• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Some Ryzen platform musings

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,001 (2.26/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
I suspect a X390 chip in the works in the next 2-3 years akin to the 990fx part

The chipset is till limited in the same way Intel's chipsets are, it connects to the CPU over 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Admittedly in this case, AMD doesn't allow the chipset to provide further 3.0 lanes, only 2.0, so that could be an improved as what Intel has done with the 10 and 20 series chipsets. However, it's not going to change things dramatically from what we have now.
 

Ebo

Joined
May 9, 2013
Messages
778 (0.20/day)
Location
Nykoebing Mors, Denmark
System Name the little fart
Processor AMD Ryzen 2600X
Motherboard MSI x470 gaming plus
Cooling Noctua NH-C14S
Memory 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaw 2400Mhz DDR 4
Video Card(s) Sapphire RX Vega 56 Pulse
Storage 1 Crucial MX100 512GB SSD,1 Crucial MX500 2TB SSD, 1 1,5TB WD Black Caviar, 1 4TB WD RED HD
Display(s) IIyama XUB2792QSU IPS 2560x1440
Case White Lian-Li PC-011 Dynamic
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar SE pci-e card
Power Supply Thermaltake DPS G 1050 watt Digital PSU
Mouse Steelseries Sensei
Keyboard Corsair K70
Software windows 10 64 pro bit
@TheLostSwede

Because I believe NVMe is the future of storage. I don't care about more lanes for graphics cards, but AMD has gimped this platform by only allowing for a single, full-speed NVMe drive. It's a brand new platform and it's not up to snuff for the next 2-3+ years people will be using it, assuming there are no major jumps in CPU performance from now until then.

I'm fine with dual x8 for the graphics, but AMD should've added at least another 4 lanes for a second NVMe drive or a third PCIe 3.0 slot, even if it's only x4. There are plenty people that want to add things like 10Gbps (and soon 2.5 and 5Gbps) network cards to their builds. 2.5 and 5Gbps should work on a x4 PCIe 2.0 slot, but 10Gbps won't.

NVMe is still only a few % of the sale of SSDs worldwide, if thats going the be like you say: the future of storage actually you dont know. Prices on normal SSDs are going down allmost every month, and for avarage Joe that more than enough speed on a daily basis. You dont know if theres going to be a SATA IV standard with speeds just like NVMe and 3D NAND ram, then NVMe is dead in the water, execpt on workstations which is a whole different price than for avarage Joe.

I have a port on my MB for NVMe SSD also and can use 1, but the price has a lot to say, in my country Denmark NVMe SSDs are still expensive, as I can get 1 TB SSD fore less than one 512GB NVMe SSD, so you do the math, since I will allways choose room of storage over therodical speed
 
Last edited:

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,001 (2.26/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
@TheLostSwede



NVMe is still only a few % of the sale of SSDs worldwide, if thats going the be like you say: the future of storage actually you dont know. Prices on normal SSDs are going down allmost every month, and for avarage Joe that more than enough speed on a daily basis. You dont know if theres going to be a SATA IV standard with speeds just like NVMe and 3D NAND ram, then NVMe is dead in the water, execpt on workstations which is a whole different price than for avarage Joe.

I have a port on my MB for NVMe SSD also and can use 1, but the price has a lot to say, in my country Denmark NVMe SSDs are still expensive, as I can get 1 TB SSD fore less than one 512GB NVMe SSD, so you do the math, since I will allways choose room of storage over therodical speed

So you're saying that prices of SATA based SSD's are coming down, but not NVMe? If so, I think that's limited to Denmark. In the rest of the world, NVMe drives are following the same trend. SATA is a dying interface, but it'll be around for at least another 5-10 years for bulk storage applications.

However, my point in this case is that AMD could've done well by including an extra 4 PCIe lanes to future proof the platform. They could've been general purpose lanes for whatever the board makers want to add, be it 10Gbps Ethernet, thunderbolt, or whatever. It wouldn't have been limited to NVMe.
 
