This year will ring in a major shift in the computer industry, with new processors and motherboards on the horizon from both AMD and Intel. We have our first look at what these upcoming products will look like from MSI, which had cutting-edge AMD X870 motherboards and innovative Intel Arrow Lake motherboards on display at Computex 2024. Though we may not see all of them arrive in the consumer market, MSI gave a tantalizing glimpse at where the motherboard industry is heading, which you can watch above and read more about below.
X870: The Next-Gen AM5 Platform
Let’s start by looking at the AMD motherboards that MSI had on display. We know a great deal more about these motherboards as AMD announced the X870 chipset earlier this week alongside the X870E chipset. It’s not entirely clear what the difference between X870 and X870E is at this time, but both include cutting-edge features and represent the future of the AM5 platform with support for AMD Ryzen 7000-series, 8000-series, and the upcoming Ryzen 9000-series of processors.
(Credit: John Burek)Two key changes the X870 and X870E chipsets enjoy are built-in USB4 and extended PCIe 5.0 support. The latter will enable all X870 and X870E motherboards to support a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics cards and an M.2 PCIe 5.0 slot for ultrafast SSDs.
(Credit: John Burek)MSI showed us two of these motherboards at the show. The higher end of the two is the MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk Wi-Fi, which is clearly oriented toward gamers and overclockers. The board features a 14+2+1 DRPS power design with 80-amp SPS phases. The second motherboard, MSI’s Pro X870-P Wi-Fi, is more targeted as a business solution with less robust power hardware. It maintains the 14+2+1 DRPS design but with 60A phases instead. Two large heatsinks with 7W/mK thermal pads cool the power regulation hardware on both boards to help improve overall performance and stability.
(Credit: John Burek)Thanks to the X870 chipset and MSI’s design work, both motherboards share many other features. Of particular note is that both boards ship with a 5Gbit wired internet controller and incorporate Wi-Fi 7 networking hardware. The X870 chipset also allows them to support a PCIe 5 x4 M.2 slot and have at least one USB 4.0 Type-C port that can handle up to 40Gbps of bandwidth.
(Credit: John Burek)The boards also incorporate some innovative features that help to make it easier to set up and swap out parts. In the last few years, motherboards have incorporated buttons that release the mounting latch on the primary PCIe x16 slot. This makes removing graphics cards significantly easier, and this feature has returned on both boards. Adding to that, MSI also improved the design of its M.2 slots and M.2 heatspreads, so now the heatspreaders can be removed and M.2 SSDs added or removed quickly, easily, and without the need for any screws. You will undoubtedly appreciate this change if you’ve ever installed an M.2 SSD.
Arrow Lake and Z790 Memory Madness
MSI also showed us some innovative new Intel motherboards, including one of our first looks at the upcoming Arrow Lake platform. At this time, we know little about these motherboards and Arrow Lake products in general, just that they are supposed to replace the LGA1700 platform and Raptor Lake processors sometime in the second half of 2024.
(Credit: John Burek)We didn’t learn much more about Arrow Lake from MSI either. The Arrow Lake motherboard that it had on display incorporates the same ease-of-use features similar to the AMD X870 motherboards discussed above. It has the quick-release PCIe card button, the screw-less, easy-to-change M.2 design, and, as an extra, a screwless, easy-to-connect Wi-Fi antenna design. Nothing particularly stood out about it except that it was an Arrow Lake motherboard.
(Credit: John Burek)The other boards that MSI had on hand are all targeted at the existing LGA 1700 platform and are equipped with Intel’s Z790 chipset. However, these boards exhibit some unusual features and characteristics, making them far more interesting. In particular, they use alternative memory technologies.
(Credit: John Burek)One of the motherboards, referred to on the card as “MSI / Intel Memory Innovation Design,” was built with an Intel Z790 chipset and supports current Intel LGA 1700 processors. The most interesting aspect of this board is its use of a new type of memory called “Mini_CUDIMM,” which is supposed to provide lower latency. From the RAM slots, these RAM modules look like they would be similar in size to standard SODIMM modules used inside laptops, but we don’t know much else about them.
(Credit: John Burek)Another board labeled MSI’s “Z790 Project Zero Plus” uses CAMM2 memory, which inserts into a socket on the motherboard, similar to installing a CPU. This design has some rather serious pros and cons. The design shows that the RAM would likely be far better cooled, as an enormous heat spreader covers it. MSI also said that this design has reduced compatibility issues as you'll find only one RAM socket, and you can’t mix-match RAM that could not work together. MSI lists the RAM capacity as up to 128GB, which is plenty.
(Credit: John Burek)The downside to the design is that it again has only one place to put RAM. You couldn’t upgrade the system and add RAM later without fully replacing your existing RAM module, which could make upgrading more expensive. It also makes the RAM slot a single point of failure, whereas on most motherboards, you have four memory slots, and even if one or two become damaged, you can continue to use the system without serious issues.
(Credit: John Burek)This is a possible roadblock to troubleshooting: If the RAM slot fails to work correctly, determining what is at fault will be more difficult. It could be the RAM slot, the CPU’s memory controller, the RAM module, or something else. On a standard motherboard, this can already be problematic to troubleshoot. Still, typically, you can rule out the possibility of it being the RAM slot or RAM module, as you usually have more than one of each and can test them in different configurations.
RAM Wars Ahead?
These new memory technologies are interesting, but we have to wonder what will come from them. Typically, in the tech industry, standardization works while more exotic hardware tends to fail. Intel should know this lesson intimately well, as this is not the first time it has tried to steer the industry toward alternative memory technologies.
Roughly 25 years ago, Intel attempted to shift its hardware to use Rambus RAM, also known as RDRAM, which was designed, produced, and sold by a single company known as Rambus. The previous standard, SDRAM, was aging out and needed a replacement. RDRAM presented a viable alternative to SDRAM but was considered expensive and had other issues.
The JEDEC-standardized DDR SDRAM was arguably better, partly because it was an open standard that allowed more companies to use and produce it. Most other tech companies, including AMD, opted to take this path, and DDR SDRAM eventually won out, with Intel transitioning to it. RDRAM ultimately had a relatively short life in the industry, and DDR SDRAM would continue to be developed into DDR2, DDR3, DDR4, and on into the DDR5 standard in common use today.
The point of this story is to highlight that introducing a new memory standard, especially one that doesn’t have broad support throughout the industry, is challenging, to say the least. In this case, Intel appears to be attempting to leverage two newly developed RAM standards at the same time, and that likely won’t be to the benefit of customers. Without broad support, the cost of CAMM2 memory modules is likely to be high without the advantages of economies of scale to bring them down. Upgradability and resale value, should these new RAM standards fail, will likewise probably not be ideal.
This is not to say unquestionably that these memory standards will fail. They could gain broader support and be successful, but it’s worth noting the historical challenges associated with such a change and realizing that it is a long shot. Given that these are prototypes, it's possible that we may not even see them make it to a retail release, as not every project like this does.
Release Date and Pricing for MSI's New Motherboards
We have no indication of when MSI will release these boards or how much they will cost. AMD’s Ryzen 9000-series processors are slated for release sometime in July, and we will likely see MSI’s X870 motherboards hit retail shelves sometime in July, too. As for the more innovative Intel boards, we could see those at any time or possibly never. Time will have to tell.