It's actually a natural evolution of AMD's long-standing naming scheme, but with an added number to not seem inferior to Intel due to using 'X' in lieu of '10' while not using nVidia's GPU names as chipset names...
970 -> X370
AMD could have used X70, but that looks pretty bad when you have a choice with an Intel Z270 system as an option.
They could have used 1070, but that's nVidia's video card naming... which can lead to confusion.
Hey, remember when Via had the KT266 chipset? Now Intel launches the Z270. Coincidence? I think not!
Now seriously, there's only so many naming schemes that involve easy to remember and classify letters and numbers. So they either go for codenames like with CPU cores or with the [letter][number] scheme that was used in many other sectors way before Intel did it (think auto or phone industry for example).
Darn right! You hear that extide and etamin, Intel is copying Via by using a chipset with 2xx!! In fact they've gone and added +4 to make 270! Low blow, copycatting! rolleyes.gif
IKR? Now if OEMs only bring functional aesthetics on high(er)-end mobos I bet many will be very happy. There should be something for everyone and not just make variants of the same "gamer" design with almost the same specifications.
i could be wrong, but i don't think the chipset has anything to do with ECC support or not. If the (consumer) ryzen cpu's suppport both then it's just a questing of using normal or ECC memory slots on the motherboard.
On Intel platforms it matters what chipset, but its not a technological limitations, it's just that Intel disables ECC support making you buy the more expensive kit if you want ECC. AMD is usually a lot more lax about leaving features like this enabled across all their products.
the x300 chipset was especially designed for use with small form factor boards, so there will be ITX boards. AMD just choose to show the high end models first.
I think the intent in is to cut things that a mITX and below size board won't even be using in the first place (like, say, a smorgasbord of SATA ports, multi GPU support, PCIe lanes etc) to offer a smaller, lower wattage part with simpler tracing. I imagine they were going to make this part for industrial markets and such anyway, much like Intel's H110
If the part ends up having too many downsides, nothing is stopping a board designer from making an X370 mITX design, it just will probably be more costly to engineer and produce.
That ASRock motherboard...what were they thinking with all the silly looking, ill-fitting gears with teeth that don't line up? It looks like someone scavenged a clipart collection CD from the mid-90's and just cobbled together every gear they could find in it.
This has been an extremely disappointing CES from AMD. From what I have read here and elsewhere, X370 + Ryzen is not the equal of Z270 + Kaby Lake, and not even in the same ballpark of X99 + Extreme Broadwell.
You would think that if Ryzen was going to be any good, they would have matched it with a decent chipset.
I wanted to have more PCI-E lanes so that communication in my system would be saturated by the storage subsystem in a home virtualization box. I realize you can't put faith in rumors, but I did. I was hoping for a competitor to X99 since they kept comparing to the 6900K, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I could have lived with the dual channel memory if the PCI lanes were more robust. Even the X99 has serious limitations when using multiple NVME drives.
Additionally, they announced nothing about Ryzen, and very little about Vega.
So you got yourself hyped up on nothing and now you're mad at AMD for letting you down? This sounds like a you issue, not an AMD issue. Ryzen is the consumer part, I don't know why you were expecting quad channel memory to be included. The server part very likely will have 4-8 channel memory, but its not worth the die size at all in a consumer part.
Has AMD announced any details regarding the number of PCI-E lanes that the CPU has, and how many the X370 chipset will have? What speed is the link between the CPU and chipset?
If AMD hasn't formally said anything, how have they been relative to Intel in the past? Do they usually have a good number of lanes, usually the exact same, usually less? With m.2 drives becoming the go to choice for enthusiasts, I think this will become one of the make or break features for CPU architectures and chipsets.
Already Z270 is essentially limited to one full speed m.2 drive with a dGPU, or two drives splitting the x4 DMI. I want at least one m.2 boot drive and a second for games/transcoding/random.
Reportedly socket AM4 will have 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0 on the CPU, plus 8 lanes of PCIe 2.0 from the chipset. The CPU also has built-in SATA, NVMe, and USB 3.1.
