Need a motherboard with...

[Tristerin]

AM4 socket

3x NVMe M.2 slots at full speed for RAID 

As many possible SATA slots possible, not a game changer, have HBA cards/addon for more storage

4x DIMM slots (64gb)

ATX or larger preferred

 

Im out of the technical game lately and dont have alot of time to research, trying to stay away from HEDT

 

Thanks for your time!

 

[Moonzy]

13 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

3x NVMe M.2 slots at full speed for RAID 

so 3x pcie gen 4x4

i think most boards are pcie gen 4x4, only two slots available on the board as:

- 4 lanes from CPU to NVME directly

- 4 pcie 4.0 lanes from cpu to chipset to NVME, which, if i understand correctly, shares bandwidth with the rest of the device that runs thru chipset, ie, pcie slots that runs off of the chipset, sata drives and what not

 

how about using NVME expansion cards?

[Tristerin]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

so pcie gen 4x4 3 lanes each?

i think most boards are pcie gen 4x4, only two slots available on the board as:

- 4 lanes from CPU to NVME directly

- 4 pcie 4.0 lanes from cpu to chipset to NVME, which, if i understand correctly, shares bandwidth with the rest of the device that runs thru chipset, ie, pcie slots that runs off of the chipset, sata drives and what not

 

how about buying NVME exampansion cards?

I can

 

Doesnt necessarily have to be 4.0 (unless it saturates the bandwidth)

 

Recommendations?  Again, totally out of the game lately, but need to finally push the button on an editing rig better than my 3600.

 

I already plan on slapping HBA card in to expand storage

 

Can I raid off a addon card and 2 slots on board?  My brother will be doing all the RAID stuff, Im betting with the right OS its easy but I will be using Win 10

[Moonzy]

5 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Recommendations?  Again, totally out of the game

honestly, same, but im just saying what i know

a quick googling of the x570 strix shows 2 m.2 slots as i've predicted

i chose strix because there's 2x pcie x16 slot from the CPU (x8 both or x16 one of them), so you can get more bandwidth from the CPU to run add-in cards

non-SLI boards have only 1x pcie x16 slot from CPU, which you'll probably use it for GPU, i assume

 

7 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Can I raid off a addon card and 2 slots on board?

hmm... software raid probably? @Windows7gemight know better about this

 

maybe someone else will know a board that has 3x m.2 slots, maybe wait for more answers

[mariushm]

Even if you find such a board, I'm not sure you can do raid with 3 nvme drives.  I'm not sure you can make raid between drives on pci-e lanes coming from cpu and drives on pci-e lanes coming from cpu.

 

You'll get one m.2 nvme from cpu,  and then chipset can provide 6-10 pci-e lanes which can be routed to pci-e slots or m.2 connectors.  That's why most b550 motherboards will have an additional m.2 nvme drive and x570 motherboards may have 2 extra (because the x570 chipset has a few extra pci-e lanes)

 

On some motherboards, they disable a couple of sata ports when you install a 3rd m.2 ssd, because there's not enough pci-e lanes.

 

There's some exceptions like Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master, which splits the pci-e x16 slot into pci-e x8 and 2 m.2 nvme connectors... if you install a ssd in either of those connectors the video card runs at pci-e x8

 

[Tristerin]

4 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

honestly, same, but im just saying what i know

a quick googling of the x570 strix shows 2 m.2 slots as i've predicted

i chose strix because there's 2x pcie x16 slot from the CPU (x8 both or x16 one of them), so you can get more bandwidth from the CPU to run add-in cards

non-SLI boards have only 1x pcie x16 slot from CPU, which you'll probably use it for GPU, i assume

 

hmm... software raid probably? @Windows7gemight know better about this

 

maybe someone else will know a board that has 3x m.2 slots, maybe wait for more answers

 

Thank you very much for your time, trying to figure out a one stop convenient package but willing to run add on cards (already bought the HBA recommended )

[Tristerin]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

Even if you find such a board, I'm not sure you can do raid with 3 nvme drives.  I'm not sure you can make raid between drives on pci-e lanes coming from cpu and drives on pci-e lanes coming from cpu.

