Intel 11 Gen Chipset Rocket Lake-S LGA 1200: Features

Intel‘s 11th Gen processor is approaching and as such, motherboard makers are on the prowl with their top models ready and on the production ramp. But to discern capabilities and benefits, as always Intel has had up to 6 compatible chipsets, at least to a greater or lesser degree, with these 11 Gen CPUs. What are they and how do they differ between them? What is the best chipset for Rocket Lake S?

If there is something that characterizes this new generation of processors, it is the amount of impediments that Intel is putting on the table to support them with old chipsets. What seemed easy in terms of a purchase decision now has to be scrutinized. What are its benefits, curiosities or key characteristics? Which one is best for each type of task and PC? We are going to try to solve all the doubts at once.

Chipsets for Intel Rocket Lake-S 11 Gen CPUs

Intel-Core-11-Gen

HardZone H510 B560 H470 Z490 Z590
Supports 11 Gen CPUs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Supports 10 Gen CPUs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Segment Entry Mainstream Mainstream Enthusiastic Enthusiastic
TDP Not confirmed Not confirmed 6 W 6 W Not confirmed
Overclocking Do not Only in memories Do not Yes Yes
DIMMs per channel two two two two two
Maximum amount of RAM Not specified Not specified 64 GB 128 GB 128 GB
RAM memory support DDR4-3200 MHz DDR4-3200 MHz DDR4-2666 / DDR4-2933 DDR4-2933 DDR4-3200 MHz
DMI 3.0 lines 4 4 4 4 8, but only with 11 Gen CPUs
PCI Express PCIe 4.0 x16, no support for M.2 Gen 4, the rest PCIe Gen 3 PCIe 4.0 x16 + M.2 x4, the rest PCIe Gen 3 Only one PCIe 4.0 x16, the rest will be Gen 3 PCI Express 3.0 1×16 2×8 or 1×8 + 2×4, only one PCIe 4.0 x16

PCIe 4.0 support depends on the manufacturer

PCIe 4.0 x16 + M.2 x4, the rest PCIe Gen 3
Maximum number of PCIe lanes twenty 24 twenty 24 24
Multi GPU Do not Do not Do not AMD CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI AMD CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI
Number of USB ports 10 12 14 14 14
USB configuration Not specified Not specified 8 x USB 3.2 Gen 1×1
14 x USB 2.0
6 x USB 3.2 Gen 2×1
10 x USB 3.2 Gen 1×1
14 x USB 2.0
Not specified
Intel Optane support Do not Yes Yes Yes Yes
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Maximum number of SATA 6 Gb / s Not specified Not specified 6 6 6
RAID Do not 0,1,5 and 10 0,1,5 and 10 0,1,5 and 10 0,1,5 and 10

Before we start, we must clarify two quite important points that will be better understood in the table above: the H410 and B460 chipsets have been left out of support for Intel’s 11 Gen, so they are simply left in the 10 Gen with Comet Lake- S as main architecture.

We have already addressed the reasons for this decision by Intel in an exclusive article for it, so we will not go into it here, but when buying a motherboard it is important to know, because if we mount an 11 Gen CPU in these chipsets it will not be recognized.

Intel Z590 Diagrama

The details to be discussed about the rest of the characteristics are clear, although there are some that are not clear at all because they have not been specified as such. To begin with, all of these chipsets will support the newer Rocket Lake-S, as well as the 10th Gen Comet Lake-S architecture, but only two will be able to be overclocked with these CPUs: Z590 and Z490.

The rest of the models are blocked and only B560 will be enabled for overclocking in RAM memory as such, allowing to gain a little more performance in the system.

The PCIe lines and generations in controversy

Intel-Chipset-500

Rocket Lake-S brings as a main novelty the support for PCIe 4.0, but it will only be enabled in its entirety in the Z590 chipset as such, while Z490 even having 20 lines destined for this purpose, some companies only offer x16 for the GPU, leaving to M.2 SSDs without such support and staying at Gen 3 x16 as such. The H510 chipset directly only enables one x16 slot exclusively.

Out of these 20 lines mentioned, the PCH lines will be Gen 3 in all models, leaving aside the idea that Intel could launch PCH with PCIe 4.0. Finally, another of the novelties that Intel has included with these new 500 series chipsets is the inclusion of the so-called USB 3.2 20G, which will not surprisingly be connected by PCIe lines to the CPU, but will be governed by chipsets of the 500 series exclusively.

That is, the 400 series does not get support as such, but has to be offered by an exclusive Asmedia controller and external to the PCH. As we can see, the changes are minimal, but they are important for PCIe 4.0 and especially for something that has not been discussed much: the DMI 3.0 lines.

All chipsets will support 4 lines of this Intel-owned bus, where this version 3.0 achieves 8 GT / s per lane, so except for Z590, all will have 32 GT / s in total, while this new high-end chipset will enjoy double the : 64 GT / s. This full speed duplicity will only be available with 11 Gen Rocket Lake-S CPUs, which should allow for less bottleneck on buses that opt for DMI 3.0 as their data interface.