X570 chipset differences?

[StoleMyOwnCar]

We were discussing motherboards for my 5950x setup in genhardware. I thought that 2x M2 slots + 6x SATA was about the max you could get out of it on most modern boards, like this Tomahawk that I chose as my current board:
https://www.newegg.com/msi-mag-x570s-tomahawk-max-wifi/p/N82E16813144471

Then someone posted this ASrock Taichi board:
https://www.newegg.com/asrock-x570-...on=taichi&cm_re=taichi-_-13-157-883-_-Product

And it does seem like even with 3x M2, it gets extra 2 SATA ports... while only disabling one PCIE slot (which was extra to begin with). I notice that it lists its chipset as "X570 Premium"... which I can't find listed or reviewed on any site...

What exactly is the difference? Did the MSI board just skimp out on features that it could have leveraged, or is there something else that's taking the bandwidth? Bit confused how these X570 boards work and how their bandwidth is partitioned. Thanks.

 

[philb2]

Maybe this vendor added some non-X570 chips to provide the extra features and then pitched the board as 'Premium.' Here is a thought. If there really is a X570 Premium chipset why haven't the market leaders like ASUS featured this chipset in some of their boards?

I may be out of date here, but I thought that Asrock is a mid-market and entry-level products vendor.

 

[mda]

You can wire up the X570 chipset in a few number of ways.

In the end, past the dedicated 16x GPU and 4x NVME slot, a few SATA ports and some USB ports which are directly wired to the CPU, everything else is coursed through the chipset, which is bandwidth limited by its x4 link to the CPU.

There is a diagram in the link below on how motherboard makers can wire up X570s differently.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14161/the-amd-x570-motherboard-overview

 

[TheSlySyl]

Maybe this vendor added some non-X570 chips to provide the extra features and then pitched the board as 'Premium.' Here is a thought. Is there really is a X570 Premium chipset why haven't the market leaders like ASUS featured this chipset in some of their boards?

I may be out of date here, but I thought that Asrock is a mid-market and entry-level products vendor.

The Taichi is ASrock's flagship series, and they're known to put more stuff into the the Taichi series than most other motherboard vendors do. I picked it up because it was one of the *first* X570 boards with this much SATA/NVME capability.

There are now many other X570 boards with 8 SATA slots, I know cause I looked at em. According to Newegg with a quick search, there's nearly 200(!) X570 motherboards with 8 SATA slots, with everything from 2 to 4 nvme ssd slots.

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007625 601292786 601334781 600054097

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

The Taichi is ASrock's flagship series, and they're known to put more stuff into the the Taichi series than most other motherboard vendors do. I picked it up because it was one of the *first* X570 boards with this much SATA/NVME capability.

There are now many other X570 boards with 8 SATA slots, I know cause I looked at em. According to Newegg with a quick search, there's nearly 200(!) X570 motherboards with 8 SATA slots, with everything from 2 to 4 nvme ssd slots.

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007625 601292786 601334781 600054097

The question isn't how many SATA/NVME slots they have total, the point is what they share bandwidth with. For instance this other MSI Motherboard:
https://www.newegg.com/msi-mpg-x570s-carbon-max-wifi/p/N82E16813144493
4 NVME slots, but if you use one of them it just takes you down by 4 SATA slots? I guess? Then again assuming the spec sheet is correct, it also supports 3 NVME drives + 8 SATA... although the bandwidth looks a bit sketchy. How many other motherboards can actually support 8 SATA ports with 3+ NVME drives hooked up, and at what cost?

Actually if you drill down on Newegg for 3+ NVME slots and 8 SATA slots, there are very, very few boards...

The Taichi is interesting because you don't seem to sacrifice anything by having 3 NVME slots and 8 SATA slots? Unless the lower throughput ethernet and 2 less Gen 2 ports is the cost...?

You can wire up the X570 chipset in a few number of ways.

In the end, past the dedicated 16x GPU and 4x NVME slot, a few SATA ports and some USB ports which are directly wired to the CPU, everything else is coursed through the chipset, which is bandwidth limited by its x4 link to the CPU.

There is a diagram in the link below on how motherboard makers can wire up X570s differently.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14161/the-amd-x570-motherboard-overview

Thanks, I guess you're talking about this picture:

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/14161/X570.png

So is this MSI Tomahawk just not using all of its connectivity options, or is having 2 extra USB gen 2 ports limiting it? Or something else? This kind of irks me a bit...

Would be nice if there was a new mobo with:
- Realtek 2.5GB
- Wifi 6 (mainly for the newer bluetooth really)
- 2-3 NVME slots
- 8 SATA ports (that don't share bandwidth with NVME or something).

