I'm looking to upgrade my Unraid server which I also use for Windows 11 VM gaming. Currently have an Intel 9900K with 64GB and an ASUS PRIME Z-370a motherboard. I'm interested in the AMD 9950X3D because of the core/thread count to split with my VM and Unraid but unsure of what motherboard to get. Like I see most of these AM5 motherboards only have a couple PCIe slots. I would need one for a GPU passthrough (likely going to upgrade to an nvidia 5000 series), one for my LSI controller for 8 SATA drives off one card and then also a separate NIC adapter so I can pass through to VM without sharing with Unraid (it introduces too much latency when I use Sunlight/Moonlight for streaming). I'd also like to get the benefit of PCIe 5.0 cache drives.

I've found some that have 3 PCIe slots but all sorts of notes that if you use more than one NVMe port, the main PCIe slot runs at x8 instead of x16 which for PCIe 5.0 may not be horrible. I've seen benchmarks that even the fastest GPUs still work fine at even PCIe 3.0 x16 speeds. I believe the LSI card is an x8 card though that could be a challenge.

Any recommendations on a motherboard?

Thanks!

This was one of my main considerations for switching to Z890 boards for a server, specifically the Gigabyte Z890 AI TOP motherboard- as it could run both 8x SATA , a GPU at 8x PCIe, and a broadcom LSI 9300 16i at 8x in a 16x slot. And it had 10GBe as well.

As you noted - the M.2 slots tend to occupy 4x PCIe lanes, so the slot ends up being shared/bifurcated with the PCI slot , network interface or Thunderbolt/USB4 port.

Running a RX 9070 XT or RTX 5080 in PCIe Gen5 x8 is something people have tested - it does not affect FPS much, just loading times for assets. For the AM5 boards, x16 and x8/x8 SLI does require the 9000 series chips - which is where the x3D option is going to be a huge performance gain vs the standard Zen5 CPUs.

The ROG crosshair X870 Hero was on my shortlist for a while,

along with the Asrock X870E Taichi,

the Gigabyte B850 AI Top

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master, which I ended up scratching off and not using.

same with the Biostar X870E Valkyrie, which I couldn't find in stores

and the MEG GODLIKE, which was a no-go.

There's also the 2 creator boards,

the Asrock X870 Taichi Creator

and the Asus Proart X870E Creator with x8/x8

I ended up trying to google the results as a lot of mainboards had 2 x16 slots, but the 2nd slot was often shared with the M.2 or Thunderbolt connection, and the Asrock boards weren't available. One of the motherboards I first looked at, had 3 x16 slots, but were configured for x16, x4 and x1.

In the end, I ended up fact-checking with Gemini/Grok AI, as I was hitting a lot of dead ends on available motherboards for the X870 chipset. Now that the X870E's are available - or at least not sold out/arriving soon, there's more options.

Edited August 12, 2025Aug 12 by Toliman

2 hours ago, Toliman said:

This was one of my main considerations for switching to Z890 boards for a server, specifically the Gigabyte Z890 AI TOP motherboard- as it could run both 8x SATA , a GPU at 8x PCIe, and a broadcom LSI 9300 16i at 8x in a 16x slot. And it had 10GBe as well.

As you noted - the M.2 slots tend to occupy 4x PCIe lanes, so the slot ends up being shared/bifurcated with the PCI slot , network interface or Thunderbolt/USB4 port.

Running a RX 9070 XT or RTX 5080 in PCIe Gen5 x8 is something people have tested - it does not affect FPS much, just loading times for assets. For the AM5 boards, x16 and x8/x8 SLI does require the 9000 series chips - which is where the x3D option is going to be a huge performance gain vs the standard Zen5 CPUs.

The ROG crosshair X870 Hero was on my shortlist for a while,

along with the Asrock X870E Taichi,

the Gigabyte B850 AI Top

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master, which I ended up scratching off and not using.

same with the Biostar X870E Valkyrie, which I couldn't find in stores

and the MEG GODLIKE, which was a no-go.

There's also the 2 creator boards,

the Asrock X870 Taichi Creator

and the Asus Proart X870E Creator with x8/x8

I ended up trying to google the results as a lot of mainboards had 2 x16 slots, but the 2nd slot was often shared with the M.2 or Thunderbolt connection, and the Asrock boards weren't available. One of the motherboards I first looked at, had 3 x16 slots, but were configured for x16, x4 and x1.

