Question PCI 4.0 vs 3.0

Status
Not open for further replies.

kingbowcat

Reputable
Oct 9, 2019
237
14
4,615
Looked up the PCI 4.0 and from what I read its something to do with faster transfers? Is there an implication for gaming with PCI 4.0? And is there much point forking out extra £100 odd pounds for a MOBO that has it for strictly gaming?
 

TJ Hooker

Titan
Ambassador
Your graphics card communicates with your CPU over PCIe. PCIe 4.0 offers twice the maximum possible bandwidth compared to 3.0 (bandwidth is how fast data can be transferred). But today's graphics cards barely take advantage of half the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 x16 so no, not really any benefit for gaming for now or the foreseeable future. NVMe SSDs also use PCIe, and there are some new ones out that use PCIe 4.0, but that won't affect gaming performance (or really any real-world performance, outside of some specific use cases).
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: King_V and RodroX

kingbowcat

Reputable
Oct 9, 2019
237
14
4,615
Hmm I have an RX5700xt so I won't see any benefit from 4.0? I was looking at
X570-A PRO (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 which is only £50 more than the Tomahawk max I was looking at. Plus it can overclock and accept higher memory clocks.
 

TJ Hooker

Titan
Ambassador

kingbowcat

Reputable
Oct 9, 2019
237
14
4,615
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/pci-express-4-0-performance-scaling-radeon-rx-5700-xt/23.html

The difference between 4.0 and 3.0 will be very small or non-existent.

You can overclock on either of those boards. Overclocking is very limited on Ryzen 3000 CPUs anyway though. The Tomahawk supports up to 4133 MHz RAM, that's already higher than you'd need (and possibly higher than your CPU will be capable of).

You sure it supports that speed ram https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-b450-tomahawk-max-socket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33t-ms.html shows here it supports 3466hz? Also the 570 has USB 3.2 which is cool and I could use the better heat syncs Vram as my cooling in case isn't too good.
 
Yeah seems a no brainer to me just for extra £50 can get so much more. BTW which one would you go for? is the one I linked a good one? How would I use raid for my SSD's or does it just automatically work?
That motherboard will work. Depends what your goal is. I don’t like going too cheap on the motherboard so personally I would get a better one.

NVME is a newer format that is much faster than SSD even in raid.
 

kingbowcat

Reputable
Oct 9, 2019
237
14
4,615
That motherboard will work. Depends what your goal is. I don’t like going too cheap on the motherboard so personally I would get a better one.

NVME is a newer format that is much faster than SSD even in raid.

But I won't be overclocking the 3700x (the cpu I want to get) and I will get a good custom cooler. BTW NVME isn't for 2'5 satas is it? some kind of new storage device? So wouldn't really be useful to me. But the USB2 is nice and the 8 sata ports as my A320 can only use two as the only remaining one is blocked by GPU lol.
 
But I won't be overclocking the 3700x (the cpu I want to get) and I will get a good custom cooler. BTW NVME isn't for 2'5 satas is it? some kind of new storage device? So wouldn't really be useful to me. But the USB2 is nice and the 8 sata ports as my A320 can only use two as the only remaining one is blocked by GPU lol.
If you aren’t overclocking then you are literally throwing money away getting a “good custom cooler”. Nvme is for a totally different drive that has nothing to do with 2.5 SATA. It’s as different as a platter drive and an SSD. Motherboard will work fine as I said. I personally would get a better one and I personally would overclock but that’s me. If it has everything you need, no reason to justify it, go with it.
 

kingbowcat

Reputable
Oct 9, 2019
237
14
4,615
If you aren’t overclocking then you are literally throwing money away getting a “good custom cooler”. Nvme is for a totally different drive that has nothing to do with 2.5 SATA. It’s as different as a platter drive and an SSD. Motherboard will work fine as I said. I personally would get a better one and I personally would overclock but that’s me. If it has everything you need, no reason to justify it, go with it.

