1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:06,000 every motherboard with a z490 chipset 2 00:00:03,780 --> 00:00:13,440 has one thing in common Intel Intel into wait a minute what in 3 00:00:09,960 --> 00:00:17,580 the heck is this thing it it says z490 4 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:19,560 but there it is obviously an AMD CPU 5 00:00:17,580 --> 00:00:23,340 socket where did this thing come from Reddit obviously 6 00:00:21,359 --> 00:00:28,980 don't you read the video title but more importantly what is it why did they make 7 00:00:26,279 --> 00:00:33,719 it why ultimately didn't they make more of them and how does this compare to the 8 00:00:31,260 --> 00:00:38,399 AMD motherboards we know and love these three m.2 slots tell us that the story 9 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:43,379 might have something to do with PCIe Lanes but from what we've been able to 10 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:45,239 glean this entire chipset was canceled 11 00:00:43,379 --> 00:00:48,960 before it could be released is this the competitor that could have 12 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:53,460 been did we miss out on something amazing well it turns out that for an 13 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:57,120 engineering experiment it's surprisingly functional so we're going to be taking 14 00:00:54,840 --> 00:01:01,079 it for a spin with close attention to all the Curious little details 15 00:00:59,460 --> 00:01:06,420 after you pay close attention to these details from our sponsor Mexico whether 16 00:01:04,260 --> 00:01:09,900 you're in need of a webcam or accessory for your VR device Mexico has a great 17 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:14,180 selection of products to choose from learn more about them at the link down 18 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:14,180 below 19 00:01:21,020 --> 00:01:27,360 this strange motherboard first appeared on Reddit a year and a half ago but has 20 00:01:25,500 --> 00:01:33,060 otherwise completely flown under the radar that is until now which is kind of 21 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:39,840 wild because as skeptical as I was this is no hoax this is an AMD CPU socket and 22 00:01:37,140 --> 00:01:44,820 it is on a motherboard with a z490 chipset just not the kind of z490 23 00:01:42,299 --> 00:01:49,740 chipset that you might think now we have seen motherboards in the past with 24 00:01:46,500 --> 00:01:51,899 support for both Intel and AMD CPUs most 25 00:01:49,740 --> 00:01:57,000 recently from ECS using a daughter board but if you look carefully at that 26 00:01:54,180 --> 00:02:03,299 product the chipset is actually on that secondary board that's because both AMD 27 00:01:59,939 --> 00:02:06,000 and Intel use proprietary protocols and 28 00:02:03,299 --> 00:02:09,380 no modern motherboard chipset is capable of communicating with CPUs from both 29 00:02:08,220 --> 00:02:16,560 vendors so no this is not an AMD socket 30 00:02:13,940 --> 00:02:21,660 frankensteined onto an Intel chipset board but rather just another case of 31 00:02:18,959 --> 00:02:25,440 AMD ripping off Intel's naming scheme to make it seem like they're a generation 32 00:02:22,920 --> 00:02:30,420 ahead but that doesn't mean that it's boring let's jump in and see how close 33 00:02:28,020 --> 00:02:34,200 this thing was to being ready one thing we can tell immediately between the 34 00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:37,920 particular shade of orange they use and the lettering for the silk screen not to 35 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:42,300 mention the fact that it says Gigabyte right on it is that this board was 36 00:02:39,660 --> 00:02:46,680 originally from Gigabyte and while it might be missing some of the Cosmetics 37 00:02:43,739 --> 00:02:52,800 we can also tell that it was based on the x470 aorus gaming 7 because between 38 00:02:49,980 --> 00:02:57,599 the layout and features and from looking at the pixels you can tell they've got a 39 00:02:55,260 --> 00:03:01,980 lot in common for our CPU given that this is in the same family as the rest 40 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:07,379 of AMD's 400 series motherboards I think it is possible well probable that first 41 00:03:04,920 --> 00:03:13,680 and second gen ryzen chips like this 2700x will work but even though x470 42 00:03:11,700 --> 00:03:19,080 boards like this one's cousin can be updated to support third and up to 5th 43 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:23,159 gen well there are no BIOS updates available for engineering samples so 44 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:27,720 third gen and up would be basically impossible as for RAM we'll be going 45 00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:32,580 with these g-skill flarex sticks rated for 3200 Mega transfers per second 2000 46 