PCIe 4.0 For All!
AMD has released, among other things, the specifications of their new B550 chipset designed for the latest third generation Ryzen processors. The chipset will offer 20 usable PCIe 4.0 lanes with a current generation Ryzen chip, along with up to four usable PCIe 3.0 and eight PCIe 2.0 lanes. It will natively support two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and a mix of up to a half dozen USB 3.1 and 2.0 ports.
While you are likely to be using some of those PCIe lanes for NVMe storage there is still room for up to eight SATA ports, after all there is little need for PCIe connected optical storage at the moment. The new chipset also means an update to AMD’s compatibility table as the B550 chipset is not quite as accommodating as the X570 which can support Ryzen 2 processors as well as current and upcoming generations. As you can see below the B550 will only support this current generation and at least one more future family. Take a peek to see your upgrade options, or head over to AMD for more info.
> The chipset will offer 20 usable PCIe 4.0 lanes with a current generation Ryzen chip, along with up to four usable PCIe 3.0 and eight PCIe 2.0 lanes.
8 PCIe 2.0 lanes? PCIe 2.0? Whoever copy&pasted that page from the original X370/X470 page deserves to be fired. Or AMD deliberately publishes contradictory information. Neither is a good look for them…
As far as i can tell from AMDs own B550 slides publicized by several tech outlets, B550 has up to 6 usable PCIe 3.0 lanes (plus “unusable” 4 lanes dedicated for the uplink to the CPU). No PCIe 2.0 lanes.
Ryzen doesn’t have 20 usable PCIe 4.0 lanes, only 16 of the 20 CPU PCI lanes are usable. Unless you find a way to run the CPU without the chipset. Good luck trying to find such motherboards. Wish AMD, and other companies, would grow enough confidence to not feel the need to fool people.
Okay, have to reply to myself once again. This is embarassing. Ryzen has a total of 24 PCIe lanes. So, yes 20 PCIe lanes from the CPU are usable and my last comment is utter bollocks. AMDs B550 slide tricked my for a moment into the belief that the CPU only has 20 PCIe lanes total. Argh…
You are not the only one who finds issue with how PR reads and can get confused, but maybe hold off on demanding people get fired because of your mistake, eh?