Z890/X870 feature dreamlist

[Outback Bronze]

For the Z890 the biggest feature I could dream of would be for it to support 2-5 gens of intel CPU's.

Does this pass as a feature set?

 

[rv8000]

For the Z890 the biggest feature I could dream of would be for it to support 2-5 gens of intel CPU's.

Does this pass as a feature set?

Not to intel

 

[ShrimpBrime]

"Dream"??

Yes, I would like dual socket desktop motherboards available and quad channel memory.

Wish in one hand, poop in the other.....

 

[chrcoluk]

But you lost PCIe slots, which someone else wanted and so on. I think you need to look up the HSIO layout, as that would be more PCIe lanes than the chipset and CPU can deliver. Something has to be shared, maybe it's your x16 slot, as that was the case on a lot of Intel board.

This is the first board I have owned for a long time where all the PCIe slots are non compromises. Using them doesnt disable anything else on the board, just the DMI bus contention.

As an example the second full length slot doesnt slow down the 16x slot to 8x (this seems to be the case on almost every board I have historically owned).

I think compared to my old board I lost a single x1 slot, but I gained an extra full length slot as I can use it without slowing down the 16x.

I spent a lot of time picking out the board, and this I feel was a true gem on Z690. Asus pro art which also seems i/o specialist board was my alternate option.

The slots and i/o on this board (shame it wasnt reviewed by TPU so we got no TPU article to reference).

16x Gen 5 - Populated by GPU.
4x Gen 4 - Available for a Gen 3/4 NVME or other addon card. (This doesnt take lanes from the 16x slot)
4x Gen 3 - Populated by DC P4600 NVME
Two 1x Gen 3 - One populated by sound card. Plan to add network device to another.

8 Intel SATA ports.
1 4x4 M.2 CPU lanes. - Populated by 980 Pro
1 4x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. - Populated by SN850X
1 3x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. - Available for a Gen 3 NVME (out of everything this one does compromise, disables 1 SATA port).

The argument I think is this board did compromise on M.2 to achieve what it did on PCIe, the Taichi e.g. has better M.2 but also not so good PCIe.

If you interested, link to manual is here. https://download.asrock.com/Manual/Z690 Steel Legend.pdf

--

My old Z370, which had primitive M.2 support and multiple compromises. Also only a 1/4 of DMI bandwidth 4x3 lanes compared to 8x4 lanes on Z690.

16x Gen 3
8x Gen 3 (using this reduced first PCIe slot to 8x).
4x Gen 3
Three 1x Gen 3

6 Intel SATA ports
2 Asmedia SATA ports, not suitable for SSDs.
1 3x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. (disabled first 2 Intel SATA ports)
1 3x2 M.2 Chipset lanes. (disabled last 2 Intel SATA ports)

--

If I remember right on Z790 Intel reacted to what the board vendors were doing and swapped 4 PCIe chipset lanes from general allocation to M.2, which had an impact on the Z790 Steel legend (I deliberatly picked the Z690 version for this reason).

 

[TheLostSwede]

This is the first board I have owned for a long time where all the PCIe slots are non compromises. Using them doesnt disable anything else on the board, just the DMI bus contention.

That's 1: Because Asrock screwed their customers and mostly added PCIe 3.0 slots. 2: Those x16 slots are only x4, although that's common practice now. Some are even x2 or x1 at times.
CPU:
- 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2), supports x16 mode*
Chipset:
- 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3), supports x4 mode*
- 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE5), supports x4 mode*
- 2 x PCIe 3.0 x1 Slots (PCIE1 and PCIE4)*
- 1 x M.2 Socket (Key E)
CPU:
- 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_1, Key M), supports type 2260/2280 PCIe Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) mode*
Chipset:
- 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_2, Key M), supports type 2230/2242/2260/2280 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s & PCIe Gen3x4 (32 Gb/s) modes*
- 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_3, Key M), supports type 2242/2260/2280/22110 PCIe Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) mode*

3: You still have some stuff shared, even if I'd admit it's fairly minimal. Not sure how only a single SATA port is disabled though, as it doesn't add up with Intel's HSIO layout.
If M2_2 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA3_7 will be disabled.

As an example the second full length slot doesnt slow down the 16x slot to 8x (this seems to be the case on almost every board I have historically owned).

It's also not x16 or x8, as above.

I think compared to my old board I lost a single x1 slot, but I gained an extra full length slot as I can use it without slowing down the 16x.

No you didn't, see above.

I spent a lot of time picking out the board, and this I feel was a true gem on Z690. Asus pro art which also seems i/o specialist board was my alternate option.

As long as it fits your needs, that's what matters.

The slots and i/o on this board (shame it wasnt reviewed by TPU so we got no TPU article to reference).