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:37,200 series chips could do better and did benefit from faster but this was kind of 47 00:03:35,099 --> 00:03:42,659 the bang for the buck speed at the time that I would expect any motherboard to 48 00:03:39,659 --> 00:03:43,980 support fairly easily 49 00:03:42,659 --> 00:03:47,519 finally it's it's a Time bringing us to the most 50 00:03:45,659 --> 00:03:53,700 obvious advantage of this chipset compared to x470 an extra m.2 slot okay 51 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:58,019 I'm leaving out some important details here it's not quite as simple as 52 00:03:55,580 --> 00:04:03,360 slapping on an extra slot and calling it a day you actually need the PCI Express 53 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:10,019 Lanes to support that slot and this board's x470 cousin is clearly already 54 00:04:06,420 --> 00:04:13,980 maxing out this platform's 32 Lanes so 55 00:04:10,019 --> 00:04:18,359 then how does this one have more ah 56 00:04:13,980 --> 00:04:20,100 the secret is under this heatsink with 57 00:04:18,359 --> 00:04:27,240 it removed we'll find a couple of things first is the AMD chipset itself this 58 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:32,340 looks pretty darn similar to an x470 chipset and honestly probably uses the 59 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:36,060 exact same silicon it wouldn't be the first time we saw a manufacturer 60 00:04:33,900 --> 00:04:39,900 artificially limit the features on a chipset to address different price 61 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:45,180 points if you remember from our Intel r d Center tour they actually have special 62 00:04:42,660 --> 00:04:48,900 chipsets for development that they can reconfigure through software to be any 63 00:04:47,220 --> 00:04:53,100 member of the 12th gen chipset family that they wish so the different codes 64 00:04:51,419 --> 00:04:58,080 etched in the top are probably the only things that differentiate this from an 65 00:04:55,560 --> 00:05:06,600 x470 but this a chip from plx yes this seems to 66 00:05:03,419 --> 00:05:08,520 be the secret sauce of the AMD z490 67 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:13,440 chipset that enables it to have four extra general purpose gen 3 PCIe Lanes 68 00:05:10,979 --> 00:05:18,780 it's also a big part of the reason this board and any like it never made it to 69 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:24,720 the market more on that later this chip is known as a multiplexer and while plx 70 00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:29,220 is probably the best known they are just one of the many manufacturers who 71 00:05:26,699 --> 00:05:35,220 produce them a multiplexer's purpose is to connect multiple PCIe devices 72 00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:38,340 Downstream to the same Lanes originating 73 00:05:35,220 --> 00:05:41,520 from the CPU or for that matter from the 74 00:05:38,340 --> 00:05:43,860 AMD chipset now obviously a multiplexer 75 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:48,900 can't magically create extra bandwidth And if every single Downstream device 76 00:05:46,259 --> 00:05:54,000 was running Full Tilt at the same time it would be bottlenecked but that rarely 77 00:05:51,840 --> 00:05:58,080 happens and these devices were very common back in the mid 2000s in the 78 00:05:55,979 --> 00:06:03,539 Heyday of SLI so that motherboard manufacturers could squeeze as many 16x 79 00:06:01,500 --> 00:06:08,220 slots as possible onto a motherboard for three-way and four-way configurations of 80 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:11,699 course now that multiple gpus aren't really a thing anymore the focus for 81 00:06:09,840 --> 00:06:17,940 this chipset was on increasing support for NVMe ssds now because I really want 82 00:06:15,539 --> 00:06:22,500 to load this thing up and see just how close it was to final we're going to be 83 00:06:20,100 --> 00:06:27,900 going high end here with three of these awesome sabrant rocket 4 plus PCIe Gen 4 84 00:06:25,500 --> 00:06:32,699 drives we're gonna have those and more linked down below oh whoops I've got 85 00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:35,460 these on wrong evidently we need um hook and loop Fastener to hold down 86 00:06:34,380 --> 00:06:40,500 this one doesn't have all the mounting hardware all right it's engineering sample don't 87 00:06:38,759 --> 00:06:44,479 worry though that's an older one not a rocket plus other fun quirks once we've 88 00:06:42,780 --> 00:06:49,740 got the board powered up here we go watch this 89 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:54,300 all the RGB on the motherboard lights up in white and then that's the last time 90 00:06:52,380 --> 00:06:58,020 you're ever going to see it because any control for it appears to have been 91 00:06:55,680 --> 00:07:01,979 completely removed from