Advice Request – Board / Platform with lots of PCIe

[Fozzuk]

Hoping for some advice. My AM4 / X570 build is rapidly running out of PCIe slots. From looking at other consumer-level mobos, I don't think I have much scope for significant improvement on my MSI X570 Tomahawk – even AM4 boards with multiple x16 slots typically run those at x1.

 

Do I have any options to stay with consumer-level boards (preferably AM4)? Otherwise my upgrade path seems to be a low-spec Epyc 7002 from Aliexpress (~£60) and an expensive (~£400) mobo. And probably some upgrades to ECC memory and a new power supply.

 

I've currently got:

– A PCIe 4.0 x8 GPU

– A PCIe 3.0 x8 HBA

– A PCIe 3.0 x8 10GbE (currently in an x1 PCIe slot)

 

Any thoughts welcome. Thanks.

[MAM59]

"Consumer" like AMD CPUs usually offer 24 lanes, the new low level epics 28 (in sockets AM5). The epic just lacks the internal GPU, so those 4 lanes are freed up.

 

If you really want more lanes, you need to switch to the ThreadRipper CPUs and Mobos. Those usually offer up to 5 "real" 16x slots, but of course, are in a totally different price region.

 

The new epics are just marketing stuff. They allow customers to run Microsoft Server 2022 with the basic (and cheapest) license. They have no technical benefits compared to the desktop versions. (the GPU is missing, instead is a new AI chip that is currently not usable for anything because there are no drivers yet).

 

BTW:

47 minutes ago, Fozzuk said:

– A PCIe 3.0 x8 10GbE (currently in an x1 PCIe slot)

This is seriously limiting the LAN! Better get a 3.0/4x card and even more better swap it with the GPU!

 

[whipdancer]

2 hours ago, MAM59 said:

"Consumer" like AMD CPUs usually offer 24 lanes, the new low level epics 28 (in sockets AM5). The epic just lacks the internal GPU, so those 4 lanes are freed up.

 

If you really want more lanes, you need to switch to the ThreadRipper CPUs and Mobos. Those usually offer up to 5 "real" 16x slots, but of course, are in a totally different price region.

 

The new epics are just marketing stuff. They allow customers to run Microsoft Server 2022 with the basic (and cheapest) license. They have no technical benefits compared to the desktop versions. (the GPU is missing, instead is a new AI chip that is currently not usable for anything because there are no drivers yet).

 

 

Is anything by Intel a good alternative? I've been trying to work through this same issue (currently on Ryzen/AM4 platform).

[_cjd_]

Epic seems the path to me - more affordable than Threadripper, gobs of available lanes. I haven't looked hard but nothing with that many lanes from Intel in a similarly affordable package. I've seen some good deals on eBay from seemingly reputable places. Power efficiency may not do as well as a consumer board.

 

If you only need a little more, something like the SUPERMICRO MBD-X13SAE-F-O may do the trick. Won't be cheaper up front but might do low power idle better. That's speculative though.

[MAM59]

2 hours ago, whipdancer said:

Is anything by Intel a good alternative?

No idea. Haven't looked at Intel for a decade or so. Usually they had LESS lanes.

 

BTW: a little warning ahead: There are a lot of boards out there now that look, they can fulfill your needs. Lots of Devices, Lots of Slots.

But BEWARE! Most of these boards are "overequipped", they cannot use everything at the same time! So read the detailed manuels, look for (*) footnotes like "if you turn on SATA 5-8 PCIe Slot #4 is turned off" or "Insert a card into 8x Slot #2 will downgrade Slot #1 to 8 lanes only too". Very complicated restriction.

 

Even knowing about this has recently fooled me to buy the "wrong" board.... 😞 

 

[JonathanM]

20 years ago I never would have dreamed that "overprovisioning" would be something to be aware of in motherboards.

[JorgeB]

For Intel I like my X11SPL-F, it was about $250 used on ebay and has a decent number of lanes, but like mentioned nothing beats EPYC, also have a H11SSL-i, it was around the same price used, with 12 NVMe devices, 3 additional SATA controllers that give me a total of 32 connected SATA devices, and a dual port 25GbE NIC

[Fozzuk]

Thanks everyone for input.

 

So it feels like Eypc is the solution here – I do hear the comments on Threadripper, but apart from somewhat higher clock speeds I don't see the advantage over Epyc that warrants the massive cost of entry. Aliexpress is nicely flooded with cheap, used Epyc CPUs.

 

On the motherboard side, I think a SuperMicro H12SSL-i is where I'll go (7003 support, Gen.4 PCIe, lots of x16, etc). The Gigabyte  MZ32-AR0 (Rev.3) seems slightly superior in specs but it's a bigger board and the CPU fan won't fit in my case.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention: I wasn't aware of the new 4004 Epyc processors, but these just bring server-grade functionality that I don't care about (ECC, RAID, security, etc) and none of the stuff I do want i.e. PCIE lanes.

Edited June 3 by Fozzuk