AMD’s Zen CPUs are getting dedicated small form factor chipsets

whm1974

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Jul 24, 2016
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I think most of us will build around X370 and B350 based boards even with SFF systems. Most likely the A320 and lower will go to OEMs.
 
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The Stilt

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Dec 5, 2015
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I feel that the role of the chipset on AM4 is heavily exaggerated. Zeppelin is a SoC, which means that the chipset on these boards is merely an I/O extender. The critical features (i.e the number of PCI-E links) depend only on the processor, so getting excited about an I/O chip is pretty odd. I don't see similar fuzz about e.g which ASMedia USB3.1 controller variant will the upcoming Z270 motherboards from a certain manufacturer use either.
 
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hojnikb

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Sep 18, 2014
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What is the point of those chipsets anyway ? Isn't just better to run without chipset at all, if you're pcb size constrained ?
CPUs are already SoCs..
 

The Stilt

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What is the point of those chipsets anyway ? Isn't just better to run without chipset at all, if you're pcb size constrained ?
CPUs are already SoCs..

Sure, if you are willing to give up USB3.1 and the other modern features.
There is not much point in leaving out the I/O expander, since it is pretty nicely integrated chip which requires only a tiny amount of power and has a tiny footprint.
 

hojnikb

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Sep 18, 2014
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Sure, if you are willing to give up USB3.1 and the other modern features.
There is not much point in leaving out the I/O expander, since it is pretty nicely integrated chip which requires only a tiny amount of power and has a tiny footprint.
Looking at the slides, those chipset have no extra usbs and sata
http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AMD-AM4-Chipset-Features.jpg

So if those slides are indeed correct, i really don't see the purpose of those.
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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One thing I am wondering about if these X300/B300/A300 are indeed chipset-less:

Will it be possible to have a M.2 SSD (2280 form factor) on the front of a Summit Ridge SoC board if it is Mini ITX? (Current LGA 1151 Mini-ITX motherboards have the M.2 SSD on the back of the motherboard)
 

hojnikb

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Sep 18, 2014
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One thing I am wondering about if these X300/B300/A300 are indeed chipset-less:

Will it be possible to have a M.2 SSD (2280 form factor) on the front of a Summit Ridge SoC board if it is Mini ITX? (Current LGA 1151 Mini-ITX motherboards have the M.2 SSD on the back of the motherboard)
that would actually make a lot of sense, although i dont get why they have 3 skus for that. Having no dedicated chipset should reduce complexity.
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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that would actually make a lot of sense, although i dont get why they have 3 skus for that. Having no dedicated chipset should reduce complexity.

I think they might be doing that to account for differences in PCIe lanes among processors.

So perhaps with X300 we could even have two or more M.2 (PCIe 3.0 x 4) on a board. (Eg, Mini-ITX with one M.2 on the front and one M.2 on the back of the board or Mini-DTX with two M.2 on the front and one M.2 on the back)
 

Sadist

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Oct 1, 2016
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Nothing stops a user from placing a M.2 SSD in the PCIe x8 slot intended for discrete graphics. A SFF system using an APU would likely be using integrated graphics anyway, and I can't imagine a situation where a system can support a graphics card but not a chipset.