Newegg's Black November Sale: ASRock X570 Motherboards.

Hi.

Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro AM4 Motherboard. Mid Range at $249. Here is a link:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14490/gi ... ut-wi-fi-6

Inside the link you read about other prices 'premium X570 Aorus Ultra ($299), and the highly cost-effective X570 Aorus Elite ($199)'.

Regards Carsten.

Thanks Carsten - Not as pricey as we thought. Assume Asus will be similar.

Hi.

I was suggested to reuse my old threads to make it easier to search for. This is the first time I try it, and this time I also changed the heading of the thread.

At Computex 2019 in end of May did Asus publish this Edgeup link, describing many Asus X570 motherboards. I will let the link start on page 3 where the list of the motherboards begin. Later will I suggest you to also read page 1 and 2:

https://edgeup.asus.com/2019/the-x570-m ... ess-4-0/3/

To show the price I tried to search Amazon.com for 'X570 asus motherboard'. Soting by: Newest Arrivals produced the best result:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=x570+asus+mo ... -desc-rank

I expect to post other brands in a couple of days, as I find good links. But I know many of you like Asus motherboards.

Regards Carsten.

Asus Prime Pro at $249 looks like a good option. Early benchmarks of 8 and 12 core 7nm cpus look promising. Waiting for Puget tests. Also waiting to see performance advantage of PCI4.0.
Still early days but Intel cutting prices already. Either way good news for consumers. Thanks

Still early days but Intel cutting prices already.

Hi.

Amazon.com are cutting prices on some previous generation of AMD CPU's. Here are some links:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-r ... 39810.html

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-r ... 39812.html

Regards Carsten.

Hi.

Here is a link to: 'The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed'

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14161/th ... d-overview


And here is a link to the last page called: 'Choosing The Right X570 Motherboard'

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14161/th ... verview/38

Regards Carsten.

Hi.

I expect the cheaper motherboards with the coming B550 Chipset first will arrive in a couple of months.
Rumors on the internet expect that they only will have PCIe ver 3.0 and not PCIe ver 4.0 Interface as the X570 motherboards.

But the new Ryzen 3000 CPU's can already now use the previous generation X470, B450 and X370 motherboards. It will just require a BIOS Update. If you use a 3rd gen Ryzen CPU in a 1st gen or 2nd gen motherboard can you of cause not use all the latest functions such as the PCIe ver 4.0 Interface
But will be limited by the functions your previous generation motherboard support.

Earlier this year was it expected that some previous gen motherboard with very short copper lanes from the AM4 CPU socket and to the first PCIe x16 socket will be able to use PCIe ver 4.0 Graphics Card at PCIe ver 4.0 speeds. But that will not be the case. A few new BIOS's support it. But it didn't work for all. So AMD Product management decided that from next BIOS update will the possibilities to try to run a Graphics Card at PCIe ver 4.0 speed be removed from 1st gen and 2nd gen motherboards.


An cheap possibility will be to use one of the new Ryzen 3000 CPU's in a 2nd gen B450 Motherboard. It just require a BIOS Update. But the 2nd gen motherboards are not as powerful as the 3rd gen motherboards. And the B line of motherboards are not as powerful as the X line of motherboards. But it will work with just after an BIOS Update. So don't expect a X570 System.

Here is a link to 'Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards'

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13091/an ... therboards

And to the last page called 'Choosing the Right B450 Motherboard'

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13091/an ... rboards/22

The link shows 8 x B450 motherboard with 2 x M2 sockets. Some X570 motherboards have 3 x M2 sockets, all at full speed:

ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming
ASRock B450 Gaming K4
ASRock B450 Pro4
ASRock B450M Pro4
GIGABYTE B450 Aorus Pro
GIGABYTE B450 Aorus Pro WiFi
MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
MSI B450M Mortar
MSI B450M Mortar Titanium

I know that at least one of the Gigabyte B450 and one of the MSI B450 motherboard have BIOS Updates to use the new Ryzen 3000 CPU's.
It is the GIGABYTE B450 Aorus Pro

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B4 ... -rev-10#kf

1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4/x2 SSD support) (M2A_SOCKET)
1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 PCIe 3.0 x2 SSD support)(M2B_SOCKET)
* Refer to "1-7 Internal Connectors," for the installation notices for the M.2 and SATA connectors.

