ccityinstaller
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2007
- Messages
- 4,236
Even a mid-range x570 board is going to come in North of $200+. PCI-E 4.0 requires etremely short copper runs in order to keep the signal intact...it can go 3.5-4" or so, but after that you need either redriver (costly) and PCB with much thicker copper traces, which means many more layers, which then drives the cost of the board up...
Part of the issue is that AMD didn't just do a first gen launch and have PCI-E hanging off the CPU for say one x16 slot and a x4 NVME slot...They went ahead and made the entire CPU-SOUTHBRIDGE use 4.0, which is a long run that requires agsin a higher quality layer board.
AMD did this as a slap in the face to Intel, since Intel is stuck on PCI-E 3.0, especially for their CPU-SB interconnect. This gives them a huge marketing point, as they are again then the "first" int the field.
Forgot to add that every board needs the VRM setup to run a 16 core at least at a mild OC, which means higher number of VRM phases and higher quality IR parts.