe.
You got your lanes mixed up though, one USB4 port is 40 Gbps, not 32 GB, that's Thunderbolt 3/4. So it's more than two PCIe 4.0 lanes. The ASM4242 allows for one 40 Gbps and one 20 Gbps port at full speed over four PCIe 4.0 lanes, with a bit of bandwidth to spare.

That is the physical spec for DMI, the protocol itself is different from what I remember. And that is also why I included it in the lane count, though I put it wrong for the B860 as it should have 4 DMI lanes.
40 Gbps is counting the overheads.
USB4 is also just TB3 which has the same 20 gbps and 40 gbps modes.

If you connect two usb4 40 gbps devices to the ASM4242, it should negotiate both to 40 gbps, and the transmission/receive should be at those rates. The thing is that if you then try to do more the lanes support with USB 3 and PCIe tunneling then it will bottleneck at those. Keeping in mind that you also have separated DP lanes that do consume USB4 bandwidth if in use. Either way, I would still say that integrated USB4/TB controller in the CPU should count as two lanes per port.

 

[TheLostSwede]

40 Gbps is counting the overheads.
USB4 is also just TB3 which has the same 20 gbps and 40 gbps modes.

No. It's possible to do 40 Gbps of data over USB4 (ok, 38.79 Gbps) and Thunderbolt does not have a 20 Gbps mode, it does however support 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2.

If you connect two usb4 40 gbps devices to the ASM4242, it should negotiate both to 40 gbps, and the transmission/receive should be at those rates. The thing is that if you then try to do more the lanes support with USB 3 and PCIe tunneling then it will bottleneck at those. Keeping in mind that you also have separated DP lanes that do consume USB4 bandwidth if in use. Either way, I would still say that integrated USB4/TB controller in the CPU should count as two lanes per port.

Yeah, well, considering there isn't a fat enough pipe, how do you expect the chip to do 80 Gbps in total, when the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface is limited to 64 Gbps?
No, USB4 does NOT have DP lanes, it's all done by tunnelling, unlike Thunderbolt.
Again, read the article I wrote just over two years ago, where I visited ASMedia and talked to them about the ASM4242, instead of pulling shit out of thin air.

 

[nomdeplume]

The incredible shrinking PCIE freak.
Come and see, the fabulous X870!
Its a motherboard? Its a dock-station? Its rigid pcie-usb cable extension?

And bundled with every X870 the amazing: PCIE lane express operation game! Guess what PCIE_slot is disabled when you plug something.

First thought beyond that was mental envisioning of cords plugged into every port and the resulting meltdown.

That is the physical spec for DMI, the protocol itself is different

Not that following protocols is enforced, stated upfront when diverted from, or actively pursued.

 

[persondb]

No. It's possible to do 40 Gbps of data over USB4 (ok, 38.79 Gbps) and Thunderbolt does not have a 20 Gbps mode, it does however support 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2.

You are right on that, that was a mistake.

Yeah, well, considering there isn't a fat enough pipe, how do you expect the chip to do 80 Gbps in total, when the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface is limited to 64 Gbps?
No, USB4 does NOT have DP lanes, it's all done by tunnelling, unlike Thunderbolt.
Again, read the article I wrote just over two years ago, where I visited ASMedia and talked to them about the ASM4242, instead of pulling shit out of thin air.

You didn't pay enough attention then. USB4 does not have dedicated DP lanes, I have never said about that, it is done through tunnelling BUT, the chip itself which gives the interface USB4 to the CPU has DP sink lanes.
So idk what you are going on about, I never said that DP gets into alternate mode and then has it's own dedicated lanes, I said that the connection is PCIe + DP.
So you do indeed have more than 64 Gbps.

Reread what I said.

It features upstream ports with 4-lane PCI Express 4.0 (PCIe Gen 4) and dual 4-lane DisplayPort sink ports, and downstream facing ports with dual USB4 ports

 

[Why_Me]

Holy moly, $600+ for Carbon! I expected a price hike but not almost 40%.

Australian dollars. Between the Aussies, Kiwis and Canucks it takes like a gazillion of their dollars to build a decent 1440P gaming rig.

 

[TomWeng]

X870E Carbon is a bit expensive. X670E Carbon only costs 394.5USD now at mainland of china.

 

[kapone32]

lol not much better here.

this is what the X670E carbon cost in canada.

The X870E version will be cost $799 CAD easily.

View attachment 363592

What is insane is that the X870E Carbon is the only one with 2 PCIe lanes connected to the CPU. MB vendors are not trying hard enough. When we went from X370 to X470 just about every board supported X8X8 and now with USB 4 stealing 4 lanes we lose PCIe flexibility. It would seem indeed that X670E boards were good enough and expensive enough to keep this time around.

 

[Wirko]

Intel has the same 28 in LGA1700, though I remember seeing that for the next socket it will be 32 for the Z890 (20 CPU PCie 5, 4 CPU PCIe 4 and 8 DMI) chipset and 24 (20 CPU PCie 5 and 8 DMI) for B860. For whatever reason, they seem to remove the 4 additional PCIe 4.0 from the CPU if using the B860.

Also there's lack of bifurcation. I took the existence of a SSD that can use PCIe 5.0 x2 as a prediction of what we would see in the upcoming generation of CPUs. But it's now obvious that none of the CPUs has a 5.0 x4 port that can split into two 5.0 x2 links.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Holy moly, $600+ for Carbon! I expected a price hike but not almost 40%.

No one will pay that insane price. These will rot on the shelves like Zen 5 cpu's.

 

[Launcestonian]

No one will pay that insane price. These will rot on the shelves like Zen 5 cpu's.

More like the influence of a broader economic recession that a dislike of the product.

 

[Minus Infinity]

More like the influence of a broader economic recession that a dislike of the product.

Nope even cRaptor Lake is far more popular than Zen 5. People are still buying cpus, but they want Zen 4 or Intel. Zen 5 (apart from 9950X) is DOA unless it gets massive price cuts.

 

[Launcestonian]

Nope even cRaptor Lake is far more popular than Zen 5. People are still buying cpus, but they want Zen 4 or Intel. Zen 5 (apart from 9950X) is DOA unless it gets massive price cuts.

So they like buying RL with its history of failures?...