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Messages
13,210 (3.83/day)
Location
Sunshine Coast
System Name Black Box
Processor Intel Xeon E3-1260L v5
Motherboard MSI E3 KRAIT Gaming v5
Cooling Tt tower + 120mm Tt fan
Memory G.Skill 16GB 3600 C18
Video Card(s) Asus GTX 970 Mini
Storage Kingston A2000 512Gb NVME
Display(s) AOC 24" Freesync 1m.s. 75Hz
Case Corsair 450D High Air Flow.
Audio Device(s) No need.
Power Supply FSP Aurum 650W
Mouse Yes
Keyboard Of course
Software W10 Pro 64 bit
However, my point in this case is that AMD could've done well by including an extra 4 PCIe lanes to future proof the platform. They could've been general purpose lanes for whatever the board makers want to add, be it 10Gbps Ethernet, thunderbolt, or whatever. It wouldn't have been limited to NVMe.
I think that is up to the Motherboard partners, to include extra lanes through add on chips etc.
People will always pay more for extra lanes if they use them.
 

Ebo

Joined
May 9, 2013
Messages
778 (0.20/day)
Location
Nykoebing Mors, Denmark
System Name the little fart
Processor AMD Ryzen 2600X
Motherboard MSI x470 gaming plus
Cooling Noctua NH-C14S
Memory 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaw 2400Mhz DDR 4
Video Card(s) Sapphire RX Vega 56 Pulse
Storage 1 Crucial MX100 512GB SSD,1 Crucial MX500 2TB SSD, 1 1,5TB WD Black Caviar, 1 4TB WD RED HD
Display(s) IIyama XUB2792QSU IPS 2560x1440
Case White Lian-Li PC-011 Dynamic
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar SE pci-e card
Power Supply Thermaltake DPS G 1050 watt Digital PSU
Mouse Steelseries Sensei
Keyboard Corsair K70
Software windows 10 64 pro bit
So you're saying that prices of SATA based SSD's are coming down, but not NVMe? If so, I think that's limited to Denmark. In the rest of the world, NVMe drives are following the same trend. SATA is a dying interface, but it'll be around for at least another 5-10 years for bulk storage applications.

However, my point in this case is that AMD could've done well by including an extra 4 PCIe lanes to future proof the platform. They could've been general purpose lanes for whatever the board makers want to add, be it 10Gbps Ethernet, thunderbolt, or whatever. It wouldn't have been limited to NVMe.

Just tell me why should they do that ?.
There has to come out another ver. 2.0 of the boards which might include exactly what you're looking fore otherwise the manufactures dosent sell as much as they will in the end, thats the way of free interprise.

Just like the system you have in your specs, thats what Intel calls mainstream, no more no less, end of story. If you're willing to pay, you can get it, otherwise you have to stick with what you get. Motherboard makers and partners can put a PLX chip in their design and you will have exactly what you're asking fore, but thats going to be at a premium pricetag, its just the way the world works, my friend.
 
Joined
Jan 8, 2017
Messages
568 (0.22/day)
System Name ACME Singularity Unit
Processor Coal-dual 9000
Motherboard Oak Plank
Cooling 4 Snow Yetis huffing and puffing in parallel
Memory Hasty Indian (I/O: 3 smoke signals per minute)
Video Card(s) Bob Ross AI module
Storage Stone Tablet 2.0
Display(s) Where are my glasses?
Case Hand sewn bull hide
Audio Device(s) On demand tribe singing
Power Supply Spin-o-Wheel-matic
Mouse Hamster original
Keyboard Chisel 1.9a (upgraded for Stone Tablet 2.0 compatibility)
Software It's all hard down here
@TheLostSwede thank you for pointing all that out. Had not even thought to look that far yet (will probably be building a PC for my dad in the next few months; time allowing, was thinking Ryzen for him [he is very anti-Intel]).

I do have to agree with what was said regarding the number of slots. The explanation "gamers" hardly cuts it.. the fanboys might be gamers, the market however is comprised of other, heterogenous segments on top of them.
I game too btw, not bashing anyone's preferences. But I also do other things in my life, work included.
So for work? I need two slots for sound-related cards (output+analysis) on my PC, another for the nvme because I don't like frying it on the pcb thank you very much, another for Thunderbolt expansion, plus a gpu by necessity as no APUs and that's the minimum; you add these up. And only one of all these needs a slow PCIe lane btw :)

