Ivy Bridge-E Motherboards

[MM888]

OK, Asus has announced a new BIOS revision for the Ivy Bridge-E CPU which will make it compatible with RIVE.

My question is not whether the revision will work with the chip and the RIVE but will the result be the same as if the board had been expressly designed for it. Will the BIOS revision be a work-around which would allow full functionality.

For example, I understand that there's a "glue" chip to allow PCI 3e functionality with X79. Would that chip--and delays due to additional processing time--be necessary for a designed-from-scratch approach that would take full advantage of the Ivy Bridge-E's PCI 3e compatibility?

Would there be any other work-arounds necessary to get Ivy Bridge-E to work with current RIVE's that might not be necessary in a newly designed board? What are likely hits to performance with new BIOS running on current board?

[Myk_SilentShado]

Huh? the RIVE is already fully compatible with PCIe 3

[MM888]

As I understand it, SB is not natively compatible with PCI 3e (# lanes, multiplexers?) but has special circuitry on the RIVE to make it so; at a small performance penalty. IB-E is supposed to native PCI 3e so would not need this circuitry.

But beyond that my question is whether the current RIVE will need to be updated to take full advantage of the IB-E? Or will a BIOS rev be all that's required to get the full performance from the IB-E?

[Nodens]

MM888 wrote:
As I understand it, SB is not natively compatible with PCI 3e (# lanes, multiplexers?) but has special circuitry on the RIVE to make it so; at a small performance penalty. IB-E is supposed to native PCI 3e so would not need this circuitry.

But beyond that my question is whether the current RIVE will need to be updated to take full advantage of the IB-E? Or will a BIOS rev be all that's required to get the full performance from the IB-E?

Actually you have not understood it right. The signal transceivers are on the CPU and the Video cards. The motherboard just has to be in spec and it is. SB-E CPU's had an issue with signaling because they were not certified. Ivy Bridge-E CPUs are certified so you just install one and you're good to go. There is no special circuitry on the RIVE nor any performance penalty.

IB-E CPUs were designed for the X79 there's no new chipset so nothing needs to be updated other than the board's firmware.

[Baalberith_NL]

Hi,

The IB-E is a LGA2011 soc, thats why the last 2 BIOS updates already support the new cpu's.
"Plug and play" so to speak.

[HiVizMan]

In laymans terms the PCIe controllers are not on the motherboard, they are now on the CPU. So it is the CPU that determines if the Gen3 is possible or not.

[Hatross]

it's X79... it's not a ROG... and it has ASRock color scheme...

still no announcement from Intel of an intermediate new chipset between X79 and X99.

http://wccftech.com/asus-x79-deluxe-highend-motherboard-ivy-bridgee-processors-unveiled/

(the article is a little misinformed)

[FireRx]

Hatross wrote:
it's X79... it's not a ROG... and it has ASRock color scheme...

still no announcement from Intel of an intermediate new chipset between X79 and X99.

http://wccftech.com/asus-x79-deluxe-highend-motherboard-ivy-bridgee-processors-unveiled/

(the article is a little misinformed)

hahahaha, if that is the mobo we were waiting on, I'm glad I went ahead and got the RIVE. LOL

[Myk_SilentShado]

FireRx wrote:
hahahaha, if that is the mobo we were waiting on, I'm glad I went ahead and got the RIVE. LOL

There's still time yet mate before IB-E is officially released 😉

[Hatross]

Myk SilentShadow wrote:
There's still time yet mate before IB-E is officially released 😉

an X79 is an X79... you can dress it up Deluxe or Premium, it can even don server clothes.

any refresh will be 3rd party, unless that is Intel announces an x89 or x79 Mach 2... which is unlikely cause they are ramping up HW-E for its debut.

X99 and Skylake/Cannonlake brings new architecture such as PCIe 4.0, Sata express, matured DDR4 and 14nm or less cpu dies just to name a few... Haswell-E is basically more of the same we already have with just a little more performance to the consumer.

2016 is worth the wait... X79 will get you there... how many refreshes did the X58 go thru and when was it released? alot of those owners are jumping on X79 at a good time imo.