PCPer has posted a writeup. The CPU has 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0 total - 16 for slots, 4 for direct-attached NVMe, and 4 for the chipset. The chipsets have 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and 4 to 8 lanes of PCIe 2.0 (4 on the low-end chipset, 8 on the high-end). Like Intel's chipsets some of the pins are dual-purpose, so if you want the maximum SATA ports (up to 10) you only get one x2 NVMe slot.
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colinstu - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Love how clean that first gigabyte board is.extide - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Anyone else notice how they just shat all over Intel's naming scheme? Intel just releases X270, AMD releases X370, loletamin - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Low blow by AMD. Not coolanubis44 - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Yeah, Intel's always been above board... not.looncraz - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
It's actually a natural evolution of AMD's long-standing naming scheme, but with an added number to not seem inferior to Intel due to using 'X' in lieu of '10' while not using nVidia's GPU names as chipset names...970 -> X370
AMD could have used X70, but that looks pretty bad when you have a choice with an Intel Z270 system as an option.
They could have used 1070, but that's nVidia's video card naming... which can lead to confusion.
GodHatesFAQs - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Intel released **Z270**, not X270.WorldWithoutMadness - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
They're playing the children +1 game. Ha! I'm +1 than you, I'm above you!anubis44 - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
It works. Good for AMD.close - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Hey, remember when Via had the KT266 chipset? Now Intel launches the Z270. Coincidence? I think not!Now seriously, there's only so many naming schemes that involve easy to remember and classify letters and numbers. So they either go for codenames like with CPU cores or with the [letter][number] scheme that was used in many other sectors way before Intel did it (think auto or phone industry for example).
Manch - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
I was hoping they would name their mobos something like Z270/55 R20.Alexvrb - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
I will not settle for a *basic* Z270/55 R20, I demand Ultra High Performance boards. With an aggressive layout and sticky overclocking compound!!Alexvrb - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
Darn right! You hear that extide and etamin, Intel is copying Via by using a chipset with 2xx!! In fact they've gone and added +4 to make 270! Low blow, copycatting! rolleyes.gifFindecanor - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
I think maybe AMD would have wanted to use 'Z' as prefix to go with "Zen", but that was already taken by Intel.TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
That's because the actual product is likely gonna suck.OEMG - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
IKR? Now if OEMs only bring functional aesthetics on high(er)-end mobos I bet many will be very happy. There should be something for everyone and not just make variants of the same "gamer" design with almost the same specifications.C@mM! - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
Any news on ECC support in X370 (or lower)? It was always a nice feature on many AM3 boards.GodHatesFAQs - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Nothing yet. I'm eager to learn about this as well.kgardas - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Me too! AMD was good (at least in the past) in providing ECC even on cheap boards, let's see how this will change or not change with Zen.The_Countess - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
i could be wrong, but i don't think the chipset has anything to do with ECC support or not.If the (consumer) ryzen cpu's suppport both then it's just a questing of using normal or ECC memory slots on the motherboard.
extide - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
On Intel platforms it matters what chipset, but its not a technological limitations, it's just that Intel disables ECC support making you buy the more expensive kit if you want ECC. AMD is usually a lot more lax about leaving features like this enabled across all their products.jjj - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Hopefully there is a lot more than this if Zen is competitiveSushisamurai - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
That Asrock Taichi board looks amazingeldakka - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
" technologies including dual channel DD4"Does it come with an underwire for added support?
close - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
That's exactly what I was thinking. They're putting "sexy" back into computing.AbRASiON - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
No ITX? No sale.The_Countess - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
the x300 chipset was especially designed for use with small form factor boards, so there will be ITX boards. AMD just choose to show the high end models first.AbRASiON - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Why they need a new chipset is beyond me, I hope it's not butchered any.Cygni - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
I think the intent in is to cut things that a mITX and below size board won't even be using in the first place (like, say, a smorgasbord of SATA ports, multi GPU support, PCIe lanes etc) to offer a smaller, lower wattage part with simpler tracing. I imagine they were going to make this part for industrial markets and such anyway, much like Intel's H110If the part ends up having too many downsides, nothing is stopping a board designer from making an X370 mITX design, it just will probably be more costly to engineer and produce.
