News AMD Radeon RX 5300 XT Graphics Card, B550 Chipset Allegedly Arrive in October

[Admin]

HP revealed new desktops with mentions of the AMD Radeon RX 5300 XT graphics card for the first time, as well as the B550 chipset.

AMD Radeon RX 5300 XT Graphics Card, B550 Chipset Allegedly Arrive in October : Read more

 

[alextheblue]

It's possible that the B550 chipset could use PCIe 4.0 on the first PCIe x16 slot and primary M.2 port.

Those actually have nothing to do with the chipset itself. They are directly connected to the CPU, which means you could even implement PCIe 4.0 (for those direct connections) on a 400 series board, if you designed the board with 4.0 in mind. You could even split the x16 across multiple slots. Heck we even had some beta BIOS versions with PCIe 4.0 on some older 400 series boards... ultimately that was axed as signal integrity on existing designs delivered questionable results.

So, what could B550 improve on vs B450/X470, if it doesn't use a full PCIe 4.0 setup like X570? A PCIe 4.0 link between the CPU and the chipset would be the bare minimum, IMHO. The connected lanes would have access to potentially double the overall bandwidth (in aggregate) vs a 3.0 link. I also wouldn't rule out a purpose-built lower-cost fully PCIe 4.0 chipset. Remember the X570 is essentially a repurposed I/O die, a firm like ASMedia could very well build something more specialized that has roughly the same functionality in a smaller (cheaper) die. Actual performance may be a little lower, but anything would be an upgrade over the older 400 ASMedia designs.