 

You'll get one m.2 nvme from cpu,  and then chipset can provide 6-10 pci-e lanes which can be routed to pci-e slots or m.2 connectors.  That's why most b550 motherboards will have an additional m.2 nvme drive and x570 motherboards may have 2 extra (because the x570 chipset has a few extra pci-e lanes)

 

On some motherboards, they disable a couple of sata ports when you install a 3rd m.2 ssd, because there's not enough pci-e lanes.

 

There's some exceptions like Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master, which splits the pci-e x16 slot into pci-e x8 and 2 m.2 nvme connectors... if you install a ssd in either of those connectors the video card runs at pci-e x8

 

Thanks for this info

 

I know nothing of raid, just looking for quickest (for the investment) video editing times.  Right now my 3600 system hangs up to much while trying to view in full resolution, adding multiple layers etc.  So am looking for the FASTEST NVMe setup.

 

Basically CPU 5950x

64gb CL14 ram (maybe CL16, not sure Ill notice a diff)

RTX 2060 (migrate or get a 3060 not sure yet, the 2060 may stay with the current PC)

All the storage, going to use this as a multi-use system (in the evenings it will be copying my server data while I sleep that is offsite) but this storage will be HDD's

 

 

 

[Moonzy]

any particular reason not to go HEDT? would alleviate a lot of your headache as your requirement is pretty much HEDT

[Tristerin]

4 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

any particular reason not to go HEDT? would alleviate a lot of your headache as your requirement is pretty much HEDT

Cost of mobo, and CPU.  NOT off the table, just trying to maintain a sensible budget (didnt know Id be video editing this year or I would have never invested in a 3600 system lol)

 

If its not something that exists I can up the budget, once I build this, its got to last me 5 years.  HEDT will do that as well but at alot more input cost (CPU, mobo)

[SavageNeo]

just get a b550 board with decent VRMS (basically most of 100 dollar+ boards) and use expansion cards.

[jaslion]

13 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

just get a b550 board with decent VRMS (basically most of 100 dollar+ boards) and use expansion cards.

I very much so second this. Save you money on buying expensive boards that still don't have the full feature set and you can easily get a many pcie slot b550 board.

[mariushm]

17 minutes ago, SavageNeo said:

just get a b550 board with decent VRMS (basically most of 100 dollar+ boards) and use expansion cards.

And where you put those expansion cards

On cheap b550 cards, you have the pci-e x16 slot for graphics and 1 or 2 pci-e x16 slots which are pci-e x4 only ... so you can't use

It's not as simple as that... some research is required.

[Windows7ge]

Sorry. 11hr day job.

 

12 hours ago, Moonzy said:

hmm... software raid probably? @Windows7gemight know better about this

12 hours ago, Tristerin said:

Can I raid off a addon card and 2 slots on board?

It can depend on the Software RAID implementation and what HBA's are used to connect the SSD's.

 

If they're direct-link and the plan is to bifurcate the slot so long as the slot doesn't go through the chipset nothing stops you from using an onboard slot then add-in cards. To the CPU it would all be seen the same so long as the onboard slots themselves also don't go through the chipset. This would introduce heavy bottlenecks.

 

Note though with Windows your only real option is Storage Spaces and you cannot boot to a Storage Space volume.

Also note with Windows if you go Parity RAID expect lower than ideal write performance due to the overhead associated with parity calculations.

 

If you're going GNU/Linux or UNIX you could use ZFS. It handles parity calculations better than Windows Storage Spaces. It can also be used as the boot volume so long as ZFS is supported at the distro installer menu such as on FreeBSD 13.0, or FreeNAS (I assume the option has been carried over to TruneNAS CORE), It's also available on PROXMOX (Debian based) if you're looking to create a hypervisor. It may also be available on Ubuntu Server/Desktop but I haven't particularly tested or verified it.