PCIe 4.0 support from Gigabyte's Z490 boards

erek

erek

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
10,875
Questionable support for PCIe 4.0 from Gigabyte's Z490 implementation!

"But why anyone would buy a Z490 motherboard and compatible Comet Lake chip later this year only to upgrade to a Rocket Lake chip in 12 months time for the purpose of unlocking their motherboard's somewhat unimportant PCIe 4.0 capability is beyond me.


Not the least bit because you could just buy an AMD Ryzen 3000 CPU and 500-series motherboard and enjoy PCIe 4.0 capability today, although there's still not a great deal to be gained from the new standard for gaming rigs. It has allowed for faster NVMe controllers and SSDs, whatever good that will do you in-game, and a few RDNA graphics cards offer nominal support.

It's currently only available on compatible X570 motherboards, although mainstream B550 motherboards will be available with PCIe 4.0 in tow come June."

https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-z490-pcie-4-support/
 
Comet Lake? It's Coffee Lake v3 (or Skylake v5 depending on your perspective).

On a new socket... After all, I'm sure the Intel faithful will explain how extra power delivery pins were needed to stabilize the enabling of hyperthreading :rolleyes: .
 
kirbyrj said:
Comet Lake? It's Coffee Lake v3 (or Skylake v5 depending on your perspective).

On a new socket... After all, I'm sure the Intel faithful will explain how extra power delivery pins were needed to stabilize the enabling of hyperthreading :rolleyes: .
Click to expand...

In some cases, changing the VRM spec might be necessary to support adding additional cores. Given that the 10 core / 20 thread CPU's Intel has are all on HEDT, I'm not entirely sure it wasn't necessary here. Especially given how inefficient Skylake and its descendants are at higher clock speeds and core counts. While there are motherboards like the Maximus XI APEX that have strong enough VRM's to support almost anything out there, many boards probably can't. Intel, for better or for worse doesn't want a situation where some motherboards can support XYZ processors while others can only support X & Y within the same socket.

Of course, this also avoids microcode and UEFI BIOS bloat. We've seen first hand what that can do on AM4 motherboards. We had motherboards that had to have their features and interfaces scaled back just to support a broader range of CPU's because the motherboard manufacturer chose smaller BIOS ROMs to save $3 a board. There is no doubt Intel has changed sockets more than they've needed to. However, there are some benefits to doing so. Unfortunately, we probably won't know whether or not it was actually necessary.
 
The PC enthusiast space is funny. On one hand you have people who want years of CPU upgrade paths on one board, and on the other you have someone that justifies buying a new rig because it saves 5 watts of power.
 
bigdogchris said:
The PC enthusiast space is funny. On one hand you have people who want years of CPU upgrade paths on one board, and on the other you have someone that justifies buying a new rig because it saves 5 watts of power.
Click to expand...

AMD at least gives you the option to use a new CPU in an older board. Yes, you might lose some features of the bios if you upgrade it due to bios bloat, etc., but nobody is telling you you can't go buy a brand new board if you want all the latest and greatest features.

Let me give you a practical example: My mother has my old X370 board with a 2400G. My one brother has a B350 with a 1600. My other brother has a B450 with a 3600. My gf has a B450/3600 combo. My uncle has a X470/2600x. I have an X570 board with a 3600x. I can buy a new processor and hand down mine to anybody with only a bios update. I'll probably move my father off of the X99 he has onto my X570 when I upgrade again. I can't do that with Intel...either physically or as cheaply.

Sure, when I buy boards, I usually get the latest and greatest to go with the latest and greatest CPUs. But I like the fact that anyone in my computer circles can get an upgrade without buying all new stuff.
 
Dan_D said:
In some cases, changing the VRM spec might be necessary to support adding additional cores. Given that the 10 core / 20 thread CPU's Intel has are all on HEDT, I'm not entirely sure it wasn't necessary here. Especially given how inefficient Skylake and its descendants are at higher clock speeds and core counts. While there are motherboards like the Maximus XI APEX that have strong enough VRM's to support almost anything out there, many boards probably can't. Intel, for better or for worse doesn't want a situation where some motherboards can support XYZ processors while others can only support X & Y within the same socket.

Of course, this also avoids microcode and UEFI BIOS bloat. We've seen first hand what that can do on AM4 motherboards. We had motherboards that had to have their features and interfaces scaled back just to support a broader range of CPU's because the motherboard manufacturer chose smaller BIOS ROMs to save $3 a board. There is no doubt Intel has changed sockets more than they've needed to. However, there are some benefits to doing so. Unfortunately, we probably won't know whether or not it was actually necessary.
Click to expand...

This sounds like an Intel problem, not my problem. AMD figured out a way to get everything from an a6-9400 to a R9 3950x to run on old X370 board (we'll say the old Ryzen launch Prime X370-Pro as an example). Just because Intel can't keep their thermals and power draw in line when they add cores shouldn't be the consumer's problem. Sure it might not boost quite as high due to the limits of the board, but you can run it. And nobody is telling you to not upgrade if you want the extra features. I might still have an Intel setup if I could have dropped in a Skylake iteration 9700k into something like my old Z270 board (which incidentally is practically identical to Z370 boards to the point where Intel's own Driver update program recognizes the Z370 as a Z270).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top