the BIOS I mean you don't need no RGB on an engineering 92 00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:07,440 board do you surprisingly all three of these slots do work but not everything 93 00:07:05,100 --> 00:07:11,759 about the board does even though I haven't personally tested it yet we did 94 00:07:09,900 --> 00:07:16,800 test it before getting started and there are absolutely some quirks on this board 95 00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:19,020 the bottom PCIe slot for example is 96 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:23,880 completely dead and so is the onboard networking what's Curious is that the 97 00:07:21,180 --> 00:07:28,440 network chip is detected in Windows but no driver package from Intel that we 98 00:07:25,919 --> 00:07:33,240 could find would install so it's possible that it's an engineering sample 99 00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:37,800 as well ryzen 2000 chips didn't have onboard gpus so this is the only way for 100 00:07:35,759 --> 00:07:41,280 us to get a video output speaking of video output we've been outputting some 101 00:07:39,660 --> 00:07:44,699 really great exclusive videos over on flowplane.com how about this one 102 00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:49,639 showcasing some of the tick tock hacks we tried that you won't find on YouTube 103 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:49,639 Big Moment 104 00:07:50,099 --> 00:07:56,340 to be clear I am expecting it to work it's just that this kind of borderline 105 00:07:54,240 --> 00:08:00,900 engineering sample stuff if you look at it wrong or blow on it too hard 106 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:07,440 sometimes it stops working so nothing's a guarantee hello 107 00:08:04,319 --> 00:08:10,199 yes okay time to see what else works or 108 00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:16,680 doesn't work as it turns out the USB headers do work the back I O all works 109 00:08:13,740 --> 00:08:21,180 except for Ethernet even the USBC Port so here's one of our steam drives which 110 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:25,919 should allow us to game on this completely unreleased motherboard and 111 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:30,960 everything about this just feels and looks completely normal 2700x8 core 112 00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:38,459 processor it's turboing as you would expect Gigabyte z490 RS Master chipset AMD 113 00:08:36,479 --> 00:08:44,760 Promontory I don't remember what their coding was for x470 Promontory means it 114 00:08:41,339 --> 00:08:47,100 has a Zen 2 ready BIOS that's it wait 115 00:08:44,760 --> 00:08:50,700 Bixby how does Bixby figure into all this 116 00:08:47,940 --> 00:08:58,320 my arch nemesis returns no these are code names Promontory was used for 117 00:08:53,760 --> 00:09:01,860 everything from A320 to b550 and Bixby 118 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:03,660 was used for x570 I think the most 119 00:09:01,860 --> 00:09:08,040 notable thing about all of this is how not notable it is though 120 00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:12,240 everything is operating exactly as I would expect the interesting thing about 121 00:09:09,839 --> 00:09:16,260 this run isn't the score but rather how fast the CPU turbos were sitting at 122 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:21,480 anywhere between around 3.9 to 4 gigahertz which is 123 00:09:18,660 --> 00:09:25,860 about what we'd expect our Wi-Fi card is only 2.4 gigahertz so I guess we're 124 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:30,779 going to be pushing it a little harder even by throwing a network card in this slot 125 00:09:29,220 --> 00:09:35,180 here and seeing if the whole thing will run together we're off the rails Now 126 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:40,200 ladies and gentlemen not in a good place I got him 127 00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:42,120 okay uh I need Shields I need Shields no 128 00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:45,959 there's an invisible guy behind me but that's not what's important what's 129 00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:50,160 important is that I'm running at 118 frames per second in Halo infinite 130 00:09:47,820 --> 00:09:53,339 obviously that's not like the most FPS is ever or anything like that but what 131 00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:57,600 it is is working okay it's a normal 132 00:09:55,980 --> 00:10:03,120 motherboard which means you're probably wondering a few things first and 133 00:09:59,580 --> 00:10:05,160 foremost being why AMD chose the Z blank 134 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:11,160 90 naming convention which is associated exclusively with Intel or well almost 135 00:10:08,339 --> 00:10:16,160 exclusively and the