ASRock Returns to its Roots with Wacky X670 Upgrade Card

[Flanker]

Reminds me of Microsoft Mach 10 and Mach 20

 

[Tek-Check]

No.

Thought so.

 

[jesdals]

I would like to see a test of this and wonder if it would work on a x670 board

 

[Tek-Check]

Stop saying that higher pcie gens are pointless.

It's doable, but people would need to stop complaining about Gen5 motherboard prices. It's definitely not cheap to wire entire PCB with Gen5 lanes.

I would like to see a test of this and wonder if it would work on a x670 board

Interesting, indeed, to see whether there are restrictions in BIOS to two Promontory chipsets.

 

[Mussels]

this is stupid this entire product is assinine because you don't just add a south bridge over pci-e and magicly add more connections to the cpu
which is what you need for this to matter

Well that is what AMD did on the AM5 socket, it's exactly how their current motherboards work...

I would like to see a test of this and wonder if it would work on a x670 board

I want it on my x570, just for the ethernet and USB-C ports

Stop saying that higher pcie gens are pointless.

They're expensive and hard to manufacture, more the point


I care more about 1x lanes at 5.0 than i do a 16x that has enough bandwidth already, so we can use those little slots with 2.5/5/10Gb cards and devices, a 4x slot for a 40Gb USB-C or whatever

 

[TheLostSwede]

I would like to see a test of this and wonder if it would work on a x670 board

AMD doesn't seem to have envisaged a triple chipset setup, so there might not be UEFI/AGESA support for something like that.

Beyond that, the board would need to have a full x4 PCIe 4.0 slot and that weird connector for it to work.

 

[Tek-Check]

this is stupid this entire product is assinine because you don't just add a south bridge over pci-e and magicly add more connections to the cpu
which is what you need for this to matter

It's on a motherboard vendor to decide how they wire PCIe sockets and Promontory chipsets. A vendor might decide to wire Gen4 x4 slot directly with CPU. They are free to avoud daisy-chaining two chipsets on X670 too, wiring each one to CPU. AMD doesn't dictate how this should be done.

Well that is what AMD did on the AM5 socket, it's exactly how their current motherboards work

AMD doesn't dictate how to wire most of connections, apart from minimum requirements in terms of one M.2 Gen5 slot and GPU slot. See my post above.

Motherboard vendors have a high degree of freedom here.

AMD doesn't seem to have envisaged a triple chipset setup, so there might not be UEFI/AGESA support for something like that.

The external chipset might be seen as PCIe device by Windows, but I am interested to see how this could work. It's certainly a good solution for those who need more connectivity

 

[Wirko]

A vendor might decide to wire Gen4 x4 slot directly with CPU. They are free to avoud daisy-chaining two chipsets on X670 too, wiring each one to CPU. AMD doesn't dictate how this should be done.

Hm, has AMD or any mobo vendor ever mentioned or hinted at that possibility?

The external chipset might be seen as PCIe device by Windows, but I am interested to see how this could work. It's certainly a good solution for those who need more connectivity

Sure, AMD could turn their Promontory 21 into a universal expander chip without much effort, if only they wanted. It's not like that nineteen-wire serial interface (??) (what??) is absolutely necessary. The PCIe interface is flexible enough to carry all commands, control information, metadata, sync, whatever is necessary for a port expander/PCIe switch to function.

 

[Kapone33]

Like Wendell said: This should be for any board.

Even HEDT-segment ones. 101% agree with this. Its brilliant idea.

Can you imagine (sadly now dead-end) TRX40 boards with two x8 cards like those? Extra 8 M.2s, 2 10Gb NICs, stacks of USB, 8 SATA ports.

You just need a x4 wired 16 slot running at 4.0. That is sweet as it creates serious flexibility for people vs other add in cards this shines as not even the WD AN1500 can touch this in that regard.

 

[trsttte]

Like Wendell said: This should be for any board.

Even HEDT-segment ones. 101% agree with this. Its brilliant idea.

Can you imagine (sadly now dead-end) TRX40 boards with two x8 cards like those? Extra 8 M.2s, 2 10Gb NICs, stacks of USB, 8 SATA ports.

This is only x4 (x670/b650 promontory is only x4) but yeah, pretty neat. I wouldn't describe trx40 as the best candidate since it already has a bunch of native pcie lanes to begin with to connect usb/nic/whatever directly, no need to have a chipset doing switch work, but it's a great solution for expansion on consumer boards where you're very lane limited. This gives you an all in one expansion with everything you'd want.

PLX chips cost more than AMD/ASMedia's chipset. Plus this incorporates native support for more interfaces whereas the PLX chips are just PCIe bridges/splitters.

I think this is the main point really, the promontory chipset is cheaper and easier to integrate than PLX chips

They are free to avoud daisy-chaining two chipsets on X670 too, wiring each one to CPU. AMD doesn't dictate how this should be done.