This lane business is becoming ridiculous. And it's doubly ridiculous having people excusing it all. Not accepting, that's a different story.. am talking excusing it. Won't even go further, seeing reviews cutting points because no RGB lights, customizable colors or whatever; they too signify something, consumer mentality-related, but that's a different story. Albeit interconnected..
Anyway, just my own thoughts. Before my current build, I never had to worry about these things.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
555 (0.09/day)
Location
Indiana
System Name Evil Dragon
Processor AMD FX-8320 Vishera @4.7ghz
Motherboard Asus 970 pro gaming Aura
Cooling Corsair Hydro Series H100i V2(fully Lapped). 4 40mm NB/VRM fans. 6 Thermaltake Riing 12 Series fans
Memory 2X8gig GeIL EVO Veloce Series DDR3 1600 @9.9.9.26
Video Card(s) Powercolor Red Devil RX 480 (1400/2100)
Storage PNY XLR8 480gig SSD. Patriot Pyro SE 60gig SSD.
Display(s) ASUS VP228H LED
Case Thermaltake Core V31
Audio Device(s) Onboard Realtek ALC1150 W/Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2
Power Supply EVGA 850 BQ 110
Keyboard Roccat Isku FX
Software Win 10 Pro
The Ryzen boards that are coming out beat the snot out of any of the 970/990 boards out there.
 
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
372 (0.06/day)
Location
Where the beer is good
System Name Karl Arsch v. u. z. Abgewischt
Processor i5 3770K @5GHz delided
Motherboard ASRock Z77 Professional
Cooling Arctic Liquid Freezer 240
Memory 4x 4GB 1866 MHz DDR3
Video Card(s) GTX 970
Storage Samsung 830 - 512GB; 2x 2TB WD Blue
Display(s) Samsung T240 1920x1200
Case Bitfenix Shinobie XL
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply Cougar G600
Mouse Logitech G500
Keyboard CMStorm Ultimate QuickFire (CherryMX Brown)
Software Win7 Pro 64bit
When I first heard that the new ZEN CPU/Chipsets only offer 24 lanes I was sceptical of that rumor and now I'm disappointed.

AMD missed a chance here not offering at least 28 or 32 lanes - offer a FX chipset . Sure "a gamer" doesn't need more - 2x 8 PCIe 3.0 lanes is more than good enough for SLI/CF. But the moment you try to build a "multipurpose workstation" X99 suddenly looks promising again. Furthermore we see 4x 3.0 NVMe drives running already into their limits like SATAIII SSDs years ago or people playing with the idea of more than one of these drives.
And PLX chips arn't the answer to that problem imo - only bandwith can fix that.
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,001 (2.26/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
It's pretty clear that many of the people that have commented here don't fully understand how computers work. Adding a PCIe switch/bridge/splitter/whatever you want to call it, be it PLX or a different brand doesn't magically add more PCIe lanes. It simply takes the existing lanes and double them, which means in reality, each device connected gets half the bandwidth. Now it doesn't quite work that way, as most of the time any given device doesn't use 100% of the PCIe bandwidth available to it, but once you start messing with this type of setup and NVMe, you're likely to run into problems.

I'm not saying Ryzen is shit or that it's a huge problem today, but it's not something that can be fixed unless AMD releases a new CPU that will most likely need a new socket to provide the extra lanes. AMD has at least in the past been pretty good at re-using the same sockets for a few generations, but maybe that'll no longer be the case. There's of course cost concerns involved as well, but I can't see the extra four PCIe lanes breaking the bank in this case.

Intel has been given shit for this exact same issue on its mainstream platform for years, but apparently bringing this up as a negative for AMD makes me an asshole...

I was simply trying to point out some of the limitations of the platform so people are aware what they're spending their money on, as it might not suite everyone's needs. I also believe quite a few people will be upgrading and maybe they have some hardware they just expect will work, but it turns out it won't due to the limitations that are there.
 

cdawall

where the hell are my stars
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
27,680 (4.29/day)
Location
Houston
System Name All the cores
Processor 2990WX
Motherboard Asrock X399M
Cooling CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory 4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s) (2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage 2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s) Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s) Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard Keychron K8
Software W10P
I'm sorry, but do you have a reading comprehension problem?

AMD X370 chipset
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (max at x4 mode) *1

The * means that if you use it in x4 mode, it disables the x1 slots.
It also means that the third slot is not connected to the CPU and never will be.

Yes, the 100 pins or so that I can't account for what they're being used for, could potentially have enough space to add another further 8 lanes, but that would result in a 16/8 configuration and not a dual x16 which you proposed should be possible.

However, those extra 8 lanes could not be used for an 8/8/8 configuration as you propose, as no board is designed to work that way.

MSI has designed some of its boards to be able to do 16/0/4 or 8/8/4, as pointed out in my original post, but then you lose the NVMe slot. However, these boards are not designed for more than 4 lanes for the last slot.

