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Bigger Chipset and System Bus Bandwidth Choices

Remembering desktop, laptop, workstation, and server system chipsets from two decades ago brings back memories for those of us with experience that goes this far back or further. Personally, I have nearly two decades of experience under my belt and I am in my thirties now. Looking back, I can remember my earlier system builds with Intel chosen.

A higher Intel chipset during this time had a better front side bus (FSB), providing a higher clock frequency and higher bandwidth for the main bus of the system. Since early in the decade after the turn of the millennium, Advanced Micro Devices had their own unique specification for the main bus of the system, linking the chipset to the CPU. HyperTransport (HT), was the name of AMD's technology and is not to be confused with Intel's Hyper-threading, also abbreviated as (HT), of which provided a boost to how many threads can run per CPU core, famously attributed to late Intel Pentium 4 processors. These technologies stem from a time when CPUs were manufactured as single-core units.

HyperTransport technology decreased unwanted bottlenecks in the system performance of earlier computers. Double Data Rate (DDR) random access memory was a new innovation and HyperTransport was developed based on the same technology, allowing data transfer to be bi-directional and two way. All of this was up to twenty years ago, although if I pinpoint up to ten years ago, AMD had been implementing Unified Media Interface (UMI) for the uplink and before this, Intel had developed Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI), of which was designed to compete with AMD's HT. Intel later implemented their Direct Media Interface technology (DMI). Advanced Micro Devices eventually started to use PCI Express (PCIe) for their bus connection. DMI, UMI and PCIe can also be used to connect the Northbridge and the Southbridge.

In late 2019 and during mid-2020, AMD released their 500 series chipsets and Intel released their 400 series chipsets early to mid-2020. Intel also released their 500 series chipsets early in 2021. Intel is using DMI version 3.0 for the uplink/downlink and AMD is using PCIe versions 3.0 and 4.0. Intel's DMI 3.0 bus has a speed of 8 Giga transfers per second (GT/s) across four DMI lanes on 400 series chipsets. This is 8 GT/s each lane. Intel's 400 series chipsets are compatible with their 10th generation Comet Lake core processors and select H470 and Z490 motherboards are compatible with 11th generation Rocket Lake core processors. H410 and B460 are incompatible with Rocket Lake, although B460 allows for an Intel Optane Memory SSD with a capable processor. This is worth checking out.

Select H570 and Z590 motherboards work using eight DMI bus lanes when using an i7 or i9 Rocket Lake processor, for a total uplink bandwidth of eight DMI 3.0 lanes operating at 8 GT/s. H510 and B560 have the four-lane connection and are, therefore, some of the best Intel chipsets to use four DMI 3.0 lanes each at 8 GT/s effective speed for this link.

AMD's three 500 series chipsets are A520, B550, and X570. Four lanes of PCIe 3.0 (again, each lane operates at 8 GT/s) are used for the uplink on an A520 or a B550 system, even though B550 allows for PCIe 4.0 expansions when using 3000 series Matisse or Matisse 2 core processors and Vermeer core 5000 series. Intel's H470, Z490, and 500 series chipsets can support PCIe 4.0 for expansions (graphics, add on cards, M.2 SSDs) with Rocket Lake core processors, with a chipset to processor connection of DMI of course, whereas AMD's A520 and B550 use PCIe for the chipset bus uplink and the expansions.

The AMD X570 chipset allows for PCIe 4.0 for your expansions too, again with a Matisse or a Vermeer core CPU chosen, and also you will have a four-lane PCIe 4 main bus uplink that's comparable to an eight-lane DMI 3.0 connection on an Intel system but using only four lanes at PCIe 4.0's 16 GT/s data lanes.

A much more powerful overall system exists as an option to purchase or build. AMD's best two Ryzen Threadripper chipsets are TRX40 and WRX80. The TRX40 chipset is for 3000 series Castle Peak core Threadripper processors and WRX80 is for Threadripper Pro CPUs, which are also Castle Peak chips.

The main bus on these motherboard chipsets boasts double the bandwidth of the top desktop motherboard chipsets with a design that uses eight PCIe 4.0 lanes. Although the 3000 series Threadripper and Threadripper Pro processors are Zen 2 and 5000 series Ryzen processors for 500 series chipsets (and some B450 and X470) are Zen 3, the power of the Threadripper workstations is immense. The greater bandwidth is utilised to a high degree, and this is evident, considering that even 12 core Threadripper Pro 3945WX is a 280 Watt chip in its power rating. The thermal design power (TDP) along with the size of the bus bandwidth suggests superior power over the 500 series desktop systems, clearly.

Rumours are circulating at the moment about Intel's immediate future bus bandwidth with their next chipsets and CPUs. The advent of the upcoming Alder Lake core may arrive with not only the new DDR5 memory specification and PCI Express version 5, but also the higher chipset(s) could be designed with the next DMI standard of 4.0, with data lanes matching PCIe 4 in bandwidth, and with eight lanes on the higher desktop chipset(s). Threadripper systems will have serious desktop computing competition. We could see further game-changing power, though, when Zen 3 Threadripper processors arrive.



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  1. John Clark22 April 2022 at 05:34

    Such an informative post. Keep up the good work. Also look at this mini bus charter Sydney. Thank you.

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