Computex 2014: X99 and USB 3.1 at MSI
by Ian Cutress on June 6, 2014 10:51 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- MSI
- X99
- Computex 2014
Back in 2011, that year’s Computex offered the opportunity to play ‘spot the X79’ motherboard, and there ended up being a significant number of models on display before launch. Fast forward a number of years and ‘spot the X99’ is in full swing, although there seems to be less opportunity. Only one motherboard manufacturer had an X99 motherboard on outward display to all press and the public, so when we went through MSI’s booth, we had a look.
Aside from the lack of a rear panel, there is clearly USB 3.0 and a number of SATA 6 Gbps ports to play with. The spec list to the side mentions DDR4-2666 (OC), showing that 2666 MHz is an overclock frequency for the memory. There also seems to be a reference to an M.2 x2 support, SATA Express support, and an Intel I218-V Ethernet.
Also at the MSI booth was a motherboard featuring a USB 3.1 controller.
The Z97-G55 SLI used the ASMedia ASM1142 Controller that requires two PCIe 2.0 lanes, which puts more pressure on PCIe lanes given the new storage technologies implemented on the 9-series that also require PCIe lanes.
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R3MF - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
"The Z97-G55 SLI used the ASMedia ASM1142 Controller that requires two PCIe 2.0 lanes, which puts more pressure on PCIe lanes given the new storage technologies implemented on the 9-series that also require PCIe lanes."This is exactly why I was impressed with AMD for providing Kaveri with 24x PCIe 3.0 lanes on the chip, a far more forward looking platform than the marketing-crippled s1150.
All we need is an Kaveri FX with three steamroller modules and 256 shaders on board...
Flunk - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
Load it up with CPU and ditch the GPU if you really want high-end. A version with more GPU cores and less CPU cores might be good too but you can't have everything.Jedibeeftrix - Saturday, June 7, 2014 - link
amd is simply not going to make those products, for it goes against the entire purpose of creating HSA.they might on the other hand differentiate a new FX range from the current mainstream by adding cores and removing shaders. spending more of the power/transistor budget on the CPU rather than the GPU.
The Von Matrices - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
The math is the same. If you're using a PCIe x16 graphics card, then both Z97 and Kaveri have 8 remaining PCIe lanes. It doesn't matter whether they are PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 because the USB 3.1 controller only accepts PCIe 2.0 anyway.R3MF - Saturday, June 7, 2014 - link
at least it, and all other devcies and PHY's connected via PCIe will talk straight to the chip, and not via the northbridge over an already saturated link.Galatian - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
X99 and only M.2 with 2 PCIe 2.0 connections? Screw that! Why is ASRock the only manufacture capable of a higher speed implementation? I mean seriously: if you want to give us a new solution for connecting SSDs make it goddamn faster!romrunning - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
I agree - all M.2 slots should be x4 from the start. Don't start me off with what I can get through a regular SATA 6Gbps port.extide - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
Especially on X99, with 40 PCIe 3 lanes!The Von Matrices - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
What's disappointing is that it basically confirms that X99 has only PCIe 2.0 lanes, so for another 3 years the high end platform will be stuck with a PCIe 2.0 chipset.Morawka - Saturday, June 7, 2014 - link
your totally wrong on this. X99 has 5X PCIe 3.0 Lanesx16/NC/x8/x8/x8, x16/NC/x16/NC/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8/x8. The chipset will hold a maximum of 10 SATA 3 ports, Removed SAS support to make way for more Sata 3. and 6 native USB 3.0 ports.