Computex 2018
The latest news and trends from Taipei.
A QUIET YEAR FOR MAJOR MOTHERBOARD RELEASES
In the absence of a new platform launch, it’s been a fairly quiet year for major motherboard releases. We’ve seen plenty of refreshes, with the likes of AMD’s X470 and Intel’s B360 and H370 carrying the torch. The rest of 2018 is looking good for the high end, though many new products are still likely to be refreshes. Having said that, there should be one or two exceptions. There are some very cool boards to come, and of course there’s plenty of awesome stuff out there already that leaves you spoiled for choice. Let’s have a look at where we’re at with motherboards as we enter the second half of 2018.
LOTS OF NEW AMD MOTHERBOARDS TO CHOOSE FROM
With the launch of second generation Ryzen back in April, we got a chipset refresh in the form of X470. This was largely a refresh with the addition of AMD’s StoreMi technology, better XFR automatic overclocking support, and a higher officially supported RAM speed. Otherwise there’s little difference between X370 and X470.
It’s taken some time but now we have an incoming refresh of the budget oriented B350 chipset, logically named B450. These also differ little from each other, but we’re hoping for some as yet unconfirmed features like top-tobottom support for HDMI 2.0. This is a critical feature for Ryzen APUs.
THREADRIPPING
In recent years AMD has promised continuity across its platforms and this is set to continue with X399 motherboards. Upcoming Threadripper 2 CPUs will be drop-in compatible with existing X399 boards after a BIOS update – at least that’s what we’re led to believe. The increased power demands of 32-core CPUs mean existing X399 motherboards may possibly encounter some issues powering a CPU with a stock TDP
well north of 200W. Of course, if you are wanting to do any meaningful overclocking this requirement will be a lot higher.
We expect to see a new wave of X399 motherboards to support the launch. At Computex MSI showed off its Meg Creation motherboard with a 19-phase VRM solution and twin 8-pin EPS power connectors. You can expect other manufacturers to follow suit, equipping their new X399 motherboards with massive heatsinks and some of the beefiest power delivery subsystems we’ve ever seen on consumer motherboards.
T H READING WATER WITH INTEL
Coffee Lake CPUs were launched in October 2017 alongside the Z370 chipset. There’s not a lot happening on that front though. B360 and H370 are out in the wild and offer some great value and features, though of course they lack overclocking support. Will Intel allow all these motherboards to run 8-core CPUs? Given some of the lower end boards are quite deficient with regards to their VRM systems, this will be interesting to see. Coffee Lake is of course not supported on Z270, B250 or H270 motherboards, so will history repeat itself with blocked 8-core support? Time will tell. We hope B360 and H370 boards were designed with an 8-core in mind.
INTEL’S MEGA HIGH END PLATFORM
At Computex, Intel showed off its ultra-high end platform, based on its enterprise LGA 3647 socket. This platform is likely to be restricted to the deepest pocketed enthusiasts and professional users only. It’s not likely to be an ideal gaming platform unless Intel gets creative with turbo modes for relatively lightly threaded loads. Its hand was probably forced a bit by Threadripper 2, as the LGA 2066 socket featured on X299 motherboards is not capable of supporting the new wave of very high core count CPUs.
Asus had a prototype motherboard on display at Computex called the ROG Dominus. We weren’t able to see the board in person when we visited the Asus booth (presumably because Intel tapped Asus on the shoulder) but we heard it’s an absolute monster, well beyond any consumer motherboard ever seen before. The board featured hex channel memory, several 8-pin power connectors and was of course fully loaded with features. We think even $1,000 for such a motherboard is a pipe dream. As for the CPUs, with an Intel i9-7980XE going for over $2,700, we shudder to think what a 28-core model will go for. A Xeon Platinum 28 core model costs a mere $14,000+.
Insert your chosen expletive.
SOME SOLID AND NOT SO SOLID RUMOURS
In May, we saw something curious from Intel, when it released a webpage detailing its unreleased Z390 chipset. That page has since been removed, but the genie is out of the bottle. If - or when - it releases, you can expect some new inclusions such as 802.11ac Wi-Fi and integrated USB 3.1 Gen 2 support. Assuming such a chipset sees the light of day, we expect support for Coffee Lake 8-core CPUs, possibly 9th generation processors, and - if Intel is feeling charitable – the 10nm Cannon lake CPUs that should be coming sometime in 2019.
We’ve also heard whispers about an upgraded AMD X470, which may feature more PCIe lanes. This would make sense given the increasing numbers of M.2 slots that each take four PCIe 3.0 lanes. We’ll have to wait and see if this hypothetical chipset is merely a rumour or not.
WHERE’S MY 10G ETHERNET?
One of the things we’d really like to see is more motherboards supporting 5- or 10Gb Ethernet. Gigabit is so 1999. We really need something faster. Everything else seemingly gets faster and cheaper. Why not 10Gb Ethernet switches, routers or NAS? Transferring those 4K files over Gigabit is painful. We asked a few motherboard manufacturers about this and they said we are still two-tothree years away from widespread adoption. We want it now!
2018 has been a year of refreshes and this trend is mostly set to continue. Intel’s mega platform is the exception, but that’s not going to be a gamer’s platform. Still there’s plenty out there and plenty to come that will serve to scratch the itch of upgrade addicts.
One of the things we’d really like to see is more motherboards supporting 5- or 10Gb Ethernet. Gigabit is so 1999.