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AMD Announces X300 and X370 AM4 Motherboards For Ryzen, All CPUs Unlocked (hothardware.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the fresh-new-hardware dept.

MojoKid writes: AMD has a lot riding on Ryzen, its new generation CPU architecture that is supposed to return the chip designer to a competitive position versus Intel in the high-end desktop X86 processor market. Late last week, at CES 2017, AMD has lined up over a dozen high-performance AM4 motherboards from five hardware partners, including ASRock, ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI. All AM4 motherboards are built around one of two desktop chipsets for Ryzen, the AMD X370 or X300. Motherboards based on the X370 chipset are intended for power users and gamers. These boards bring more robust overclocking controls and support for dual graphics cards, along with more I/O connectivity and dual-channel DDR4 memory support. The X300 is AMD's chipset for mini-ITX motherboards for small form factor (SFF) system platforms. The X300 also supports dual-channel DDR4 memory, PCIe 3.0, M.2 SATA devices, NVMe, and USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 1. Finally, AMD representatives on hand at CES also reported that all Ryzen processors will be multiplier unlocked, hopefully for some rather flexible overclocking options. There will also be several processors in the family, with varying core counts depending on SKU, at launch.

15 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. No surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nothing surprising here. Its not about the motherboard for ryzen, its all about the new CPU architecture and until we see benchmarks, there's Nothing To See Here.

    1. Re:No surprise by Rockoon · · Score: 2

      Screw benchmarks. How cool can they run when underclocked. Will these be viable for passive cooling gaming rigs?

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    2. Re:No surprise by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That depends entirely on what benchmark you're looking at.

      If you're goal is to play GooSplatter 2017 at 3840x2160@144Hz, then staring at a benchmark that reports the frame rate of GooSplatter 2017's rendering engine, with representative scenes from the game is an entirely reasonable thing to do.

      Don't assume that all people staring at benchmarks don't understand what each test is actually measuring.

    3. Re:No surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      WTF? How do you decide which graphics card to buy? Let me guess, you just look at the tech specs and your massive brain can work out how well a particular game will run taking the bus size/frequency/no. of texture units etc. etc. into account?

  2. There are other chipsets for AM4 boards by Lorphos · · Score: 3, Informative

    The post states:

    "All AM4 motherboards are built around one of two desktop chipsets for Ryzen, the AMD X370 or X300."

    That's wrong. If you look at the article the most common chipset will probably be the B350. The X370 is for "enthusiasts" who want to use multiple graphics cards.

    1. Re:There are other chipsets for AM4 boards by cloud.pt · · Score: 3, Informative

      But the same original article stated it verbatim: "All 16 AM4 motherboards that are on tap are built around two desktop chipsts for Ryzen, X370 and X300." so OP has an excuse for being mislead (he did omit the "on tap" part though).

      My interpretation is that what they meant by "on tap" is what was being displayed at CES. OP failed to quote an important part, but at the same time, what they display at CES is likely what's coming to market first (it's what they prototyped easier), so if the market starts with those 2 chipsets, you will likely see them first on retail.

      I also believe that, unlike Intel's chips and chipsets, you will see more of the enthusiast stuff from AMD's CPU in the wild simply because the target market is gonna be the cost-saving enthusiast, so you will either have the "cheap-o gaming rig" type enthusiasts going for the x350 or the the "small gaming rig " type enthusiasts for the x300. You will rarely see the IT admin type going for the stable, "unoverclockable" B350 - those guys will still favor Intel for some years, they favor stability that goes beyond the first batch of reviews. I'm guessing the B350 is more for pre-built, run-off-the-mill, low-cost machines from OEMs like Dell, HP, Asus and whatnot. These sell a lot but they also make pay less to individual parts makers (margins go mostly to the assembler OEM). A good example is AMD having the golden share of the latest gen console CPU/GPU (both xbox one and ps4 sport AMD chips all around), yet Intel AND Nvidia both are miles ahead of profit from single part sales (notebook hegemony also helps).

