Motherboard Question

[Geekazoid]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to ask a couple of questions.

1. Why doesn't Linus have a LCT (Linus Cat Tips) forum?

Nope, just joking that's not one of my questions.

I'm just wondering why AMD Motherboards have more SATA ports than they do USB 3.0 ports?

I think a couple of SATA ports are handy but not a heap. More USB 3.0 ports would be much more handy and useful. I'm quite sure that there's a logical explanation for this but still it's a tad annoying.

[skullbringer]

It depends on the motherboard manufacteur. As far as I know AMD chipsets dont natively support USB 3.0 or PCIE 3.0, so the manufactuer needs to add an extra chipset, which is again more expensive.

[Wesley]

It depends on the motherboard manufacteur. As far as I know AMD chipsets dont natively support USB 3.0 or PCIE 3.0, so the manufactuer needs to add an extra chipset, which is again more expensive.

Not sure on the USB 3 but a new ASUS board will be supporting PCIe 3.0

 

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FXGEN3_R20/

[Geekazoid]

It depends on the motherboard manufacteur. As far as I know AMD chipsets dont natively support USB 3.0 or PCIE 3.0, so the manufactuer needs to add an extra chipset, which is again more expensive.

Do they get the extra chipset from Intel?

[skullbringer]

Not sure on the USB 3 but a new ASUS board will be supporting PCIe 3.0

 

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FXGEN3_R20/

 

It was released month ago, and this is a perfect example for what I just said. Add-on chipset, double the price of pretty much any senseable board and nobody cares. How much did they sell of those? Not more than 100, for sure.

 

 

 

Do they get the extra chipset from Intel?

 

No, as with intel boards where there are usually 4 USB 3.0 ports off the intel chipset there is usually an add-on Asmedia or whatever brand controller for 2 extra ports.

[Geekazoid]

It was released month ago, and this is a perfect example for what I just said. Add-on chipset, double the price of pretty much any senseable board and nobody cares. How much did they sell of those? Not more than 100, for sure.

 

 

 

 

No, as with intel boards where there are usually 4 USB 3.0 ports off the intel chipset there is usually an add-on Asmedia or whatever brand controller for 2 extra ports.

It's soundimg as though it's better to stick with Intel-based boards.

[skullbringer]

It's soundimg as though it's better to stick with Intel-based boards.

 

Well if you want many USB 3.0 ports and if you are running multiple gpus, so that PCIE 2.0 starts to bottleneck, then yes.

Generally it depends on your usecase. I would still recommend amd cpus for certain usecases, but for the most part: Intel

[Geekazoid]

Well if you want many USB 3.0 ports and if you are running multiple gpus, so that PCIE 2.0 starts to bottleneck, then yes.

Generally it depends on your usecase. I would still recommend amd cpus for certain usecases, but for the most part: Intel

Would the GTX 760 GPU, that I have in my sig, have a considerable reduced memory bandwidth?

[skullbringer]

Would the GTX 760 GPU, that I have in my sig, have a considerable reduced memory bandwidth?

 

with a single card you look at a performance decrease of 1%, so no

[Geekazoid]

with a single card you look at a performance decrease of 1%, so no

So a GTX 760's memory bandwidth would go from 192GB/s to 190GB/s?

[Geekazoid]

Just a quick question I thought of. If PCIe runs at 16 or 32GB/s, how does a graphics card, such as the GTX 760 use all of it's 192GB/s of memory bandwidth?

[skullbringer]

So a GTX 760's memory bandwidth would go from 192GB/s to 190GB/s?

 

the memory bandwidth of 192.2 GB/s describes what amount of data the vram on the card can transfer to the gpu.  That has nothing to do with the pcie interface bandwidth transfering data from the cpu to the cards shader units.

[Geekazoid]

the memory bandwidth of 192.2 GB/s describes what amount of data the vram on the card can transfer to the gpu.  That has nothing to do with the pcie interface bandwidth transfering data from the cpu to the cards shader units.

Ah! Hmm. Now I feel stupid for asking that. I should've realised, my bad.

[Geekazoid]

Who on here has a full AMD build?

How are you finding it?

[Glenwing]

PCIe 3.0 is a marketing gimmick at this point.  AMD 990FX supports dual PCIe 2.0 x16/x16 or quad x8, neither of which bottleneck current graphics cards.

 

SB950 (AM3+) supports 6x SATA III, but does not have any USB 3.0 support.

A85X (FM2) supports 8x SATA III, and 4x USB 3.0.

 

Z77 supports 2x SATA III and 4x SATA II, and 4x USB 3.0

Z87 supports 6x SATA III and 6x USB 3.0

 

Just wanted to clear that up, since there seems to be some confusion on what chipsets support what.

[Geekazoid]

PCIe 3.0 is a marketing gimmick at this point. AMD 990FX supports dual PCIe 2.0 x16/x16 or quad x8, neither of which bottleneck current graphics cards.

SB950 (AM3+) supports 6x SATA III, but does not have any USB 3.0 support.

A85X (FM2) supports 8x SATA III, and 4x USB 3.0.

Z77 supports 2x SATA III and 4x SATA II, and 4x USB 3.0

Z87 supports 6x SATA III and 6x USB 3.0

Just wanted to clear that up, since there seems to be some confusion on what chipsets support what.

Sweet!

[slasher0161]

Who on here has a full AMD build?

How are you finding it?

Only my htpc, which is an A8-6600k. I find it alright, honestly it does more than it needs to however when I was assembling it I put my 7870xt and 212 evo on it to see what kind of game performance I could get and honestly it was pretty solid. It was only under cpu intensive games that at 1080p full ultra (turning settings down is boring) frame rates tanked, yes it was slower than my 3570k however I also didn't overclock the apu anywhere near as much as I could have (was having some very odd voltage regulation issues, and temperature readings where all over the joint, it was actually a horrible overclocking experience but I put that down to cutting some corners here and there [no fresh install of windows for one] and the board I used I wasn't particularly impressed with the vrm).

 

I guess it comes down to the use case and budget of the person, where I live personally I can't advise amd here as the middle of summer it can be hanging around 30-32c at 0300, which means during the peak of summer unless I put a high end cooling solution on it I can kiss any oc goodbye.

 

I would like to see the boards improve and it looks like with the next line of apu's that may well just happen, Its in a tough place at the moment. Nobody wants to go there because while the cpu's might be on par for the use case scenario the person has the boards aren't as good, so they don't go there which in turn means no boards are moving so the manufacturers aren't inclined to release new boards when the old stock isn't moving. Which deters people even more from buying as they see no sign of life in the line...

You can see where I am going.

 

Ultimately I really want to see amd just ditch the fx line, right it off as a bad joke for now. Work their apu's into something great (honestly they are an awesome little unit for the cost and when they get competitive @ 1080p (they are fairly comfortable on most titles @720p) they may well start dominating the lower end.