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Asus' ROG X670E-I Has a Chipset on a PCIe Stick

peter_d_sherman 3y ago
Related: The idea of putting a motherboards chipset on a detachable swappable PCIe card (imagine future PC MB's with chipsets that are swappable via PCIe card or other type of removable/swappable card): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrKZeEmu6UA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrKZeEmu6UA Related YouTube comment: @bryanv.2365: "If AMD could write CPU agnostic drivers for either general CXL or PCIe connectivity for their chipsets to be used in this way, that would open up a whole new market, especially on the AsRock Rack side! You gotta nudge AMD and AsRock to keep up the experiments till they get enough Product-Market fit to make it economical, because they're definitely on to something."
rasz 3y ago
No it doesnt. Chipset is in the CPU for a couple of AMD generations already. What AMD and board manufacturers call "chipset" are PCIE bridges with some embedded DRM to segment motherboard market and lock out out features on lower end models.
- peter_d_sherman 3y ago
  >"Chipset is in the CPU for a couple of AMD generations already" I'll accept that this is partially true -- yes, there has been the trend over time to integrate Northbridge and Southbridge (basically high speed and lower speed signal paths) functionality into CPUs. That is, what was once performed by some discrete chips/IC's on a PC motherboard has gradually been absorbed into the CPU over time. So you are indeed, partially correct. However, if your claim was 100% correct -- then it would be also be true that PC motherboards would need/require no other support chips/IC's on them. It it a self-evident truth (can be verified by someone's own eyes) -- that this, at least as of the date of this writing (Sunday, July 9, 2023) -- is patently untrue. That's because I (and probably most other people) -- have not seen a commercially shipping PC motherboard that ONLY has a single CPU on it, and NO other support chips/IC's! All of the other discrete/external/on-the-motherboard support chips/IC's on any given PC motherboard -- are part (perhaps not all of it, because some of it is in the CPU) -- of the chipset! In other words, show me a commercially shipping PC motherboard with no additional support chips/IC's on the motherboard, just the CPU -- and then and only then will I accept your claim that there is in fact, no chipset on the motherboard! Now, we might both be 100% correct in our assessment. We might both be 100% correct if, if and only if -- we are using different definitions for the word chipset. In my definition of chipset -- chipset includes all of the discrete chips/IC's on a motherboard! This, I believe, is the classical definition of chipset. If your definition of chipset is "functionality included in the CPU" -- then you are very much correct within the narrower scope of that definition -- although I believe that it would communicate an incorrectly nuanced understanding of the subject -- to people who read this post both now and in the future who are new or relatively new to PC architecture engineering... But, depending on the definition of chipset used -- we could both be right...
  - rasz 3y ago
    AMD lets you sell products without chipsets, they call it APU then wink wink. https://hothardware.com/news/atari-vcs-pre-production-commences-ryzen-apu https://hothardware.com/news/atari-vcs-pre-production-commen... https://www.bvm.co.uk/products/asrock-4x4-5800u-motherboard-with-amd-ryzen-5000-apu/ https://www.bvm.co.uk/products/asrock-4x4-5800u-motherboard-... Check AM4 pinout, you will find everything integrated. pcie, ram, usb 3.0, sata, HD Audio, RTC/SPI/I2C/SMBus and LPC are all on die.
    - rasz 3y ago
      AMD own AM5 test rig is also chipsetless https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=615 https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=615. Straight from AMD Core Design dude mouth https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=797 https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=797 and at 23:00 there is whole segment about test lab running those boards without any "chipsets".
      - peter_d_sherman 3y ago
        That is a good video! In fact, that video (which I saw previously here on HN) is the one that gives rise to the set of ideas which led to the search which led to my post. Remember, I said "show me [a] commercially shipping PC motherboard with no additional support chips/IC's" I want what AMD has in their lab -- to be commercially available. Also -- if I were designing things, if I think about it, I'd design a CPU that had any slower-speed functionality (i.e., integrated sound chip) off of it, and all of that functionality could be handled by a second user-replaceable/user-programmable/plug-and-play FPGA, or multiple FPGA's or multiple modular chip sockets... Basically, bring back Southbridge -- but make everything it connects to, including the Southbridge chip itself -- modular and easily user replaceable... that is, each chip is not soldered directly to the motherboard, but instead has the appropriate plug-and-play socket for easy removal/replacement... I'm just thinking aloud here... I am not a professional CPU designer -- but that's how I would do things if they were up to me. Anyway, excellent links!
    - peter_d_sherman 3y ago
      >Check AM4 pinout, you will find everything integrated. pcie, ram, usb 3.0, sata, HD Audio, RTC/SPI/I2C/SMBus and LPC are all on die. I don't question that AMD CPU's as of AM4 generation sockets may have all of this -- but the boards in the pictures still have additional black silicon support chips/IC's on them... What are all of those other chips for?

