AMD X499 Chipset May Arrive CES 2019

AMD Continues Work on X499 Chipset

Last summer, AMD debuted their new enthusiast platform. After a strong showing with Ryzen and Zen, Threadripper promised to be a major event for the PC market. Surprising no one, Threadripper has done quite well for itself. This past summer, AMD refreshed the platform with Threadripper 2. Missing from the launch was a new chipset. Due to the absence, some speculation arose. Clearing things up, we now have a new report that says the new X499 chipset will be arriving next year.

According to the new report, the new chipset keeps the same naming scheme. The X499 will replace the current X399 top-end chipset. Furthermore, the new chipset will arrive early in 2019. The report indicates that it will debut at CES 2019. That means in January we may finally see a platform refresh. Given that timeframe, it will be a bit awkward release. While there will be new motherboards, the next Threadripper update won’t be for a while. So far, Threadripper 2 has to make due with updated X399 chipsets.

x499 Should Replace X399 on TR4

For what X499 will offer, there hasn’t been much news. Obviously, X399 can use a bit of work for the chipset itself. For one, X499 may upgrade the downstream PCIe 2.0 lanes to PCIe 3.0. While the CPU offers many PCIe 3.0 lanes itself, the chipset should be kept up to standard. Another change could see an update to the memory channels, going up from the current 4. Due to the die layout, TR2 is a bit awkward as not every cluster has its own memory channel. Perhaps X499 may allow for more memory channels or the option to arrange them in a different way.

With Intel set to release their new HEDT update soon as well, AMD has to be on top of their game. While Ryzen and TR caught Intel off guard with impressive IPC and core counts, the war isn’t over. AMD will have to make sure that they keep the pressure on Intel. With EPYC expected to lead the way next year, we may see some enterprise features get deprecated into the consumer market. Hopefully, X499 will continue the good streak the company is on.