True to tradition, AMD has unsurprisingly announced that its new Ryzen 9000 chipsets are compatible with previous-generation motherboards. However, this hasn’t stopped the Reds from launching two new chipsets in parallel: the X870E and X870. If we take a few minutes to analyze what AMD has to say about these chipsets, we have to face the facts: there’s nothing new about these versions, apart from a clever renaming of most of the features.
X870E = X670E and X870 = B650E
To find something really new, you’ll have to dig deep to discover that USB4 is still available on motherboards equipped with the X870E (via an additional chip). As far as the X870 is concerned, it’s almost worse, as we’d simply be looking at a B650E with a lick of paint. Here again, data analysis is implacable. A comparison of the “new” X870 with the X670 sheds some light: not only does it offer USB4, but also PCIe 5.0 instead of PCIe 4.0 for the graphics card. However, we note that the maximum number of PCIe lines drops from 44 to just 36, and the maximum possible also drops considerably for all other interfaces such as PCIe 4.0, PCIe 3.0, SATA and the various USB versions. But if we stop comparing this “new” X870 with the late X670 and replace the latter with the B650E…we’re in for a funny surprise:
| X870 | B650E | |
|---|---|---|
| graphics | 1 x16 PCIe 5.0 or 2 x8 PCIe 5.0 | 1 x16 PCIe 5.0 or 2 x8 PCIe 5.0 |
| NVMe | 1×4 PCIe 5.0 | 1×4 PCIe 5.0 |
| GPP (max.) | 4 | 4 |
| Total PCIe | 36 | 36 |
| PCIe 5.0 (max.) | 24 | 24 |
| PCIe 4.0 (max.) | 8th | 8th |
| PCIe 3.0 (max.) | 4 | 4 |
| USB4 | ✓ | optional |
| USB 20 Gbit/s (max.) | 1 | 1 |
| USB 10 Gbit/s (max.) | 6 | 6 |
| USB 5 Gbit/s (max.) | 1 | 1 |
| SATA | 4 | 4 |
| Processor overclocking | ✓ | ✓ |
| DDR5 overclocking | ✓ | ✓ |
The only “evolution” is the addition of a USB 4 chip, found on some recent versions of the B650E…
| X870E | X670E | X870 | X670 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| graphics | 1 x16 PCIe 5.0 or 2 x8 PCIe 5.0 | 1 x16 PCIe 5.0 or 2 x8 PCIe 5.0 | 1 x16 PCIe 5.0 or 2 x8 PCIe 5.0 | 1 x16 PCIe 4.0 or 2 x8 PCIe 4.0 |
| NVMe | 1×4 PCIe 5.0 | 1×4 PCIe 5.0 | 1×4 PCIe 5.0 | 1×4 PCIe 5.0 |
| GPP (max.) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Total PCIe | 44 | 44 | 36 | 44 |
| PCIe 5.0 (max.) | 24 | 24 | 24 | 8 |
| PCIe 4.0 (max.) | 12 | 12 | 8 | 28 |
| PCIe 3.0 (max.) | 8th | 8th | 4 | 8 |
| USB4 | ✓ | optional | ✓ | optional |
| USB 20 Gbit/s (max.) | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| USB 10 Gbit/s (max.) | 12 | 12 | 6 | 12 |
| USB 5 Gbit/s (max.) | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| SATA | 8th | 8th | 4 | 8th |
| Processor overclocking | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| DDR5 overclocking | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Changes from predecessor marked in green (added) and red (removed). | ||||
Table source: ComputerBase