Related: The idea of putting a motherboards chipset on a detachable swappable PCIe card (imagine future PC MB's with chipsets that are swappable via PCIe card or other type of removable/swappable card): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrKZeEmu6UA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrKZeEmu6UA Related YouTube comment: @bryanv.2365: "If AMD could write CPU agnostic drivers for either general CXL or PCIe connectivity for their chipsets to be used in this way, that would open up a whole new market, especially on the AsRock Rack side! You gotta nudge AMD and AsRock to keep up the experiments till they get enough Product-Market fit to make it economical, because they're definitely on to something."

rasz 3y ago

No it doesnt. Chipset is in the CPU for a couple of AMD generations already. What AMD and board manufacturers call "chipset" are PCIE bridges with some embedded DRM to segment motherboard market and lock out out features on lower end models.

peter_d_sherman 3y ago
>"Chipset is in the CPU for a couple of AMD generations already" I'll accept that this is partially true -- yes, there has been the trend over time to integrate Northbridge and Southbridge (basically high speed and lower speed signal paths) functionality into CPUs. That is, what was once performed by some discrete chips/IC's on a PC motherboard has gradually been absorbed into the CPU over time. So you are indeed, partially correct. However, if your claim was 100% correct -- then it would be also be true that PC motherboards would need/require no other support chips/IC's on them. It it a self-evident truth (can be verified by someone's own eyes) -- that this, at least as of the date of this writing (Sunday, July 9, 2023) -- is patently untrue. That's because I (and probably most other people) -- have not seen a commercially shipping PC motherboard that ONLY has a single CPU on it, and NO other support chips/IC's! All of the other discrete/external/on-the-motherboard support chips/IC's on any given PC motherboard -- are part (perhaps not all of it, because some of it is in the CPU) -- of the chipset! In other words, show me a commercially shipping PC motherboard with no additional support chips/IC's on the motherboard, just the CPU -- and then and only then will I accept your claim that there is in fact, no chipset on the motherboard! Now, we might both be 100% correct in our assessment. We might both be 100% correct if, if and only if -- we are using different definitions for the word chipset. In my definition of chipset -- chipset includes all of the discrete chips/IC's on a motherboard! This, I believe, is the classical definition of chipset. If your definition of chipset is "functionality included in the CPU" -- then you are very much correct within the narrower scope of that definition -- although I believe that it would communicate an incorrectly nuanced understanding of the subject -- to people who read this post both now and in the future who are new or relatively new to PC architecture engineering... But, depending on the definition of chipset used -- we could both be right...
- rasz 3y ago
  AMD lets you sell products without chipsets, they call it APU then wink wink. https://hothardware.com/news/atari-vcs-pre-production-commences-ryzen-apu https://hothardware.com/news/atari-vcs-pre-production-commen... https://www.bvm.co.uk/products/asrock-4x4-5800u-motherboard-with-amd-ryzen-5000-apu/ https://www.bvm.co.uk/products/asrock-4x4-5800u-motherboard-... Check AM4 pinout, you will find everything integrated. pcie, ram, usb 3.0, sata, HD Audio, RTC/SPI/I2C/SMBus and LPC are all on die.
  - rasz 3y ago
    AMD own AM5 test rig is also chipsetless https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=615 https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=615. Straight from AMD Core Design dude mouth https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=797 https://youtu.be/7H4eg2jOvVw?t=797 and at 23:00 there is whole segment about test lab running those boards without any "chipsets".
    - peter_d_sherman 3y ago
      That is a good video! In fact, that video (which I saw previously here on HN) is the one that gives rise to the set of ideas which led to the search which led to my post. Remember, I said "show me [a] commercially shipping PC motherboard with no additional support chips/IC's" I want what AMD has in their lab -- to be commercially available. Also -- if I were designing things, if I think about it, I'd design a CPU that had any slower-speed functionality (i.e., integrated sound chip) off of it, and all of that functionality could be handled by a second user-replaceable/user-programmable/plug-and-play FPGA, or multiple FPGA's or multiple modular chip sockets... Basically, bring back Southbridge -- but make everything it connects to, including the Southbridge chip itself -- modular and easily user replaceable... that is, each chip is not soldered directly to the motherboard, but instead has the appropriate plug-and-play socket for easy removal/replacement... I'm just thinking aloud here... I am not a professional CPU designer -- but that's how I would do things if they were up to me. Anyway, excellent links!
  - peter_d_sherman 3y ago
    >Check AM4 pinout, you will find everything integrated. pcie, ram, usb 3.0, sata, HD Audio, RTC/SPI/I2C/SMBus and LPC are all on die. I don't question that AMD CPU's as of AM4 generation sockets may have all of this -- but the boards in the pictures still have additional black silicon support chips/IC's on them... What are all of those other chips for?