Gigabyte removes PCIe 4.0 support on all AMD Motherboards that are not X570

Gigabyte had no choice but to remove this. AMD practically forced them. AMD has full control over the AGESA, they don't let manufacturers modify it at all. So with a new update, they basically forced PCIe 4.0 to be unavailable in AGESA, and any board vendor that wants to update to it (and they really should want to), is simply forced to discontinue PCIe 4.0 on 300 or 400 series boards.

Its really their own fault for starting a marketing thing for PCIe4.0 contrary to AMDs wishes. Now they are left in a position where it has to be discontinued. And any other vendors that tried to do the same thing will also have to remove it not before long.

 

Im sure others will do the same thing. Amd needs to sell x570 boards somehow.

 

So boards capable of PCIe 4.0 are being forced to use lower PCIe standard. Is this an attempt to force users to upgrade to newer tech or am I missing something.
I though AMD was the nice company and Nvidia/Intel the evil ones.

 

Somehow this AMD philosophy doesn't extend to CPUs and GPUs: It's all up to your luck if your particular unit happens to overclock well or poorly.

 

Maybe they just don't want us to know how many of their boards won't do pcie 4.0 spec. Kind of curious how many boards will and won't make the cut.

 

Well AMD stated in time that only X570+ mobos support PCI-E 4.0. That's the end of the story, really. BTW, what do you get from PCI-E 4.0 that is needed for you? The 0 performance upgrade or the active cooler on the mobo?

 

AMD pulled an intel on that one ...about stability issues, well let the mb ventors and decide if they want to support it or not , the confusion is not even an issue since older motherboards they do not even advertise it on the box so casual users are oblivious of it anyway and more advanced users like the majority of us here (we are enthusiasts this is why we are here after all) we are not getting confused with such things .

 

But there is still only one X570 m-ATX motherboard on the market and few m-ITX... and so, those who want small PC still get 400 series (and those with 300 would not like to change too ).
Personaly i have get the bios with PCIe 4,0 for my B450 but i don't care my GPU is still PCIe 3.0, and when there will be lot of GPU PCIe 4.0 in shop, this PC would'nt be old enough to change the GPU...
Other point to meditate about Gigabyte decision: the 550 is planed just after the summer...

 

IMO AMD should have solved this on the driver level. Have the platform run PCI-E 3 as default but have a "use on your own risk" tool that enables PCI-E 4.0

 

Intel have done it too... remember the entry level X79 that were in PCIe 2.0 despite it was capable of PCIe 3.0.

 

OC is not operating at "stock", as such there are no guarantees whatsoever.
But if a board claims that PCIe4 is supported, then that becomes "stock", and AMD had a problem with the confusion that can create.

 

Didn't they do the same to Asus, and explain why?

Nobody is forcing you to use PCIe 4.0. As of right now, the only devices available that can take advantage of it are SSDs. And even then, those SSDs will still work on PCIe 3.0, just not as fast.
It is a slap in the face that AMD decided to overrule what Gigabyte (and Asus) did, but, there's still some backward compatibility.

AMD made it very clear from the beginning they were not going to support PCIe 4.0 on older boards before Zen2 was even released. According to them, the reason is because PCIe 4.0 has much stricter tolerances for signal quality. That's not to say that even an A320 board wouldn't have worked, but the problem is AMD can't guarantee reliable performance or data integrity on older boards. They're not about to risk their reputation because mobo manufacturers decide to go against the spec. AMD has been screwed over on multiple occasions before because of this sort of thing (like the core unlocking, or VRMs that didn't meet CPU needs). Also, it just adds a layer of confusion, since some boards will have support while others don't.
So - are they pulling an Intel here? Yes and no. They are because I'm sure companies like Gigabyte and Asus have done extensive testing, and, they know better than AMD if their boards meet the tolerances for PCIe 4.0; they don't need AMD telling them what their boards can or can't do. The reason they're not pulling an Intel is because AMD isn't the one who defined the PCIe 4.0 spec. It doesn't matter what CPU or board you have, the spec is universal.
It's hard to say whether or not AMD is taking those tolerances too seriously; Intel was proven to heavily exaggerate their tolerances with 1151v2, and artificially break compatibility, so AMD could very well do the same. But considering how they're still trying to build trust, the last thing they need is people getting data corruption because they're running PCIe 4.0 on something that was never intended to be supported. Their iron fist isn't really pleasant, but it's better than being blamed for someone else's mistake.

 

Whoever said there would be guarantees and claims with older mobos? It was just something added in the bios because it seemed to work to varying degrees. Just like the bios allows you to overclock, but there's no guarantee you can get even 100MHz over the stock. If you were lucky, you could get much more. It would be the same with this PCIe 4.0. It's not like the mobo manufacturers would actually print new boxes advertising PCIe 4.0 if they weren't 100% sure it works. And if they were, then why on Earth would AMD be saying that since it's not guaranteed, blah blah blah. In the end it's just something people can try if they want to, with unknown results. Exactly like OC.

This case was nothing but AMD wanting to increase the X570 sales.

 

I'm not sure that OC is equivalent to switching PCIe to a mode which runs at double data rates and requires far more stringent specs, so much so that a new standard had to be written.

 

It was equivalent in the sense that the users could try to see if it works, without necessarily knowing the results beforehand. That being said, looking at how AMD can't get the clocks up to 5GHz like Intel, clocks seem to be a pretty stringent affair as well. PCIe 4.0 was easier, by the looks of it, seeing how it did work to a degree in random older mobos, totally accidentally.

 

Don't you think the Motherboard makers would actually earn more when they sell a X570 board then AMD does? Why would they want to give their old boards that people already have, or may even buy on second-hand market, more features, that may reduce sales of newer, more expensive boards?

 

I read a few posts by people who had actually tried the GB PCIe4 support, and they say it's being removed because it never worked and created a lot of WHEA warnings in the process of trying to work. Why people might assume it would work flawlessly beats me. These older products were never designed to support PCIe4. But anyway--I'm always amazed at people who spend $500+ on cpus and as much as $1400 on GPUs but want to scrimp by with the cheapest motherboard they can find--as if all motherboards are alike and the quality and support of the motherboard just doesn't have any bearing on anything! The motherboard is the logic and electrical "glue" that is the foundation of the entire system--a cheap one can cause all kinds of havoc--regardless of how much money is spent on the attached peripherals.

 

@nevcairiel A good point. Although in this case it indeed was AMD who wanted it removed, wasn't it?

Isn't the bigger problem here that there are no other 500 series mobos but the expensive X570? I don't think a person spending 500+1400 bucks of the CPU and GPU would be as opposed to getting an expensive mobo than people spending 250-350 bucks on the CPU and not wanting to spend another 200+ dollars on the mobo. Since there are no cheaper new mobos available, I guess more would feel like playing with the older generation mobos. Though there has been talk the B550 won't even have PCIe 4.0, but who knows. If it doesn't, why isn't it out yet? I have no idea what AMD is thinking here.