16x Gen 5 - Populated by GPU.
4x Gen 4 - Available for a Gen 3/4 NVME or other addon card. (This doesnt take lanes from the 16x slot)
4x Gen 3 - Populated by DC P4600 NVME
Two 1x Gen 3 - One populated by sound card. Plan to add network device to another.

How would you add a 10 Gbps card to that system? I have one of those in my PC and wouldn't swap it out.

8 Intel SATA ports.
1 4x4 M.2 CPU lanes. - Populated by 980 Pro
1 4x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. - Populated by SN850X
1 3x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. - Available for a Gen 3 NVME (out of everything this one does compromise, disables 1 SATA port).

The argument I think is this board did compromise on M.2 to achieve what it did on PCIe, the Taichi e.g. has better M.2 but also not so good PCIe.

If you interested, link to manual is here. https://download.asrock.com/Manual/Z690 Steel Legend.pdf

Sadly the manual lacks a block diagram, so it's impossible to see how things are wired up. I'm glad Gigabyte put those back and I hate everyone that else that refuses to do so with a passion.

--

My old Z370, which had primitive M.2 support and multiple compromises. Also only a 1/4 of DMI bandwidth 4x3 lanes compared to 8x4 lanes on Z690.

16x Gen 3
8x Gen 3 (using this reduced first PCIe slot to 8x).
4x Gen 3
Three 1x Gen 3

6 Intel SATA ports
2 Asmedia SATA ports, not suitable for SSDs.
1 3x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. (disabled first 2 Intel SATA ports)
1 3x2 M.2 Chipset lanes. (disabled last 2 Intel SATA ports)

--

At some point we went from having loads of expansion ports to having almost none to now having been given some back.

If I remember right on Z790 Intel reacted to what the board vendors were doing and swapped 4 PCIe chipset lanes from general allocation to M.2, which had an impact on the Z790 Steel legend (I deliberatly picked the Z690 version for this reason).

No, that's not how that works. The HSIO assignment is entirely up to the board makers. What they did, was to swap four PCIe 3.0 lanes for four PCIe 4.0 lanes, which in turn ended up being used for an M.2 slot on most boards.

This is the Z690 HSIO layout.

Also, we've had this discussion some time ago.

86 Motherboards Compared for Intel Z690 Alder Lake

No wonder it's hard to shop for motherboards these days.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[chrcoluk]

Yeah its about choice really, I guess I would need to use the 16x slot for a 10gbps card, which obviously then prevents a high end GPU being used. But this is why I think choice is king, even if its only one or two boards in a generation that has my type of layout its better than nothing. I suppose I prefer a non compromise 4 lane PCIe slot to a compromise 8 lane slot, but in your case you prefer the 16x lanes being shared across 2 slots.

On my AMD rig though, I dont care about the lane sharing, on that system I will eventually add a second SATA addon card in the second CPU PCIe slot, which will of course take lanes from the first, but both cards only need 4x lanes so it wont matter. This system has its own challenges, everything on the chipset is all in one IOMMU group, whilst the two PCIe slots fed from the CPU are isolated, and that makes them extremely valuable as I directly pass through those SATA devices to the VM. I will stop talking about my existing systems at this point, but I hope it gives an idea of why I value certain layouts and what I would be looking for in Z890 and beyond.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yeah its about choice really, I guess I would need to use the 16x slot for a 10gbps card, which obviously then prevents a high end GPU being used. But this is why I think choice is king, even if its only one or two boards in a generation that has my type of layout its better than nothing. I suppose I prefer a non compromise 4 lane PCIe slot to a compromise 8 lane slot, but in your case you prefer the 16x lanes being shared across 2 slots.

On my AMD rig though, I dont care about the lane sharing, on that system I will eventually add a second SATA addon card in the second CPU PCIe slot, which will of course take lanes from the first, but both cards only need 4x lanes so it wont matter. This system has its own challenges, everything on the chipset is all in one IOMMU group, whilst the two PCIe slots fed from the CPU are isolated, and that makes them extremely valuable as I directly pass through those SATA devices to the VM. I will stop talking about my existing systems at this point, but I hope it gives an idea of why I value certain layouts and what I would be looking for in Z890 and beyond.

You know you can get M.2 to SATA card, right?

 

[chrcoluk]

You know you can get M.2 to SATA card, right?

Thats a fair point the first M.2 slot is CPU lanes.

 

[Arcsaber]

1. No chipset fan,
2. Two DIMMs,
3. No more of this idiotic "long boot or memory instability" nonsense - DDR5 should behave exactly as well as DDR4, by this point.

 

[datnoz]

1. No chipset fan,
2. Two DIMMs,
3. No more of this idiotic "long boot or memory instability" nonsense - DDR5 should behave exactly as well as DDR4, by this point.