I would be curious why basically every single board floating on the egg has the finial slot wired for 8x then. It wouldn't be hard to conceive that amd originally set the chipset up to allow more lanes. That could be the original design plan to allow additional lanes for pcie based storage in a future revision, but the current chips couldn't take advantage.
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,001 (2.26/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
I would be curious why basically every single board floating on the egg has the finial slot wired for 8x then. It wouldn't be hard to conceive that amd originally set the chipset up to allow more lanes. That could be the original design plan to allow additional lanes for pcie based storage in a future revision, but the current chips couldn't take advantage.

Ok, let's try to explain this a different way.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-IX-CODE/

Intel board, Z270 chipset.

Expansion Slots
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8, gray)
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) *1 *1 The PCIe x4_3 slot shares bandwidth with PCIex1_3. The PCIe x4_3 is default set at x2 mode.
3 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1

So why aren't all those slots wired up to provide 8 or 16 lanes? Because Intel has similar limitations, although not quite as bad, as the chipset support more lanes. In this case we just have a really feature packed board.

The first and second slots are as we know, sharing 16 lanes, so 16/0 or 8/8, all good?
The third slow on the other hand is as you can see by the description above, a x4 slot, that only offers two lanes of PCIe bandwidth by default, although if you (just as with the X370 boards) are willing to sacrifice another slot, it can be a x4 slot, but the physical connector is x16 and it has pins to the x8 position in the slot.

Note that the third slot also connects to the Z270 chipset, not the CPU. It is PCIe 3.0 though, whereas AMD only went with PCIe 2.0 for their chipsets. As I said, this could be a limitation from ASMedia's side (they designed the chipsets for AMD) or a reason for a chipset refresh next year, which could put AMD slightly ahead of Intel's Z270 chipset in terms of overall features, as the CPU to chipset interface for both AMD and Intel is PCIe 3.0 x4. Then again, we don't know what Intel's next gen chipset will bring so...

To be fair, the Z270 chipset supports up to 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes according to Intel, but they'd be bottlenecked by the DMI 3.0 (PCIe x4) interface, so you're unlikely to see any board maker adding a x16 slot connected to the chipset. The X370 chipset only supports 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes.



Why is the slot x16 with x8 electrically? I don't have an exact answer, but an educated guess in this case would be that it's because a x16 slot gives better card stability, it doesn't cost any more than a x8 or a x4 slot, especially as it's not fully populated with contacts and it means any card will fit. The open ended slots are all nice, but sometimes you end up with components in the way. And I guess it also makes people think they're getting something they don't actually get and this is why we're having this discussion.
 
Last edited:

cdawall

where the hell are my stars
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
27,680 (4.29/day)
Location
Houston
System Name All the cores
Processor 2990WX
Motherboard Asrock X399M
Cooling CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory 4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s) (2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage 2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s) Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s) Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard Keychron K8
Software W10P
Why is the slot x16 with x8 electrically? I don't have an exact answer, but an educated guess in this case would be that it's because a x16 slot gives better card stability, it doesn't cost any more than a x8 or a x4 slot, especially as it's not fully populated with contacts and it means any card will fit. The open ended slots are all nice, but sometimes you end up with components in the way. And I guess it also makes people think they're getting something they don't actually get and this is why we're having this discussion.

Thing is multiple Intel boards have the final slots that are closed 16x and electrically 4x.
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,001 (2.26/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
I don't see NVMe being the future standard of storage, for now.

So, let's do a tally up then.
How many SATA Express drives are there in the consumer market today?
How many U.2 drives are there in the consumer market today?
How many M.2 drives are there in the consumer market today?

SATA Express = 0
U.2 = 1 (Intel 750)
M.2 = 30-40, more?

SATA is not the future and there's no "new" SATA standard being developed. The SATA-IO bet on SATA Express and it failed miserably.

U.2 is too expensive for consumer grade applications.

That only leaves M.2 as a cost effective solutions. As a bonus, it also allows for thinner and lighter notebooks, while still offering desktop grade storage performance.

Admittedly this might change in the future, but for now, M.2 looks like the only viable option moving forward.
Is it perfect? By no means, but it's the best compromise until something better comes along.

Sure, there's always PCIe add-in cards, but these are most expensive, use more power in general and don't fit in notebooks.
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2004
Messages
13,791 (1.94/day)
Only reason why SATA Express failed is because it's very bulky. Same with that U.2 nonsense.