  3. Just unlocked CPU multipliers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Or unlocked/unsigned management processors as well?

    I don't know about you, but the latter is reason enough for me to pass on new AMD processors in the post AM3+ generation.

    Does anyone else feel the same way?

    Given that a probable method for disable is available for Intel ME hardware today (although not for GPU and other cores in the newest chips), newer Intel chips make slightly more sense than AMD's versions without full audits of both.

    For the non-sheeple, none of the current-gen desktop-competitive processors that cost less than a used car are available without some form of potential DRM or system compromise. Is that really what you want in a central and overly relied upon part of your life?

    1. Re:Just unlocked CPU multipliers... by NotAPK · · Score: 5, Informative

      I applaud your criticism of management co-processors (Intel vPro, Intel ME, Intel AMT, AMD PSP) as while they may have a place in the enterprise world (assuming those IT techs can secure them properly) they are an anathema to home users. I don't support the idea that we all have to be lumped with these back-doors to our systems and believe we should all be able to either choose CPUs that lack them, or disable them entirely (motherboard jumper anyone?) as we wish. Of course I'm voting with my wallet, but the options are shrinking year by year...

      Can you expand on why you think Intel is the lesser of two evils here?

      For those unsure of what this is about, there is a discussion here and some really good info here. But look out for Leah Rowe at that last link: that bitch be crazy!! [Citation]

    2. Re:Just unlocked CPU multipliers... by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      and believe we should all be able to either choose CPUs that lack them, or disable them entirely (motherboard jumper anyone?) as we wish.

      If anyone can enable it via malware, they've already totally rooted your PC. If there is a secret NSA knock from the outside, it'll just ignore the jumper. Even if you buy one of the CPUs that lack this feature, you don't really know if Intel has fused it off. If they reuse design blocks it's quite possible entire product lines that don't offer that functionality have it anyway. If you're that paranoid maybe the easiest is a to use a third party NIC? Install a hardware firewall to monitor your connection? Personally I think a hack like that would be way too valuable a secret to risk exposing by going after consumers. There's probably a ton of military, big industry and infrastructure servers that run Intel and full, virtually undiscoverable backdoor access to that would be an espionage gold mine.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  4. Not clear enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not clear to me whether it supports USB 3.1 Gen 1 or USB 3.1 Gen 1

  5. Hooray! New stuff for people like me by sabbede · · Score: 2, Funny

    who can't afford Intel prices!

  6. I know I'm not alone... by Jethro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...but when I hear of new technology in this arena, I don't really think "Ooh Dual Channel DDR400!" or "Finally USB 3.1!" or whatever.

    I just want to get my hands on some of this stuff and build a new system with it. Or several.

    I don't even need to replace any of my current computers. I just love building them, and getting to build stuff with new components (be they AMD- or Intel-based) is just fun.

    The last system I built was my gaming rig, and it's the most powerful machine I've ever made. As soon as it was up and running I wanted to sell it so I could use the money to build another one.

    Kinda wish I could do that for a living, really, but the market for Artisanal Hand-Crafted Desktops is kind of rough ):

    --


    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
  7. Re:Hooray! New stuff for people like me by ckatko · · Score: 3, Informative

    My favorite part is how Intel CPU prices "magically" drop in price whenever AMD releases a new CPU.

  8. Actually there's 5 chipsets by slashmydots · · Score: 2

    The summary is basically a lie. There's the X370, B350, A320, X300, and A300 chipsets. By the way, is anyone else concerned about the 8 lanes of PCI-E? Intel Z170 has 16-20 if I remember correctly.

    1. Re:Actually there's 5 chipsets by sirber · · Score: 2

      The summary is basically a lie. There's the X370, B350, A320, X300, and A300 chipsets. By the way, is anyone else concerned about the 8 lanes of PCI-E? Intel Z170 has 16-20 if I remember correctly.

      Most probably the CPU will host the main GPU at x16, and the mobo chipset the second one at x8

      --
      Be or ben't