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Micro-ATX Mobo with enough PCIe lanes?

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18 minutes ago, GP781 said:

A GPU (one that would be perfectly happy on an x8 slot if it had an open end), a 10 gig NIC, and a RAID card, but the raid isn't a must so if there's like 6 SATA ports on the board itself that would work too, in which case I'd only need 1 x16 and 1 x8 or 2 x8's with 1 open ended if that's even a thing you can get.

Getting one that's x8/x8 is just not feasible if you want to get a platform released within the last few years. The thing is though, you don't need x8 and x4 for those cards. You can get 10 gig NICs that work at PCIe x4 just fine, and you can get HBAs that work just fine that only need PCIe x1 if the board doesn't have 6 SATA ports. 

 

A board like the B650M Mortar has an x16, an x4, and 6 SATA ports, so while you would have to get a new NIC (I'm assuming you're reusing an old one), it's still likely your best option. 

 

EDIT: didn't see the fact you just aquired a bunch of motherboards, so that recommendation doesn't work. There are much more boards with 6 SATA ports on AM4 though, so this does raise the amount of options you have. Something like a PRO B650M-VC would work just fine, though if you're going to look at used boards you pretty much just have to see what's available to you. 

 

8 minutes ago, GP781 said:

On pcpartpicker and looks like 2 x16 slots is the most common thing

That 2nd x16 slot is almost always wired up for x4, x2, or even x1 in some instances. They're basically never wired up for full x16, and PCPP only filters by the slots physical dimensions, not it's capabilities. 

13 minutes ago, GP781 said:

Hey guys, is there a Micro-ATX motherboard with 1 x16 slot, 1 x8, and 1 x4 or am I being crazy?
Thanks in advance and have a great day!

According to pcpartpicker there are 1350 micro ATX motherboards with your required specs in mind. If your willing to share your budget, what cpu platform your on or looking for, what GPU your are going to be using or planning on (to decide on the right PCIe lane) and what aesthetic you are looking for. I'm sure me and the rest of the forum can help you find what you need. 

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15 minutes ago, GP781 said:

is there a Micro-ATX motherboard with 1 x16 slot, 1 x8, and 1 x4 or am I being crazy?

If you go back far enough, sure. For anything on current platforms, no. 

 

The issue isn't the motherboards, it's that the CPUs don't have enough PCIe lanes. AM5, for instance, has 24 PCIe lanes available to the user, 4 of which are dedicated to an M.2 slot, which leaves just 4 lanes remaining. You can work around that somewhat by using PCIe switches to split the bandwidth between the primary x16 slot and a secondary x16 slot, running them both at x8, but doing so is quite expensive, and since mATX is the redheaded stepchild of the motherboard form factors primarily reserved for motherboards where that extra inch of PCB is too expensive, no one bothers to put them on there. The other ways of doing it are to run it through the chipset, but the chipset only really supports 4x wide devices at a time (the chipset runs off 4x PCIe, so giving it any more equivalent bandwidth has no functional purpose), or run it through a PLX chip with the same cost downsides. 

 

The reason I say if you go back far enough is because X99 and X299 had much more PCIe lanes on the CPU, so the handful of motherboards that were made for those platforms had much more lanes available on them. 

 

 

What are you even doing that requires this bandwidth? As with most things expansion cards nowadays, you can probably find a motherboard with that funtionality built in and not need to get it on an extension card. 

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2 minutes ago, Trembletop said:

According to pcpartpicker there are 1350 micro ATX motherboards with your required specs in mind. If your willing to share your budget, what cpu platform your on or looking for, what GPU your are going to be using or planning on (to decide on the right PCIe lane) and what aesthetic you are looking for. I'm sure me and the rest of the forum can help you find what you need. 

Oh ok yeah sorry for not giving enough info lol. I picked up 3 pairs of AMD Ryzen 5 1600's (am4) and AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100's for free from a guy because he was just gonna throw them out, said they're in great condition, so I want to build a proxmox cluster out of them, and I'd prefer if it was under 70, also fine with buying things used.

