Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master VS Pro

OverDrive

OverDrive

OverDrive

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Hi everyone,

I am starting to consider board options for my upcoming move to AM5/X850E.

I have been very happy with my Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra, which I understand to be a mid-tier board in that range. Is the X850E Aorus Pro the equivalent of it? Also, why is there such a big price difference between the Master and Pro? (circa £150).

The following is from the descriptions for each on the OCUK store. I would be grateful if someone would help me understand this. In particular the PCIEX16 lanes / shared bandwidth part. I think I understand that using either of the specified M.2 slots will reduce the PCIEX16 lane to x8 mode. However, am I right in thinking that this can be avoided by using an M.2 slot that is controlled by the chipset instead?

I plan to move my 4090 and 1TB Corsair MP600 M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD over. However, I don't want to cripple the speed of anything by doing this, should I just upgrade to a PCIe 5.0 SSD too?

Master:
  • 1 x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX16), integrated in the CPU
  • 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, supporting PCIe 4.0 and running at x4 (PCIEX4_1)
  • 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, supporting PCIe 3.0 and running at x4 (PCIEX4_2)

Pro:
1x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX16), integrated in the CPU:
AMD Ryzen™ 9000/7000 Series Processors support PCIe 5.0 x16 mode
* The M2B_CPU and M2C_CPU connectors share bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot.

When theM2B_CPU orM2C_CPU connector is populated, the PCIEX16 slot operates at up to x8 mode.
AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series-Phoenix 1 Processors support PCIe 4.0 x8 mode
AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series-Phoenix 2 Processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode
(The PCIEX16 slot can only support a graphics card or an NVMe SSD. If only one graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.)

Chipset:
- 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, supporting PCIe 4.0 and running at x4 (PCIEX4_1)
- 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, supporting PCIe 3.0 and running at x4 (PCIEX4_2)

I have been very happy with my Gigabyte board, however, I am happy to consider other options too.

Thank you.
 
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OverDrive said:
the equivalent of it?
Click to expand...
It is hard to match boards to the X570 range anymore, because AM5 (as a platform) is a pretty big upgrade and even most of the B650 boards (the non-E) version are somewhat comparable to X570, except for the really low-end ones.

OverDrive said:
I plan to move my 4090 and 1TB Corsair MP600 M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD over. However, I don't want to cripple the speed of anything by doing this, should I just upgrade to a PCIe 5.0 SSD too?
Click to expand...
There are few workloads that are meaningfully bottlenecked by the SSD's bandwidth, so for the average user it'd be a waste.

OverDrive said:
I think I understand that using either of the specified M.2 slots will reduce the PCIEX16 lane to x8 mode. However, am I right in thinking that this can be avoided by using an M.2 slot that is controlled by the chipset instead?
Click to expand...
In general, Ryzen 7000/9000 CPUs are able to offer you 2x PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slots and a 16 lane PCI-E 5.0 graphics slot with no compromise (at least, that's available on X670E).

If a board wants to offer 3x PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slots, they have a problem, hence stealing the lanes from the graphics card is one of the fixes.

Yes, using a chipset M.2 slot has no impact on the GPU (though always check the manual, these things get buried sometimes).

OverDrive said:
Also, why is there such a big price difference between the Master and Pro? (circa £150).
Click to expand...
A few things I can see:
- 5Gb LAN versus 2.5 Gb LAN.
- 8-layer PCB versus 6-layer PCB.
- 110A versus 80A power stages.
- Large RGB display panel on the I/O cover (Is it programmable? Not sure.)
- DTS:X-Ultra

I didn't check rear I/O.
 
Having a look at both boards manuals it appears the pro and the master have 3 x gen 5 M.2 ports 1x gen 4, when you use more than one of the gen 5 ports the pcie gets cut to X8. So you can only use 2x M.2 without going to X8 on the pcie.

If you want to use a lot of M.2 without losing PCIE x16 then the ASRock nova will let you use all 5.
 
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Thank you for the replies. I am only planning to run 1 or 2 M.2 SSDs. So that would initially be just my 1TB PCIe 4.0 drive, and then when I upgrade to a larger PCI 5.0 drive, I may just run the old drive as a secondary/storage drive. So for my use case these boards should be fine.