meacupla - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
mITX board is probably not ready yet.BrokenCrayons - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
That ASRock motherboard...what were they thinking with all the silly looking, ill-fitting gears with teeth that don't line up? It looks like someone scavenged a clipart collection CD from the mid-90's and just cobbled together every gear they could find in it.Lolimaster - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Maybe with enough money one can order an ASRock X370 Konata edition.Lolimaster - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
The 1st boards need more red/grey and less white.Lolimaster - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
It seem's AMD axed the Bristol Ridge APU's. The no mention of a release gives me hopes of Raven Ridge being close after the non APU Ryzen releases.tarqsharq - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
It looks like they were destined purely for big box OEM's like HP and such to put out in low cost PC's.Joffer - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
What's "Ultra M.2"? I saw it on the first mobo pictureZeroPointEF - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
This has been an extremely disappointing CES from AMD. From what I have read here and elsewhere, X370 + Ryzen is not the equal of Z270 + Kaby Lake, and not even in the same ballpark of X99 + Extreme Broadwell.You would think that if Ryzen was going to be any good, they would have matched it with a decent chipset.
Very disappointing.
I have been waiting for 3 years for nothing.
speely - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
I'm curious. What features were you looking for - and planning to use - that are present in Z270 + Kaby Lake, but reportedly absent in X370 + Ryzen?ZeroPointEF - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
I wanted to have more PCI-E lanes so that communication in my system would be saturated by the storage subsystem in a home virtualization box. I realize you can't put faith in rumors, but I did. I was hoping for a competitor to X99 since they kept comparing to the 6900K, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I could have lived with the dual channel memory if the PCI lanes were more robust. Even the X99 has serious limitations when using multiple NVME drives.Additionally, they announced nothing about Ryzen, and very little about Vega.
Cygni - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
So you got yourself hyped up on nothing and now you're mad at AMD for letting you down? This sounds like a you issue, not an AMD issue. Ryzen is the consumer part, I don't know why you were expecting quad channel memory to be included. The server part very likely will have 4-8 channel memory, but its not worth the die size at all in a consumer part.Kakti - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link
Has AMD announced any details regarding the number of PCI-E lanes that the CPU has, and how many the X370 chipset will have? What speed is the link between the CPU and chipset?If AMD hasn't formally said anything, how have they been relative to Intel in the past? Do they usually have a good number of lanes, usually the exact same, usually less? With m.2 drives becoming the go to choice for enthusiasts, I think this will become one of the make or break features for CPU architectures and chipsets.
Already Z270 is essentially limited to one full speed m.2 drive with a dGPU, or two drives splitting the x4 DMI. I want at least one m.2 boot drive and a second for games/transcoding/random.
PixyMisa - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link
Reportedly socket AM4 will have 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0 on the CPU, plus 8 lanes of PCIe 2.0 from the chipset. The CPU also has built-in SATA, NVMe, and USB 3.1.PixyMisa - Sunday, January 8, 2017 - link
PCPer has posted a writeup. The CPU has 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0 total - 16 for slots, 4 for direct-attached NVMe, and 4 for the chipset. The chipsets have 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and 4 to 8 lanes of PCIe 2.0 (4 on the low-end chipset, 8 on the high-end). Like Intel's chipsets some of the pins are dual-purpose, so if you want the maximum SATA ports (up to 10) you only get one x2 NVMe slot.https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Motherboards/AMD-Det...
Vodietsche - Wednesday, January 11, 2017 - link
AsRock looks like it's the new king of Motherboards, at least for looks. That Tachi is pretty nice.helvete - Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - link
Only the MSI Tomahawk has PCI slots. I hope there will be more boards having them.