particularly Savvy among you are probably wondering how it 136 00:10:13,080 --> 00:10:20,459 is that this z490 project came about 137 00:10:16,160 --> 00:10:22,800 before Intel's z490 well 138 00:10:20,459 --> 00:10:27,480 this isn't the first time that AMD has pulled this kind of product naming 139 00:10:24,540 --> 00:10:32,220 one-upmanship back when Intel's x299 chipset was the King of the Hill AMD 140 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:39,000 released their competing threadripper platform x 399 seemingly to paint Intel 141 00:10:36,300 --> 00:10:43,440 into a corner and make it seem like when Intel launched their next gen that they 142 00:10:41,339 --> 00:10:47,720 were copying AMD when actually they were just following their own established 143 00:10:44,940 --> 00:10:53,300 pattern and AMD room the party but unconventional naming isn't what gets 144 00:10:50,339 --> 00:10:58,740 the product canceled what does is price those plx chips were seemingly necessary 145 00:10:56,640 --> 00:11:04,019 for motherboard manufacturers to Market their boards as z490 and they came at a 146 00:11:02,160 --> 00:11:11,399 heavy price you'd have easily been paying 300 to even 350 dollars for what 147 00:11:08,399 --> 00:11:14,160 an extra Drive how many of you even have 148 00:11:11,399 --> 00:11:19,019 more than one m.2 drive today let alone four plus years ago add to that that 149 00:11:16,980 --> 00:11:22,140 teams would have needed to do new BIOS engineering and provide law long-term 150 00:11:21,060 --> 00:11:28,019 support for what would have probably been a low volume product and suddenly 151 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:30,240 the x470 ARs gaming 7 that this is based 152 00:11:28,019 --> 00:11:34,440 on looks like a much more compelling value at 240 dollars brand new to be 153 00:11:33,180 --> 00:11:38,220 honest then I don't think we really missed out on anything here sure there 154 00:11:36,540 --> 00:11:45,180 are some people out there who would benefit from more PCIe Lanes but 2000 155 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:47,519 series and 3000 Series ryzen also had 156 00:11:45,180 --> 00:11:51,420 threadripper equivalents that I mean by the time you're spending this kind of 157 00:11:48,839 --> 00:11:55,740 money on a motherboard not only had more PCIe Lanes but also more memory 158 00:11:53,640 --> 00:12:00,240 bandwidth and the possibility for higher core counts if only AMD had kept their 159 00:11:58,079 --> 00:12:05,100 promise for platform longevity which you can tell I'm totally over and besides 160 00:12:02,220 --> 00:12:09,300 AMD already had x570 under development to provide more Lanes than the x470 161 00:12:07,140 --> 00:12:14,940 chipset that it replaced I can see why AMD officially canceled d490 at computex 162 00:12:11,940 --> 00:12:17,339 in 2018. I mean x570 came out less than 163 00:12:14,940 --> 00:12:22,800 a year later so all in all rest in peace confusingly named chipset 164 00:12:20,519 --> 00:12:27,240 you died before you could live and were forgotten not long after just like this 165 00:12:25,079 --> 00:12:31,740 segue to our sponsor thanks to Micro Center for sponsoring today's video new 166 00:12:29,579 --> 00:12:35,459 year new me more like new year new tech starting your year off right with a tech 167 00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:40,079 upgrade and let Micro Center help you with doing it with a great variety of 168 00:12:37,680 --> 00:12:44,579 products and even better prices they can be your One-Stop shop for all things 169 00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:49,620 Tech laptops computer components monitors TVs Network equipment you name 170 00:12:47,100 --> 00:12:53,820 and they have got it let their in-house PC Building team put together a new 171 00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:57,899 custom rig for you that is just as unique as you are with 25 stores across 172 00:12:56,279 --> 00:13:02,639 the US and their crew of knowledgeable staff they make it easier than ever to 173 00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:05,880 find what you are looking for and if you're having any technical difficulties 174 00:13:04,380 --> 00:13:09,660 they've got your back with their certified technicians at their knowledge 175 00:13:07,560 --> 00:13:12,660 bar so what are you waiting for head over to the description box and check 176 00:13:11,100 --> 00:13:16,200 out Micro Center today for all of your Tech needs thanks for checking out this 177 00:13:14,579 --> 00:13:21,300 rare motherboard with us I really love it when we get these kinds of engineer examples or prototypes to mess around 178 00:13:19,260 --> 00:13:25,320 with it can be kind of hit or miss this one was a hit but if you want to see a 179 00:13:23,220 --> 00:13:29,040 Miss check out the video that Alex and I did where we looked at a prototype water 180 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:31,040 cooled laptop um