While AMD board partners are readying a new generation of X570 chipset powered AM4 boards for the 3rd Generation Ryzen processors, it looks like the latest BIOS for existing AM4 boards would be opening support for PCIe Gen 4.0 when paired with the upcoming Ryzen processors.
AMD X470 and B450 BIOS Updates To Open PCIe 4.0 Support When Paired With an AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Processor
The AMD X570 platform will be the first fully PCIe 4.0 compliant mainstream platform but existing AM4 motherboards such as the ones based on the X470 and B450 chipset would also be open to supporting the new PCIe standard when paired with a new Ryzen 3000 series processor & updated to the latest BIOS.
A few days ago, Gigabyte officially unveiled their new BIOS updates for X470 and B450 boards and soon after, users on Reddit (via mVran) found out that their existing X470 motherboards now listed an option for PCIe Gen 4 configuration in the BIOS menu. Similarly, veteran leaker Momomo_Us on his twitter feed reported that the same option is available on Gigabyte’s B450 motherboards. This more or less confirms that PCIe 4.0 support will be available on existing AM4 boards but there’s a catch.
Gigabyte
B450I AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0)
BIOS F40 pic.twitter.com/FbvGsWD9u0— 188号 (@momomo_us) May 19, 2019
While there’s support for PCIe Gen 4.0 on current motherboards, it is only possible with the AMD Ryzen 3000 series processors using the Zen 2 core architecture and even then, only the first PCIe x16 slot is said to be compatible with Gen 4.0 speeds as that operates over the CPU PCI-Express lanes while the rest of the slots would still function over the PCH which are only PCIe 3.0 compliant and we can also expect a single M.2 port to run at PCIe 4 speeds. That’ll mostly vary from board to board.
This support won’t be limited just to Gigabyte motherboards but would be available across all existing AM4 motherboards from major motherboard makers as they have already shipped out their respective AM4 BIOS updates to support AMD’s next-gen Ryzen processors. And since we’re talking about Gigabyte motherboards, details for the X570 AORUS lineup which includes the X570 AORUS Xtreme and X570 AORUS Master have been unveiled by Andreas Schilling of Hardwareluxx.
- X570 Aorus Xtreme 16 Phases Digital VRM with Power Stages Triple Ultra Fast NVMe PCIe 4.0/3.0 x4 M.2
- X570 Aorus Master 14 Phases Digital VRM with Power Stages Triple Ultra Fast NVMe PCIe 4.0/3.0 x4 M.2
It looks like both motherboards will be seriously fast with overclocking oriented power designs and some serious fin stack cooling in addition to the active fan cooling which will be something we will be getting on all X570 motherboards.
AMD’s Next-Gen X570 Chipset – A New House For Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs
As we saw with X470, there were a few features for the Ryzen 2000 series processors which were only supported by new motherboards such as Precision Boost Overdrive and XFR 2.0. There’s no doubt that AMD’s Zen 2 based Ryzen mainstream processor family would come with new features but the main highlight would be support for PCIe Gen4. The X570 platform will be an all PCIe Gen4 solution, which means this would most probably be the first consumer platform to feature support for the new PCIe standard.
That, however, doesn’t mean that AMD Ryzen 3000 series would only be compatible on X570 boards since just like last time, the new CPUs will be backward compatible with X470 & X370 boards too. Following are links to the respective motherboard manufacturers BIOS release for existing motherboards to support 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen CPUs:
They certainly won’t display the same feature set that will be available on the newly launched X570 lineup but will feature fully stable functionality for users who just want to drop in a new CPU and continue using their PCs without the hassle of upgrading the motherboard and everything from scratch. Expect more to hear at Computex 2019 which commences on 27th May 2019.
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