I tried drilling down on Newegg but that Taichi seems to literally be the only thing, but it doesn't have new connectivity standards sadly (and it's not available at Microcenter, who I'm locked into anyway).

 

[mda]

Thanks, I guess you're talking about this picture:

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/14161/X570.png

So is this MSI Tomahawk just not using all of its connectivity options, or is having 2 extra USB gen 2 ports limiting it? Or something else? This kind of irks me a bit...

Would be nice if there was a new mobo with:
- Realtek 2.5GB
- Wifi 6 (mainly for the newer bluetooth really)
- 2-3 NVME slots
- 8 SATA ports (that don't share bandwidth with NVME or something).

I tried drilling down on Newegg but that Taichi seems to literally be the only thing, but it doesn't have new connectivity standards sadly (and it's not available at Microcenter, who I'm locked into anyway).

Yes it's that one.

I do believe that yes, the Tomahawk isn't using all its connectivity options, since the board sits lower in MSI's product stack compared to the Taichi, which is Asrock's top of the line board.

Doing a quick glance, the X570S ACE MAX is MSI's range topper (apart from the Godlike which is seriously overpriced in most markets and probably was a halo product to begin with) and should have its features to more closely match the Taichi.

I'm more familiar for boards on the ASUS side, but for your requirement on boards that

have 2.5GB, WiFi6, 2-3 NVME slots and 8 SATA ports:
X570 Strix E / Strix E II (only 2 NVME, Realtek 2.5GB and Intel 1GB, 8 SATA ports and WIFI6 )
X570 TUF PRO (Only 2 NVME, Has an Intel 2.5GB but with the B3 stepping of the chip which fixed previous issues, 8 SATA ports and WIFI6)

None of the ASUS boards come with more than 2 M2 slots but I think ASUS also has an available add in PCIE board for M2 slots if you needed them

 

[TheSlySyl]

The fancy ASUS boards also have those cool RAM to M.2 add in cards.
They call em Dimm.2

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

Has an Intel 2.5GB but with the B3 stepping of the chip which fixed previous issues

Unfortunately, it didn't. The TUF PRO was actually my first motherboard on this setup. I returned it precisely because that stupid intel chip was causing all kinds of issues long term. It started out fine, but only gets more unstable as the system stays up, before it finally just spiraled out of control. People everywhere are still having trouble with the chip, so I kind of doubt it will ever be fixed at this point. This Realtek LAN has been rock solid.

The Taichi is not available at Microcenter (sold out at both locations near me), and it seems like literally everyone but ASRock pretty much skimped out this generation, because it has more connectivity options for less money than any of the other vendor options. The TUF Pro uses an Intel LAN which is a complete dealbreaker for me now obviously. And finally the rest of the possible boards are much more expensive, to the point where I could get an expansion card for the price. So thanks for confirming... most MOBO manufacturers are skimping out and I don't really have any choice lol. Guess it's time to stop stressing?

If I live long enough to need to upgrade from this 5950x, I guess at least I've learned a valuable lesson to sit there and pore over the specs to see who's actually using what chipset options, and at what price points.

 

[Nobu]

The Taichi is interesting because you don't seem to sacrifice anything by having 3 NVME slots and 8 SATA slots? Unless the lower throughput ethernet and 2 less Gen 2 ports is the cost...?

You lose one PCIe slot, unless newegg is lying (wouldn't be the first time) on the spec:

M2_3 is occupied, PCIE5 slot will be disabled.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

You lose one PCIe slot, unless newegg is lying (wouldn't be the first time) on the spec:

You do, but many (if not most, even at higher budget ranges) boards don't even have a 5th PCIE slot to begin with...

https://www.newegg.com/msi-meg-x570s-ace-max/p/13-144-491

Which, again is why I was wondering if the lack of extra Gen 2 USB slots was the difference... but who knows.


I'd say this motherboard is one of the weirdest ones:

https://www.newegg.com/msi-mpg-x570s-carbon-max-wifi/p/13-144-493

* SATA5-6 will be unavailable when installing SATA SSD in the M2_3 slot; SATA5-8 will be unavailable when installing PCIe SSD in the M2_3 slot.

* The PCI_E4 slot will be unavailable, when installing M.2 SSD into the M2_4 slot.

Takes out 4 sata slots with one M2 drive? Then is down to 3 PCIE slots with the other? Lol. I guess at least if you occupy neither slot, you will have 2 M2 drives and 8 SATA slots though.

 

[vegeta535]

You do, but many (if not most, even at higher budget ranges) boards don't even have a 5th PCIE slot to begin with...

https://www.newegg.com/msi-meg-x570s-ace-max/p/13-144-491

Which, again is why I was wondering if the lack of extra Gen 2 USB slots was the difference... but who knows.