Why only two dimms

 

[Arcsaber]

Why only two dimms

Because DDR5 compatability is such utter garbage that it needs all the help it can get.

If these long boot times carry over from the 6-series, I'm sticking to AM4 until they get it right - under NO circumstances should somebody have to wait one minute for an SSD system to boot.

 

[sneekypeet]

From what I hear, Asus is looking to move to more 1DPC layouts across more affordable motherboards.

CKD on the next chipset would be fantastic.

With DDR5 as it is currently sold, I see little as far as 4-stick kits, but at least for now, you will likely get similar ICs if you do upgrade. (dont see the need for 4-Slot boards, and I think many are like 4 is better than 2, when the oposite is true. Sort of like how the 1/3 pound burger lost to McDonalds 1/4 burger, because people looked and saw 4 was bigger than 3.)

 

[Dr. Dro]

This is the first board I have owned for a long time where all the PCIe slots are non compromises. Using them doesnt disable anything else on the board, just the DMI bus contention.

As an example the second full length slot doesnt slow down the 16x slot to 8x (this seems to be the case on almost every board I have historically owned).

I think compared to my old board I lost a single x1 slot, but I gained an extra full length slot as I can use it without slowing down the 16x.

I spent a lot of time picking out the board, and this I feel was a true gem on Z690. Asus pro art which also seems i/o specialist board was my alternate option.

The slots and i/o on this board (shame it wasnt reviewed by TPU so we got no TPU article to reference).

16x Gen 5 - Populated by GPU.
4x Gen 4 - Available for a Gen 3/4 NVME or other addon card. (This doesnt take lanes from the 16x slot)
4x Gen 3 - Populated by DC P4600 NVME
Two 1x Gen 3 - One populated by sound card. Plan to add network device to another.

8 Intel SATA ports.
1 4x4 M.2 CPU lanes. - Populated by 980 Pro
1 4x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. - Populated by SN850X
1 3x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. - Available for a Gen 3 NVME (out of everything this one does compromise, disables 1 SATA port).

The argument I think is this board did compromise on M.2 to achieve what it did on PCIe, the Taichi e.g. has better M.2 but also not so good PCIe.

If you interested, link to manual is here. https://download.asrock.com/Manual/Z690 Steel Legend.pdf

--

My old Z370, which had primitive M.2 support and multiple compromises. Also only a 1/4 of DMI bandwidth 4x3 lanes compared to 8x4 lanes on Z690.

16x Gen 3
8x Gen 3 (using this reduced first PCIe slot to 8x).
4x Gen 3
Three 1x Gen 3

6 Intel SATA ports
2 Asmedia SATA ports, not suitable for SSDs.
1 3x4 M.2 Chipset lanes. (disabled first 2 Intel SATA ports)
1 3x2 M.2 Chipset lanes. (disabled last 2 Intel SATA ports)

--

If I remember right on Z790 Intel reacted to what the board vendors were doing and swapped 4 PCIe chipset lanes from general allocation to M.2, which had an impact on the Z790 Steel legend (I deliberatly picked the Z690 version for this reason).

How does Z370 have primitive M.2 support? X99 Refresh and Z97 boards have primitive M.2 support, like, gen 3 interface, usually just one slot, keeping resources available for the truly dead SATA Express connector and some for the U.2 which only saw use in enterprise.

I say this every time SATA is mentioned but... it's time to scale down on SATA. It's a pest that won't go away, like USB 2.0 connections or the mp3 codec. Woefully obsolete and only sticks around because cheap and good enough. That's no way to innovate.

 

[ir_cow]

Because DDR5 compatability is such utter garbage that it needs all the help it can get.

If these long boot times carry over from the 6-series, I'm sticking to AM4 until they get it right - under NO circumstances should somebody have to wait one minute for an SSD system to boot.

Yes blame the memory lol

 

[sneekypeet]

Yes blame the memory lol

Hush, DDR5 is ass, we all know it

 

[ShrekOC]

AMD's chipsets need more PCIe lanes. Especially if they use that bundled discrete USB(TB)4 controller that takes up four of them.

 

[Arcsaber]

Hush, DDR5 is ass, we all know it

When you need a special setting to keep your timings between boots, you're ass.

DDR4 doesn't need any of this "memory context restore" nonsense.

 

[sneekypeet]

When you need a special setting to keep your timings between boots, you're ass.

DDR4 doesn't need any of this "memory context restore" nonsense.

One person's take of an entire market from one specific use case scenario. Can't say I have these sort of issues. All I get is near unlimited headroom with the right set, quick reboots unless memory training fails, and the performance to back up the use.

On the real. It has everything to do with your motherboard and cpu choices than anything to do with DDR5.

