Biostar enables pcie 4.0 on four x470 and b450 motherboards

Despite AMD not supporting the PCIe 4.0 standard on pre-X570 motherboards, Biostar has gone ahead and activated functionality on four of the brand's AMD 400 series motherboards.

Biostar enables PCIe 4.0 connection on select 400 series motherboards

As with ASUS, Biostar can only offer PCIe 4.0 speeds in the main PCIe x16 and M.2 slots. However, Biostar did not specify whether the PCIe x16 slot will run at x16 speed or be limited to x8 with PCIe 4.0 enabled.

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While the option to enable PCIe 4.0 might be available now, AMD will eventually disable it in an AGESA microcode update. Basically if you want PCIe 4.0 you will stay with the same firmware for the rest of the life of the motherboard and you will miss any future features, performance enhancements or bug fixes. That's the price you will pay if you combine a Ryzen 3000 series chip with a 400 series motherboard and expect PCIe 4.0 compatibility.

Model	BIOS Revision
X470GT8	X47AG718.BST
X470GTN	X47AK718.BSS
B450MH	B45CS718.BSS
B45M2	B35GS718.BSS

Biostar has plenty of AMD 400 series products in its arsenal, but only four will have this capability. The X470 based motherboards include the X470GT8 and X470GTN while the B450 chipset based offerings will be the B450MH and B450M2. The firmware to enable PCIe 4.0 is available for download on the respective product pages of the motherboards.

Now that ASUS and Biostar have launched the first stones, it will certainly be very interesting to see if other major motherboard manufacturers such as ASRock, Gigabyte and MSI will jump on the train. We will keep you informed.

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