I'd say this motherboard is one of the weirdest ones:

https://www.newegg.com/msi-mpg-x570s-carbon-max-wifi/p/13-144-493





Takes out 4 sata slots with one M2 drive? Then is down to 3 PCIE slots with the other? Lol. I guess at least if you occupy neither slot, you will have 2 M2 drives and 8 SATA slots though.

Yes it pretty much how it works with all MB. You start losing SATA ports the more NVMe port you populate.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

Yes it pretty much how it works with all MB. You start losing SATA ports the more NVMe port you populate.

The Taichi board doesn't, though... all it loses is an extra PCIE slot that very few other boards have by default anyway. That's why I'm sitting here stumped about where the tradeoff is, or if every other manufacturer is just skimping out. Well, also most other boards only lose 2 SATA slots per NVME drive rather than 4, but but that might be because most of them only have 6 anyway, so only an extra 2 to lose (but where is the bandwidth for the 2 that aren't there?).

Like this MSI:
https://www.newegg.com/msi-meg-x570s-ace-max/p/N82E16813144491

Only has 4 PCIE slots to begin with... and one of them shares bandwidth with the network adapter... and then the M2 drives share bandwidth with both the SATA 5-8 ports and one of the other PCIE slots. Does the Taichi do something similar and is not stating it?

 

[lopoetve]

The Taichi board doesn't, though... all it loses is an extra PCIE slot that very few other boards have by default anyway. That's why I'm sitting here stumped about where the tradeoff is, or if every other manufacturer is just skimping out. Well, also most other boards only lose 2 SATA slots per NVME drive rather than 4, but but that might be because most of them only have 6 anyway, so only an extra 2 to lose (but where is the bandwidth for the 2 that aren't there?).

Like this MSI:
https://www.newegg.com/msi-meg-x570s-ace-max/p/N82E16813144491

Only has 4 PCIE slots to begin with... and one of them shares bandwidth with the network adapter... and then the M2 drives share bandwidth with both the SATA 5-8 ports and one of the other PCIE slots. Does the Taichi do something similar and is not stating it?

There's always a trade off. The chipset has 20 (iirc) lanes. You divide those how the MB manufacturer wishes. in this case, they're giving you more sata ports in trade, if you want to disable "other things" that the chipset may be wired up to. Other boards may leave chipset lanes unused to save cost.

 

[mda]

Unfortunately, it didn't. The TUF PRO was actually my first motherboard on this setup. I returned it precisely because that stupid intel chip was causing all kinds of issues long term. It started out fine, but only gets more unstable as the system stays up, before it finally just spiraled out of control. People everywhere are still having trouble with the chip, so I kind of doubt it will ever be fixed at this point. This Realtek LAN has been rock solid.

The Taichi is not available at Microcenter (sold out at both locations near me), and it seems like literally everyone but ASRock pretty much skimped out this generation, because it has more connectivity options for less money than any of the other vendor options. The TUF Pro uses an Intel LAN which is a complete dealbreaker for me now obviously. And finally the rest of the possible boards are much more expensive, to the point where I could get an expansion card for the price. So thanks for confirming... most MOBO manufacturers are skimping out and I don't really have any choice lol. Guess it's time to stop stressing?

If I live long enough to need to upgrade from this 5950x, I guess at least I've learned a valuable lesson to sit there and pore over the specs to see who's actually using what chipset options, and at what price points.

Strix E maybe?

 

[pendragon1]

isnt there an "S" update for it, ie x570s? maybe that adds more or the mobo maker added other controllers.

 

[Enigma]

isnt there an "S" update for it, ie x570s? maybe that adds more or the mobo maker added other controllers.

The "S" versions just have a different cooling solution "Fanless". Other than this there is no tangible difference between "S" and "Non S" x570 Boards.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

isnt there an "S" update for it, ie x570s? maybe that adds more or the mobo maker added other controllers.

Like Enigma said, they're exactly the same. And most X570S are explicitly marketed as such, I think.

Strix E maybe?

I looked at that one, but it uses some weird Mediatek bluetooth controller. Which might be fine. I do know (ASUS TUF B550 experience) that it doesn't install automatically (which is a little... off-brand in my eyes). The rest of its specs do look really good though, but... yeah it's also 120-130$ more than this MSI Tomahawk (while having a worse Wifi)...