In the end, I ended up fact-checking with Gemini/Grok AI, as I was hitting a lot of dead ends on available motherboards for the X870 chipset. Now that the X870E's are available - or at least not sold out/arriving soon, there's more options.

Thank you for the insight. If Intel hadn’t gone to crap the last couple generations I’d stick with them but AMD is just so far ahead of them right now.

Hey, sorry to resurrect an old thread, but did you end up ever upgrading to the 9950x3d? I am curious to hear from people who have this. It appears the sweet spot for high core count/threads and price vs. threadripper. Considering this or possibly waiting for Nova lake (panther lake has been getting pretty good reviews so hoping they can continue that with Nova lake).

Thx

1 minute ago, Stokkes said:

Hey, sorry to resurrect an old thread, but did you end up ever upgrading to the 9950x3d? I am curious to hear from people who have this. It appears the sweet spot for high core count/threads and price vs. threadripper. Considering this or possibly waiting for Nova lake (panther lake has been getting pretty good reviews so hoping they can continue that with Nova lake).

Thx

Yes I did. Went with the MSI Tomahawk 870E. Decided to go big for the extra PCIE lanes for potential future expansion. AMD is very limited in this space

Wow thanks for the response. That's awesome - any issues you've noticed (I hear things about IOMMU, passthrough, etc)? I see in your OP that you have VMs, etc.. Do you do any gaming? If you run Plex, did you install another GPU for transcoding?

I'm running an i9-10900 (non-K) and while it's been humming along since 2020, the gaming performance leaves a lot to be desired with my new 5070 TI.

I know RAM pricing is nuts right now, but I am considering pulling the trigger because when I game, my GPU sits at 60-70% @ 1440p with max settings in many games, so it's being severely CPU bottlenecked.

Just now, Stokkes said:

Wow thanks for the response. That's awesome - any issues you've noticed (I hear things about IOMMU, passthrough, etc)? I see in your OP that you have VMs, etc.. Do you do any gaming? If you run Plex, did you install another GPU for transcoding?

I'm running an i9-10900 (non-K) and while it's been humming along since 2020, the gaming performance leaves a lot to be desired with my new 5070 TI.

I know RAM pricing is nuts right now, but I am considering pulling the trigger because when I game, my GPU sits at 60-70% @ 1440p with max settings in many games, so it's being severely CPU bottlenecked.

Honestly I ended up keeping my old machine as Unraid server and turned the new machine into a straight gaming PC. Aside from the gaming VM my old rig is perfectly fine running as an Unraid server. Maybe one day I might change that but for now running two machines was the better option for me

Ya makes sense, I have been flip flopping on sticking with an all in one or splitting and going with a 9800x3d.. This is what I'm telling myself too - the i9-10900 is absolutely fine for unraid. Thanks!

4 minutes ago, Stokkes said:

Ya makes sense, I have been flip flopping on sticking with an all in one or splitting and going with a 9800x3d.. This is what I'm telling myself too - the i9-10900 is absolutely fine for unraid. Thanks!

I went 9950x3d for the extra cores and future flexibility. It performs very nicely in games and will not bottleneck a 5070 Ti at all. In my rig the 5070 Ti is the bottleneck lol

I’ve also found that while I did vm gaming for years, there are still definite advantages to running native. I stream the PC using Apollo/Artemis (sunshine/moonlight fork) to an Nvidia Shield connected to my 83” 4K TV in the living room. There was always latency doing this with a VM. Native is much smoother

Ha! That is exactly what I'm doing now - streaming to my Apple TV 4K using Apollo/moonlight. It runs well, but even with the 5070 TI on this cpu, I kind of need to enable FrameGen which seems a bit ridiculous.

I am not hyper sensitive to input latency. Enabling framegen I can keep the latency pretty stable at 8-16ms and I don't really notice perceptually if there is latency on the moonlight/apple tv front (it is wired however).

My gut tells me I should probably tough it out until Nova lake comes at the end of the year which looks to be quite beefy and I've heard the core count for higher CPUs should be pretty crazy. I almost have to brute force it if I want to stick to VM gaming.

Intel lost me for a while. They’d have to do something totally spectacular to win me back at this point. My 9900K is fantastic for my Unraid but their new stuff is crap compared to what AMD is doing gaming wise.

My advice, don’t wait! Prices only going to continue getting worse. I built in September last year and it’s amazing how much the same components are even now.