Getting limited on CPU lanes

tankyx · February 7

Hi,

My current build is a Workstation/GameStation hybrid, 5900x, 4090FE + Quadro P2000 for additional display outputs, 64Gigs RAM.

I also use a 2.5G ethernet to PCIe adaptor, a WD_BLACK AN1500 1TB (Gen 3) expansion card, and I have 2 970 Evo 1TB (Gen 3) NVMe drives on Raid 0 on M2_1 and M2_2 slots.

I am looking to add an Asus Hyper M.2 X16 Gen5 with currently 2 SN770 drives 2TB in raid 0, and maybe later 2 SN850x drives in raid 0 as well.

So it is clear I am getting PCIe lanes limited. My AN1500 is going to go, but with the addition of the Quadro, I won't be able to add the new drives in there. What is the best course of action ?

DoctorNick · February 7

9 minutes ago, tankyx said:

Hi,

My current build is a Workstation/GameStation hybrid, 5900x, 4090FE + Quadro P2000 for additional display outputs, 64Gigs RAM.

I also use a 2.5G ethernet to PCIe adaptor, a WD_BLACK AN1500 1TB (Gen 3) expansion card, and I have 2 970 Evo 1TB (Gen 3) NVMe drives on Raid 0 on M2_1 and M2_2 slots.

I am looking to add an Asus Hyper M.2 X16 Gen5 with currently 2 SN770 drives 2TB in raid 0, and maybe later 2 SN850x drives in raid 0 as well.

So it is clear I am getting PCIe lanes limited. My AN1500 is going to go, but with the addition of the Quadro, I won't be able to add the new drives in there. What is the best course of action ?

Are you on B550, then maybe X570 motherboard?

Needfuldoer · February 7

Unfortunately there's only so many lanes to go around on consumer platforms. LGA1700 has 20 (16x Gen5, 4x Gen4), AM4 has 20 (all gen4), AM5 has 28 (24x Gen5). Each PCIe Gen5 lane is capable of the same bandwidth as two PCIe Gen4 lanes, but I don't know of any PCIe "switches" that "break" a PCIe Gen5 x16 link out to two PCIe Gen4 x16 slots running at full Gen4 speed.

A full ATX X670E or Z690 board would get you the most PCIe expandability, but many of the slots hanging off the PCH will probably only run at Gen3 speeds.

If you absolutely need tons of PCIe Gen4/Gen5 lanes, you need to look at HEDT/workstation/server platforms. Threadripper and EPYC processors have PCIe for days, and even older workstation Xeons have 44.

tankyx · February 7

1 hour ago, DoctorNick said:

Are you on B550, then maybe X570 motherboard?

X570 Taichi

15 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Unfortunately there's only so many lanes to go around on consumer platforms. LGA1700 has 20 (16x Gen5, 4x Gen4), AM4 has 20 (all gen4), AM5 has 28 (24x Gen5). Each PCIe Gen5 lane is capable of the same bandwidth as two PCIe Gen4 lanes, but I don't know of any PCIe "switches" that "break" a PCIe Gen5 x16 link out to two PCIe Gen4 x16 slots running at full Gen4 speed.

A full ATX X670E or Z690 board would get you the most PCIe expandability, but many of the slots hanging off the PCH will probably only run at Gen3 speeds.

If you absolutely need tons of PCIe Gen4/Gen5 lanes, you need to look at HEDT/workstation/server platforms. Threadripper and EPYC processors have PCIe for days, and even older workstation Xeons have 44.

Yeah I figured it was the only non-janky solution