The launch of a new chipset does not have to be accompanied by the appearance of a new socket or a new socket, many times processor manufacturers release new versions of their chipsets designed to take advantage of the improvements. implemented for new processors under an existing socket. This is not the case with the Intel Z690, a chipset designed for Alder Lake-S architecture processors, with LGA-1700 socket and DDR5 and PCI Express 5.0 support.
What can we expect from Intel’s Z690 chipset?
While everything indicates that AMD is not going to bet on PCI Express 5.0, at least for the moment, Intel has decided to implement the fifth generation of this technology for the parallel intercommunication between the CPU and its peripherals like the graphics cards, SSDs, etc. Apart from the already known support for DDR5 memory, an element that it will share with its rivals from AMD.
We must take into account that in contemporary processors a small chipset is included that brings a series of I / O interfaces. These interfaces increase the number of peripherals that we can connect, but in the case of PCI Express 5.0, despite the fact that Alder Lake-S will support up to 20 lines, it will really need its implementation on the motherboard to which the processor is connected. .
We do not know for the moment what will be the support of PCI Express 5.0 in the rest of the Intel motherboards of the 600 family, for the moment it is said that it could come from the hand of the most powerful chipsets of Lake Alderplate. -S form, while support for DDR5 memory would be available across the range. At the moment, we know that motherboards with the Z690 chipset could add several more PCI Express 5.0 lanes, which is appreciated as it means more NVMe SSDs in the system.
Communication between the CPU and the chipset will continue to be done through the Intel DMI interface, already used to communicate the CPUs with their chipsets. In this case, Intel will use the fourth generation of this interface.
PCI Express 5.0 only for Intel, advantage or disadvantage?
PCIe 5 will become a controversial subject in a few months, the new interface is backwards compatible with previous versions of the standard, but for the moment despite the existence of the first flash controllers for NVMe SSDs in terms of storage in In case GPUs, we are not aware of the use of this interface.
Given that the information regarding the AMD Ryzen 6000, known by its code name Raphael, indicates that it will not have PCI Express 5.0 support, it is clear that AMD will not rely on this interface in its future. GPU with RDNA 3 architecture. At the moment it is true that the GPUs do not saturate the PCI Express port, but the use of the SSD in the games via technologies like DirectStorage could suppose a saturation of the bus thus that would give Alder Lake -S an advantage under the expensive Intel Z690 chipset. to performance.
If there are no products on the market that take advantage of the new interface, it can be a disadvantage for Intel, as users would not see an opportunity to take advantage of the full capacity of Alder’s architecture. Lake in terms of peripheral communication capability.