The problem is, whole thing is heading in totally wrong direction. They were developing new SATA interfaces across entire history of HDD evolution where it didn't matter at all and now that we have drives fast enough, they are dropping it. WHAAAAT!?

M.2 is not the future either because the format is limiting in size and it's retarded to cool. I've had M.2 and it was scorching hot as soon as you put any kind of load on it. It was of course impossible to cool...

What would work though is SATA type cable that has power and signal combined so you don't need 50 cables and sticking with 2.5" laptop size drives design. This way you have enough space for NAND's, you can cool them using metal enclosure with thermal pads while still keeping it reasonably small and compatible with existing racks and cases. 5GB/s should be the starting minimum.
 
Joined
Apr 2, 2009
Messages
3,505 (0.64/day)
SATA express was a ghetto solution. It was bound to fail.

I see M.2/NVMe as a nice luxury OS drive, nothing more and nothing less.

As the moment, SATA3 is adequate for majority of desktop users. I think even SATA1 is adequate for HDDs. It's only due to SSD that's pushing SATA limit. I don't see any urgent need for an improved SATA or a new format. NVMe is there to satisfy those who like big numbers. That's that.

I suppose a new standard will come along but I don't see it being M.2 or NVMe.

Edited
 
Last edited:

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,001 (2.26/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
NVMe is just a protocol, it works over multiple interfaces, like M.2, U.2, PCIe etc. and it looks like it will be the replacement for SATA when it comes to flash based storage, like it or not. SATA was simply not designed for flash based storage.

The tricky part with cables is signal integrity and when you start pushing really high speeds, you end up with multiple problems. USB 3.0 is a great example, poor quality cables wreck havoc with 2.4GHz wireless devices, be it Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or what not. The USB 3.0 part is working just fine though...

Technically we could move to something like Thunderbolt 3.0 as the interface is fairly simple and the cables are proven to be solid. It delivers up to 40Gbps of data, as well as power. However, You need to have the PCIe bandwidth on the motherboard to do this as well... Which brings me back to the issue of not enough PCIe lanes.Then there's the cable cost, currently at about $20 for 50cm, whereas a SATA cable can cost as little as $1.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what the clever people that design these things come up with, but I fully agree, most of the solutions today aren't very good compared to SATA. Personally I still prefer M.2 though and I haven't had any heat issues with my Plextor drive.
 
Joined
Dec 6, 2005
Messages
10,881 (1.63/day)
Location
Manchester, NH
System Name Senile
Processor I7-4790K@4.8 GHz 24/7
Motherboard MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
Cooling Be Quiet Pure Rock Air
Memory 16GB 4x4 G.Skill CAS9 2133 Sniper
Video Card(s) GIGABYTE Vega 64
Storage Samsung EVO 500GB / 8 Different WDs / QNAP TS-253 8GB NAS with 2x10Tb WD Blue
Display(s) 34" LG 34CB88-P 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD (3440*1440) *FREE_SYNC*
Case Rosewill
Audio Device(s) Onboard + HD HDMI
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Mouse Logitech G5
Keyboard Corsair Strafe RGB & G610 Orion Red
Software Win 10
Looking at the available motherboard options for Ryzen

This is what I've wondered about all along. Could make or break Ryzen. How much of an early investment are the big ones going to make on this new "thing" from AMD???
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
667 (0.25/day)
System Name Unimatrix
Processor Intel i9-9900K @ 5.0GHz
Motherboard ASRock x390 Taichi Ultimate
Cooling Custom Loop
Memory 32GB GSkill TridentZ RGB DDR4 @ 3400MHz 14-14-14-32
Video Card(s) EVGA 2080 with Heatkiller Water Block
Storage 2x Samsung 960 Pro 512GB M.2 SSD in RAID 0, 1x WD Blue 1TB M.2 SSD
Display(s) Alienware 34" Ultrawide 3440x1440
Case CoolerMaster P500M Mesh
Power Supply Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
Keyboard Corsair K75
Benchmark Scores Really Really High
Looking at the available motherboard options for Ryzen, I have to say that I'm thoroughly disappointed with what's available at launch. It's as if the motherboard makers decided to put out the worst possible boards, as to not compete with their Intel offerings. Admittedly there are a lot of platform limitations as well, but even so...

Some examples.

