Gaming PC

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

AMD’s top-of-the-line X670E chipset for AM5 motherboards offers expandability by allowing chipsets to be daisy-chained, but building a Mini-ITX motherboard with this dual-chip core logic is Quite difficult. But Asus seems to have found a solution. The ROG Strix X670E-I motherboard for AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors puts his second chipset chip (Promontory 21) on an add-on PCIe card. unico hardware.

One of the hallmarks of AMD’s latest 600-series chipsets is that while the B650E and B650 rely on a single Promontory 21 chip, the I/O-rich X670E and X670 daisy-chain are PCIe 4.0 x4 Another option is to add PCIe using another Promontory 21 chip using the interface. lanes, USB ports, and other input/output interfaces. However, the second Promontory 21 chip does not need to be installed on the motherboard itself. Asus, for example, installs a special PCIe 4.0 x4 add-on card that enables an additional M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slot and an I/O controller.

(Image credit: Uniko’s Hardware)

By using a dual-chip X670E chipset and an additional Promontory 21 chip, Asus has replaced the PCIe lanes on the primary X670E Platform Controller Hub (PCH) with Intel’s JHL8540 Two USB 4 Type-C ports with 40 Gbps throughput and DisplayPort support (the chip uses a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface to connect to the PCH, so the maximum raw bandwidth is about 3.938 GB/s in both directions) Controller to enable, Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.2 adapter, 2.5GbE controller and multiple USB ports.

AMD’s Promontory 21 chip fully supports I/O virtualization features such as IOMMU, so if you use it to connect a PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD to your host, you can use it to connect a drive connected to a second Promontory 21 PCH It promises predictable performance for both your computer and peripherals.

(Image credit: Asus)

In total, Asus ROG Strix X670E-I has two M.2 slots (one with PCIe 5.0 x4 and one with PCIe 4.0 x4 interface), two SATA ports (using another bundled add-on card), Supports two USB4 types. C connector, 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, 6 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C connectors, and 5 USB 2.0 ports. The unit also features 2.5 GbE (enabled by an Intel I225-V controller) and an advanced audio subsystem powered by a Realtek ALC4050 codec and ESS Saber 9260Q DAC.

Speaking of the audio subsystem, it’s worth noting that to get the most out of it, you’ll need to use the included ROG Strix Hive adapter with two USB ports.

(Image credit: Asus)

Interestingly, Asus isn’t the only one to decide to put Promontory 21 on their add-in card. recently, Level 1 Techs demoed ASRock’s X670 Xpansion Kit cards for the company’s B650 motherboards and converted them into X670 mainboards. The card has two M.2 slots, one USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C port, three USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A connectors, two SATA connectors, and a 10GbE port (Marvell AQtion AQC113C controller).

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