Purported References to X590 Chipset Found in BIOS for Upcoming AMD Motherboards
Recently, data miners poking around in the BIOS files of upcoming Gigabyte X570 motherboards have come across references to an "X590" chipset, which does not officially exist yet. In these BIOSes, many options are labeled as for "X570/590 chipsets." The developer for the Ryzen DRAM Calculator also hinted at an X590 chipset on Twitter, saying "AMD X590 and more possibilities coming soon" with an attached picture of a mostly blacked-out motherboard save for the corners; the Tweet has since been deleted.
If X590 exists, it could deliver more features oriented to complement AMD's highest-end Ryzen 9 3950X, which is essentially a low-end Threadripper replacement. X590 could have more PCIe lanes or higher quality motherboards than what already exists for X570 (say with a more aggressive clock speed by default), or just generally be more workstation focused. With 16 cores on the mainstream and the Zen 2 Threadripper CPUs not on the market yet, it might make sense for AMD to use the 3950X as a replacement for the 2950X and as a stopgap because the 3950X has been shown to do well against the 18-core Core i9 9980XE.
It's also entirely possible that X590 is actually a misnomer made by Gigabyte. If Gigabyte wasn't sure what the chipset would be called (remember the canceled Z490 chipset for AM4?), then it's entirely possible Gigabyte internally referred to this upcoming chipset as "X570/590." The X590 listing is never referred to alone, always with X570 right beside it, and technically it's not stated in the BIOS files at all, it has only been inferred with a listing of "590." And like Z490, it is possible that X590 was planned at one point, but also canceled.
Ultimately, however, much of the discussion on X590 is speculative because no official information about this supposed chipset exists, and even unofficial information is limited to some reference in some BIOS files and a single tweet. Considering how premium X570 already is, one has to wonder how X590 could possibly differentiate itself as a higher-end chipset.
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Matthew Connatser is a freelancing writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes articles about CPUs, GPUs, SSDs, and computers in general.
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setx X590 can as well be chipset for next Threadripper line. Given the unified I/O chip on CPU internal difference to X570 can be very small.Reply -
Gillerer I think I saw somewhere that Threadripper will get the same chipset as mainstream, which makes sense seeing how high-end the features on X570 already are; Reusing it will reduce development costs for the Threadripper platform.Reply
Obviously it would need to be named something other than X570 to avoid confusion and allow the HEDT motherboards to be distinguished from mainstream ones. If this is the case, calling it X570/590 in internal data makes sense, since it would be the same chip, just named differently depending on where it's used. -
HideOut Hasn't all indications been that HEDT has been discontinued and that the 3950X is it? Or at least short term? Maybe 590 will signal an eventual return.Reply -
ezst036 I would love to see some new ATX boards coming out loaded up with 7 full length 16x pcie slots as a result of x590.Reply
And a handful of mATX AMD boards loaded with 4 full length 16x pcie slots. -
JamesSneed Replysetx said:X590 can as well be chipset for next Threadripper line. Given the unified I/O chip on CPU internal difference to X570 can be very small.
My guess as well. -
Giroro Maybe X590 is essentially the same as X570, but manufactured with a more efficient process so you don't need a fan on the chipset.Reply
Also, there's some (well four) benchmarks for the Ryzen 5 3600 on userbenchmark. If accurate, the IPC improvements look promising.