I think the closest would probably be this MSI?
https://www.newegg.com/msi-mpg-x570s-carbon-max-wifi/p/N82E16813144493

90$ extra is kind of hard to swallow for basically 2 SATA ports. And for some reason it STILL has 2x USB 2.0 ports on rear I/O... Although looking through the instruction manual, I think the Tomahawk lied on the PCIE ports on Newegg... claiming 2x 4.0 16 when in reality the second full size port is apparently x4... but that might be normal, I didn't look at how the distribution worked. I guess what bugs me most from an OCD standpoint is I'm going to be on this platform for a long time, and I have a motherboard that's not using all of its PCIE lanes... and is apparently literally unable to as it's just not wired to. But is that worth 90$? I'm having a hard time deciding. I've already rebuilt this PC (well rewired mobo) 2 more times after I got rid of that TUF PRO.

I think motherboard reviewers should do more granular comparisons between motherboards (if they don't already) to show you where your PCIE lanes are going, and/or if they're not even going anywhere. To me that's just wasted bandwidth that you're not using on a platform you're spending more for anyway...

 

[mda]

AFAIK the Strix E (non II) uses the Intel AX200 chip.

I can verify tonight if you'd need. I have a box running that MB at home.

 

[Denpepe]

I think motherboard reviewers should do more granular comparisons between motherboards (if they don't already) to show you where your PCIE lanes are going, and/or if they're not even going anywhere. To me that's just wasted bandwidth that you're not using on a platform you're spending more for anyway...

Well maybe, but users who need a lot of PCIe lanes and stuff usually go to the HEDT segment, I would say that most regular users use a GPU and 1 or 2 SSD"s and for those all motherboards are "good enough".

If you want some indepth coverage check out buildzoid, he seems to be pretty thorough

 

[III_Slyflyer_III]

I have the mobo below... I think it's been replaced by the X570S model. Has 3 NVME slots. 1 is 4x directly to the CPU, the other 2 slots are on the chipset and share the 4x bandwidth to the CPU. All PCIe 4.0 of course. However, you can RAID the nvme drives in 0/1/10 if you wanted to. I have my main nvme on the CPU slot and a backup nvme on the chipset slot. I am not using the 3rd nvme slot at this time. No PCIe slots get disabled to my knowledge and for drive storage the shared bandwidth is a non-issue unless you are legitimately trying to max out the bandwidth through brutal benchmarking of the drives.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/608740/msi-x570-meg-ace-amd-am4-atx-motherboard?ob=1

 

[philb2]

I think motherboard reviewers should do more granular comparisons between motherboards (if they don't already) to show you where your PCIE lanes are going, and/or if they're not even going anywhere. To me that's just wasted bandwidth that you're not using on a platform you're spending more for anyway...

+1

Without doing a lot of work, it's hard to figure out what a given motherboard is missing, compared with other motherboards, especially from different vendors. The proliferation of subbrands also doesn't help. ASUS has TUF, ROG, Strix, Hero, and maybe a few others. The have/used to have WS and Pro versions. And that's just ASUS and I may have forgotten a few. Quick question: What's the difference between the Strix-E and Strix-F? And by the way, what is Strix for an ASUS GPU card?

I wish ASUS and others went to a stratgegy of just a few "base" motherboards with plug-in daughterboards, extra controllers, etc.

Any old-timers here remember the Intel 8086 CPU and 8087 Math co-processor?

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

I have the mobo below... I think it's been replaced by the X570S model. Has 3 NVME slots. 1 is 4x directly to the CPU, the other 2 slots are on the chipset and share the 4x bandwidth to the CPU. All PCIe 4.0 of course. However, you can RAID the nvme drives in 0/1/10 if you wanted to. I have my main nvme on the CPU slot and a backup nvme on the chipset slot. I am not using the 3rd nvme slot at this time. No PCIe slots get disabled to my knowledge and for drive storage the shared bandwidth is a non-issue unless you are legitimately trying to max out the bandwidth through brutal benchmarking of the drives.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/608740/msi-x570-meg-ace-amd-am4-atx-motherboard?ob=1

This is out of stock near me, and it's incredibly expensive...

+1

Without doing a lot of work, it's hard to figure out what a given motherboard is missing, compared with other motherboards, especially from different vendors. The proliferation of subbrands also doesn't help. ASUS has TUF, ROG, Strix, Hero, and maybe a few others. The have/used to have WS and Pro versions. And that's just ASUS and I may have forgotten a few. Quick question: What's the difference between the Strix-E and Strix-F? And by the way, what is Strix for an ASUS GPU card?

I wish ASUS and others went to a stratgegy of just a few "base" motherboards with plug-in daughterboards, extra controllers, etc.

Any old-timers here remember the Intel 8086 CPU and 8087 Math co-processor?

