B550 vs X570 and chipset cooling question.

d3athf1sh

d3athf1sh

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So i've been wondering why the chipset for B550 doesn't need chipset cooling. It includes PCIE 4.0 and I thoughts that was the reason X570 was running so hot?

So at this point why would someone want to go with X570 when you can get say msi's B550 tomahawk with the same vrm as the one they are using on X570 for a cheaper price. What differentiates the two chipsets?
 
B550's PCIE 4.0 lane is for the GPU only (not the NVMe) which comes from the CPU. X570 has PCIE 4.0 lanes for the GPU and NVMe (one from the CPU and one from the chipset). So the B550's chipset only has PCIE 3.0.
 
Looking at the notes on some B550 mother boards, it also appears to be bandwidth limited compared to X570:
(Notes from the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master, with 3x m.2 slots)
* The PCIEX16 slot shares bandwidth with the M2B_CPU and M2C_CPU connectors. The PCIEX16 slot operates at up to x8 mode when a device is installed in the M2B_CPU or M2C_CPU connector.
and
* The PCIEX4_2 slot shares bandwidth with the SATA3 4, 5 connectors. The PCIEX4_2 slot operates at up to x2 mode when a device is installed in the SATA3 4 or SATA3 5 connector.

That being said; it's based on usage scenario - if you're just slapping in a video card, a single M.2 and attaching a couple SATA drives for a home gaming rig, you probably won't notice the difference except for saving some $.
 
Engr62 said:
B550's PCIE 4.0 lane is for the GPU only (not the NVMe) which comes from the CPU. X570 has PCIE 4.0 lanes for the GPU and NVMe (one from the CPU and one from the chipset). So the B550's chipset only has PCIE 3.0.
Click to expand...

partially correct.. first pcie x16 slot and 1 m.2 slot use pcie 4.0 from the cpu. the chipset it's self only supplies pcie 3.0 to any extra pcie slots and m.2 slots.. x570 on the other hand has either 1xpcie x16 @ pcie 4.0 x16 or 2xpcie x16 @ pcie 4.0 x8 along with 1 pcie 4.0 m.2 direct from the cpu along with 4 pcie 4.0 lanes from the cpu to the chipset which is can also supply pcie 4.0 and pcie 3.0 lanes to extra expansion slots..

the gigabyte b550 master is an exception where it splits the first pcie x16 slot to x8 + a second pcie 4.0 m.2 slot(sounds cool on paper til you try to run a 2080ti which will be running at pcie 3.0 x8 instead of x16).

so in other words you can look at it as b550 is b450 with pcie 3.0 or another way to look at it, b550 is just z390.

ultimately though most of the b550 boards take all the things the manufactures learned from x570 and improved/optimized them for b550.. vrm's and/or layouts are better or more efficient, most have better memory support, and they found better ways to cut costs on the board to include better marketable features at a similar price point(2.5g lan, wifi 6, etc).

p.p.s.(sorry kirby for making all these edits, lol) fun fact if you think i'm crazy comparing it to z390 almost all the z490 boards which are really z390 have almost identical IO, pcie, and vrm configurations as b550 except asrock which seemed to not care about z490.
 
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for ITX b550 is 100% worth it, x570 features were completely wasted on the form factor. the gigabyte itx board's on my short list for my next build.
 
d3athf1sh said:
So i've been wondering why the chipset for B550 doesn't need chipset cooling. It includes PCIE 4.0 and I thoughts that was the reason X570 was running so hot?

So at this point why would someone want to go with X570 when you can get say msi's B550 tomahawk with the same vrm as the one they are using on X570 for a cheaper price. What differentiates the two chipsets?
Click to expand...

It comes down to the fact that the B550 chipset is a different design than X570. It was designed much later and was purpose built rather than being a scaled down version of the X570 PCH. It uses less power and therefore produces less heat. It has a 5-7 watt TDP which is less than half the 15w TDP of X570.
 
