Gigabyte’s B660 Gaming X DDR4 Leaks, Suggests Lower Cost Motherboards Won’t be Getting PCIe 5.0
How do we know this board doesn’t support PCIe 5.0? First of all, the x16 slot closest to the CPU uses one of Gigabyte’s older reinforced PCIe 4.0 slots, whereas all of its Z690 boards with PCIe 5.0 support uses a new, white type of slot. These slots use a visually different kind of reinforcement as well, even if it’s only marginally different. However, Gigabyte doesn’t appear to be silk screening PCIe 5.0 on supported boards and it’s possible that they’re using a different slot vendor for the B660 boards.
Out of the 18 available PCIe lanes, the four from the CPU are used for the top most M.2 slot, with another four PCIe 4.0 most likely being used for another M.2 slot, with the third one being PCIe 3.0. That leaves us with two PCIe 4.0 lanes and four PCIe 3.0 lanes. We’re guessing that the two PCIe 4.0 lanes are used for the two PCIe x16 slots at the bottom of the board, since they’re only PCIe x1 electrically if you take a closer look at the slots. This leaves a PCIe 3.0 for the 2.5 Gbps Ethernet controller, while we’re not entirely sure what the remaining three lanes are used for.
The board features the expected four SATA ports, plus two rear 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports, as well as a front header for what should be a 20 Gbps USB 3.2 port. There are also a couple of 5 Gbps USB 3.2 ports and a front header for another two, as well as four rear USB 2.0 ports and two headers for another four. The board also has a DP and HDMI port, although it’s unknown what type they are, but most like DP 1.2 and HDMI 1.4. As the board name suggests, this board uses DDR4 memory. Unlike most of Gigabyte’s Z690 boards, the B660 Gaming X features a full set of 3.5 mm audio jacks. Gigabyte’s Q-Flash Plus is also supported and the board has an additional button for resetting the CMOS. Overall it’s not a very exciting board, but hopefully it’ll be priced at a more reasonable level than its Z690 siblings.