Risers for Everything? Smallest possible form factor MOBO?

[marksy95]

I was thinking about how nice it would be to have a motherboard that is designed to use riser cables for EVERYTHING to give you full freedom of design/layout for custom cases. The MOBO could also then be made as small as possible because you no longer have to worry about space claims for components. Has anybody seen something like this?

 

Risers you would need:

PCIE - easy to find

CPU - haven't found any. Do these exist? Should be theoretically possible. Dummy CPU chip goes into the socket, pins go to wires then and you have a second CPU socket on the other end. This could cause latency issues, but for each foot of length you're only adding 0.91 nanoseconds.

RAM - haven't found any here either? Do these exist? Should also be theoretically possible. Again with the minor latency issue.

 

[Bananasplit_00]

Vdroop is already enough of an issue for CPUs and thats just a couple centimetres of length. Adding more would make that much worse. I think that a motherboard with a chip socket and flat SODIMMs is about as good as you get before you start soldering everything

[GenericFanboy]

8 minutes ago, marksy95 said:

I was thinking about how nice it would be to have a motherboard that is designed to use riser cables for EVERYTHING to give you full freedom of design/layout for custom cases. The MOBO could also then be made as small as possible because you no longer have to worry about space claims for components. Has anybody seen something like this?

 

Risers you would need:

PCIE - easy to find

CPU - haven't found any. Do these exist? Should be theoretically possible. Dummy CPU chip goes into the socket, pins go to wires then and you have a second CPU socket on the other end. This could cause latency issues, but for each foot of length you're only adding 0.91 nanoseconds.

RAM - haven't found any here either? Do these exist? Should also be theoretically possible. Again with the minor latency issue.

 

Quite sure i've seen the RAM one before, CPU.. quite sure it doesnt exist. And if it did it'd be weird

[mariushm]

You can't make a riser for a CPU for several reasons:

* modern sockets have 1000+ pins... for example socket AM4 has 1331 pins.

* length of traces between socket and memory slots is critical : there's pairs of traces which must be sub-mm accurate otherwise you get memory errors.

* the distances between socket and memory slots must be very small, the longer the distance the harder it is to reach high frequencies

* the distances between cpu (therefore cpu socket) and pci-e slots must be below some thresholds. For pci-e 4.0, the maximum pci-e trace length is somewhere below 10-12 inches (pci-e 3.0 can go up to 20 inches). If you want more than 10-12" away from cpu, you need to use repeater chips (signal amplifiers) which cost money, that's why you don't see pci-e 4.0 riser cables around.

* modern processors use a lot of pins for power and for ground ... they work at low voltages (0.6v..1.5v) but very high currents, in the 100-300A range. The VRM (voltage regulator which converts 12v from power supply to this voltage range) must be very close to cpu socket to reduce losses in the traces between the VRM and those pins.  Formula is simple... Voltage lost = current x resistance... so for example if there's 10A of current and the wire has 0.01 ohm resistance, the VRM sent 1.5v but the CPU actually got 1.5v - 10 x 0.01 = 1.4v

Wires also introduce inductance, which resists quick changes in current, so the cpus would not be able to quickly jump from low power stand-by frequencies, to turbo modes to give you the best power.

 

 

[Dougarooo]

But why? I can't think of any reason to really do that. GPU: yes, RAM: arguable, CPU: ???

 

If you're trying to go for an all flat design you can just manufacture it to meet the right specifications with the parts built into the board and you're good?

 

I'm ready to have a discussion I just want to know what were even trying to discuss here lol

[GenericFanboy]

3 minutes ago, Dougarooo said:

But why? I can't think of any reason to really do that. GPU: yes, RAM: arguable, CPU: ???

 

If you're trying to go for an all flat design you can just manufacture it to meet the right specifications with the parts built into the board and you're good?

 

I'm ready to have a discussion I just want to know what were even trying to discuss here lol

I can kinda understand, but for myself more than him. I like putting electronics on display. So having it as close as possible would be nice. For ram/gpu that is. Cpu is a big n o

[Dougarooo]

1 minute ago, GenericFanboy said:

I can kinda understand, but for myself more than him. I like putting electronics on display. So having it as close as possible would be nice. For ram/gpu that is. Cpu is a big n o

So you're wanting to show off parts?

 

I understand the aesthetic of that.

 

I originally wanted to buy a case like this to hang off the wall and show off. Came to realize I couldn't do that in my situation and that it'd probably be ugly if I even could.

[GenericFanboy]

5 minutes ago, Dougarooo said:

So you're wanting to show off parts?

 

I understand the aesthetic of that.

 

I originally wanted to buy a case like this to hang off the wall and show off. Came to realize I couldn't do that in my situation and that it'd probably be ugly if I even could.

i also just hoard parts Just think its cool. 

[Dougarooo]

5 minutes ago, GenericFanboy said:

i also just hoard parts Just think its cool. 

Lol Brian is that you?

 

I understand the interest in tech but what do you do with the parts you collect? Are you just storing them like Brian is here?

[RonnieOP]

Why on the world would anyone want a cpu riser? It has paste and a cooler on it so its not like you would be able to look in the window and see the "I9 9900K" printed on it.

 

Ram....just why?

[Mira Yurizaki]

I don't see how riser cables would make something smaller. If anything, they'd require more volume because I dunno, tiny cramped cases are a bitch to work in.