It's a crazy rate that can't be trivial to achieve.
If the boards were only being tested to PCIe 4.0 (their official spec) then you can't guarantee they perform the same as SKUs targeting PCIe 5.0.
You can't notice these differences with your eyes.
The better materials are necessary for longer traces. You can’t make simple comparisons like this
The differential impedance is also identical for PCIE 4.0/5.0 so again, likely not a physical difference issue.
Which basically suggests that the routed the 4.0 lanes much sloppier than 5.0.
The trace lengths matter a lot, among other things. You can’t draw conclusions like this.
From what I’ve read, a well-designed PCB that supports PCIe 4.0 should also meet PCIe 5.0 requirements electrically and for signaling. I suspect the issue may be related more to power delivery or EMC than to trace layout or stack-up. Alternatively, it could just be an AMD policy decision to limit PCIe 5.0 support on this chipset variant, rather than a design flaw.
Power delivery shouldn't be an issue, the slot power limits haven't changed afaik, max is 75W for an x16 card since the beginning.
Ah, I see that the PCIe 5.0 mentioned in the product specs is for the M.2 storage, not for the PCI slot for a graphics card. The post title should probably say "removes unofficial GPU slot PCIe 5.0 support" or something.
But yeah, considering I have a 5060ti 16gb on this motherboard, I guess I'll be staying with the current BIOS version indefinitely... Just checked with CPU-Z, it says Bus: PCI Express 5.0, current link width: x8 , current link speed: 16GT/s
Full expansion card specs only mention PCIe 4.0: https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00129652#:~:text=en...
M.2 Storage specs mention the 5.0 speeds and only for one of the slots: https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00129652#:~:text=pr...
You have to pay close attention to the difference between the M.2 slot (which can be PCIe 5.0 on B650) and the expansion slots (which were never advertised as PCI 5.0)
Leaving PCIe 5.0 enabled on the GPU slot could have caused problems if the designs and boards were qualified with the expectation they'd only run PCIe 4.0 speeds. If a board physically can't handle PCIe 5.0 but it gets enabled, it could lead to random crashes and instability, which turns into a higher return rate and angry customers.
"... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
josephcsible•6mo ago
karmakaze•6mo ago
There was a story not long ago about some exercise equipment (I think) that remotely bricked the devices (when the company was being shutdown or something) though they could have worked offline just fine without that final update.
toast0•6mo ago
Even without that barrier, it's not great when you have to pick between things like the bus speed and memory stability or other updates you want.
SoftTalker•6mo ago
homebrewer•6mo ago
For example, I'm now running 6000 MT/s on stock VSoC which definitely wasn't possible on my hardware 1.5 years ago.
That said, my mobo vendor of choice is not known for doing rug pulls (unlike Gigabyte, who are also fond of releasing several board revisions under the same model with significant differences between them). It's the opposite — for example, a recent BIOS update added support for running internal graphics at 4K/120Hz on the same hardware that could only do 4K/60Hz before.
SoftTalker•6mo ago
homebrewer•6mo ago
vladvasiliu•6mo ago
I'm not exactly in the market for a mobo right now, but I think that's useful information.
homebrewer•6mo ago
Anyway, I now stick with ASRock. This will now attract anecdotes from users who have run into problems with them, and will describe at length how crappy their products are. Works with literally any brand, so I try not to mention any unless prodded.
toast0•6mo ago
Updates to support new CPUs are a maybe... I can probably wait and run that update right before swapping cpus, but some people might prefer to run them now, in case their cpu fails and they need to replace it ... a lot of boards can flash without a cpu installed, but you get a lot less feedback, it's nicer to flash when things are working.
Semaphor•6mo ago
I was having a hard time figuring out what’s wrong with my new system, until I read an offhand comment about DDR5 having long training times on AMD, and I should just leave the system running for 5-10 minutes… sounded like an urban legend, but turned out to be reality.
toast0•6mo ago
fsflyer•6mo ago
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/firmware-update-hind...
The company isn't shutting down, probably just an attempt to get more subscriptions.
The company used to support Strava integration from their app in Free Ride mode. That broke last year, the app still reports that a ride happened, but the ride is reported as 0 miles, 0 minutes long. I have the low end bike and rower from them. The machines are great physically.
bangaladore•6mo ago
> Gigabyte removes unofficial PCIe 5.0 support from B650 motherboards in latest BIOS update
It seems that the board was actually running in PCIe 5.0 mode, even though it was only supposed to (by the specs/manual) do PCIe 4.0
It was never advertised as supporting 5.0
accrual•6mo ago
This was the root of the article in my opinion:
> The issue may have emerged from the fact that PCIe 5.0 was enabled by default, and not clearly marked as experimental, and that may be something AMD did not like to see.
