Intel Z390 Chipset Product Brief and Block Diagram posted
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Prometheus336
still ddr4 and just 24 pcie lanes, I can't say I'm not disappointed 🙁
HardwareCaps
I'm really interested to why people need so many PCIE lanes, I mean SLI and crossfire are dead basically. we have m.2 now and SATA SSDs are plenty fast. please help me understand
BlueRay
I suppose some people use many add on cards like sound and network cards along with 2 GPUs?
HardwareCaps
On a side note: from experience, external dacs are way better in terms of quality and comfort than internal audio cards.
OK, that sounds like it is 1% of the PC market maybe even less...maybe if you need several network cards but again that's server territory not consumers
Prometheus336
Well my biggest concern is to have 16+4+4 which will mean that I will be able to add just 2 m.2 drives. I also don't need to add network cards, and I use an external usb sound card.
Sli-wise speaking, yeah for me personally it doesn't really change a lot, but I have a couple of friends that are into video editing and rendering which would be really glad to go for a z390 system instead of paying the premium for the "professional tier" intel has to offer, because they are starting and they have a lot of expenses besides their PCs.
Ofc, you can argue that they can go for ryzen, but considering the RAM prices and how well scales AMD with faster RAMs, the price at the end is almost the same, with a slight advantage in performance for intel CPUs.
HardwareCaps
I'm just amazed, even Z370 has X2 PCIE 16 for SLI and 4-5 extra PCIE slots, that's a lot!
I get that going for professional tier hardware is far more expensive but that sounds professional enough for me... you can't complain about that...
Prometheus336
sorry but z370 has 24 pcie lanes as this one, for a 3 x16, you would need 48 pcie lanes. If there is the slot doesn't mean it will work at full speed.
About needing 2 cards for content creation etc. I admit I don't know if an x8 slot, will slow down the rendering as it slows down (by just a couple of frames) for games.
stefpats
Well i ll tell you my situation and u decide.I have 2 ssds,2 hdds for backups,one GFX gard,one sound card,one usb pcie card,and need two more SATA for optical bluray drive and one for the removable rack of my case since i use it with other hdd.So do you still think they re enough?I have Z370 and often i have to unplug things to plug other things.No they re not enough if you re at enthusiast level of hardware.
HardwareCaps
The difference in performance between gen 3 x8 and x16 is minimal for GPUs gaming or not. 2 high-end GPUs is enough for any kind of video rendering.. the rest could be used for nice quick storage which again is enough unless you're getting like the ridiculous 2GB/s PCIE ones which are aimed at professional platforms anyways.... I just don't get it.
user1
its not as amazing as it seems when you realise all 24 lanes together have a max bandwidth of pcie3.0x4 to the cpu (dmi 3.0), the chipset acts like a big pcie switch, great for plugging in lots of peripherals though.
HardwareCaps
ya but that's enough for 99% of the users... how many are actually using several PCIE SSDs with SLI configurations? almost none and they should get a professional hardware for that kind of thing...
386SX
So basically Z390 is Z370 with USB Port Disable, new Intel ME firmware and the OPTIONAL option of WLAN a/c? Well ... I was able to disable specific ports even on X79/C600, the Intel ME firmware is useless for most users I guess, and judging from >Z<390 it will be a 1,5 MB version anyway, so no remote features and for about 10 bucks you get a decent WLAN chip, for 30something with 833MBit+.
So why should a user upgrade to this platform?
HardwareCaps
wait the Z370 has 6 SATA 3's with 1-2 M.2 slots... how is that not enough for you?
user1
Not many, m.2 raid is becoming more popular as high speed drive prices come down, definitely something to keep in mind if your an enthusiast.
schmidtbag
M.2 alone is a reason why people want more PCIe lanes, seeing as it can use 4 of them. But, overall, I'm inclined to agree - most people really don't need more. That being said, I personally find full-size ATX boards for sockets AM4 and 1151 to be mostly pointless. mATX boards can offer pretty much everything you need on these platforms. The average home-built PC nowadays only has maybe 1 other expansion card other than a GPU, and a lot of the time that would be a wifi adapter. I'd much rather motherboards come with a M.2 E-keyed slot with only one or two PCIe lanes for things like Wifi.
If someone really wanted the extra full-size PCIe slots, there are cheap M.2 to PCIe converters out there. Get a cheap riser cable and you can make an mATX board emulate a full ATX.
Anyway... considering these are high-end boards, I still feel they should have at least 8 more PCIe lanes, so the primary x16 can run at full bandwidth. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Except 99% of users aren't buying boards like these; Z chipset boards are more for enthusiasts.
tunejunky
to me this is another Intel fail.
socket 1151 could easily have been fully compatible, excepting of course, chipset sales.
with the new AM4 X470 boards at least we have a feature set that will be used by over 50% of people buying them with backwards and forwards compatibility.
with that said, pcie/U2 storage prices are falling faster than knickers at a rave.
whether or not people *need* hyper-fast storage is irrelevant. people *want* it, or to be able to add it at a later date.
stefpats
It s not that simple,cause you see some SATA are disabled when you use the m.2 slot etc.So in my setup i have only 4 available SATA connectors plus the most but not all of PCIE.So the theoretical numbers are different from what u can actually use and it depends of what and how much you use.
So to cut a long story short,yes i would like Z390 to have more.Maybe its the Gigabyte board i have (Z370 Aorus Gaming 7) that limits the options down but still it doesnt suit me fine with no compromises made.
rl66
i am agree with you about multiple GPU.
Despite not adding too much in real condition, people might want to use full speed PCIe 3.0 x 16 With NVMe... wich is impossible with Z390.
A bit heretic on an high end mobo... I was expecting more too.
slyphnier
think big dude... if u using ur usage as model, then u wont find need more
most people wont use up all those lanes TRUE
but for some people, they need more lanes also TRUE
but again intel need to give a bump (more) pci lane, not for real-use but simply for upgrade-term, got what i mean ?
well amd X399 got total 64 lanes right ?
if we talk intel X299, it can get max 68 lanes? (cmiiw) but again it need i9 $2000 cpu
HardwareCaps
Well I assume people wants improvement in any aspect of the platform as time goes on....my fear is that the Z series which is the only MBs you can OC with intel will be more expensive with more PCIe /PCH lanes, making overclocking on intel platform more irrelevent but its probably intel's greed there.
