No, AMD Still Isn’t Enabling PCIe 4 On 300/400 Series Boards
by Ryan Smith on July 12, 2019 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- PCIe 4.0
- Ryzen 3000
Following this week’s launch of AMD’s new Ryzen 3000 series of processors, reports have once again begun circulating that PCIe 4 will be available on some existing 300 & 400 series boards. This comes despite AMD’s official statement last month that they would not be allowing the feature on older boards, as PCIe 4’s tighter signal integrity standards would have led to, at best, a highly fragmented market where some boards work, some boards don’t, and some boards may be outright marginal. At the time the company stated that the feature would be stripped from the AGESA that goes into the final Ryzen 3000 launch BIOSes for older boards.
So, to get right to the heart of matters, I reached out to AMD PR this evening to find out what’s going on with PCIe 4 support. The short version then is that no, AMD’s plans have not changed: PCIe 4 support will be disabled in the shipping AGESA for these boards.
Our plan is unchanged. For the reliability and consistency reasons cited at Computex, we still intend to disable PCIe Gen 4 for pre-X570 motherboards. That AGESA is being released to motherboard manufacturers soon.
As things stand, any boards that currently support the feature would be using pre-release AGESAs, and as we’ve seen with our own BIOS issues, the Ryzen 3000 BIOS situation is still evolving fast. So with AMD intending to permanently disable the feature – and prevent any workarounds – AMD’s goals haven’t wavered. At best, the few boards that have beta BIOSes with the feature will lose them in the future, unless users opted to stick with an unsupported (and almost certainly buggy) BIOS.
Going forward, proper PCIe 4 support will continue to require an AMD 500-series board specifically designed to meet the signal integrity requirements for the higher speed standard. Right now, this includes boards based on AMD’s X570 chipset; and while the company hasn’t announced other 500-series chipsets, we’re expecting to see more in due time.
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Korguz - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
melgross then why did it cost intel a few billion in fines that they had to pay amd ??Qasar - Tuesday, July 16, 2019 - link
melgross " AMD’s sales didn’t change. " maybe because the damage was already done ? and as Korguz said, if it was legal, when why did intel have to pay amd a few billion in damages/fines ?shabby - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
Welcome back HStewart, we missed you ❤️❤️❤️How will pcie4 fail with amd's implementation? Please go into a deep dive for us...
Qasar - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
shabby, that would be awesome if HStewart would do that.. i would LOVE to see his reasoning for once as to why he thinks PCIe 4 will fail with AMD. amd blinders, thats GOOD one, i wonder how big and thick HIS intel blinders are. i would also like to see where he gets this BS about intel skipping pcie4 and going straight to pcie 5. sorry HStewart, but azfacea is correct, if intel had their wait, we would still be on pcie 3 and quad cores." Yes Intel is struggling with 10nm and new machines but they have a lot of technology. Just remember Pentium 4 days and then intel came out with I series and dominated AMD so much. " this is golden !!! they also have A LOT of money, clout in the tech industry, and with that comes bribes, kick backs and threats. JUST like they did back in the pentium 4 days, and look what that COST your beloved intel HStewart. gosh this guy really IS a shill, he HAS to find a way to make intel look better...
Rudde - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
“The use of PCIe Gen 5.0 is also a big element to Agilex, as it allows customers to connect directly with future PCIe 5.0 host devices”https://www.anandtech.com/show/14149/intel-agilex-...
I do not endorse HStewards opinions, but it seems to me like Intel might skip pcie gen4.
azfacea - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
"a lot of technology" i know right. 5g modems and shitRichlet - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
I'd say you have Intel blinders on. And I'm currently running an old Intel CPU. Not for long though. Lemme guess.. Intel cpu and Nvidia gpu. >.<Richlet - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
Agreed! Intel is probably crapping their pants because AMD has been catching up so fast, especially in heavily threaded programs. Gamers only take you so far.Korguz - Sunday, July 14, 2019 - link
Richlet, you are also forgetting that amd now has IPC parity ( or very close to it ), uses less power, is as fast or faster, while still charging less, case in point, ryzen 7 3800x, $550 VS i9 9900k, $700Tewt - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
And yet, Intel still gets the advantage because now when reading articles that 'minor' power savings is hardly worth mentioning. Yeesh, AMD can't catch a break. When AMD uses more power, you see comments in the spirit but not exact wording of "it would be competitive if not for the power consumption" or "good numbers but the power you have to use to reach that is ridiculous". When Intel is behind in power consumption you now get "wow, I'll save $7 a year now if go with the AMD" or "it runs a little warm but look at that single thread performance and the fps in my games, too bad for AMD because I want 220fps as opposed to 208fps when playing Fortnite".That is why I don't buy anyone accusing AMD fans of being shills. I don't frequent Intel articles so can't say what kind of AMD presence exists there but I can definitely say I constantly see Intel shills on these AMD articles. If their product is so great they wouldn't need to be here trying to convince others and they would be busy enjoying their overpriced performance.