This is the issue with motherboards. Sites just give them a quick review that might involve benchmarks or something, and then a quick comment like "it has this audio, that's nice". A motherboard isn't like a GPU, a CPU, RAM, etc. It doesn't have just one function... the LAN, the WIFI, the audio, the PCIE allocation, etc... just giving it a cursory review doesn't do anyone any good. I could do that just staring at the spec sheet. If I'm having to stare at a spec sheet to meaningfully compare motherboards, then I don't need a reviewer. The most technical and granular most sites get is mentioning the VRMs and their cooling.


And then even newegg spec sheets can be unreliable.


https://www.newegg.com/msi-mpg-x570s-carbon-max-wifi/p/N82E16813144493

What? Lol. Maybe I'm reading this wrong but is it saying that the M2 drives are limited to one SATA slot in bandwidth?

AFAIK the Strix E (non II) uses the Intel AX200 chip.

I can verify tonight if you'd need. I have a box running that MB at home.

You know, they put the specs on this one into the motherboard list incorrectly. I see it does have a 2.5G adapter. Does it have 2x M2 slots or 3x? It's hard to tell. I do see one open box at a location and I might do an exchange for it. But open box...

https://www.microcenter.com/product/642653/msi-x570s-mpg-carbon-max-wifi-amd-am4-atx-motherboard


This is my other option. If I decide I really feel like rebuilding this PC again and saying sorry to Microcenter for going through a total of 4 motherboards lol.

 

[lopoetve]

Iirc the carbon is garbage. Bad VRMs.

And the m2 slots support NVMe or sata drives. That’s why it lists that - there’s sometimes one slot that is NVMe only (the CPU driven one normally).

 

[lopoetve]

As for the rest - for most users the level of detail you’re looking for isn’t relevant. For those where it is (you, me, others) - we are looking to the reviews for flaws or mistakes (bad VRM, bad port placement, etc) and looking up the block diagrams anyway to determine if it’ll meet our need. For the functionality you seem to be looking for, you either have to spend more on the motherboard - or start adding cards. From my perspective, $400 is pretty cheap for a motherboard - but a lot of my kit is HEDT too, and those always carry a premium.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

Iirc the carbon is garbage. Bad VRMs.

And the m2 slots support NVMe or sata drives. That’s why it lists that - there’s sometimes one slot that is NVMe only (the CPU driven one normally).

I think the X570S revision changed that a lot. But it is a bit annoying since I can't find super recent reviews of it. Everyone just kind of reviewed the X570 and didn't look at the X570S.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/commen...ter_msi_mpg_x570s_carbon_max_wifi_or/hhfg7yn/



According to current reviews, I believe (please do correct me if I'm wrong) the VRMs are actually far overkill right now lol. But yeah I did notice that you trade a decent amount for those M2 slots... but on the other hand that does mean that you can run 2x M2 while having your 8 SATA slots, and then you have a choice of what you want to sacrifice if you want more speed, or more capacity. I view that flexibility as a positive for long term use, despite... the featureset being a bit... weird in some parts...

 

[lopoetve]

Well, it IS a three year old platform. Even revisions on it aren't going to be that interesting to most people.

I don't honestly follow the recent reviews. All my x570 purchases were done in 2020, and back THEN, short of the Unify Ace, MSI was "avoid like the plague." They got called out for it, which is why the Tomahawk exists now, but they may have certainly gone back and revised the older ones.

I do agree that managing features on consumer platforms is ... annoying. That's why my two main "do anything" boxes are both HEDT (TRX40 and x299) - I can do pretty much anything with those. Then again, I'm only tending to use piles of SATA drives on storage servers, and do all NVMe locally before offloading (but I have 10G networking, so... again, things aren't apples to apples for most folks).

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

Well, I went back to Microcenter yet again and exchanged for that MSI Carbon Max x570s. Also redid the thermal paste on the CPU, this time decided to spread it manually with my finger. That sounds weird, but it worked quite well... temps went down significantly. Tested every port and configuration this thing is supposed to have, they all worked (m2 slots were a massive pain because of all of the tiny screws). Prime95 stable for 2 or so hours, everything runs fine. At this point I guess I've technically rebuilt this computer almost 4 times.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the board. Was it worth nearly twice the price of a B550 platform? Or 90$ more than the Tomahawk? For me, I guess so. For the flexibility and longevity options it has, I guess it's what I'm going to stick with for the next several years of my gaming/productivity life. I learned a valuable lesson about going in depth on what you're getting and not getting, if you want to stick to a platform for a long time... that sweet spot can be incredibly hard to find.

buildzoid

I wanna thank you for mentioning this fellow, his motherboard roundups helped me make my decisions. Specifically that video I linked up there.