Every single board, apart from the ROG Crosshair VI Hero has display outputs. Ryzen doesn't have integrated graphics, so unless you're planning on using a $150-300 board with an APU, this is an utter waste of components on the board. It's almost as the board maker ran out of ideas of what kind of ports to put on the rear of the boards after having been used to put display connectors on all boards for a long time now.

A couple of things that no-one seems to have picked up on the super limited connectivity options. This one is kind of on AMD though, as the chipsets from ASMedia are so limited.
Start reading some board specs and you'll see that X370 boards with three x16 slots offer the typical Intel config of 1 x16 or 2 x8 for the first two slots, which I guess is acceptable. However, the third slot is connected to the chipset and only offers a single PCIe lane in many cases, or four lanes in some cases, but then all the other x1 slots on the boards are disabled, due to insufficient lanes. MSI seems to be sharing the M.2 slot with the third x16 slot, which I'm not sure is a better approach. The B350 boards obviously has a different configuration, with x16, x4 and x1, with the last two slots being PCIe 2.0 from the chipset.

The boards with a second M.2 slot are even worse, as you then have to chose between a slow PCIe 2.0 M.2 slot, PCIe x1 slots or that x16 slot that's actually x4.

On a side note, AMD's other CPU options for the AM4 socket only support 8 PCIe lanes from the CPU and only SATA for the M.2 slot.

On the upside it seems like all primary M.2 slots are PCIe 3.0 x4 and connected directly to the CPU, so this was a wise move on AMD's side, as we should hopefully see slightly improved NVMe performance here compared to Intel's way of doing it, with the exception of Intel's HEDP platform.

It does seem like the early rumours about USB 3.1 issues were true as well, as you'll see re-drivers near the rear USB 3.1 ports on all boards. This shouldn't be a problem in the real world, but it shows the chipset was poorly designed. AMD only put USB 3.0 inside the CPUs, but they should clearly have done better validation on the chipsets from ASMedia.

I'm also curious how many people are excited about eight SATA ports today. 5-6 years ago, sure, today, I doubt most people will use that many. It might've been vaguely interesting with RAID 5/6 support, but AMD doesn't offer that on any of the new chipsets, most likely courtesy of ASMedia not support it in any of its SATA controllers. The older chipsets from AMD used to support RAID 5 at least.

RAM support seems rather peculiar as well. Ryzen officially supports DDR4 1866, 2133, 2400 and 2667, with OC modes seemingly so far only being 2933 and 3200. It looks like Asus only offers memory overclocking on its ROG board, whereas Gigabyte for example offers it on its B350 boards as well. Biostar has apparently tested with 3400 and 3600 memory as well. However, if you already have DDR4 2800 and 3000 memory today, you're looking at having to run that at 2667 or 2933 instead, as those speeds aren't supported.

All of this also makes me wonder why there aren't more mATX or even mini-ITX boards, as the chipset is clearly quite crippled as it is and would make more sense on a board with limited ports.

Hopefully we'll see a better chipset in the future, as the current options are disappointing.

One last thing, why are these boards so damn expensive, considering that the chipset can't be very expensive. The half decent boards are all priced at $200+++ which is a bit of a gut punch. In fact, they're poorly priced against comparable Intel boards.


OMG, someone understands me! I been saying that to my friends. The ports, slots and lanes combos are just horrible.
 
Joined
Jul 19, 2006
Messages
43,585 (6.74/day)
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard ASUS TUF x670e
Cooling EK AIO 360. Phantek T30 fans.
Memory 32GB G.Skill 6000Mhz
Video Card(s) Asus RTX 4090
Storage WD m.2
Display(s) LG C2 Evo OLED 42"
Case Lian Li PC 011 Dynamic Evo
Audio Device(s) Topping E70 DAC, SMSL SP200 Headphone Amp.
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti PRO 1000W
Mouse Razer Basilisk V3 Pro
Keyboard Tester84
Software Windows 11
There will be better boards. They just want to sell you what they want to sell you and then they'll sell you something better later.
 

