AMD will also designate chipsets as the 800 series so as not to lag behind Intel
In recent days, reports have leaked that AMD’s new generation of processors with Zen 5 will come out in July and August (for laptops), with Intel’s new Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors coming out in September. But at Computex 2024, we can expect some previews from companies, and in particular, boards for these CPUs will be on display for the first time. They’ll be coming out for both Arrow Lake and Zen 5, and with new chipsets.
Photos of boards with the LGA 1851 socket have not been seen anywhere yet, but they should probably be shown for the first time at Computex – which all manufacturers will probably do. And indeed, now in the days leading up to the show, model names and similar information have started to leak out. It’s possible that not only will they be shown at the expo, but we could probably also officially learn something about the platform’s features.
We already have some unofficial information – for example, they are supposed to support DDR5-6400 as standard and there will also be better support for NVMe SSDs. In addition to the PCIe 5.0×16 slot, there will be a pair of dedicated SSD interfaces on the boards – one PCIe 5.0×4 and one PCIe 4.0×4. Thunderbolt 4 (USB4) is also said to be present on most boards with the Z790 chipset – we’ll see if this information is confirmed.
- Tip: What will be the next Intel CPUs for desktop? Arrow Lake-S partly revealed
- Tip: Intel Arrow Lake desktop processors have iGPUs with 512 shaders
According to leaks, Computex should not only feature boards for enthusiasts with the Z890 chipset, which will support overclocking, but also a cheaper alternative – B860. So the first wave of boards that will come out when the Arrow Lake processors are released could already include some of these more affordable motherboards. For example, the first 12 LGA 1851 boards from MSI have appeared in the Device.report database, consisting of eight Z890 and four B860-based models.
Also, boards with the Z890 chipset have been leaked from Gigabyte, of which there are supposed to be eight (boards with the B860 are not yet known). For both of these companies, this should cover only the first wave of models or even just a part of the first wave, as they usually produce numerous board variants for Intel platforms. Gigabyte has already officially confirmed that it will show “next-gen” motherboards during Computex.
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Master AI Top
- Gigabyte Z890 AI Top
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Master
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite Wi-Fi7
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite AX
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite X Ice
AMD also wants to have boards with 800 series chipsets
Perhaps less expected was that new boards with new chipsets will also be seen for AMD processors on the AM5 platform. Although it’s been a while since any new chipsets have been rumored to be in the works, they are reportedly on the way after all, though it’s possible that the boards will come out later than the Ryzen 9000 processors (which will also work in existing AM5 boards).
But according to Benchlife, AMD will not name these new chipsets as 700 series, it wants to skip this designation and also deploy the 800 series, no doubt in order for AMD-platform boards to not look inferior marketing-wise. The highest-end chipset model should be called X870, and the designations of the boards should therefore be derived from these letters.
What capabilities these chipsets will have and what new features they will bring, we don’t know yet. Theoretically, it is possible that similarly to Intel’s Z790 and B760 (vs. Z690 and B660), the silicon and its features won’t actually change much and the only differentiators will be other features integrated on the board, so the chipset designation then is more akin to a label designating the whole package of functionality that the boards offer.
According to Benchlife, as a preview of these 800 series boards, Gigabyte is showing the media a board still with the B650E chipset with the addition of an ASMedia ASM4242 USB4 controller (specifically the B650E Aorus Pro X USB4 motherboard). This means that USB4 support could be one of the defining features.
In addition, various improvements will be used on Gigabyte’s 800-series boards, such as easier to use connectors for Wi-Fi antennas (EZ-Plug), a very strong reinforced PCIe ×16 slot for graphics cards (UD Slot X), which is said to be able to handle loads of over 50 kilos (but we would rather not try if that is true). The said board also has a special connector for a secondary display to show information about the system like fan speeds, temperatures and so on.
During Computex, it might become more clear whether the chipsets are new or use the same silicon as the 600 series (and what features they have), although AMD may not reveal them directly yet. But boards with them will probably be shown by several manufacturers, and journalists physically attending the expo could probably find out the main things at their booths.
Sources: VideoCardz (1, 2, 3, 4), Benchlife, Device.report
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
⠀