 

[Zazigalka]

New gen is incoming, so let's dream for a moment and discuss what we'd love to see and have. Popular, unpopular, whatever, all opinions go.

• More USB-C than USB-A ports: Most of the stuff I personally have and use today is now on USB-C. Seeing just a couple of C-ports on flagship boards is annoying. While they're at it, make USB3 the minimum acceptable standard.

I have a
-mic
-external 2xHDD/SSD dock
-printer
-Thrustmaster eswapX controller (yes, I got a wired controller for lower input latency)
-HyperX KB with a passthrough USB charging port
-Dual Monitor arm with two USB passthrough ports
-PowerPlay wireless charging mouse mat
-UPS USB connection for reporting power/changing AVR values
-FiiO DAC
all connected via A-type. I think when most peripherials adopt C-type standard, only then we will see the need for using more type C. KB/M, printers, mics and such will stay on type A for the next 5+ years, so there is really no need to do that.

 

[chrcoluk]

How does Z370 have primitive M.2 support? X99 Refresh and Z97 boards have primitive M.2 support, like, gen 3 interface, usually just one slot, keeping resources available for the truly dead SATA Express connector and some for the U.2 which only saw use in enterprise.

I say this every time SATA is mentioned but... it's time to scale down on SATA. It's a pest that won't go away, like USB 2.0 connections or the mp3 codec. Woefully obsolete and only sticks around because cheap and good enough. That's no way to innovate.

Sorry only just seen your post, the issue I have when people ask for SATA to be removed, is that (a) there is people that still use SATA it isnt dead, and (b) it actually isnt preventing any progress, I am not aware of a single motherboard that loses out on modern features because it has SATA ports, they have a tiny footprint on the PCB. There might be boards (including mine) that share lanes between SATA and a M.2 port, but you can simply choose to not use those SATA port(s) and its not an issue as its dynamically shared meaning if the SATA port isnt used the M.2 gets the full bandwidth.

Ultimately I think user choice is king, many boards dont have 8 ports so are more to your liking. SATA express was dead as it never really took off, but its a very different story for SATA.

 

[ShrekOC]

I have a
-mic
-external 2xHDD/SSD dock
-printer
-Thrustmaster eswapX controller (yes, I got a wired controller for lower input latency)
-HyperX KB with a passthrough USB charging port
-Dual Monitor arm with two USB passthrough ports
-PowerPlay wireless charging mouse mat
-UPS USB connection for reporting power/changing AVR values
-FiiO DAC
all connected via A-type. I think when most peripherials adopt C-type standard, only then we will see the need for using more type C. KB/M, printers, mics and such will stay on type A for the next 5+ years, so there is really no need to do that.

USB-C is dumb on the rear IO. It's too easy to put a USB-C connector in a type A port when connecting it blind and short 5V to ground.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

USB-C is dumb on the rear IO. It's too easy to put a USB-C connector in a type A port when connecting it blind and short 5V to ground.

Is a C connector wide enough to short the two outer pins? Not gonna try it

 

[Dristun]

I have a
-mic
-external 2xHDD/SSD dock
-printer
-Thrustmaster eswapX controller (yes, I got a wired controller for lower input latency)
-HyperX KB with a passthrough USB charging port
-Dual Monitor arm with two USB passthrough ports
-PowerPlay wireless charging mouse mat
-UPS USB connection for reporting power/changing AVR values
-FiiO DAC
all connected via A-type. I think when most peripherials adopt C-type standard, only then we will see the need for using more type C. KB/M, printers, mics and such will stay on type A for the next 5+ years, so there is really no need to do that.

Cool! I'm not asking to remove all A's. I'm asking to give people who have the need for something else an option for more than 2 Cs, which as of right now does not exist on the market unless you go for headers and so on. At least Asrock listened, sort of.

 

[sneekypeet]

Is a C connector wide enough to short the two outer pins? Not gonna try it

Just did it on accident the other day. PC shut down immediately. No harm done

 

[Dr. Dro]

Sorry only just seen your post, the issue I have when people ask for SATA to be removed, is that (a) there is people that still use SATA it isnt dead, and (b) it actually isnt preventing any progress, I am not aware of a single motherboard that loses out on modern features because it has SATA ports, they have a tiny footprint on the PCB. There might be boards (including mine) that share lanes between SATA and a M.2 port, but you can simply choose to not use those SATA port(s) and its not an issue as its dynamically shared meaning if the SATA port isnt used the M.2 gets the full bandwidth.

Ultimately I think user choice is king, many boards dont have 8 ports so are more to your liking. SATA express was dead as it never really took off, but its a very different story for SATA.

People still use mp3 codec or USB 2.0. Doesn't mean it doesn't have to go. It's like rotary disc telephones from the 1950s. They'll still work on landlines today. Practically useless and entirely superseded by far better interoperable devices.