ASUS Demonstrates Prototype DDR5 to DDR4 Converter Card for Z690 Motherboards

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Image: ASUS



ASUS has developed a converter card that allows DDR4 memory to be used on its DDR5 Z690 motherboards.



As demonstrated in a video shared by a YouTuber named Bing, which AnandTech believes to be an ASUS ROG employee, the card accomplishes this by using a special BIOS revision that allows the motherboard to run in DDR4 mode despite the substantial differences between the two generations of memory.









“The key issue is that DDR5 does power management per module, where DDR4 relies on power management on the motherboard, so that has to be taken into consideration,” the publication noted in its coverage. “Also, adding in a carrier card extends memory traces, which could degrade the quality of the signal.”



The converter card is confirmed to be working based on a portion of the video that shows a single DDR4 module in the converter card running at...
Click to expand...

Continue reading...


 
I think it depends on cost.
If they can produce half as many different boards due to the conversion kit, I think it's a massive win.
 
So it's not the memory controller on the xpu because it can support ddr4 or ddr5, so that isn't the issue. They just need to add what looks like an inch and a half of traces and power handling to each socket to allow for ddr4 ram in a 5 slot. Why not just have a motherboard with a toggle and slots for ddr5 and 4? Wouldn't that make more sense for those thst want the flexibility snd the ability to upgrade later without a new motherboard being needed?

But really this is Intel. We all know the next cpu revision will be a new chipset and socket
 
I had these frankenstein boards when I was in school and couldn't afford to replace everything at once. The most famous one was the ASROCK DUAL-VSTA board I had. Which had AGP and PCI Express slot for the graphics card. It had IDE and SATA ports, and supported DDR and DDR2 memory both. I fully exploited all of those features.
 
MadMummy76 said:
I had these frankenstein boards when I was in school and couldn't afford to replace everything at once. The most famous one was the ASROCK DUAL-VSTA board I had. Which had AGP and PCI Express slot for the graphics card. It had IDE and SATA ports, and supported DDR and DDR2 memory both. I fully exploited all of those features.
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Lol, I had a Mobo back in the day that had a 386 on it and a socket for 486. I was amazed at the brute force of a 486 dx2 66 when I got one

I got adapters to run Tulitans on a VP6.

Those were the days.....
 
Dogsofjune said:
Lol, I had a Mobo back in the day that had a 386 on it and a socket for 486. I was amazed at the brute force of a 486 dx2 66 when I got one

I got adapters to run Tulitans on a VP6.

Those were the days.....
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Yeah I went through the whole ppga and fcpga adapter for slot1 phase. Imagine using the same MB for 3 or 4 gens of cpus now.
 
With the speed decrease and signal conversion, hence lower performance and worce latency, it might be about as fast as DDR3 :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
MadMummy76 said:
Yeah I went through the whole ppga and fcpga adapter for slot1 phase. Imagine using the same MB for 3 or 4 gens of cpus now.
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X470? My 2700x will be upgraded to a 5950 stacked vcache on my 470 mb if it’s possible
 
Grimlakin said:
So it's not the memory controller on the xpu because it can support ddr4 or ddr5, so that isn't the issue. They just need to add what looks like an inch and a half of traces and power handling to each socket to allow for ddr4 ram in a 5 slot. Why not just have a motherboard with a toggle and slots for ddr5 and 4? Wouldn't that make more sense for those thst want the flexibility snd the ability to upgrade later without a new motherboard being needed?

But really this is Intel. We all know the next cpu revision will be a new chipset and socket
Click to expand...

DDR5 moves the PMIC off the motherboard and onto the DIMM itself. In order for this converter to work, the PMIC has to be integrated into it.

Which is odd, because if it isn't the DRAM having a silicon shortage, it's the PMICs, and here they are adding a device that requires it, and if the PMIC is the component that is having a silicon shortage, which it is and one of the contributing problems with DDR5 availability right now, this converter thing makes no sense, and does not alleviate or help the problem, in fact it takes PMICs away that could be put on DDR5 DIMMs /shrug
 
Brent_Justice said:
DDR5 moves the PMIC off the motherboard and onto the DIMM itself. In order for this converter to work, the PMIC has to be integrated into it.

Which is odd, because if it isn't the DRAM having a silicon shortage, it's the PMICs, and here they are adding a device that requires it, and if the PMIC is the component that is having a silicon shortage, which it is and one of the contributing problems with DDR5 availability right now, this converter thing makes no sense, and does not alleviate or help the problem, in fact it takes PMICs away that could be put on DDR5 DIMMs /shrug
Click to expand...
Just another argument for a motherboard with 2 ddr4 slots and 2 ddr5 slots. I kinda wonder jf you could use both.. probably limited to ddr4 speeds if you tried. But as long as only 1 bank is populated you should be fine either ddr4 or ddr5. Is anyone making a board like thst yet without the necessity of stupid silicone jumper boards?
 
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