Will there be any disadvantage to running a PCIe 4.0 drive over a 5.0 drive? I.e. would it have any detrimental impact on the PCIEX16 speed/bandwidth? (I think the answer is no, so just checking).

Really appreciate the help and advice :)

Also, in general, would you say these are good boards, or am I overlooking others that may be better value/design?
 
OverDrive said:
Will there be any disadvantage to running a PCIe 4.0 drive over a 5.0 drive? I.e. would it have any detrimental impact on the PCIEX16 speed/bandwidth? (I think the answer is no, so just checking).
Click to expand...
If the M.2 slot is hardwired in a way that loses graphics lanes by using it, then you will still lose those lanes even if the drive runs at 4.0 instead of 5.0.

If you use an M.2 slot that is connected to the chipset, you shouldn't lose graphics lanes (depends on the board though, always wise to read the manual), then there is a bit higher latency than a CPU-connected slot and it shares bandwidth with other devices connected to the chipset, but this shouldn't be an issue for the average user.

OverDrive said:
Also, in general, would you say these are good boards, or am I overlooking others that may be better value/design?
Click to expand...
The only roundup I've seen is the one that HUB did:

In regards to value, that really depends on what features you want from the board (since that is what determines the price), but on the face of it: if you need only 1 or 2 M.2 slots you're probably overpaying for the Pro and way overpaying for the Master.

If you don't know what features you want, then I'd suggest you start with this:

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £138.98 (includes delivery: £3.99)​

If you can't figure out anything that is missing that you want, you're definitely paying too much.

Alternatively, if you want USB4 / PCIE5 graphics as a baseline, then the same question with this board:

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £223.99 (includes delivery: £3.99)​

Also worth checking if there's anything your current board has that you'd miss if it wasn't present.
 
Thank you for the info and HUB link, i'll have a watch. That's a good point re: checking the features that I need. As you say, for my use, I prob. don't need the Master. I think the only easily overlooked feature that I really need is the optical S/PDIF out connector. Also, WiFi (I don't have a WiFi 7 router yet) and Bluetooth. Although the WiFi would just be as a backup in case I have to temporarily relocate my PC - it came in handy recently when I had the office redecorated! I will be running the CPU at stock, the only thing that's important to me is that the PCIEX16 lanes are not impacted by the use of 1-2 SSDs. Great tip re: checking the manuals before purchase. thank you!
 
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OverDrive said:
I think the only easily overlooked feature that I really need is the optical S/PDIF out connector.
Click to expand...
I've noticed that is more widespread than it used to be on the higher-end boards and curiously, many have SPDIF, but only 2 or 3 jacks.

The B650 Tomahawk is one of the cheaper AM5 boards with spdif and the ASRock X870 board I mentioned also has it.

OverDrive said:
the only thing that's important to me is that the PCIEX16 lanes are not impacted by the use of 1-2 SSDs.
Click to expand...
This is more of a problem with X870/X870E if the board has multiple PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slots. With the last gen boards (B650/B650E/X670/X670E) it is pretty rare.

There's a spreadsheet linked to on this page which is handy (there's a column for spdif) and it has been recently updated for X870/X870E too:
 
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@Tetras.

sorry i didn't reply to your post the other night mate was tried after work thank you for your comment's in my thread.

could you please tell can i use 4 nvmes yes i no the pci express will be 8x.
 
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scubes said:
sorry i ordered the gigabyte arous pro 870e.
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There's a block diagram on page 5 of the manual, from what I can see:

- For 1x M.2 slot (label: M2A), it uses 4 lanes direct from the CPU (spare lanes), no lane sharing.
- For 2x M.2 slot (label: M2B, M2C), it uses 8 lanes from the CPU, which are meant for the graphics card.
- For 1x M.2 slot (label: M2D), it uses 4 lanes from the chipset, no lane sharing.
 
all i need to do is get windows 11 installed and that's it no fiddling or nothing no nothing about overclocking just a stable gaming system i want.
 
scubes said:
all i need to do is get windows 11 installed and that's it no fiddling or nothing no nothing about overclocking just a stable gaming system i want.
Click to expand...
Updating the BIOS isn't really fiddling or overclocking. It's just like updating drivers but at a lower level. It can help stability and performance and reduce bugs but if your system is fine as is, you don't need to worry about doing a BIOS update.

Enjoy your system :)
 
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