How about the expansion capabilities of the X670 and B650?

How about the expansion capabilities of the X670 and B650?

How about the expansion capabilities of the X670 and B650?

AMD’s X670 motherboard has been determined to use a dual-chip design.

It shares the same FCH chip as the B650, but the X670 uses two, while the B650 only needs one.

This chip is produced by ASMedia and adopts TSMC 6nm. Process, how are the two FCHs on the X670 motherboard connected to the CPU? What about the scalability of the AM5 platform in the future?

Techpowerup released an introduction to the expansion capabilities of the AM5 platform, including the IOD and FCH chips of the CPU.

Let’s take a look at the expansion capabilities of the IODs.

The IOD expansion capabilities of the Zen 4 processor are still very strong.

It has a total of 28 PCI-E Channels, all channels are 5.0, 16 of which are used to connect the graphics card, and can also be split into two x8 slots.

It is not clear whether it can be further split, but AMD can be split into 4 before. x4.

The remaining 8 channels are general-purpose channels, of which at least 4 are dedicated to M.2 ports, and the remaining 4 channels depend on the motherboard manufacturer.

They can be used to make Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 interfaces, or they can continue to be made. M.2 port.

There are also 4 chips used to connect to the FCH chip. Although the IOD side can provide PCI-E 5.0 x4, the FCH side only supports PCI-E 4.0, so the interface bandwidth is only PCI-E 4.0 x4 like the X570 motherboard.

However, this also leaves a way for future upgrades of FCH to increase bandwidth. After all, IOD may be used in multiple generations of products.

The IOD can also provide 4 video output ports, which can be made into DP 2.0, HDMI 2.1 or DVI ports.

The USB ports include 4 USB 3.2 Gen 2 and one USB 2.0, of which three USB 3.2 supports DP Alt mode.

The code name of the FCH chip is Promontory 21, and only one is used on the B650 motherboard, while the two chips on the X670/X670E motherboard are connected to the CPU IOD in a daisy chain.

It has a total of 16 PCI-E channels, among which 4 are PCI-E 3.0, but they share the channel with the SATA 6Gbps port. It is up to the board manufacturer to make a SATA port or a PCI-E port.

The remaining 12 are PCI-E 4.0, of which 4 are fixed uplink communication channels, that is, only 8 are actually available.

On the X670/X670E motherboard, the main FCH has to use 4 of them to connect to the secondary FCH , which means that the B650 chip can provide 8 PCI-E 4.0 channels, while the X670/X670E is 12.

In terms of USB interface, this chip can provide a total of 6 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two of which can be combined into one USB 3.2 Gen 2*2 port. The specific method is left to the board factory to decide, and there are also 6 USB 2.0 ports.

To sum up, the FCH of the B650 can provide a total of 8 PCI-E 4.0, 4 SATA 6Gbps ports, 6 USB 3.2 Gen 2 or 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2*2 plus 4 USB 3.2 Gen2, 6 USB 2.0.

The FCH of the X670/X670E can provide a total of 12 PCI-E 4.0 ports.

As for the SATA ports, ASRock has 8 SATA 6Gbps ports, and other board manufacturers have 6, which means that there are two PCI- E 3.0 channels are available, a total of 12 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports or 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2*2 plus 8 USB 3.2 Gen 2, 12 USB 2.0.

In contrast, the current PCH of Intel Z690 can provide a total of 12 PCI-E 4.0, 16 PCI-E 3.0, 8 SATA 6Gbps, and a maximum of 14 USB interfaces, 4 of which can be made into USB 3.2 Gen 2*2 , up to 10 USB 3.2 Gen 2 or Gen 1 ports, and the upstream x8 DMI 4.0 bandwidth is basically PCI-E 4.0 x8, which is stronger than the two X670 chips combined.