News X570 Exposed: Up to Sixteen PCIe 4.0 Lanes, Flexible I/O

[Admin]

But it’s no X470 killer.

X570 Exposed: Up to Sixteen PCIe 4.0 Lanes, Flexible I/O : Read more

 

[mattkiss]

"The first thing most in-the-know readers will notice is that the PCH supports eight USB 3.2 Gen1 (5Gb/s) pathways rather than four Gen2 (10Gb/s) "

The AMD slide says the chipset USB 3.2 ports are Gen 2.

 

[mattkiss]

"A total of 24 CPU lanes that include sixteen lanes for graphics, four for storage, and four for USB 3.x Gen2 "

The last four PCie lanes from the CPU connect to the chipset. They are not used for the USB 3.2 Gen2 ports coming from the CPU.

 

[Crashman]

"The first thing most in-the-know readers will notice is that the PCH supports eight USB 3.2 Gen1 (5Gb/s) pathways rather than four Gen2 (10Gb/s) "

The AMD slide says the chipset USB 3.2 ports are Gen 2.

You should read the full article then 😉

"A total of 24 CPU lanes that include sixteen lanes for graphics, four for storage, and four for USB 3.x Gen2 "

The last four PCie lanes from the CPU connect to the chipset. They are not used for the USB 3.2 Gen2 ports coming from the CPU.

You should read the full article then 😉

 

[Crashman]

I'll make it easy for you:
A total of 24 CPU lanes that include sixteen lanes for graphics, four for storage, and four for USB 3.x Gen2 conforms to AMD's statement that "High-Speed Platform Lanes defined as the sum of GPP PCI Express lanes, SATA ports, and USB ports from the chipset and processor that can be used concurrently."

Now you can argue with AMD 😀

OH, I just noticed what you did: You appended the reference to AMD. In other words, you're not even bringing an honest debate.

OK, so the PCH has sixteen lanes and none of them are used for the uplink right? But the CPU I/O die has 24 lanes and 4 of them are used for the PCH downlink, right? And they're the same chip, apart from one being manufactured at 14nm and the other and 12nm, right?

Please explain your new math. You see, we want our table to be as accurate as possible, but AMD's table doesn't coincide with its written statement. We got ours verified by a motherboard design team that's actually building product around this chipset, so to this point the only thing we suspect may be inaccurate is the USB 2.0 count.

 

[epobirs]

It seems disingenuous to say they've got a USB 3.2 host if they aren't supporting the four lane 20 Gbps mode. This is a point of curiosity for me since having that capability would mean a great deal for expansion storage on the upcoming Sony and Microsoft games consoles. Since those machine will need far fewer PCIe 4 lanes in general, one possibility is a second M.2 slot for added fast storage (though likely packaged in something safer for consumers to handle plugging in) and allowing metadata and smart system management to decide which games won't suffer greatly if consigned to the much slower external storage. A cheap and slow-ish M.2 SSD like the Intel 660p isn't going to lose much from being used externally over USB 3.2 Gen 2 but would still be a great improvement over current console storage. Except for those who feel the need to have absurdly large digital libraries entirely installed.

 

[Crashman]

It seems disingenuous to say they've got a USB 3.2 host if they aren't supporting the four lane 20 Gbps mode. This is a point of curiosity for me since having that capability would mean a great deal for expansion storage on the upcoming Sony and Microsoft games consoles. Since those machine will need far fewer PCIe 4 lanes in general, one possibility is a second M.2 slot for added fast storage (though likely packaged in something safer for consumers to handle plugging in) and allowing metadata and smart system management to decide which games won't suffer greatly if consigned to the much slower external storage. A cheap and slow-ish M.2 SSD like the Intel 660p isn't going to lose much from being used externally over USB 3.2 Gen 2 but would still be a great improvement over current console storage. Except for those who feel the need to have absurdly large digital libraries entirely installed.

This is not an AMD issue, it's a USB-IF issue. The group has essentially rendered the number after the decimal point useless, so we'd might as well just call it USB 3.x and then shorten that to USB 3. The part that matters under its current naming scheme is the Gen rating, where Gen1 means 5Gb/s, Gen2 means 10Gb/s, and Gen 2x2 means that two Gen2 ports are bonded to provide up to 20Gb/s over two pathways.

 

[velocityg4]

The write up and block diagrams aren't clear. At least they aren't to me. I'd expect each block to be an exclusive capability. As in, whatever goes on in one block does not affect the others.

