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Chipsets for Ryzen 7000: AMD X670E, X670, B650E and B650 in comparison

Oct 7, 2022

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If you want to upgrade to AMD's AM5 platform with Ryzen 7000, you are spoiled for choice between four mainboard chipsets. But which one offers what? This article provides assistance and explains the differences in the equipment of the X670E, X670, B650E and B650.

Table of contents

Comparison of chipsets for Ryzen 7000 on AM5
These interfaces come from the Ryzen 7000 itself
1. The chipset decides what is used
The upper class with X670E and X670
B650E and B650 for entry
Finally, look at the manual

Chipsets for Ryzen 7000 on AM5 in comparison

As with the predecessors, it is not so easy to say which interfaces are offered by which chipset. The maximum of interface A can mean that instead less is available from interface B if electrical connections are doubled or universally usable. In addition, many of the new features such as PCIe 5.0 do not come from the chipset itself, but from the processor. The Ryzen CPUs again have an I/O die that brings these interfaces with it. In combination with the integrated GPU, the Ryzen 7000 (test) are therefore genuine systems on a chip (SoCs).

These interfaces come from Ryzen 7000 itself

The Ryzen 7000 I/O die (IOD) has a total of 28 PCIe generation 5.0 lanes. Of these, 4 lanes are always required to connect the respective chipset, but these are designed as PCIe 4.0 x4. The chipsets themselves do not support PCIe 5.0.

The chipset decides what is used

Only the two “Extreme” versions with the “E”, i.e. the X670E and the B650E, also use the remaining 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes of the CPU. The X670, on the other hand, can only use a maximum of 8 PCIe 5.0 lanes, and with the B650, PCIe 5.0 is purely optional and not actually intended. The circumcision is artificial in each case, because the SoC interfaces are always physically present, but they are then not used.

Only mainboards with X670E and B650E can thus provide up to 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes for a graphics card and still have eight lanes of this type left, with X670 (with 8 lanes) and B650 PCIe 4.0 is provided for graphics cards instead. The X670E, X670 and B650E always have four PCIe 5.0 lanes for an NVMe SSD (M.2) and four more as so-called general purpose lanes (GPP), which are used individually. The entry-level model does not have GPP and PCIe 5.0 x4 for an SSD is only optional.

The Ryzen SoC also offers four USBs with 10 Gbit/s and can be used by everyone AM5 mainboards can be obtained. The same applies to the single USB 2.0 port.

The upper class with X670E and X670

The X670E and X670 use two Promontory 21 chips, so it's basically a dual chipset. In addition to the PCIe lanes from the SoC, there are a maximum of twelve PCIe 4.0 lines that can be used by mainboard manufacturers for additional M.2 ports, a WLAN module or Ethernet. The up to eight PCIe 3.0 lanes can also be replaced 1:1 with SATA.

It gets more complicated with the USB interfaces. Up to twelve USB 2.0 ports, which are hardly ever used, and eight USB 3.2 ports with 10 Gbit/s are always available. Four more 10 Gbps ports can be used instead of the two 20 Gbps fast USB 3.2 ports. The third configuration is one USB 20 Gbps and two USB 10 Gbps. This is where AMD's charts are more helpful than a table to understand this.

X670E X670 B650E B650 GPU 1 × PCIe 5.0 x16
or 2 × PCIe 5.0 x8 1 × PCIe 4.0 x16
or 2 × PCIe 4.0 x8 1 × PCIe 5.0 x16
or 2 × PCIe 5.0 x8 1 × PCIe 4.0 x16
or 2 × PCIe 4.0 x8 NVMe 1 × PCIe 5.0 x4 1 × PCIe 5.0 x4 1 × PCIe 5.0 x4 1 × PCIe 4.0 x4 (optional PCIe 5.0) GPP* x4 x4 x4 – PCIe lanes (max.) 44 44 36 36 PCIe 5.0 (max) 24 8 24 0 (optional 4) PCIe 4.0 (max) 12 16 + 12 8 16 + 4 + 8 PCIe 3.0 (max) 8 8 4 4 USB 3.2 20Gbps 2/1/0 ** 2/1/0** 1/0** 1/0** USB 3.2 10Gbps 4+8/10/12** 4+8/10/12** 4+4/6** 4 + 4/6** USB 2.0 480 Mbit/s 1 + 12 1 + 12 1 + 6 1 + 6 SATA*** (max.) 8 8 4 4 italics = from Ryzen SoC
*General Purpose = universally usable lanes
**different configurations possible, see diagrams
***then replace the PCIe 3.0 lanes

B650E and B650 to get started

With only one chip of the same type, the B650 series offers almost half the number of interfaces of the X670 models. With the PCIe 4.0 lanes there are still eight instead of twelve, but with PCIe 3.0 and the USB ports it is exactly half each. Accordingly, only four SATA ports are possible instead of PCIe 3.0.

The USB interfaces are also exactly halved: At most, there is only one USB with 20 Gbit/s or alternatively two additional 10Gbps ports to join the four regular ports of this type. USB 2.0 is represented six more times.

At the end, there is still a look at the manual

The equipment mentioned above only represents the theoretical maximum for a mainboard with the respective chipset. As always, everything at once doesn't work. And which of the interfaces are available and in what number depends on the respective mainboard and how the manufacturer implements the functions.

Deciding on one of the above chipsets is therefore only the first step. Then it is important to compare the data sheets and manuals of the mainboard manufacturers in order to really see what the new board offers.

The filter options can also be helpful for the comparison of the mainboard lists in the ComputerBase price comparison.