AMD rumored to announce Zen 4 X670 Extreme chipset at Computex next week
AMD just confirmed that its next generation mobile and desktop PC innovations including new CPUs, GPUs and software will be unveiled at Computex in a keynote presented by CEO Lisa Su next week, so at least the new Zen 4 processors along with the RDNA 3 GPUs are expected to make an appearance. With the new processors, AMD is also changing the socket and thus a motherboard upgrade will be mandatory. With this change we will also see new motherboard chipsets, which, according to a new report from TechPowerUP, will feature three tiers. The budget-oriented models are rumored to be based on the B650 chipset, while the more expensive versions will feature the X670 and X670 Extreme edition versions.
For some reason, TechPowerUP has taken down the report, but, luckily, Videocardz also cites the leaked info in a recent article. It looks like the X670E chipset is using the same silicon as the X670 one, yet AMD apparently requires motherboard makers to include PCIe 5.0 connectivity both for the GPU and storage devices on the more expensive mobo versions with the X670E, whereas X670 mobos can be either full PCIe 4.0, or full PCIe 5.0. B650 mobos would solely stick with PCIe 4.0. AMD already confirmed that the new platform will also offer DDR5 compatibility, but, unlike Intel’s Alder Lake platform where DDR4 and DDR5 versions co-exist, the new motherboards from AMD might exclusively support DDR5, at least according to a recent Tom’s Hardware report citing a Chinese source.
As far as I/O support goes, the X670 and X670E motherboards are expected to feature a dual Promontory 21 chip design, which should offer the needed bandwidth uplift for the PCIe 5.0 requirements, plus possible USB4 support. Tom’s Hardware reports that the B650 motherboards would only feature one Promontory 21 chip, hence the PCIe 4.0 limitations. Still, these budget models may get a more robust port selection compared to the current B550 motherboards.
Buy the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming WiFi II motherboard on Amazon
Source(s)