However, it seems to just be speculation. I too would like to know what the real reason was. Was Gigabyte dealing with returns/RMAs due to the feature? Was there pressure from AMD to stop allowing their lesser chipset to access PCIe 5.0?
bangaladore•6mo ago
Would be my guess. The fact that the B650 can even do 5.0 on the GPU lanes (it is able to do 4x 5.0 on NVME) makes me wonder if the B650 chipset is the same silicon as B650E and the speed is just really a configuration setting. Across the board the B650 seems like it is the exact same as a de-rated B650E.
It would surprise me if motherboard vendors who support 4.0 weren't actually compliant with 5.0 from a signaling / integrity perspective for future proofing and increased headroom.
datadrivenangel•6mo ago
cogman10•6mo ago
Gigabyte shipped 4.8 million MBs in the first quarter.
Assuming they sell 20 million MBs in a year, how does a $0.01 additional component cause $1 million in losses? By my math, it's 200k per year.
Further, what restricts gigabyte from raising the price of their MB by $0.10? or even $1 to accommodate the various $0.01 components they might need per board? Do you think the market wouldn't bear such a price variance for $200 boards?
wmf•6mo ago
bangaladore•6mo ago
toast0•6mo ago
All the AM5 chipsets are the same silicon, except A620 which has less capability (might just be fused off though) and the B840 which seems to be a rebranded AM4 chipset. B650, B650E, B850, and X870 are all one Promontory 21 chipset; X670, X670E and X870E are two Promonotory 21 chipsets (one chained behind the other). The B840 seems to be the Promontory 19 silicon, same as a B550 AM4 chipset; which seems weird, but it has more downstream connectivity than the A620 chipset, although the cpu to chipset link runs at pci-e 4.0 for A620 and 3.0 for B550 and presumably B840, so that's a bottleneck if you have high throughput devices behind the chipset.
The GPU lanes on AM5 all come direct from the CPU, as well as at least one x4 m.2 socket, and there's 4 more CPU lanes not earmarked by AMD. Those don't touch the chipset, and any correlation between the chipset branding and the speed of those lanes is a marketing restriction: If you put B650E branding on your board, AMD says the board must support pcie 5.0 for the GPU and first NVMe slot; but the chipset isn't involved in those lanes, it's just a marketing agreement; I'm not sure if AMD disallows using pcie 5.0 on a B650 board for the GPU slot, but capability is a matter of trace design between the slots and the cpu and maybe what the board maker is willing to certify / what the firmware is willing to enable. For B850, AMD says pci-e 4.0 for the GPU and 5.0 for the first nvme.
I'm sure there are some X870 boards that are significantly different from B850 boards, but there's probably a lot of boards where everything is the same other than the product name. Likely the same was true of B650 and B650E. For reliable PCI-e 5.0 operation, you do need to follow proper design rules for the traces, and that results in a more expensive board than following the design rules for PCI-e 4.0 operation. But it can make product sense to sell some of those 5.0 capable boards with a lesser chipset brand anyway.
Aurornis•6mo ago
If their hardware team designed the PCB and the qualification process to the specifications of the B650 chipset, they would have targeted PCIe 4.0 speeds.
toast0•6mo ago
Regardless, the chipset has been out for almost 3 years. Kind of late to put the horse back in the barn. Regardless of certification, lots of systems are out there where it's enabled, and those with those systems and a pci-e 5.0 can tell us how it works regardless of what the branding says. Maybe it's flaky, maybe it rarely works. Maybe it just made sense to follow the pci-e 5.0 design rules for the gpu slots, even without the branding; maybe the pci-e 4.0 design rules are good enough at the trace lengths on a typical am5 board. Maybe once you have the PCB designed and built to run the cpu m.2 at 5.0, it doesn't cost anything to follow design rules for the cpu x16 slot as well.
good_stuffs•6mo ago
No AM5 chipset can do 5.0 speeds, they are all linked via x4 PCIe 4.0 lanes. What you're thinking about is PCIe 5.0 speeds from CPU to SSDs/GPU. There's no chipset that does PCIe 5.0 speeds, they are all on 4.0.
zaptheimpaler•6mo ago
good_stuffs•6mo ago
There is no AM5 chipset with PCIe 5.0 support. They are all on PCIe 4.0. The lanes come from CPU, they go to SSDs/GPU/chipset. All AM5 chipsets are linked to CPU via PCIe 4.0 lanes, none support PCIe 5.0 speeds.
edit: Not sure why the downvote, this is common information and it should be easy to link an AM5 motherboard that has x4 PCIe 5.0 downlink lanes to chipset. But they do not exist.
Aurornis•6mo ago
My guess (having some high-speed design and manufacturing experience) is that the boards were physically designed and qualified around the official spec, which was PCIe 4.0.
Then after some confusion they discovered that the BIOS team had enabled PCIe 5.0 on boards that were never qualified for it. Batch-to-batch variations of the boards could have caused instability because the manufacturing materials and test processes were only targeting PCIe 4.0
b112•6mo ago
We absolutely want to hold companies accountable, but if we lambast them for reasonable actions, where's the motivation for them to do right?