From: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B4 ... v-10/sp#sp


And the MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-GA ... -CARBON-AC

PCI_E2, PCI_E3, PCI_E4 and PCI_E5 slots will be unavailable when installing M.2 PCIe SSD in M2_2 slot.
SATA5 and SATA6 ports will be unavailable when installing a M.2 device in M2_1 slot.

From: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-GA ... cification

I expect that one of the M2 slot only are x2. I recommend to use this slower x2 M2 slot for your Windows system drive.


I don't know which af the Asus or AsRock B450 motherboard that have both 2 x M2 slots and a BIOS Upgrade for the new Ryzen 3000 CPU. But I am sure one SSD in of the M2 slot on all B450 motherboards will operate at x2 speed instead of the x4 speed on all the X570 Motherboards.

And for all NON X570 Motherboards with the possibilities to Upgrade the BIOS for use with the new Ryzen 3000, do I recommend you make a plan for how to upgrade the BIOS.
You will need the right 1st gen or 2nd gen CPU during the Upgrade. So the procedure will be to first mount a spare CPU. Then Perform the BIOS Upgrade. Then Remove the spare CPU before you install the new Ryzen 3000 CPU. I think it will be a lot easier for you, if you can get the shop, where you bought your B450 motherboard to it it for you, may be for a small fee.

But sometime AMD will lend you an older processor to update your BIOS. here is a link:

https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-will-lend-y ... ryzen-apu/

And finally links with the BIOS Upgrade itself:

https://www.asrock.com/news/index.asp?iD=4238

https://www.gigabyte.com/Press/News/1689

https://www.asus.com/News/EtaH71Hbjuio1arV

https://www.msi.com/news/detail/4c78f7b ... bcb9ec0ba0

https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/news/ ... p?S_ID=366

Regards Carsten.

Hi.

What Ram and How many Ram sticks to choose?

A few low cost motherboard have only 2 and not 4 RAM sockets. I will suggest you avoid these 2 Ram sockets motherboards.

All AMD motherboards loves fast RAM modules, as the CPU's internal Infinity Fabric communication are connected to the speed of your Ram.

On the 1st and 2nd generation Ryzen CPU's are the max possible speed also dependent on the number of Ram modules inserted into the motherboard. Here is a link showing it:

https://community.amd.com/community/gam ... zen-system

As you can see in the table in above link, can you use faster Rams if you only use 2 Ram modules and NOT 4 modules. And you can also use faster Ram if you use Ram modules are of single and not dual Memory Ranks type.


But the new 3rd generation of Ryzen 3000 have a new designed Memory Controller. You can read more about it in this link:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14525/am ... yc-rome/11

On the AMD slide can you see AMD's Recommended Price/Perf Config: DDR4-3600 CL16.

Somewhere on the Internet did I see a table, showing that for 3rd gen Ryzen CPU's. The number of Ram modules used, or if it is Single or Dual Memory Rank modules don't limit the max speed, as on the 1st and 2nd gen Ryzen CPU's. But if you want to adjust the Ram Timing in you BIOS, do I personal still expect 2 Ram modules will allow faster fine tuning of you Ram, than 4 Ram modules.

And I will always recommend to use 2 x 16 GB Ram modules, instead of 4 x 8 GB Ram modules, as the 2 x 16 GB Ram modules always will give the possibility to double your Ram in the future.


And what do the CL number stand for. It is the Cas Latency. Here is a link to a table where you can compare the actual Cas Latency at different Ram Frequencies. The Ram with the lowest number are fastest.:

https://imgur.com/MhqKfkf

From: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comme ... _out_what/


All Motherboards have a QVL list for Ram modules, that the motherboard manufactures actually have testes and found OK for you motherboard. You can find it on the motherboard manufactures webpage. It is always a good place to start.


Do I suggest you to go out and buy very fast expensive Ram modules for your new Ryzen build, properly not. I will suggest you look into Ram speeds and prices and find the sweet spot, that can different dependent on what part of the world you live in.

And remember. Yes faster Ram do increase the performance of your new Ryzen build. But an alternative can also be, to steep up to the next Ryzen CPU's with more cores. And a 16 core version of the 3rd gen Ryzen CPU are coming to September.

Regards Carsten.

Thanks Carsten
Also interesting to note Asus claims they can support PCIe 4 on some of the older m/boards before X570. This may be good news for existing users looking to upgrade to 3000 cpus but is it a good option for new AMD users?
https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&u ... aF-ZLZvY3w

Also interesting to note Asus claims they can support PCIe 4 on some of the older m/boards before X570.

