X870 Vs X870E: We Tested Both Chipsets

Before discussing chipset configurations, it’s important to note that AMD’s Promontory 21 chips manage motherboard connectivity, linking the CPU to components like PCIe, USB, and SATA. These chips are often daisy-chained to expand connectivity, using some PCIe lanes from one chip to enable more connections.

The X870 comes with one of these PROM21 chips, whereas the X870E has two connected, as mentioned above. This greatly increases the X870E’s connectivity while keeping the minor improvements that the X870 had over the last generation.

Overclocking

As with most of AMD’s lineup (except for the very low-end ones), these chipsets come standard with overclocking. This is especially great because of the overclocking support for AMD’s CPUs as well, meaning that almost all of the chipsets can take full advantage of almost all of the CPUs.

You can overclock a CPU just as well on an X870 as on an X670. Memory overclocking is also standard on almost all of these boards, making it hard to distinguish between the X870 and the X870E.

Connectivity

In the following few sections, we will talk about the connectivity of the X870 vs X870E to see which chipset is best for your needs.

Graphics

The X870 and the X870E support one sixteen-lane PCIe 5.0 connection. Manufacturers will also have the option to fit their motherboards with two eight-lane connections, which might be better for most work cases.

The PCIe 5.0 connection might help with things like capture cards, but currently, no consumer GPUs can take advantage of this technology.

NVMe And GPP

Both chipsets present one four-lane PCIe 5.0 connection for the NVMe devices you might want to attach to your system.

PCIe GPP lanes are versatile chipset-managed for connecting peripherals like storage and expansion cards. Both chipsets offer four lanes of PCIe GPP.

PCIe

The X870E has 44 PCIe lanes, 24 of which are PCIe 5.0. As mentioned before, many products can’t use the ultra-fast speeds of PCIe 5.0 connections. Most of the things you hook up to these PCIe lanes will use the PCIe 4.0 or even earlier standards.

The X870 has the same number of 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes, whereas the total number of lanes is reduced to only 36 connections. This decrease isn’t too drastic and should meet most consumers’ need for PCIe connections.

USB

The biggest improvement between these chipsets and their predecessors is the addition of USB4 as a standard implementation, which was optional in the chipsets preceding this generation.

The X870E has two USB 5Gbps ports, twelve USB 10Gbps ports, and two USB 20Gbps ports. Please remember that these numbers are the maximum a manufacturer might configure their boards with, and you might find X870E boards with fewer USB ports.

The X870, however, has only one USB 5Gbps port, one USB 20Gbps port, and six USB 10Gbps ports. This is because this chipset has a single PROM21 chip, whereas the X870E has two, as mentioned above.

SATA

SATA devices have been phased out in favor of newer NVMe devices, but they are still an important connection for workflows requiring more storage. This connector can be used for bulk storage by incorporating SATA SSDs, or many mechanical hard drives into your system.

The X870E chipset has eight SATA ports, whereas the X870 has only four. These ports can be exchanged for PCIe 3.0 connections.

Price And Availability

Our research shows that the cheapest X870 we could find is very expensive compared with the cheapest X870E available. The X870E has a myriad of advantages over the X870, but it does come with a heftier price that some people might find hard to swallow.

Our Recommendation

X870 Chipset: Though not impressive, the X870 gets the job done at a relatively affordable price. Yes, it does not push the envelope forward, but it gives you most of what you need without draining your bank account.

X870E Chipset: The X870E chipset is the way to go for the power user. Its connectivity options are excellent, though not much better than the last generation. If you wish to get one of the latest AMD chipset motherboards for your high-end PC, the X870E is your best option.

After having discussed all the features of these motherboard chipsets, it is safe to say that the X870 is better suited for a more budget-focused build, whereas the X870E is for people who want to go all out.