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5 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

If you go back far enough, sure. For anything on current platforms, no. 

 

The issue isn't the motherboards, it's that the CPUs don't have enough PCIe lanes. AM5, for instance, has 24 PCIe lanes available to the user, 4 of which are dedicated to an M.2 slot, which leaves just 4 lanes remaining. You can work around that somewhat by using PCIe switches to split the bandwidth between the primary x16 slot and a secondary x16 slot, running them both at x8, but doing so is quite expensive, and since mATX is the redheaded stepchild of the motherboard form factors primarily reserved for motherboards where that extra inch of PCB is too expensive, no one bothers to put them on there. The other ways of doing it are to run it through the chipset, but the chipset only really supports 4x wide devices at a time (the chipset runs off 4x PCIe, so giving it any more equivalent bandwidth has no functional purpose), or run it through a PLX chip with the same cost downsides. 

 

 

What are you even doing that requires this bandwidth? As with most things expansion cards nowadays, you can probably find a motherboard with that funtionality built in and not need to get it on an extension card. 

A GPU (one that would be perfectly happy on an x8 slot if it had an open end), a 10 gig NIC, and a RAID card, but the raid isn't a must so if there's like 6 SATA ports on the board itself that would work too, in which case I'd only need 1 x16 and 1 x8 or 2 x8's with 1 open ended if that's even a thing you can get.

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18 minutes ago, GP781 said:

A GPU (one that would be perfectly happy on an x8 slot if it had an open end), a 10 gig NIC, and a RAID card, but the raid isn't a must so if there's like 6 SATA ports on the board itself that would work too, in which case I'd only need 1 x16 and 1 x8 or 2 x8's with 1 open ended if that's even a thing you can get.

Getting one that's x8/x8 is just not feasible if you want to get a platform released within the last few years. The thing is though, you don't need x8 and x4 for those cards. You can get 10 gig NICs that work at PCIe x4 just fine, and you can get HBAs that work just fine that only need PCIe x1 if the board doesn't have 6 SATA ports. 

 

A board like the B650M Mortar has an x16, an x4, and 6 SATA ports, so while you would have to get a new NIC (I'm assuming you're reusing an old one), it's still likely your best option. 

 

EDIT: didn't see the fact you just aquired a bunch of motherboards, so that recommendation doesn't work. There are much more boards with 6 SATA ports on AM4 though, so this does raise the amount of options you have. Something like a PRO B650M-VC would work just fine, though if you're going to look at used boards you pretty much just have to see what's available to you. 

 

8 minutes ago, GP781 said:

On pcpartpicker and looks like 2 x16 slots is the most common thing

That 2nd x16 slot is almost always wired up for x4, x2, or even x1 in some instances. They're basically never wired up for full x16, and PCPP only filters by the slots physical dimensions, not it's capabilities. 

Edited by RONOTHAN##
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18 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The thing is though, you don't need x8 and x4 for those cards. You can get 10 gig NICs that work at PCIe x4 just fine, and you can get HBAs that work just fine that only need PCIe x1 if the board doesn't have 6 SATA ports.

Ok, gigabits and gigabytes have always messed with me lol. So I should only need 2 x4 and 1 x16, if I do get a raid card, right?

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1 minute ago, GP781 said:

Ok, gigabits and gigabytes have always messed with me lol. So I should only need 2 x4 and 1 x16, if I do get a raid card, right?

It'll depend on the RAID card, you can find a fair number that work just fine with less bandwidth than x4. Otherwise yes, that's what you actually need, you just need to be careful when picking your NIC to get one that only needs x4 (a lot of the cheap retired enterprise ones do need x8, so you might to spend a bit extra to get a newer one that will work)

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58 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It'll depend on the RAID card, you can find a fair number that work just fine with less bandwidth than x4. Otherwise yes, that's what you actually need, you just need to be careful when picking your NIC to get one that only needs x4 (a lot of the cheap retired enterprise ones do need x8, so you might to spend a bit extra to get a newer one that will work)

Awesome, thank you so much for your help + time!

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