AMD B550 motherboards with M2 PCIe 4.0 support would launch June 16th
Better late than never. AMD would be releasing AMD B550 motherboards that are PCIe 4.0 compatible on June 16th of this year. The B series motherboards are often lower priced products compared to the X series. That does entail less features and dimmed down specifications.
However, the reality is that most people are fine with an X16 slot, one M2 slot, two DIMM slots and a bit of audio to build a cost-effective gaming or internet PC. Back to the rumor though as it is just that, earlier on in the year it was Digitimes that claimed a release later this year, new chatter from unconfirmed industry sources, however, indicates the new June 16thy launch. And yes, we've already witnessed a few B550 leaks of course.
B550 would do with one M2 slot, however directly connected to the CPU with an x4 PCIe Gen 4.0 link. B550 chipset looks familiar to X470. Meaning PCIe Gen 3.0 is the biggest change compared to X570. 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. The rest, say for your video card thus is Gen 3.0.
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 |
Compared to the top-end X570, it offers fewer USB 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gb/s) ports, does not support PCI Express 4.0 from the chipset, 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. So only one M2 slot would do PCIe Gen 4.0.
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Why is the X570 stupid? It's one of the best chipsets out there lol.
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I was wondering when the B550 motherboards are going to be released. I might get a b550 motherboard with my new rig that I am planning on building this summer. This is indeed good news to me. I hope the price is right.
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It requires active cooling because it eats more electricity than a chipset should in 2019. Furthermore, something about the technical requirements forced the mobo makers to place it still in the usual place, physically, leaving the fan under the video card. It might be the maximum length of the PCB traces, I don't know. But since the chip is just a recycled CPU io die, after Asmedia failed to develop a real chipset, it kind of makes sense; it's an ad hoc solution of duct tape and bubble gum.
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@wavetrex What else did you want from something that is better than x470 but not x570? which was the non lame solution? enlighten us all.
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B450 has been confirmed to work for 4000 series but it will obviously depend per manufacturer and model if they bring out the bios update. I think most popular B450 boards like the MSI Mortar and Tomahawk for example will get decent support.