pcie4 Need a bit of clarity - PCIe 4.0

[Doomkaliber]

Hello Forum!

I've had my head stuck stuck in work and tasks for the past few months and completely missed out on the PCIe 4.0 revolution. As much as I was able to pick up on it through videos form our favorite tech-based content creators, I have a lot of questions up in the air, which I'll need a lot of catching up on, but need to fast-forward through as I've taken up building a (gaming, I suppose?) machine for a peer.

Here's the situation:
I'm looking at a Team-Red (Ryzen 5 3600) build and want to utilize the f-word of the tech world as much as I can, implementing all the new tech, leaving head-room for future upgrades, minor clocking and an overall pleasant experience for my friend. But I ran into the following bumps that left me scratching my head. Thus far, I've paired a B450 board with a 1660 SUPER, which is adequate for the price range, I'd reckon. But... upon a closer look at the specs, I noticed that the "primary" PCI slot was listed as "1x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x16 mode)", where I thought that all A320s, B450s and X570 had PCI 4 as a given... Oh the optimism. Now, what really got me confused was that looking at the GPU specs for the 1660, it's listed as "Bus Standard PCI Express 3.0 х 16". But so is the Gigabyte 2080 SUPER? What...?

My goals:
I'm building an "Above Average" and/or "Affordable" system by Bulgarian standards. I love leaving upgradability options, especially when I'll likely be the person implementing them if they are to come to pass. Basically, I tend to think "long-term value" when I find it appropriate for the "client". It simply makes life easier to give a few bucks preemptively instead of spending a whole bunch when upgrading... right?

 

My questions summed up:

1. Can get a quickie rundown or better yet, a link to an comprehensive article/forum topic to educate myself on the whole PCIe 4.0 situation.

2. In regards to a 1660 SUPER, would it be better to take a look at X570 and persuade my mate to fork up a bit of extra cash OR would it be better to drop my future-wording ambitions and stick to Pascal GPUs for a B450 system.
3. Should I even be taking this into consideration when working on a Ryzen 5 system, regardless of it being a Zen2 processor?

4. If I end up going the X570 route, what should I be looking out for in terms of moderate clocking? I.E. Clocking up the Ryzen 5 3600 to 4GHz.

5. Still regarding the X570 route, what boards would you recommend? What VRMs/Power Phases/Specifics should I be taking in mind? What worked for your builds and such?

 

I'll try keep an eye on the topic and give extra and/or needed information/answers/feedback, but night cometh in the mysterious land of Bulgaria, so I may be slow on replies.
Thanks in advance for the feedback! Appreciate you a bunch! Cheers!

[NineEyeRon]

Gen 3 is still fine for pretty much everything.

 

Its not as revolution yet, but it will be.

 

We are currently in the early adopter phase of the tech curve. I wait, like Apple, until its perfected and then get on board.

 

No harm in going Gen 3 for a build now, if it has Gen 4 great but don’t sweat if it doesn’t.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Before getting all up in arms worrying about PCIe standards and whatnot, it helps to see performance scaling with various PCIe lane configurations. Thankfully, TechPowerUp does just that and what a better card to test it with than the RTX 2080 Ti? (Okay, technically RTX Titan would be better, but the 2080 Ti is the upper limit for many people)

 

The short of it is, even at PCIe 3.0 x8 speeds, the RTX 2080 Ti barely loses performance on average. Even at PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds I would say is the cusp of what's appreciable.

 

PCIe 3.0 has plenty of life left unless you're on the bleeding edge.

[mariushm]

PCI-e 4.0 is only supported by x570 chipset based motherboards at the moment, if paired with 3rd generation processors (all but the ones with integrated graphics, which are based on 2nd generation Ryzen cores)

 

PCI-e 4.0 also has to be supported by the video card. At the moment, only Radeon 5700 series does pci-e 4.0 (among regular consumer video cards)

 

If your video card doesn't support PCI-e 4.0, it automatically downgrades to pci-e 3.0

 

B450 motherboards can only do pci-e 3.0

 

For x570, my recommendation is Gigabyte x570 Aorus Elite, with or without Wifi option. Excellent VRM, very clean (minimal coloring, just some orange led touches), usb 3 10g header for front panel)

 

[Eigenvektor]

5 minutes ago, Doomkaliber said:

where I thought that all A320s, B450s and X570 had PCI 4 as a given... Oh the optimism. Now, what really got me confused was that looking at the GPU specs for the 1660, it's listed as "Bus Standard PCI Express 3.0 х 16". But so is the Gigabyte 2080 SUPER? What...?

Only X570 has PCIe 4.0 and only in combination with Zen 2 CPUs. Current gen Nvidia GPUs don't support it. It's no loss in terms of GPU performance: PCI-Express 4.0 Performance Scaling with Radeon RX 5700 XT

 

Unless you need ultra-fast storage there's no need for PCIe 4.0.