One interpretation is that a motherboard could support this setup concurrently.
CPU Connections

• 1 PCIe 4.0 x16 card
• 1 NVMe 4.0 x4 SSD
• Audio
• DDR4 Dual Channel
• 4 USB 3.2 Gen2
• SPI, TPM, UEFI
• PCH

PCH Connections

• 8 SATA III
• 8 USB 3.2 Gen2
• 4 USB 2.0
• 2 NVMe x4 SSD with x8 PCIe 4.0 remaining for lower expansion slots (from 16 PCIe 4.0 in blue box)

Another is a more limited view. Yes there are more options. I'm just taking an example from each blue block.
CPU

• 24 Lanes total
• 4 Lanes used by PCH leaving 20 remaining
• 20 remaining lanes shared by PCIe x16 slot, NVMe, USB 3.2 Gen 2
• Audio, SPI, TPM, UEFI have their own connections

PCH

• 16 total shared lanes
• Split up between SATA, USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 2.0, NVMe and extra PCIe slots. However, the motherboard maker divvies it up or dependent on which features a user makes use of.

I just want to clarify. Which of the blocks is exclusive? If not all of them. Which are dependent upon the configuration of others?

 

[Crashman]

The write up and block diagrams aren't clear. At least they aren't to me. I'd expect each block to be an exclusive capability. As in, whatever goes on in one block does not affect the others.

One interpretation is that a motherboard could support this setup concurrently.
CPU Connections

• 1 PCIe 4.0 x16 card
• 1 NVMe 4.0 x4 SSD
• Audio
• DDR4 Dual Channel
• 4 USB 3.2 Gen2
• SPI, TPM, UEFI
• PCH

PCH Connections

• 8 SATA III
• 8 USB 3.2 Gen2
• 4 USB 2.0
• 2 NVMe x4 SSD with x8 PCIe 4.0 remaining for lower expansion slots (from 16 PCIe 4.0 in blue box)

Another is a more limited view. Yes there are more options. I'm just taking an example from each blue block.
CPU

• 24 Lanes total
• 4 Lanes used by PCH leaving 20 remaining
• 20 remaining lanes shared by PCIe x16 slot, NVMe, USB 3.2 Gen 2
• Audio, SPI, TPM, UEFI have their own connections

PCH

• 16 total shared lanes
• Split up between SATA, USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 2.0, NVMe and extra PCIe slots. However, the motherboard maker divvies it up or dependent on which features a user makes use of.

I just want to clarify. Which of the blocks is exclusive? If not all of them. Which are dependent upon the configuration of others?

How about we split the difference and ignore the PCH to CPU connnection? Let me explain:
We're told the CPU has 24 lanes and the PCH 16. But we're also told the PCH connection detracts from the CPU but not the PCH. That's impossible, each side needs four lanes. So we're being told nonsense. And since we already know that the CPU supports an x16 GPU, an x4 NVMe drive, and four USB 3.2 ports simultaneously, the notion of detracting four for the PCH connection makes no sense.

That leaves:

CPU

• 1 PCIe 4.0 x16 card
• 1 NVMe 4.0 x4 SSD
• 4 USB 3.2 Gen2
• DDR4 Dual Channel, Audio, SPI, TPM, UEFI, PCH have their own connections

PCH

• 16 total shared lanes
• Split up between SATA, USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 2.0, NVMe and extra PCIe slots. However, the motherboard maker divvies it up or dependent on which features a user makes use of.

 

[velocityg4]

How about we split the difference and ignore the PCH to CPU connnection? Let me explain:
We're told the CPU has 24 lanes and the PCH 16. But we're also told the PCH connection detracts from the CPU but not the PCH. That's impossible, each side needs four lanes. So we're being told nonsense. And since we already know that the PCH supports an x16 GPU, an x4 NVMe drive, and four USB 3.2 ports simultaneously, the notion of detracting four for the PCH connection makes no sense.

That leaves:

CPU

• 1 PCIe 4.0 x16 card
• 1 NVMe 4.0 x4 SSD
• 4 USB 3.2 Gen2
• DDR4 Dual Channel, Audio, SPI, TPM, UEFI, PCH have their own connections

PCH

• 16 total shared lanes
• Split up between SATA, USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 2.0, NVMe and extra PCIe slots. However, the motherboard maker divvies it up or dependent on which features a user makes use of.

Great, that clears it up.

 

[Crashman]

Great, that clears it up.

Great. Please note that I corrected a mistake after reading what I said on your post. It's the CPU that supports the graphics card, an NVMe drive, and four USB 3.x ports simultaneously, because that's carried over from the previous CPU.