[Twitter] EVGA x99 Motherboard Glimpse

[TheProfosist]

It wouldn't affect something as simple as supplying DC power, but it certainly can affect signalling for data/communication. This the exact reason why a serial interface can be so much faster than a parallel interface even at a severe disadvantage in the number of channels, in theory parallel can be faster but in the physical world the slight differences in trace lengths and wire lengths put practical limits on how high the frequencies can be on parallel interfaces, because it messes up synchronization.

Whether or not that actually matters for this specific scenario, maybe, but I'm inclined to think not since so many boards have implemented it and seem to be working just fine. Even if it did cause synchronization problems, it's a simple matter to run the traces from the bottom pins around the PCB a bit to make them the same length as the top pins. The mismatched wire lengths is a poor excuse for not doing right-angle connectors.

Yep but that's all I've got until someone close to MB development goes into it farther at some point.

[petar_b]

Why would u need a plx chip with 40 lanes of pci-e? Also plx for storage is a no no.

 

I kind of disagree with questions why would someone need PLX PEX on 40 lane configuration. It's simple; imagine:

- 2 graphic cards take each 16 lanes

- SAS controllers usually take 8 lanes

you quickly end up consuming 40 lanes - and this won't work, because LAN chips, ASMedia (e.g. Asus X99 uses it) for extra SATA or eSATA ports, audio chip take a PCIE lane, etc, etc - so finally your for example SAS controller simply wouldn't get 8 lanes but 4. That's basically it, so PEX is very welcome on my next X99 board and will wait for one..

 

On the other note, to support the case - I never used south-bridge SATA ports, each time I connected many SSD drives to them transfer speed would drastically fall. The more drives I add the transfer gets worse. Contrary to that, adding SATA drives on SAS controllers is totally different thing - they run fast as hell on SAS controller (IBM or Adaptec). Even if there is 8 SSD drives, SAS handles them perfectly. Now you see how adding cheap SAS controller saves the day, and then PEX makes it possible.

 

Real life example about this - Long time ago, it was ASRock who used PEX chip on their Extreme9 to power up additional features of their motherboard such as audio, two LAN chips, 3 additional Marvell chips (extra 6 SATA ports, one eSATA port), Texas Instruments chip for extra 4 USB3.0, and so on... Thanks to PEX ASRock was able to leave 40 lanes to be used by the enthusiastic users. Users have had all 40 lanes at their disposal (while some of multiplexing didn't affect overall performance seriously), and were able to add Physics accelerator, SAS controller, Satellite communication, car tracking cards, whatever (yes some people use other cards except graphics or storage).

 

One way out without PEX chip is that 8x PCIe slot version 3.0 is fast so that we don't need 16x PCIE 2.0 (version 3.0 is nearly twice faster than version 2.0). Until now it sounds like good workaround - but 4K displays are on the way, more powerful graphic cards are needed, so maybe 8x PCIe 3.0 slot might not be enough. yet to be seen.

[TheProfosist]

2 gpu's take up x8 not x16. Also please doesn't give more more bandwidth, just basically tricks the cards thinking that have all the bandwidth they need. Much of what your talking about won't all be in the same system and if it is dual cpu would probably be very applicable.

[patrickjp93]

ASUS!

Where are your boards?

 

Also, why no M.2 or SATA Express?

Asus has M.2 on its x99, but given there are no SATA-E drives even out, and given it takes up so much real estate, don't count on getting one. It's a pointless standard. I wish SATAIO would just up and die already. Their royalties are ridiculous high.

[Sonefiler]

Is it possible that this could be a next-gen AMD motherboard?

[The_Strict_Nein]

Is it possible that this could be a next-gen AMD motherboard?

 

No, because it has been released

[W1tness]

Maybe an X99 LE? X99 sli? something. Or was this just the mock up for the original X99 FTW and Classified?