AMD X570 vs. X470, X370 Chipset Comparison, Channels, Features, and Differences | GamersNexus

The AMD X570 chipset marks the arrival of some technologies initially deployed on Epyc, although this is done via the processor, because there is no traditional chipset. With the transition to PCIe 4, X570 motherboards have become more complex than the X370 and X470, due to the cooling difficulties of the X570's higher power consumption. All of these changes mean it's time to compare the differences between the X370, X470 and X570 motherboard chipsets to help newcomers to Ryzen understand the changes.

The persistence of AMD's AM4 connector, still planned for the year 2020, means that the new processors are compatible with older chipsets (provided the motherboard manufacturer updates the BIOS for detection). It also means that older processors (such as the discounted R5 2600X) are compatible with newer motherboards, if for whatever reason you end up with this combination. The only real drawback, aside from the potential cost of this latter option, lies in the fact that new processors on older motherboards mean no PCIe Gen4 support. AMD disables it in AGESA at launch time, and unless motherboard manufacturers find the binary switch to switch to AGESA, it will be permanently disabled. In fact, this is not entirely relevant: most users will never touch the bandwidth of Gen4 for this series of products (in the future perhaps), so the loss of use a new processor on a former cost savings related to maintaining a map already known, provided the VRM is sufficient.

The average power of chipsets is measured at 11W, according to AMD, and board partners told us that the peak power is about 14W. Some of the board's partners told us that they have already reached a maximum power of 15W, but we do not know if it was just for an alpha version of the chipset. A range of 11W-15W, or at least 11-14W, explains the heatsinks and fans of most motherboards, but we still have to look at the specs. Currently, the chipset does not downclock during a low load – it will burn at 11W almost constantly, but we believe that AMD is working to resolve this problem. The X570 was AMD's biggest challenge with the launch of Ryzen 3000, already leading to at least one delayed release. The difficulties stem from the increased complexity and power requirements of PCIe Gen4. Comparatively, X370 and X470 had a charge of about 5.8 W.

Let's go into the specifications.

The Ryzen 3000 processors have 24 PCIe channels in total. Four of these channels are general purpose SSD or NVMe tracks. So you have 4x Gen4 directly in the CPU for SSDs, including 16 used for PCIe graphics tracks. The remaining 4 channels go to the chipset and allow more bandwidth for chipset-processor transactions. The processor also supports 4x USB 3.2 Gen2 connections and a choice from a choice of 1 x4 NVMe or 1 x2 NVMe with 2x SATA.

The chipset has 20 PCIe channels, of which 16 are assignable for IO. Motherboard manufacturers have a limited degree of freedom to assign lines between devices, PCIe slots, high-speed SATA or USB devices, or high-speed networks, depending on the purpose of the card. The 8 channels of the X570 are still PCIe, the other 8 can be multiplexed for elements such as SATA or others. The X570 chipset also supports 4x USB 2.0 ports, 8 USB3.2 Gen2 ports and two choices from a choice among a single use of PCIe Gen4 4-way, the use of two devices on a PCIe Gen4 x2 configuration, or 4x SATA 6 Gbps channels. This is where motherboard manufacturers will make the decision to assign lanes to different ports or locations. Finally, the chipset natively supports 4 SATA III ports, which can be increased by burning any of the 1-in-1 choices or using an external controller.

	X570	X470 and X370	B350	A320
PCIe general purpose	8x PCIe G4	8x PCIe G2	6x PCIe G2	4x PCIe G2
USB 3.2 Gen2	8	0	0	0
USB 3.1 Gen2	0	2	2	1
USB 3.1 Gen1	0	6	2	2
USB 2.0	4	6	6	6
SATA	4 *	8 *	6 *	6 *

Here is a table comparing the previous generation. The most important change obviously concerns Gen4: all X570 PCIe channels are Gen4, whereas this did not exist before on desktop platforms. The X470 and X370 chipsets were actually identical, the only real difference being the major improvements made to the BIOS by the manufacturers. X470 motherboards typically solved many recurring memory problems early in Ryzen's life, and it was more like a BIOS or trace tracing path. The X470 was rather a demarcation of a BIOS update and not a change of chipset. The asterisks in this table indicate where the numbers might change depending on the "choose one" option used by the manufacturers. Channels can be assigned elsewhere as needed.

The move to PCIe Gen4 means that each channel has more bandwidth than before, so fewer channels can be used to get the same bandwidth. The other major change is the decision to support USB ports Gen 3G 10Gbps, up to 8 in native mode. As always, motherboard manufacturers can extend support for some of these elements by adding third-party controllers to the board, but this is rarely done as cost and complexity increase.

For Ryzen 3000, the IO die on the Ryzen 3000 packets is 12nm, the IO die on the X570 chipset is 14nm and the 7nm processor. This division allows AMD's economies to realize cost savings on the arrays that do not show enough gains to justify the manufacturing cost of 7nm.

This will cover all the changes. It's simple, in the end, and focused entirely on the differences in IO capacity (with some differences in energy consumption, of course). I hope this will help you choose the right motherboard for your needs.