B550 only does PCIE 3.0 through the chipset... x570 does PCIE 4.0. So B550 has 20 PCIE 4.0 lanes from CPU (16 for GPU, 4 for first NVME). So any other slots (pcie, nvme, w/e) are going to be limited to PCIE 3.0. This is easily acceptable as most other things can't take advantage of pcie 4.0. If you have a dual 10gbe you can put it into the first slot and put your GPU into a bottom slot since most GPU's/games don't show much advantage. But seriously if you're doing stuff that requires dual 10gbe cards, you probably should just buy an x570. B550 would be plenty for most anyone, especially ITX where you seldom have any additional slots that you could possibly use.

Also, something not really mentioned to answer your other question. VRM stages & quality are likely to differ as well, so if you're looking for a high end overclocking board (or overclocking a 3950x for example) this can be important as well. This doesn't differentiate the 'chipset' but it does differentiate the boards.

And lastly, they dropped support for 1000 and 2000 series CPU's from all B550's as well as 3000 series APU's, so if you have one of those and are trying to upgrade.. limited choices.
 
The question for me has been would you get a high-end X470 board (and upgrade the bios), or a mid-range B550 for Ryzen 4000? I neither have a NVM drive nor a GPU I foresee taking advantage of PCI-E 4.0. My main motivators being connectivity e.g. USB and M.2 connections, and stability with a moderate overclock.
 
harmattan said:
The question for me has been would you get a high-end X470 board (and upgrade the bios), or a mid-range B550 for Ryzen 4000? I neither have a NVM drive nor a GPU I foresee taking advantage of PCI-E 4.0. My main motivators being connectivity e.g. USB and M.2 connections, and stability with a moderate overclock.
Click to expand...

Even newer B550s have VRMs that smoke top end X470s since these are built to support the 3950X, which was just a dream when the X470s launched.

I have X470s and I'd say - B550 all the way.
 
harmattan said:
The question for me has been would you get a high-end X470 board (and upgrade the bios), or a mid-range B550 for Ryzen 4000? I neither have a NVM drive nor a GPU I foresee taking advantage of PCI-E 4.0. My main motivators being connectivity e.g. USB and M.2 connections, and stability with a moderate overclock.
Click to expand...

if you're planning to go with multiple m.2's then b550 at the minimum.. even on x470 the second m.2 slot is pcie 2.0 and/or sata where as on b550 the second m.2 is pcie 3.0. if you're some one that doesn't upgrade often then i'd still go b550 at the minimum.. even though DDR5 supports coming in 2022 it's hard to say if it'll be another DDR4 type release where there's only 1 company supporting it and performance improvements ended up being pretty lack luster.
 
harmattan said:
The question for me has been would you get a high-end X470 board (and upgrade the bios), or a mid-range B550 for Ryzen 4000? I neither have a NVM drive nor a GPU I foresee taking advantage of PCI-E 4.0. My main motivators being connectivity e.g. USB and M.2 connections, and stability with a moderate overclock.
Click to expand...
I just bought a B550, should be here monday. I couldn't find and x470 with all the features I needed. Heck, I could barely find an x570 with the features I wanted. Bam, B550's from $120 and up with my requirements. (I wanted 2.5G ethernet or better and usb gen 3.1 gen 2 header, and the 2.5G wasn't even a deal breaker, just wanted usb 3.1 gen 2 header for my sons case, damn near impossible to find). So, found one for $180 with WiFi6 so I don't even have to use a PCIe slot for wifi (don't use it often, always hard wired at home). Honestly, it really depends on what the specific user requires though. Oddly, usb-c stuff (for front panel) is still rediculously missing on AMD platforms until MSI B550's came out and they include it on almost all of their boards. Most other brands don't for some reason. Heck, MSI barely uses it on their x570's but their B550's got it, lol
 
mda said:
Even newer B550s have VRMs that smoke top end X470s since these are built to support the 3950X, which was just a dream when the X470s launched.

I have X470s and I'd say - B550 all the way.
Click to expand...
I have a B450 that supports the 3950x... no overclocking but still, not sure why an x470 wouldn't be good enough in stock form. That said, I would agree, B550's are more up to the task, at this point I would (and did, new board for my son will be here Monday) take a B550 over a 450/470. Honestly, I found just as many (or more) features than 1/2 the x570's I was looking at. I actually was thinking about getting an x570 but the B550 had all the features I wanted + WiFi built in while I could barely find the features I wanted looking at 250-300 x570 boards.
 
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