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman
Joined
Jul 2, 2007
Messages
40,435 (6.61/day)
Location
Republic of Texas (True Patriot)
System Name PCGOD
Processor AMD FX 8350@ 5.0GHz
Motherboard Asus TUF 990FX Sabertooth R2 2901 Bios
Cooling Scythe Ashura, 2×BitFenix 230mm Spectre Pro LED (Blue,Green), 2x BitFenix 140mm Spectre Pro LED
Memory 16 GB Gskill Ripjaws X 2133 (2400 OC, 10-10-12-20-20, 1T, 1.65V)
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon 290 Sapphire Vapor-X
Storage Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, WD Velociraptor 1TB
Display(s) NEC Multisync LCD 1700V (Display Port Adapter)
Case AeroCool Xpredator Evil Blue Edition
Audio Device(s) Creative Labs Sound Blaster ZxR
Power Supply Seasonic 1250 XM2 Series (XP3)
Mouse Roccat Kone XTD
Keyboard Roccat Ryos MK Pro
Software Windows 7 Pro 64
o_O
The chipset is till limited in the same way Intel's chipsets are, it connects to the CPU over 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Admittedly in this case, AMD doesn't allow the chipset to provide further 3.0 lanes, only 2.0, so that could be an improved as what Intel has done with the 10 and 20 series chipsets. However, it's not going to change things dramatically from what we have now.



My board allows full pcie 16 on both slots. https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FX_R20/specifications/

This one has 2 full speed slots aswell.

http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-990FXA-UD7-rev-1x#sp

http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-990FXA-UD7-rev-30#sp.

Im sure if AMD had launched a board that had 16x PCI E 3.0 x2 or x4 it would cost the same as a $600 X99 board.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
667 (0.25/day)
System Name Unimatrix
Processor Intel i9-9900K @ 5.0GHz
Motherboard ASRock x390 Taichi Ultimate
Cooling Custom Loop
Memory 32GB GSkill TridentZ RGB DDR4 @ 3400MHz 14-14-14-32
Video Card(s) EVGA 2080 with Heatkiller Water Block
Storage 2x Samsung 960 Pro 512GB M.2 SSD in RAID 0, 1x WD Blue 1TB M.2 SSD
Display(s) Alienware 34" Ultrawide 3440x1440
Case CoolerMaster P500M Mesh
Power Supply Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
Keyboard Corsair K75
Benchmark Scores Really Really High
The Ryzen boards that are coming out beat the snot out of any of the 970/990 boards out there.

Sorry but the new boards don't even beat my X58 board, Asus P6T6 WS Revolution.
 

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman
Joined
Jul 2, 2007
Messages
40,435 (6.61/day)
Location
Republic of Texas (True Patriot)
System Name PCGOD
Processor AMD FX 8350@ 5.0GHz
Motherboard Asus TUF 990FX Sabertooth R2 2901 Bios
Cooling Scythe Ashura, 2×BitFenix 230mm Spectre Pro LED (Blue,Green), 2x BitFenix 140mm Spectre Pro LED
Memory 16 GB Gskill Ripjaws X 2133 (2400 OC, 10-10-12-20-20, 1T, 1.65V)
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon 290 Sapphire Vapor-X
Storage Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, WD Velociraptor 1TB
Display(s) NEC Multisync LCD 1700V (Display Port Adapter)
Case AeroCool Xpredator Evil Blue Edition
Audio Device(s) Creative Labs Sound Blaster ZxR
Power Supply Seasonic 1250 XM2 Series (XP3)
Mouse Roccat Kone XTD
Keyboard Roccat Ryos MK Pro
Software Windows 7 Pro 64
Joined
Dec 6, 2005
Messages
10,881 (1.63/day)
Location
Manchester, NH
System Name Senile
Processor I7-4790K@4.8 GHz 24/7
Motherboard MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
Cooling Be Quiet Pure Rock Air
Memory 16GB 4x4 G.Skill CAS9 2133 Sniper
Video Card(s) GIGABYTE Vega 64
Storage Samsung EVO 500GB / 8 Different WDs / QNAP TS-253 8GB NAS with 2x10Tb WD Blue
Display(s) 34" LG 34CB88-P 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD (3440*1440) *FREE_SYNC*
Case Rosewill
Audio Device(s) Onboard + HD HDMI
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Mouse Logitech G5
Keyboard Corsair Strafe RGB & G610 Orion Red
Software Win 10

cdawall

where the hell are my stars
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
27,680 (4.29/day)
Location
Houston
System Name All the cores
Processor 2990WX
Motherboard Asrock X399M
Cooling CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory 4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s) (2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage 2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s) Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s) Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard Keychron K8
Software W10P
Sorry but the new boards don't even beat my X58 board, Asus P6T6 WS Revolution.

I imagine my current gen Asus ws board blows it out of the water...
 
Top