Question Rog Strix B-450F bios update-- CPU-Z says it supports PCI-4

[Hans Gruber]

I just updated my bios to 5102. I had the most recent bios before upgrading yesterday. The new bios was released last week. I put my PC through it's paces and did some very light benchmarking to make sure everything is running correctly. In CPU-Z motherboard tab it shows my Bus specs are PCI-Express 4.0 I did more research and overbuilt B-450 boards included support for PCI-4. AMD nixed that support and motherboard manufacturers disabled the feature. Now with a new AGESA bios update and Zen 4 being more than 6 months old. Did they open up PCI-4 support on my AM4 motherboard? Or is this just a technical glitch?

I will go into my bios and see if PCI-4 is available for my GPU. If it was enabled, would that mean my B450-F would support PCI-4 M.2 drives as well? Or is this just a mistake? Meaning PCI-4 is disabled but the latest bios shows it as capable?

 

[Hans Gruber]

I checked in bios settings. It shows PCI-E 3.0 max settings.

 

[No_Huckleberry_1514]

I just updated my bios to 5102. I had the most recent bios before upgrading yesterday. The new bios was released last week. I put my PC through it's paces and did some very light benchmarking to make sure everything is running correctly. In CPU-Z motherboard tab it shows my Bus specs are PCI-Express 4.0 I did more research and overbuilt B-450 boards included support for PCI-4. AMD nixed that support and motherboard manufacturers disabled the feature. Now with a new AGESA bios update and Zen 4 being more than 6 months old. Did they open up PCI-4 support on my AM4 motherboard? Or is this just a technical glitch?

I will go into my bios and see if PCI-4 is available for my GPU. If it was enabled, would that mean my B450-F would support PCI-4 M.2 drives as well? Or is this just a mistake? Meaning PCI-4 is disabled but the latest bios shows it as capable?

View attachment 81984

Your screenshot shows Gen 3 for the GPU though...
Assuming, as most likely always been the case where the 450 chipset can do PCI-e 4.0, its just neutered to the GPU/M.2 slots, etc..

 

[nunosergiomoniz]

I just updated my bios to 5102. I had the most recent bios before upgrading yesterday. The new bios was released last week. I put my PC through it's paces and did some very light benchmarking to make sure everything is running correctly. In CPU-Z motherboard tab it shows my Bus specs are PCI-Express 4.0 I did more research and overbuilt B-450 boards included support for PCI-4. AMD nixed that support and motherboard manufacturers disabled the feature. Now with a new AGESA bios update and Zen 4 being more than 6 months old. Did they open up PCI-4 support on my AM4 motherboard? Or is this just a technical glitch?

I will go into my bios and see if PCI-4 is available for my GPU. If it was enabled, would that mean my B450-F would support PCI-4 M.2 drives as well? Or is this just a mistake? Meaning PCI-4 is disabled but the latest bios shows it as capable?

View attachment 81984

Hi, same board with 5003 bios ver.
I have a 3060ti (PCI 4.0)

 

[nunosergiomoniz]

I'm a little afraid to update to the latest update... I have a ryzen 2600x and I read somewhere in another post that someone had a 2600 and that the motherboard stopped working with the latest bios update... I don't know if they removed it from the list of processors... that's why I haven't updated it yet... I may be without a computer because of that... it could have been an update problem and it ruined everything... I don't know...

 

[Shmee]

This is very likely a CPUz bug, displaying the wrong PCIe information.

As for the 2600X, there isn't really a reason to upgrade your BIOS that I can think of. Keep in mind there is no PCIe gen4 controller on the 2600X, the PCIe controller has been on the CPU for many years now. To utilize PCIe gen4, you need a CPU that supports it, in this case Zen 2 or newer (Ryzen 3000 or newer) and even then not all models have it. You of course would also need a compatible motherboard (B550/X570 most likely, though there may be a few older AM4 boards that would sorta support it with certain BIOS releases).

So since you have a 2600X, you aren't going to get PCIe 4 anyway, regardless of board or BIOS used, unless you upgrade your CPU. This could be a good option for you, something like a 5600 or 5700X could give you a nice boost. Though I still doubt you would be able to get PCIe gen 4 on your board.

 

[Hans Gruber]

There you go.

 

[Shmee]

Hmm, could you try a different program, to verify that the board is capable of PCIe gen4? Of course, with a 1660 Super, you will still be running gen3 x16. Also, what AGESA revision is that BIOS using? Makes me wonder if there is hope for getting the gen4 working on my B350M Gaming Gigabyte board and the 5700XT.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I updated CPU-Z to make sure it was not a CPU-Z error. It was a CPU-Z. Who thinks of this sort of thing? Me.

 

[zir_blazer]

CPU-Z most likely get that data from static SMBIOS info, which may not necessarily have a functional meaning. Try it with GPU-Z under load and see if it actually reports PCIe 4.0 @ 16x.

 

[nunosergiomoniz]

View attachment 85301
I updated CPU-Z to make sure it was not a CPU-Z error. It was a CPU-Z. Who thinks of this sort of thing? Me.

so, the problem was the outdated cpu-z?...

 

[mikeymikec]

Surely a much better answer to the question is the official specs:

ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING | Motherboards | ROG Global

Best AMD AM4 B450 Ryzen ATX gaming motherboard with advanced cooling, Aura Sync, SupremeFX, dual M.2, Intel LAN, and USB 3.1 Gen 2

rog.asus.com

They only mention PCIE 3.0. This is in line with my expectation that B450 doesn't do PCIE 4.0 whereas B550 does (with a caveat of 'check the board specs', because mobo makers are sometimes odd).

 

[zir_blazer]

Surely a much better answer to the question is the official specs:

ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING | Motherboards | ROG Global

Best AMD AM4 B450 Ryzen ATX gaming motherboard with advanced cooling, Aura Sync, SupremeFX, dual M.2, Intel LAN, and USB 3.1 Gen 2

rog.asus.com

They only mention PCIE 3.0. This is in line with my expectation that B450 doesn't do PCIE 4.0 whereas B550 does (with a caveat of 'check the board specs', because mobo makers are sometimes odd).

This is actually a rather mediocre answer because there were times in the past where new stuff was actually supported but motherboards specs weren't officially updated. My AM3 ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO which officially supported 16 GiB RAM with 4 * 4 GiB modules yet worked fine with 4 * 8 GiB modules for a full 32 GiB comes to mind.

We also went though previous generation motherboards supporting a new PCIe generation with Intel Ivy Bridge. Sandy Bridge integrated PCIe Controller supported PCIe 2.0 speeds whereas its socket compatible successor Ivy Bridge supported PCIe 3.0, and you could actually use that on the PCIe Slots wired to the Processor just by upgrading to Ivy Bridge on Sandy Bridge era boards. And this situation ALMOST happened when AMD introduced Ryzen 3000 with PCIe 4.0, but decided against allowing using it on previous generations Motherboards due to PCB quality having a much bigger impact than from 2.0 to 3.0 and soon after launch decided to disable PCIe 4.0 support based on Chipset identification via BIOS/AGESA updates. Is possible that he may be able to get true PCIe 4.0 using one of the beta BIOSes before AMD forced disabling PCIe 4.0. Not that it would be a good idea to do so, but you can, and that is unlikely to be on official specs.

 

[Shmee]

I wonder if it is possible to mod a recent BIOS to allow for PCIe gen4 selection.