Looking for a MOBO that has at least 4pcie 3.0 slots that works

[Toodeep]

Hey All,

Im working on my second hack build, and Im searching for a mother board that has at least 4 Pcie 3.0 slots. I've done some searching thru the forums and new egg then cross checking mother board from new egg with the forums to see how compatible they are. What i've come to the conclusion is that there really isn't a easily compatible mother board thats supports ivy bridge i7 3770K.


Am I wrong in my conclusion ??

Should I just settle for the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5 TH and get a thunderbolt expansion chassis from sonnet. ??


Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[skaker]

What do you need 4x pcie 3.0 slots for? Is it a bandwidth issue? The only cards I'm aware of that require pcie 3.0 are fibre/infiniband adapters. Even the fastest Pcie ssds aren't close to saturating a pcie 2.0 x8 link.

That being said, the only way to get 4 pcie 3.0 slots at the moment (on any platform) is with z77+plex 8747 chip (such as Gigabyte g1.sniper 3, or Asrock z77 extreme 9).

If you only need 4 slots with 'good' bandwidth, you have more options.

 

[Toodeep]

I do on set transcodes for red footage. I just need 2 x16 lanes x8 lame and a x4 lane. The 16 for graphics cards. The 8 for red rocket and 4 for USB 3.0 card that I use. I do hope to get a fibre card eventually

 

[Toodeep]

Granted the red rocket card doesn't have to be in all the time. Only on certain jobs. That's why I was thinking the thunderbolt chassis may be a good option.

 

[DBP]

It's not so much the number of slots as much as the number of available lanes. Read through the posts in the first page or two of this sub-forum: a few people have been thrashing this out for their builds, with Red Rockets, BlackMagic capture cards, one or two GPUs, enough SATA ports, etc. It's really only GPUs that will use v3 at the moment: most other devices are only v2. I suspect you'll find the Red Rocket is only v2, giving you a bit more flexibility in placement.

Some people end up going for X79 (Socket 2011) systems because they have many more lanes available within the motherboard, but many people realise that their GPUs can cope with PCIe v3 x8 and do find Z77 motherboards to suit. Thunderbolt takes another x4 lanes of v2 PCIe out of the system, and various on-board devices also chew up v2 lanes. Some motherboards get more slots by switching PCIe traffic (causing multiple slots to share bandwidth).
Gigabyte at least has block diagrams in their motherboard manuals to show you which lanes are available where. ASUS leave you guessing how it all interacts.

 

[Einsteiniac]

Yeah the only boards I know with that many lanes would be a socket 2011 board. Again though if you are willing to compromise on the cards it can certainly be done as you have mentioned.

 

[Solidww]

Hey All,

Im working on my second hack build, and Im searching for a mother board that has at least 4 Pcie 3.0 slots. I've done some searching thru the forums and new egg then cross checking mother board from new egg with the forums to see how compatible they are. What i've come to the conclusion is that there really isn't a easily compatible mother board thats supports ivy bridge i7 3770K.


Am I wrong in my conclusion ??

Should I just settle for the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5 TH and get a thunderbolt expansion chassis from sonnet. ??


Thanks in advance for any input.

I know your pain. I am looking at the same thing for our company. We aren't working with RED footage as often as you probably are but the availability of PCIe lanes are useful to have.
Just an FYI, PCIe 3.0 X8 equals PCIe 2.0 X16. So, depending on how your spreading the lanes out would be important to look at.

Here is a Board that has 4 PCIe X8 lanes. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131822
I don't know if it will serve the purpose you need though.
Lastly, instead of using a i7-3770K buy a Ivy Bridge Xeon and enjoy an additional 4 PCIe lanes for a total of 20. Very useful for someone like yourself.

Anyway, good luck on your build and happy editing or ingesting.

 

[skaker]

As I said below, the most bandwidth available in a uniprocessor system at the moment are the z77 boards with the plex chip. These can run 4 X Pcie 3.0 x8. That's double (potential) the bandwidth of the best x79 set up, but is largely academic as even infiniband can run single channel over pcie 2.0 x8.

EDIT: And the plex 8747 chip is a different beast from the nf200 chip used in the past. There is almost no overhead, so you are essentially getting 4 x pcie 3.0 x8 (or other combos...)

 

[Toodeep]

Thanks a lot guys. I'm currently on set now and
Posting from my iPhone. But I'll look into all those tonight.

 

[DBP]

Granted the red rocket card doesn't have to be in all the time. Only on certain jobs. That's why I was thinking the thunderbolt chassis may be a good option.

Thunderbolt can carry four PCIe lanes. So if you're willing to do that you're obviously open to the option of putting it in a x4 slot on the motherboard...