Gigabyte removes PCIe 5.0 support from B650 motherboards in latest BIOS update

https://videocardz.com/newz/gigabyte-removes-unofficial-pcie-5-0-support-from-b650-motherboards-in-latest-bios-update

by josephcsible • 12 months ago

76 49 12 months ago

It should be illegal to retroactively take back features from products that you've already sold, regardless of whether the feature was advertised or how buggy it is.

karmakaze• 12 months ago

At least users can go back to older firmware and get 5.0 back.

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.

toast07• 12 months ago

Lately, some BIOS updates have been advertised as not revertable. I'm sure you can still program the old firmware with an external programmer, but "for security reasons", the in-system update won't let you revert some updates that fix security issues.

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.

fsflyer• 12 months ago

This one?

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.

bangaladore5• 12 months ago

The HN title does not match the actual article title. Didn't look super closely, but I don't see anything in the article suggesting the article title was changed after publishing.

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• 12 months ago

Right, only the B650E chipset has official PCIe 5.0 support. The B650 may support it, but not officially.

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?

b112• 12 months ago

I've flagged for the misleading title. Removing "unofficial" was quite unjust.

We absolutely want to hold companies accountable, but if we lambast them for reasonable actions, where's the motivation for them to do right?

toast07• 12 months ago

This happened on AM4 as well. https://www.techpowerup.com/258044/amds-latest-agesa-update-...

oakwhiz• 12 months ago

Were the lanes engineered for 5.0? Maybe this is a signal integrity issue.

SilverBirch• 12 months ago

The way product segmentation works in this market it’s practically certain they’re physically identical to the board that supports 5 and the only difference is firmware locks and marketing.

dale_glass• 12 months ago

PCIe 5 is 32 GT/s (~4GB/s) per lane, and of course double of that of PCIe 4.

It's a crazy rate that can't be trivial to achieve.

Aurornis6• 12 months ago

Having some PCB experience, I disagree. Targeting higher specs like PCIe 5.0 usually requires more expensive PCB materials and tighter qualifications at the test stage.

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.

amatecha2• 12 months ago

How does that work for the PC I just got a month ago that has this motherboard and was advertised as having PCIe 5.0 ? https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00129652 I just lose capability that was clearly marked as a specific feature in the item I purchased?

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

Semaphor2• 12 months ago

Confusing marketing. It supports PCIe 5 for storage, but not the GPU. Nothing official changed.

amatecha2• 12 months ago

Yeah so I just noticed, that is indeed confusing, though partly confusing on the post author's part. The marketing does indeed only mention PCIe 4.0 for the expansion slots.

kvemkon3• 12 months ago

It's only for single SSD M.2 storage slot directly connected to the CPU.

xmodem• 12 months ago

It sounds like this only applies to boards that were never listed as PCIe 5 capable in the first place.

rtkwe• 12 months ago

If you read the detailed specs on the page closely it never advertised 5.0 speeds _on the PCIe slots_ only on the M.2 interfaces. The top line product name is deceptive, either intentionally or accidentally.

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...

Aurornis6• 12 months ago

Some important information missing from the headline: B650 motherboards never officially supported PCIe 5.0 on the GPU slot. You always had to get a B650E motherboard for that.

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.

TiredOfLife• 12 months ago

From guidelines:

"... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

jandrese• 12 months ago

This title appears to be misleading, or at the very least confusing.

Gigabyte removes PCIe 5.0 support from B650 motherboards in latest BIOS update

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