Hi.

Yes it was expected that some of the previous generation AM4 motherboard could use PCIe ver 4.0 Graphics Card located in the first x16 slot at PCIe ver 4.0 SPEEDS.
Some previous and current BIOS even support it. But as I wrote in my above post, it is not the case any more.

The exact quote comes from Robert Hallock, one of the Ryzen product managers at AMD, in a post on Reddit:

"Pre-X570 boards will not support PCIe Gen 4. There's no guarantee that older motherboards can reliably run the more stringent signaling requirements of Gen4, and we simply cannot have a mix of "yes, no, maybe" in the market for all the older motherboards. The potential for confusion is too high. When final BIOSes are released for 3rd Gen Ryzen (AGESA 1000+), Gen4 will not be an option anymore. We wish we could've enabled this backwards, but the risk is too great."

Regards Carsten.

Hi.

Today I will like to write about SSD drives.

There are many news about new models of SSD drives. But most of them can first be delivered in 2020. Here is a News link:

https://www.anandtech.com/tag/ssd

One of the exception is SSD's with the new Phison PS5016-E16 controller, but it is essentially the PS5012-E12 controller with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. Here is a link:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14599/ph ... -disclosed

As you van see, is the Sequential Max Read/Write increased. But I can tell you that the important Random Max Read/Write not increased.

Here is a link with more information on the Phison PS5016-E16 controller:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14449/ph ... ontrollers

And here is a link to: 'PCIe 4.0 SSD Exclusive: Testing Phison's PS5016-E16 NVMe Controller'

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ph ... 173-2.html

If you look at the 'Sustained Sequential Write Performance' paragraph on page 2 can you read:
'As you can see on our graphs, the E16 is faster than any other drive up until about the ~4-minute mark.
In testing, our sample absorbed up to a massive 368GB of data at over 4.2 GB/s for one minute and 25 seconds before performance degraded to native direct-to-TLC write speeds of about 600MB/s.'



That was some info on the state of the new PCIe ver 4.0 SSD's. But You don't need to buy all you new SSD at the same time as you new Ryzen CPU, Motherboard and RAM.
May be you already have some storage, you can bring over from your previous PC?
Or may be you only need to buy one SSD now, and can wait some months, before you buy the remaining. There are many way to do it. I don't know what will be the right way for you.

But Here are some information on the latest SSD with PCIe ver 3.0 Interface

Here is a Review of one of my favorite SSD: 'The Samsung 970 EVO Plus (250GB, 1TB) NVMe SSD Review: 96-Layer 3D NAND':

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13761/th ... ssd-review

And a recent link from 11 July about the 'Best SSDs 2019, From Budget SATA to Blazing NVMe':

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/be ... ,3891.html

I can't recommend the No 6. HP SSD EX920 (256GB). Even for the 256 GB size. It is a rebranded Adata XPG SX8200 with HP own firmware. It will be faster than the Adata XPG SX8200 for small files.
But much slower when its Ram buffer is filled up. And a lot of users on the internet complain about that HP will not let then register their SSD for warranty. Here is a link:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-H ... 48#M162821



And finally Understanding SSD Endurance

Which endurance parameters to look for. It is the TBW (Terabytes written) or the drive writes per day DWPD. TBW tells the consumers how many terabytes can be written to the disk before it will begin to malfunction. DWPD (Drive writes per day) tells us how much of the disk can be written to everyday and still be expected to function within the warranty period. The equation is:

DWPD = (TBW of an SSD * 1000 Gb to Tb conversion factor)/(365 days * years of warranty * capacity of ssd in GB)

From: http://wiki.docking.org/index.php/Under ... ate_Drives


Low capacity SSD are much slower that medium capacity SSD drives. Many times will a SSD with half the capacity, also only have the half speed and half the TBW (Terabytes written) parameter. So many SSD Manufactures have decided not to make 128 GB SSD any more. Some even don't not make 256 GB SSD any more.

And recently have some manufacturers come up with SSD, nearly as good as Samsung.

And for your information. This is the last post I have planed to publish before the Amazon Prime Day 2019.

Regards Carsten.

Hi.

Newegg's Black November Sale: ASRock X570 PRO4 AM4 Motherboard to $149.99
and ASRock X570 Steel Legend AM4 Motherboard $179.99 was $209.99. Here is some links:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813157886

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813157894

Regards Carsten.