Sunday, February 4th 2024
AMD Readies X870E Chipset to Launch Alongside First Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" CPUs
AMD is readying the new 800-series motherboard chipset to launch alongside its next-generation Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors that implement the "Zen 5" microarchitecture. The chipset family will be led by the AMD X870E, a successor to the current X670E. Since AMD isn't changing the CPU socket, and this is very much the same Socket AM5, the 800-series chipset will support not just "Granite Ridge" at launch, but also the Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael," and Ryzen 8000 series "Hawk Point." Moore's Law is Dead goes into the details of what sets the X870E apart from the current X670E, and it all has to do with USB4.
Apparently, motherboard manufacturers will be mandated to include 40 Gbps USB4 connectivity with AMD X870E, which essentially makes the chipset a 3-chip solution—two Promontory 21 bridge chips, and a discrete ASMedia ASM4242 USB4 host controller; although it's possible that AMD's QVL will allow other brands of USB4 controllers as they become available. The Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" are chiplet based processors just like the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," and while the 4 nm "Zen 5" CCDs are new, the 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD) is largely carried over from "Raphael," with a few updates to its memory controller. DDR5-6400 will be the new AMD-recommended "sweetspot" speed; although AMD might get its motherboard vendors to support DDR5-8000 EXPO profiles with an FCLK of 2400 MHz, and a divider.
The Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" will launch alongside a new wave of AMD X870E motherboards, although these processors very much will be supported on AMD 600-series chipset motherboards with BIOS updates. The vast majority of Socket AM5 motherboards feature USB BIOS Flashback, and so you could even pick up a 600-series chipset motherboard with a Ryzen 9000 series processor in combos. The company might expand the 800-series with other chipset models, such as the X870, B850, and the new B840 in the entry level.
Sources:
Moore's Law is Dead (YouTube), Tweaktown
Apparently, motherboard manufacturers will be mandated to include 40 Gbps USB4 connectivity with AMD X870E, which essentially makes the chipset a 3-chip solution—two Promontory 21 bridge chips, and a discrete ASMedia ASM4242 USB4 host controller; although it's possible that AMD's QVL will allow other brands of USB4 controllers as they become available. The Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" are chiplet based processors just like the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," and while the 4 nm "Zen 5" CCDs are new, the 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD) is largely carried over from "Raphael," with a few updates to its memory controller. DDR5-6400 will be the new AMD-recommended "sweetspot" speed; although AMD might get its motherboard vendors to support DDR5-8000 EXPO profiles with an FCLK of 2400 MHz, and a divider.
216 Comments on AMD Readies X870E Chipset to Launch Alongside First Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" CPUs
Personally, I'd gladly take the USB4 port over a 4th or 5th m.2 slot
I'm with you though I need gobs of RAM and storage but I don't need all the cores of going up to Threadripper.
Desktop class solutions are much more attractive now with high enough core counts and the ability to toss a lot of memory into it but they still lack on storage and PCI-E.
The right way to do this would be to build a "Prom21 Workstation" chipset that puts out another eight 4.0 lanes (so 20 total). That would be able to drive a single x16 slot off the last chipset in the chain, which would enable a proper workstation board with x16 PCIe 5.0, two M.2 5.0, x16 4.0. If you need extra M.2 drives in that config, drop a quad M.2 card into that second x16 slot... or build a board that uses two of these chips and thus allows an extra 3 M.2s.
But as I explained in a previous post, AMD will never do this because they hate consumers - at this point our only hope is that Intel steps up and does something special with their next generation. Given how disappointing the "14th gen" CPUs have been though, I'm not holding my breath.... after all it's Intel who are responsible for the "HEDT" market segmentation in the first place.
JHL8540 uses 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0. PCIe 3.0 speed is 8 Gbps. Therefore the total possible bandwidth is 32 Gbps.
ASM4242 uses 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0 at 16Gbps per lane. Therefore it uses only 40 Gbps of the total 64 Gbps available.
Edit: Why X670 exists with two of these chips in tandem, taking lanes from each other, I have no idea.
Just like when a job is advertised as "up to £X per hour"... Sure, if you're doing overtime on a Sunday after 8 PM after incurring a performance premium, which no sane person would do, ever.
Edit: Maybe devices on the controller can communicate with each other at 40 Gbps, but the controller communicates with the rest of the system at 32.
We've got these things called "slots" for a reason, they can be used for anything. No need to sacrifice one person's use case for another, everyone can get exactly what they need.
I'm not arguing against mb manufacturers building this stuff in (though I, personally, think it's dumb). But the choice should be left up to them, because as long as there's enough different models, it also means the choice is left up to the consumer.
I specifically looked for an x670e board w/o usb4 and w/o an overload of m.2 slots, but instead had several pcie slots because I knew that would leave me the most future proof. (Funny that it also ended up one of the cheapest models, because no money was wasted on the unnecessary.)
I doubt the truth in this rumour, though. Ryzen 8000 with Phoenix APU already has USB4 inside an there allready are AM5-boards with B650E-chipset that can utilize that. I would bet that Ryzen 9000 upgrades it's USB 10Gb/s-Ports to USB4 to make seperate controllers obsolete.