Hmm do you have a source for that? Pretty sure AMD specifies how that works and it has to be daisy chained. When it was launched there was even discussion on why it was like that instead of going directly to the cpu (i don't remember the justification)

 

[Morgoth]

would like to see back plain boards making a comback like they used in the 1990...

 

[TheLostSwede]

Sure, AMD could turn their Promontory 21 into a universal expander chip without much effort, if only they wanted. It's not like that nineteen-wire serial interface (??) (what??) is absolutely necessary. The PCIe interface is flexible enough to carry all commands, control information, metadata, sync, whatever is necessary for a port expander/PCIe switch to function.

It's not about being capable enough, but rather about PCIe not supporting the extra control signals that are required for some interfaces to stay synced properly with the rest of thes system.
That said, I don't understand why this has a more complex connector that the Thunderbolt cards, but it's possible that ASRock has to use multiple "slow" standards.
I agree that this seems overly complex and if the chipset was only used for PCIe, it would most likely end up being simpler than this, as it shouldn't require to sync with so many other subsystems.


Technically it ends up being a four to eight PCIe 4.0 bridge/switch, plus four PCIe 3.0 lanes if it was used as a "universal" PCIe expansion solution.

would like to see back plain boards making a comback like they used in the 1990...

I think you want some version of the PICMG form factor for that, which is sort of a continuation of the AT form factor for industrial use, as in your picture.

 

[Morgoth]

would love to have sush things. replace a single card just to upgrade that future. swappign a usb 2.0 card for usb 3.0 card
need more nvme storage? plug in a board for it with several connectors. newer cpu? just swap the board every thing els stays the same
extra ram. add in ram expension card XD
"The sky is the limit"

 

[Initialised]

Where's the Intel 1700 board with both DDR4 and DDR5 slots?

 

[Tek-Check]

has AMD or any mobo vendor ever mentioned or hinted at that possibility?

I have not seen any explicit ban on non-daisy chained solution.

Hmm do you have a source for that? Pretty sure AMD specifies how that works and it has to be daisy chained. When it was launched there was even discussion on why it was like that instead of going directly to the cpu

No one has ever showed any explicit ban on non-daisy chained solutions.

 

[wickerman]

its a shame this isnt a standard on mini itx motherboards, you generally have a few extra lanes available if theres a suitable mezzanine socket or something that could physically fit. Hell id take an m.2 adapter and ribbon cable. The demo card alone would make for some pretty insane feature rich SFF builds with a quick 3d printed bracket to mount it somewhere suitable. Stuff like this would really make smaller form factors like matx and mini itx much better alternatives to full size ATX or extended ATX that you'd normally need for those extra features.

 

[TechLurker]

The commercial/enterprise sector makes use of daughter boards that can add additional ports or features, and I see no reason why prosumer and consumer mobos can't utilize them as well to some degree. I'd like to see more add-ons like this. Just NOT AT THE EXPENSE of removing stuff off the mobo. Heck, I'd even take a small optional daughter card that simply enables full use of the PCIe slots if every port was populated (most consumer mobos either disable a SATA port or a header if say, all PCI slots were occupied, or even disable or downgrade a slot if all NVMe slots were populated).

I'd definitely buy this if this works with an X570; just to add a little more capability to my existing board, and if AsRock is innovative enough, also allowed to be forward carried when the time does come to upgrade.

Now I have to ask; can two or more of them work on the same motherboard? Seems like a novel way of being able to create a mini network-all-in-one if you can have multiple 10GbE + extra NVMe + Extra USB + SATA ports.

 

[Skull66]

I remember the good old days of Asrock, had a couple of MOBOs with slot A and Socket A

 

[Mussels]

its a shame this isnt a standard on mini itx motherboards, you generally have a few extra lanes available if theres a suitable mezzanine socket or something that could physically fit. Hell id take an m.2 adapter and ribbon cable. The demo card alone would make for some pretty insane feature rich SFF builds with a quick 3d printed bracket to mount it somewhere suitable. Stuff like this would really make smaller form factors like matx and mini itx much better alternatives to full size ATX or extended ATX that you'd normally need for those extra features.

If this sort of thing does require CPU wired slots, the NVME slot with a riser cable would be the universal solution

 

[Prima.Vera]

Wait, does this work on Intel Z mobos also??

 

[Mussels]

Wait, does this work on Intel Z mobos also??

I would find that extremely unlikely, but if that extra random cable wasn't needed - possibly?
We're all looking at it thikning "oooh shiny expansion card!" anyway


The video does explicitly state that you need that "J2" cable or it wont work, but we all certainly want a version without that cable requirement


that riser gives you BIOS control of it, but they could also surely implement one that had software control and a USB header, for example

 

[Luke357]

Good ole ASRock. Reminds me of the B250 (I think it was under the Super Alloy brand but its been 7 years) DDR3/DDR4 board they had when Skylake came out.

 

[Wirko]

I have a funny looking DDR2+DDR3 board from Asus, the P5KC ... it must have been designed back when Asrock wasn't fully separated from Asus yet, I guess.