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AMD X370 B350 A320 X300 and B300 / A300 Compared - Only SLI for X370
AMD announced six chipsets for Ryzen based on AM4: X370, B350, A320 and the mini ITX X300, B300 and A300 with the X370 and B350 already in pre-order and availability next week.
The lads over at ComputerBase compiled an overview chart to demo the chipsets differences in a better to understand manner features wise. First off, it looks like only the X370 chipset is going to support SLI. That means the B350 would not support SLI (but does support Crossfire). THis information has been confirmed. We are not sure why but Nvidia might still be licensing SLI functionality and thus SLI supports adds a charge per sold motherboard. The B350 series is a more budget aimed one so the choice makes sense.
You'll notice there are 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes pulled from the Ryzen processor. Ryzen has 24 of them yet 4 are being used to interface with the chipset. Then depending on the chipset used it adds gen 2.0 PCIe lanes through the chipset. The X370 will add 8 lanes, B350 6 lanes and onwards. Have a peek at the chart for more details.
X370 B350 A320 X300 / B300 / A300 Ryzen (CPU) Bristol Ridge (APU)
PCIe 3.0
0
0
0
4
20 *
10
PCIe 2.0
8
6
4
0
0
0
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbit/s)
2
2
1
1
0
0
USB 3.0
6
2
2
2
4
4
USB 2.0
6
6
6
6
0
0
SATA 6 Gbit / s
4
2
2
2
2
2
SATA-Raid
0/1/10
0/1/10
0/1/10
0/1
-
-
Overclocking
Yes
Yes
-
Yes **
-
-
CrossFire / SLI
Yes / Yes
Yes / -
-
-
-
-
* 18 when 2 x SATA is running
** Only X300
Each chipset will add USB ports, but the Ryzen processor also offers four native USB 3.0 ports. There is support for RAID 0/1/10 configurations as well as Overclocking support on the X370, B350 and X300 chipset. Obviously the motherboard partners can add 3rd party chips to increase USB 3.0 and so on. The four PCIe 3.0 links for X300 / B300 / A300 seem to be a bit odd, we'll try and confirm that soon.
cryohellinc
Senior Member
Posts: 3423
Joined: 2014-10-20
Senior Member
Posts: 3423
Joined: 2014-10-20
#5397734 Posted on: 02/25/2017 01:59 AM
smear campaign, cheap and dirty.
smear campaign, cheap and dirty.
HeavyHemi
Senior Member
Posts: 6954
Joined: 2008-10-27
Senior Member
Posts: 6954
Joined: 2008-10-27
#5397741 Posted on: 02/25/2017 02:10 AM
Please elaborate.
smear campaign, cheap and dirty.
Please elaborate.
SSD_PRO
Senior Member
Posts: 180
Joined: 2013-02-07
Senior Member
Posts: 180
Joined: 2013-02-07
#5397761 Posted on: 02/25/2017 02:50 AM
Back the horses up on this one. This can't be real. You need PCIe 3.0 x4 to run modern M.2 drives and they come close to saturating at max loads. Unless they are going to allocate the remaining 4 lanes from the CPU to run M.2 direct, this would be a problem. Limiting the chipset to old PCIe 2.0 would be eyeroll but not un-amd. AMD has always suffered from reduced storage performance. My bet is this is fake. If real, not a deal breaker but very disappointing.
For anyone wanting to see the Z270 block diagram, here it is: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/images/diagrams/z270-chipset-block-diagram-16x9.png.rendition.intel.web.1072.603.png
edit - actually, now looking again, I see the * on the 20 lanes from the CPU. It drops to 18 if SATA is in use? I guess the suggestions is there are 16 lanes for graphics and 4 left for M.2/U.2, as long as you don't use any SATA ports? If you do then you get x2? Uh.... again I smell fake.
Back the horses up on this one. This can't be real. You need PCIe 3.0 x4 to run modern M.2 drives and they come close to saturating at max loads. Unless they are going to allocate the remaining 4 lanes from the CPU to run M.2 direct, this would be a problem. Limiting the chipset to old PCIe 2.0 would be eyeroll but not un-amd. AMD has always suffered from reduced storage performance. My bet is this is fake. If real, not a deal breaker but very disappointing.
For anyone wanting to see the Z270 block diagram, here it is: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/images/diagrams/z270-chipset-block-diagram-16x9.png.rendition.intel.web.1072.603.png
edit - actually, now looking again, I see the * on the 20 lanes from the CPU. It drops to 18 if SATA is in use? I guess the suggestions is there are 16 lanes for graphics and 4 left for M.2/U.2, as long as you don't use any SATA ports? If you do then you get x2? Uh.... again I smell fake.
Aura89
Senior Member
Posts: 8207
Joined: 2008-07-31
Senior Member
Posts: 8207
Joined: 2008-07-31
#5397764 Posted on: 02/25/2017 02:57 AM
....what?
smear campaign, cheap and dirty.
....what?
Click here to post a comment for this news story on the message forum.
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Posts: 36
Joined: 2016-12-23
Anyone else find it odd that the SFF chipsets add PCI-Express 3.0 rather then 2.0?
Also, this just confirms what i've been saying about SFF and USB, they do indeed have more then just what the processor gives
It's not odd, all AM4 Cpus are Socs, the X370, B350 and A320 are not true chipsets, they are I/o hubs that consume PCI-E gen3 from the cpu and enable secureBoot in the UEFI, just that; the SFF boards lack the I/O hub, so more PCI-E gen3 lanes are available, the X300 for example its really small and only handle secureBoot and overclocks, the rest is all provided by the CPU on SFFs boards.