Gigabyte Pulls PCIe 4.0 Support From Pre-X570 Motherboards

By Zhiye Liu
published

(Image credit: Gigabyte)

Gigabyte releases new firmware with AMD's revised AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABB microcode for the brand's AMD 300-and 400-series motherboards. The latest microcode addresses a couple of issues with Ryzen 3000-series processors, but it also removes PCIe 4.0 functionality.

By now, it should be common knowledge that AMD doesn't intend to enable PCIe 4.0 on pre-X570 motherboards due to the physical limitations. However, motherboard vendors, including Asus, Biostar, and Gigabyte previously enabled the feature against AMD's wishes. It seems that our luck has finally run out.

The changelog for the latest firmware for Gigabyte motherboards clearly specifies that the PCIe 4.0 option has been removed. The change is effective as of the F42a BIOS and affects all Gigabyte 300-and 400-series products starting from the flagship X470 motherboards down to the budget A320 offerings.

1. Update AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABB2. Improve Destiny 2 gaming compatibility 3. Remove PCIe Gen4 support when using a 3rd Gen Ryzen (Matisse) CPU

Either the AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABB microcode is the culprit here, or Gigabyte disabled PCIe 4.0 functionality out of its own free will. For now, it's impossible to tell because Gigabyte is the only motherboard manufacturer to deploy new firmware with the updated microcode. Once other vendors begin releasing new firmwares for their products, we'll be able to find out whether it was AMD or Gigabyte that pulled the trigger.

One way or the other, pre-X570 motherboard owners are certainly at a very important crossroad right now. Upgrading implicates losing the PCIe 4.0 feature while not upgrading means losing out on a lot, such as new features, bug fixes, or even performance enhancements.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jimmysmitty
    It makes sense to remove it. AMD is not going to support it which means a motherboard vendor would be the only contact for any support.

    Its better to avoid potential issues rather than enable something and increase potential issues.
    Reply
  • linuxdude
    To be honest I was quite shocked when I heard AMD is activly preventing enabling PCIe4 on 300/400-series chipsets.

    This is the kind of behavior I am used to see from Intel (extract as much money as possible from customers), but until now not from AMD. It seems success always corrupts in one way or another.
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    I understand why AMD would want mobo manufacturers to do this. It creates confusion on what boards support pcie4. Also removing PCIe4 on older boards give another incentive for people to look at X570.

    That being said, i don't support AMD doing this. It is a very intel move, and not something i like
    Reply
  • waltc3
    From what I read, GB pulled it because it didn't work properly and created WHEA warnings in the process of not functioning. Seems ample reason to pull it, imo.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    linuxdude said:
    To be honest I was quite shocked when I heard AMD is activly preventing enabling PCIe4 on 300/400-series chipsets.

    This is the kind of behavior I am used to see from Intel (extract as much money as possible from customers), but until now not from AMD. It seems success always corrupts in one way or another.

    Wait you mean preventing something that might not work properly and cause you issues is an Intel move?

    remixislandmusic said:
    I understand why AMD would want mobo manufacturers to do this. It creates confusion on what boards support pcie4. Also removing PCIe4 on older boards give another incentive for people to look at X570.

    That being said, i don't support AMD doing this. It is a very intel move, and not something i like

    AMD is acting like a company. Of course they would prefer you buy a X570 board for your shiny new Ryzen chip. They have shareholders to please after all.

    And its not much an Intel move. Intel just tends to build a chipset and CPU around each other. I think thats the best way to go. Besides how often do you need to actually upgrade your CPU these days? If every other year its too much for little to no gains.

    waltc3 said:
    From what I read, GB pulled it because it didn't work properly and created WHEA warnings in the process of not functioning. Seems ample reason to pull it, imo.

    So instead of allowing something that could cause people potential issues and end up in a lawsuit, since they would have knowingly allowed these issues to persist, they are removing support so people don't have issues. Seems like a proper thing to do to me.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    jimmysmitty said:
    So instead of allowing something that could cause people potential issues and end up in a lawsuit, since they would have knowingly allowed these issues to persist, they are removing support so people don't have issues. Seems like a proper thing to do to me.
    How do you figure it could have got them sued? Nowhere (from either AMD or Gigabyte) does it say the 300/400 series boards will support PCIe 4.0. The fact that an option may exist in the BIOS to enable it hardly constitutes a guarantee that it will work.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    TJ Hooker said:
    How do you figure it could have got them sued? Nowhere (from either AMD or Gigabyte) does it say the 300/400 series boards will support PCIe 4.0. The fact that an option may exist in the BIOS to enable it hardly constitutes a guarantee that it will work.

    People sue over the dumbest things. I could see it being possible based on them knowing there are potential issues and leaving it enabled. Having knowledge of it causing issues and leaving it on could cause it.

    That said I am glad they decided to disable it as there is a good reason for AMD to do so. Backwards compatibility is one thing but pushing a new standard on something that wasn't built for it originally is another and I have almost never seen that in a board ever.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Yep. Good choise! Pci4 is not must. Stable bios on the other hand is. I am sure that there may be some boards that could be stable in long run for Pci4, but most Are not so it is better to get motherboard manufacturers take care of every trouble that can happen if They on their own add that feature back! It can be done ofcourse. But as it has been said in the above comment, it is better have working bios than something that can cause and will cause unexpected problems!
    Reply
  • RodroX
    I updated my Gigabyte B450 Gaming X Bios to version F42b, (Agesa 1.0.0.3 ABB) and the results are:

    1. The PCI-E Gen 4 option still there to choose it.
    2.     The high Vcore, high Temps, and high CPU Fan noise, those became a bit better after updating Bios and installing the new Chipset Drivers from AMD page (Of course I still had to manually disable PBO from Bios, which is kinda useless with stock cooler - at least on my case with the air flow I have - and I have to set "Power Supply Idle Control" option to "Typical Current Idle"). This is choosing the "Ryzen Power Balanced Plan"

    3. Fun fact is like kinda nothing changed for me, cause I got the same results than before (without updating BIOS nor Drivers), and just setting those options in BIOS plus choosing "Windows Balanced Power Plan"
    I think AMD, Gigabyte (in my case) and Microsoft need to put some more work on this to fix this issues.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    Has anyone actually gone through and tested PCIe 4.0 performance and stability on these boards compared to X570? And is there even any consumer-grade hardware currently available that pushes PCIe 4.0 to its limits, as in, close to 8GB/s for an x4 device, or close to 32GB/s for an x16 device?

    It's not clear whether this feature would even work reliably on these boards, and in any case, the benefits of PCIe 4.0 for home systems will likely be quite limited for a number of years.
    Reply