[mariushm]

Also worth noting, A320 based motherboards will NOT support Ryzen 3xxx processors.

 

If you're tight on budget, personally I'd go with a B450 motherboard and a Ryzen 2600 processor, and move the saved money to the video card budget, because the GTX 1660 is more or less comparable with a RX 580-590.

WIth the money you save, you can probably get a RX 5700 or a 2060 Super

 

On B450, these boards from MSI are great choices which will support even 12core Ryzen 3xxx if you'll want to upgrade:

 

114	B450-A Pro [Max]	ATX	?	＊	✔	✔	4		2x 4C029N	2x 4C024N	✔
115	B450 Gaming Plus [Max]	ATX	?	＊	✔	✔	4		2x 4C029N	2x 4C024N	✔
116	B450M Gaming Plus	mATX	?	＊	✔	✔	4		2x 4C029N	2x 4C024N	✔
117	B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC	ATX	＊＊	＊	✔	✔	4		2x 4C029N	2x 4C024N	✔
118	B450 Tomahawk [Max]	ATX	＊＊	＊	✔	✔	4		2x 4C029N	2x 4C024N	✔

												[Max] means model with or without Max in name - different is just bios chip being smaller on the non-Max models, so you get a less colorful bios (otherwise same options) From this Google docs (you want boards with 2 green checkmarks in center columns) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d9_E3h8bLp-TXr-0zTJFqqVxdCR9daIVNyMatydkpFA/htmlview?sle=true#gid=639584818

[SpaceGhostC2C]

20 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Before getting all up in arms worrying about PCIe standards and whatnot, it helps to see performance scaling with various PCIe lane configurations. Thankfully, TechPowerUp does just that and what a better card to test it with than the RTX 2080 Ti? (Okay, technically RTX Titan would be better, but the 2080 Ti is the upper limit for many people)

 

Gamers Nexus also did a similar experiment with Titan Vs, with similar conclusions:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3176-dual-titan-v-bandwidth-limit-test-x8-vs-x16

 

Which means that, even as GPUs supporting PCIe 4.0 start to appear, it may be long while before you run into any sort of issue due to using them in 3.0 mode.

In fact, OP, these results imply that you could plug an RTX 2080ti into a motherboard with a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and have no loss in performance at all (provided the CPU in such motherboard can keep up with it which wouldn't be unreasonable in 4K 60Hz or similar).

[Midnitewolf]

Honestly I am just going to recommend getting a x570 board and getting access to PCI 4.0 in the process.  I mean at the end of the day if your going for a Ryzen 3rd gen processor, it is just going to cost you maybe $50-$75 USD more than it would cost to get a B450 board and if you find you ever need PCI 4.0, you have it without having to upgrade your PC yet again to get it.  

 

Seriously, I can't remember all the times I have decided to save a few dollars on a computer build only to regret it.  Heck right now I am in that situation.  I wanted to save money so I bought a B350 MB instead of a B450 MB.  If I had spent the extra $25-$30 then, I wouldn't be required to do a MB upgrade now to pair with the Ryzen 3800x I just ordered. 

 

As far as PCI 4.0 right now, not much is using it.  About the only thing I can think of off hand is some uber expensive SSD solutions though I know there are a few more things I can't immediately think of.  However, those uber expensive SSDs will come down in price and in a year or so, might be pretty mainstream.  Having a system capable of PCI 4.0 means you can just drop one in.  Also AMD has already adopted the PCI 4.0 interface for their new GPUs and rumor has it Intel will follow suite on their next gen cards as well.  I honestly can't see then investing in the tech if they didn't have some plans to take advantage of it sometime in the relatively near future. Also, now that the genie is out of the bottle so to speak, there is an actual incentive for tech and software companies to develop products designed to take advantage of it.  I don't have a clue what form or shape they will take but I am sure they are coming sooner, rather than later.

 

So in my opinion, it just makes sense to build your system to be able to take advantage of PCI 4.0 especially when the cost of doing so is only somewhere in the neighborhood of 3%-10% the cost of your total system build budget.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Midnitewolf
edited for spelling errors

[Doomkaliber]

Before I close this topic, here's my two cents:
1. I'm marking Midnitewolf's answer as "Solved", since it covers the "budget" topic. (And it hits close to home on my 1st ever build)
2. All answers were incredibly helpful and informative. I strongly suggest reading through all of them if you're here with the same inquiry as me. A big 'Thank You' to everyone who contributed!
3. I've opened all related media shared along the topic. It's going to be a fun binge for the night.
4. The final judgment for the build it's self will be the B450 and 1660 SUPER, as per the consumer's request. We had a long conversation about it and it's his call at the end of the day. (After a discussion about his usual loads, usage and demand I reckon the system will be satisfying his needs without much or any modification for the time ahead)
5. Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum!