B550 motherboards and chipset cooling fan?

[trents]

Have they done away with the chipset cooling fan on the B550 boards? Looking at the line up in NewEgg it was obvious many don't have one but it was hard to tell on some others because I didn't see any exposed fans. But some of the chip set coolers were large enough they looked like they could have fans underneath.

 

[bigtallanddopey]

Have they done away with the chipset cooling fan on the B550 boards? Looking at the line up in NewEgg it was obvious many don't have one but it was hard to tell on some others because I didn't see any exposed fans. But some of the chip set coolers were large enough they looked like they could have fans underneath.

I believe there are some that do have a cooling fan but for the life of me I can’t find them after a quick google, so maybe I just imagined it.

So yeh no help at all there.

 

[EarthDog]

I havent seen one with a fan yet...

The b550 chipset uses around 1/2 the power (5-7W) of x570.

Fans weren't an issue for most in x570 in the first place. Maybe a couple of boards were loud out of the gate, most updated bios or you couldn't hear them anyway.

 

[trents]

Why so much less power draw?

 

[bmwbaxter]

b550 doesn't have PCIE 4.0 and has fewer highspeed USB ports.

 

[trents]

The b550 does have PCIe 4.0. That was the whole point of the chipset release, to provide a PCIe capable device for less money than X570 boards:

"That means B550 motherboards, unlike their predecessors, will officially support PCIe Gen4 for up to two devices." https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3582-amd-chipset-differences-b550-vs-x570-b450-x470-zen-3

The only difference is that it will support a max of two PCIe 4.0 devices and that may be the main reason why it runs cooler. Fewer PCIe 4.0 lanes to power.

 

[bmwbaxter]

The PCIE 4.0 support is via the CPU directly. The chipset is linked via 3.0 so it can't support any 4.0 devices. I got my information for my original comment from the article you referenced . See the photos below. It is the same as how when the 3000 series ryzen came out they 'supported' nvme pcie4.0 on x470 boards before it got "fixed".





EDIT: to be clear I know b550 boards will have 4.0 support but not because of the chipset.

 

[trents]

So then, the article seems to provide conflicting information.

https://www.vortez.net/news_story/a...hough the B550 chipset is,case with X470/B450).

"Although the B550 chipset is built for Ryzen 3000-series CPUs,it won't be fully PCIe 4.0 enabled. The chipset will support four lanes of PCIe 4.0 off the CPU for the primary M.2 NVMe slot, but both the 16-lane GPU connection and four-lane chipset GMI link will support only PCIe 3.0 (as was the case with X470/B450). Furthermore, B550 will also apparently offer fewer USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (2 vs 8 on X570), and fewer SATA 3.0 ports."

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-b550-motherboards
"In short, you get PCIe 4.0 support through the CPU, delivering enough lanes for fast NVMe storage and the GPU."

Nobody seems to agree on the specifics but there seems to be some degree of PCIe 4.0 support, at least for storage.

 

[EarthDog]

So then, the article seems to provide conflicting information.

https://www.vortez.net/news_story/a...hough the B550 chipset is,case with X470/B450).

"Although the B550 chipset is built for Ryzen 3000-series CPUs,it won't be fully PCIe 4.0 enabled. The chipset will support four lanes of PCIe 4.0 off the CPU for the primary M.2 NVMe slot, but both the 16-lane GPU connection and four-lane chipset GMI link will support only PCIe 3.0 (as was the case with X470/B450). Furthermore, B550 will also apparently offer fewer USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (2 vs 8 on X570), and fewer SATA 3.0 ports."

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-b550-motherboards
"In short, you get PCIe 4.0 support through the CPU, delivering enough lanes for fast NVMe storage and the GPU."

Nobody seems to agree on the specifics but there seems to be some degree of PCIe 4.0 support, at least for storage.

You get PCIe 4.0 GPU and M.2.

There are 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU - x16 for the GPU and 4 for the NVMe (can divide it up differently). The GMI link between the CPU and chipset is PCIe 3.0 (unlike X570 where it is 4.0). Anything else that hangs off the chipset is PCIe 3.0 based.




I think where the confusion came in is bmw was talking specifically about the chipset (b550) while trents lumped the whole board together. You are both correct. B550 based motherboards support PCIe 4.0 for the GPU and a single M.2 slot (the lanes come from the CPU). Anything past that, from the GMI link to the chipset itself, is PCIe 3.0. So because the chipset isn't supporting those lanes (among other reasons I'd imagine) that can help it use less power/output less heat.

 

[trents]

Thanks for the clarification, ED.