AMD has announced two new motherboard chipsets at Computex 2024 for its upcoming AMD Ryzen 9000 processors, X870 and X870E, which boast some improvements over older models. Previous generation Ryzen 8000 and Ryzen 7000 are confirmed compatible.
The X870 and X870E chipsets will feature USB 4.0 as standard as well as PCIe 5.0 for all of these motherboards for greater bandwidth for supported graphics cards and NVMe SSDs. Additionally, there’s support for higher EXPO memory overclocking so you can take advantage of what the best DDR5 RAM can do in your system.
These two chipsets have been made with the recently unveiled Ryzen 9000 series in mind, however, they will be backwards compatible with the older AM5 chipsets. Likewise, you won’t necessarily have to spring for these latest and greatest offerings if you’re considering a CPU upgrade, as the Ryzen 9000 line will work with existing x670 boards.
It may not sound like too big a jump, but it could make all the difference when gaming as RAM and storage drives become faster. We’ve already seen the likes of DDR5-8000 kits such as the G.Skill Trident Z5 enter the picture, and Gen 5.0 NVMe SSDs are lightning fast now, with some models like the Corsair MP700 PRO SE exceeding 14,000 MB/s sequential reads.
Furthermore, USB 4.0 (which supports 40 Gbps) was previously only available on compatible x670E Extreme motherboards, which were some of the priciest on the market. AMD is now democratizing this tech across more motherboards with the two new offerings available. You may no longer need to splash out extra just to squeeze a few more frames out in the most demanding games available.
AMD announced the full stack of the AMD Ryzen 9000 series CPUs which appears to be a case of iteration over innovation. There’s the leading Ryzen 9 9950X, followed by the high-end Ryzen 9 9900X, then the mid-range Ryzen 7 9700X, and the entry-level Ryzen 9600X. At first glance, they appear similar to their 7000 series counterparts but could offer anywhere from a 10 to 35% performance boost.
New motherboards for higher quality of life
Much like the Ryzen 9000 series chips themselves, the X870 and X870E motherboards seem to be more subtle improvements with new quality-of-life tweaks. It’s no secret that Gen 5.0 NVMe SSDs are getting faster, with launch models from two years ago once leading the charge at 10,000 MB/s, now eclipsed by a 40% improvement in just over a year and a half.
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Similarly, the higher EXPO memory clock support means you’ll be able to push faster DDR5 RAM kit capacities further than ever before. We’re seeing more brands push the envelope with what was previously thought possible, even up to 8,000 MT/s and beyond, so more bandwidth can only be a good thing for those on the bleeding edge.
Lastly, PCIe 5.0 for graphics cards means you’ll have double the available data transfer rates when compared to PCIe 4.0 for the x16 port. Those 16 data lanes will therefore have double the available memory as the tech becomes more standardized. For high-end video cards like the RTX 4090 and RX 7900 XTX, that means allowance of their higher bandwidths. However, they will be more important for the future of the best graphics cards, such as the potential RDNA 4 line and Nvidia‘s successor.