But arnt the x series already overclocked? Anyway I don't think it would be throwing money away as the cooler that comes with it apparently isn't that great and I would like a quieter fan for better noise levels. I probably would experiment overclocking a little anyway if I had the ability. and what better ones would you consider? and for overclocking only or would you look at other areas? If so what?
 
But arnt the x series already overclocked? Anyway I don't think it would be throwing money away as the cooler that comes with it apparently isn't that great and I would like a quieter fan for better noise levels. I probably would experiment overclocking a little anyway if I had the ability. and what better ones would you consider? and for overclocking only or would you look at other areas? If so what?
The included cooler is pretty darn good. Intel cooler is garbage however. If you may overclock then you will want a pretty decent cooler as AMD doesn’t overclock really well because they already push the CPU pretty hard from the factory. Unless you are spending like $80+ I’d stick with the included cooler.

AMD doesn’t need X570 chipset to overclock. You could use a b450 and overclock but the difference is voltage regulator and additional features. If you want to get a good middle ground board, get the Aurous board I suggested, otherwise get the one you want. Probably isn’t much difference you will notice between the two. Just get whatever the cheapest that has everything you want on it.
 

kingbowcat

Reputable
Oct 9, 2019
237
14
4,615
The included cooler is pretty darn good. Intel cooler is garbage however. If you may overclock then you will want a pretty decent cooler as AMD doesn’t overclock really well because they already push the CPU pretty hard from the factory. Unless you are spending like $80+ I’d stick with the included cooler.

AMD doesn’t need X570 chipset to overclock. You could use a b450 and overclock but the difference is voltage regulator and additional features. If you want to get a good middle ground board, get the Aurous board I suggested, otherwise get the one you want. Probably isn’t much difference you will notice between the two. Just get whatever the cheapest that has everything you want on it.


Which Aurous board was that I couldn't see any other reference to that? And what cooler would you recommend? I was thinking of getting a 3600 now after looking at gamer nexus reviews.. It has a similar performance overclocked to a 3700x bizarrely.. I guess all i need is good vram support, lots of sata3 and pref usb 3.2, 4.0 PCI as a luxury I guess. Or do you think upgrading from 2600x to 3600 overclocked I wont notice much difference?
 

TJ Hooker

Titan
Ambassador
You sure it supports that speed ram https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-b450-tomahawk-max-socket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33t-ms.html shows here it supports 3466hz? Also the 570 has USB 3.2 which is cool and I could use the better heat syncs Vram as my cooling in case isn't too good.
The specs for the Tomahawk max are here:
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-TOMAHAWK-MAX/Specification

RAM up to 4133 MHz, also has USB 3.2.

How do you know the X570-A Pro has better VRM heatsinks? The VRMs of either board are more than enough for running an 8 core CPU, especially of you're not overclocking. Overclocking is extremely limited on Ryzen 3000 anyway.
 

TJ Hooker

Titan
Ambassador
Really interesting vid there basically PCI 4 just helps with ram. I guess I'll see how good the sales are on cyber Monday/black Friday. I guess I'll start looking at x470 boards too..
Huh? PCIe has nothing to do with RAM. He said that you may be able to get faster RAM speeds with an X570 board, but he was still able to get 4200 MHz with an X470 which is way faster than you need. 3200 MHz is great, and 3600 MHz is basically as high as it makes sense to go.
 
Last edited:

kingbowcat

Reputable
Oct 9, 2019
237
14
4,615
Huh? PCIe has nothing to do with RAM. He said that you may be able to get faster RAM speeds with an X570 board, but he was still able to get 4200 MHz with an X470 which is way faster than you need. 3200 MHz is great, and 3600 MHz is basically as high as it makes sense to go.

I got a X470 GAMING M7 AC in the end got a good price on it and goes up to 3600 Mhz for ram and its compatible with ram I have already. Still needs an updated bios to get 3rd gen. Might wait for 4th gen ryzen as 3rd series might not be worth it yet.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.