November 14, 20241 yr I've noticed that most motherboards on the market these days are marketed as "Gaming", and one of the big changes I've seen over the years (I've been building PC's since the 1990's) is the lack of expansion slots. Specifically I see that most motherboards only have TWO PCIE-16. (anyone else remember PCI and ISA?) I'm curently running: ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R3.0 , Version Rev 1.xx AMD FX™-8350 Eight-Core @ 4000 MH 24 GB DDR3 with a 1070TI inside (to transcode for PLEX) 2 - LSI 9207-8i 6Gs SAS cards 2 Parity Drives 12 Disk Drives 3 Pool SSD Drives (Cache) (on exclusively holds AppData) Needless to say, it's been running for many years, and while I've been upgrading my personal PC, I have neglected the poor unraid server. I mostly just used it as a file server and a Plex Server, but I recently started hosting a Minecraft Server (AllTheMods9) for my son, and that 2012 CPU can't keep up when there are 3 or more people playing. I am seriusly considereing this board: Prime A620-PLUS WIFI6 AMD A620 AM5 ATX Motherboard, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Dual M.2 Slots, WiFi 6, DisplayPort/HDMI™, Rear & Front USB 5Gbps Type-C®, SATA 6 Gbps, Two-Way AI Noise Cancelation, Aura Sync Obviously I don't care about the onboard video, or the sound. I need AT LEAST 3 PCIE-16x and this board has five. Unlike the board I am currently running, I can't find anything out about this board, and what kind of capacitors it uses. I want something that will last at least 5 years. I hear that future tarrifs may raise computer prices significantly, and this being Nov, it seems like now would be the best time to look for an upgrade. I can go with INTEL or AMD, I have owned many of each over the years, but I am hoping to keep the CPU/Motherboard/RAM under $400 if possible. Not concerned with power consuption as much as I am stability and longevity. IF anyone has any expeirnece with a AM5 board, or a good 12th/13th gen Intel I would love to read about your experinces. Thank you.
November 14, 20241 yr Pay attention to actual number of pcie lanes available - that's why you don't see more than 2 usually; using both typically makes them x8. Sometimes the slot size is 16 but actual lanes x4. This one is claiming 1 pcie 4 x16, 4 pcie 3 x16... Maybe? I'm skeptical. Realtec lan would have me stay away, but there is seemingly room for an add-in card if it's trouble. And onboard video would depend on your CPU choice.
November 24, 20241 yr On 11/14/2024 at 1:59 PM, PoppaJohn said: I've noticed that most motherboards on the market these days are marketed as "Gaming", and one of the big changes I've seen over the years (I've been building PC's since the 1990's) is the lack of expansion slots. Specifically I see that most motherboards only have TWO PCIE-16. (anyone else remember PCI and ISA?) Of course! Just tossing an Asus X97-a with 2 PCI slots ... On 11/14/2024 at 1:59 PM, PoppaJohn said: Prime A620-PLUS WIFI6 AMD A620 AM5 ATX Motherboard, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Dual M.2 Slots, WiFi 6, DisplayPort/HDMI™, Rear & Front USB 5Gbps [...] Obviously I don't care about the onboard video, or the sound. I need AT LEAST 3 PCIE-16x and this board has five. Unlike the board I am currently running, I can't find anything out about this board, and what kind of capacitors it uses. I want something that will last at least 5 years. The spec reads Expansion Slots • 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 (@ x16/x8/x4 mode) SafeSlot Core+ • 4 x PCIe 3.0 x16 (@ x1 mode) So the latter have a mechanical x16 slot, but electrically only x1 connected. It's all about the PCIe lanes a CPU provides ... A Ryzen 7950 for example provides 24 usable lanes ... they are used for M.2 Slots, SATA ports etc. expansion slots. And they even share lanes between e.g. M2 and PCIe, so you can only use either one. If you really need multiple x16 slots, a server board with a suitable CPU will be needed. They mostly have plenty of lanes. But maybe you tell us, which needs you have for multiple x16 slots ... Cheers Baumix Edited November 24, 20241 yr by baumix additional information
December 5, 20241 yr @PoppaJohn I'm with you on this journey. I'm in pretty much an identical situation. 2012 motherboard in my unraid server, now needs replacing. Trying to find one also that can run my LSI SAS cards, a slot for a GPU for Plex transcodes, something for some cache disks (I'll probably upgrade them from the current SSDs to M.2s). Just like you need! Are you any closer to pulling the trigger on something?
January 28, 20251 yr Author On 12/4/2024 at 8:33 PM, stormshaker said: @PoppaJohn I'm with you on this journey. I'm in pretty much an identical situation. 2012 motherboard in my unraid server, now needs replacing. Trying to find one also that can run my LSI SAS cards, a slot for a GPU for Plex transcodes, something for some cache disks (I'll probably upgrade them from the current SSDs to M.2s). Just like you need! Are you any closer to pulling the trigger on something? Sorry, I didn't see this message. Here is what I went with: CPU: Intel i7-12700K Motherboard: Asus Prime Z790-P Wifi Memory: 64GB DDR5 I removed the 1070ti from the system. Everything is running like a champ. The Minecraft ATM9 server is MUCH faster. The load time went from 5 minutes to 90 seconds and the game play is much faster and smoother.
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