You have already seen a good number of photos on a AMD AM4 X370 motherboard models a few days ago. New info reached us that MSI will be manufacturing roughly 20 different models motherboards for AMD Ryzen processors.
This obviously includes the three main chipsets for socket AM4 Ryzen compatible processors. The fact that MSI is going all in confirms that they have strong believe in the new AMD processors, and face it from all info that has surfaced, everything certainly is looking good. This years CES mainly was all about Ryzen news wise. It looks like AMD is on track for a release late next month. Fingers crossed, as once these processors and platforms actually have been tested by valid media + we know actual pricing, we’ll know for real what AMD has got to offer.
For us mainstream to enthusiast class PC DIY and gamers the X370 chipset series will be the most interesting. X370 will see USB 3.1 (Gen2) support at 10 Gbps with combined several normal USB 3.0 ports as well as four SATA3 ports for X370. These boards will also get two SATA express ports. The chipset will offer eight PCI-Express 2.0 lanes. The processor itself supplies PCI-Express 3.0 lanes.
Obviously motherboard manufacturers will add additional SATA3 and USB 3 controllers from ASMedia etc to make these motherboards as advanced and versatile as you are willing to spend on them. And yes, I do predict some RGB LED activity as well 😉
With a X370 chipset and a Ryzen CPU nets you 32 lanes of PCIe connectivity, two USB 3.1 ports, and ten USB 3.0 ports. That’s certainly not bad, but it puts the AM4 platform much closer to Intel’s regular desktop machines than the Broadwell-E setups that come to mind when we talk about 8-core processors. Correctly the latest news is that there will be Ryzen 8-core processors with a 3.6 GHz base frequency and 4.0 GHz Turbo on a 95 Watt TDP.
