ASUS STRIX B550-I Gaming review - Ryzen 3000

Name: ASUS STRIX B550-I Gaming review
Brand: ASUS STRIX B550-I GAMING

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 07/03/2020 01:57 PM [

] 8 comment(s)

The Ryzen 3000 - Generation 3 (Matisse) processors

As you all know, ever since 2019 AMD has been making a series of announcements on its processor platform, several procs based on the Ryzen 3000 series, and that the B550 / X570 chipset. We’ll first walk through all that became available in Q4 2019 to get you an idea of has been released and, of course, talk a bit more about the chiplet design and what that is all about. Meet the processors that are going to be injected into the market over the past months:

16-core Ryzen 9 3950X will be priced 749 USD
12-core Ryzen 9 3900X will be priced 499 USD
8-core Ryzen 7 3800X will be priced 399 USD
8-core Ryzen 7 3700X will be priced 329 USD
6-core Ryzen 5 3600X will be priced 249 USD
6-core Ryzen 5 3600 will be priced 199 USD
4-core Ryzen 3 3300X will be priced 120 USD
4-core Ryzen 3 3100 will be priced 99 USD

AMD announced eight Ryzen 3000 processors with a spread of four, all the way upwards to sixteen core products. Ryzen 3100/3300X with four cores and eight threads (4c/8t), 3600(X) with six cores and twelve threads, 3700(X) (8c/16t), 3800X (8c/16t) And Ryzen 9 3900X (12c/24t). And that means silicon with two 8-core CPU dies immediately enters the market. AMD at the time promised IPC increases of almost 15% and even 25% when you add the increase in clock frequency. Most Ryzen models will get Turbo bins towards 4.2~4.6 GHz. The flagship processor not being Threadripper, the Ryzen 9 3950X is a sixteen core part with thirty-two threads and a Turbo running upwards to 4.7 GHz.


CPU	Cores / Threads	Clock speed/turbo (GHz)	Cache (total)	PCIe lanes CPU+x570 chiplet)	MSRP
Ryzen 9 3950X	16/32	3.5 / 4.7	72MB	40	$ 749
Ryzen 9 3900X	12/24	3.8 / 4.6	70MB	40	$ 499
Ryzen 7 3800X	8/16	3.9 / 4.5	36MB	40	$ 399
Ryzen 7 3700X	8/16	3.6 / 4.4	36MB	40	$ 329
Ryzen 5 3600X	6/12	3.8 / 4.4	35MB	40	$ 249
Ryzen 5 3600	6/12	3.6 / 4.2	35MB	40	$ 199
Ryzen 3 3300X	4/8	3.8/4.3	18MB	40	$ 120
Ryzen 3 3100	4/8	3.6/3.9	18MB	40	$ 99

Ryzen 3000 (Matisse) delivers 24 lanes PCIe 4.0

Ryzen 3000 CPUs have a total of 24 PCIe Gen4 lanes, yes, Gen 4.0. Four out of the twenty-four are used for the interconnect to the B550/X570 chipset, leaving 20 lanes Gen 4.0 for other utilization. 16 lanes (PCIe x16) are intended for graphics cards that are connected as x16 or two at x8. Compared to Gen 3.0, a Gen 4.0 x8 link would offer similar bandwidth to a PCIe 3.0 x16. Four more PCIe lanes from the CPU are designed for fast storage such as PCIe 4.0 NVMe compatible SSDs. In addition to all that, a sidenote - AMD has integrated USB 3.2 Gen2 support into the CPU, which means you get four 10 Gbps USB ports at SuperSpeed, there literally is a chipset chip inside the processor.

The B550 chipset

AMD also is launching its budget chipset, I would say it is very close in similarity towards X470. Meaning the chipset is PCIe Gen 3.0 including the uplink towards the processor. That also means the interlink between the chipset and CPU is running over four Gen 3 lanes. The good news is that with four extra Gen 4 lanes from the CPU, you can still opt to go with an M2 PCIe 4.0 slot, this goes as well for your video card. But let's compare a bit:


Chipset	End-user	USB 3.2 Gen 2	USB 2.0	SATA3	Interconnect	OC Support
B550	Mainstream	2	6	4+4	x4 Gen3	Yes
X570	Enthusiast	8	4	4+8	x4 Gen4	Yes

So compared to the top-end X570, it offers fewer USB 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gb/s) ports, the chipset basically does not support PCI Express 4.0, and communicates with the Ryzen processor via four PCI-E 3.0 lines (instead of PCI-E 4.0), which limits the total bandwidth controllers built into it.


PCIe Version	Line Code	Transfer Rate	x1 Bandwidth	x4	x8	x16
1.0	8b/10b	2.5 GT/s	250 MB/s	1 GB/s	2 GB/s	4 GB/s
2.0	8b/10b	5 GT/s	500 MB/s	2 GB/s	4 GB/s	8 GB/s
3.0	128b/130b	8 GT/s	984.6 MB/s	3.938 GB/s	7.877 GB/s	15.754 GB/s
4.0	128b/130b	16 GT/s	1.969 GB/s	7.877 GB/s	15.754 GB/s	31.508 GB/s

So the main thing to remember, you can connect an NVMe M.2 SSD over PCIe Gen 4 as well as a graphics card as there PCIe Gen 4.0 is managed by the processor. The chipset itself is PCIe Gen 3.0 along with everything connected to it. Compared to B450 however, it's a significant update. PCE Gen 4 M2 SSDs are still pretty exclusive, however, as with everything in the world of technology, it'll evolve and become the new standard in the time to come. With B550 you'll at the very least be prepared for that.

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