Help Finding a Montherboard with Birfurcation (4x4x4x4)

[alekslyse]

I am having a really hard time finding a mainboard for my new server. I will run multiple M2 and U2 drives, so its needed 4x4x4x4 support. To keep the costs down I was initially thinking to reuse an «old» computer that has the ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO (WI-FI) , Version Rev 1.xx mainboard and a Intel Core i9-9900K Prosessor (Socket-LGA1151, 8-Core, 16-Thread, 3.60/5.0GHz, Coffee Lake Refresh) and it feels a bit waste of throwing it away, but again it doesnt support.

The requirement say this: «To ensure compatibility with MB699VP-B V3, please make sure that your add-on card or motherboard’s BIOS/UEFI supports PCIe Bifurcation when using a PCIe 16x or 8x slot. Additionally, set up the PCIe splitter in the BIOS/UEFI with the configuration of x4, x4, x4, x4 for a PCIe 16x slot or x4, x4 for a PCIe 8x slot.»

Can anyone please help me finding a motherboard, that preferally can support the CPU, so I just have to replace the motherboard. If that is not possible, please suggest a motherboard that can support this. As I will be running PLEX AMD is not really the best thing, but if AMD gives more bang for the bucks I can happily run Plex on its own mini pc that I have.

So to sum up.

1. Help me find a mainboard that support Bifurcation (4x4x4x4) for socket LGA1151 with 9th gen I9
or
2. Help me find any mainboard that support Bifurcation (4x4x4x4)
or
3. Give me an AMD alternative that supports Bifurcation (4x4x4x4)
or
4. Any other options, like extension cards that can emulate (4x4x4x4) on a x16 slot

 

[Ericloewe]

Can anyone please help me finding a motherboard, that preferally can support the CPU

Impossible, the CPU does not support it. You can either replace the CPU as well or get a card that uses a switch chip instead of a passive adapter or redriver or retimer.

2. Help me find any mainboard that support Bifurcation (4x4x4x4)

Any Xeon E5 board, though firmware support for configuring this in the setup menu is hit and miss. I manually hacked the config on my ASRock X99 WS because it doesn't expose this option, even though it exists in the firmware. Dell Gen 13 systems provide a nice configuration option in the setup menu, as do others (with recent firmware, few Xeon E5 boards did at launch).
Same story for Xeon Scalable.

4. Any other options, like extension cards that can emulate (4x4x4x4) on a x16 slot

Get a card with a PCIe switch.

 

[NickF]

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801702762036.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.14677a243FJrUn&algo_pvid=b3a6838a-f2b0-47b0-9b81-297a98d41f20&algo_exp_id=b3a6838a-f2b0-47b0-9b81-297a98d41f20-0&pdp_npi=3%40dis%21USD%21180.00%21180.0%21%21%21180.00%21%21%40211bc2a016892952581403461d0760%2112000018022357666%21sea%21US%213552043914&curPageLogUid=AnXginc5YEpC

 

[Ericloewe]

Geez, OP wanted help buying stuff, not help getting scammed on AliExpress. There's plenty to choose from without stepping in that cesspool, e.g. the Supermicro AOC-SLG3-4X4P (edit: external ports only) AOC-SLG3-8E2P: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-8E2P.php

It's not even that much more expensive, once you factor in shipping. Plus, this one does 8x4 on the downstream side. Others exist, google is your friend, check your favorite electronics suppliers, etc. and feel free to run specific models by us for review.

 

[NickF]

Bought many cards from them

TrueNAS Scale NVME Performance Scaling

Over the past year or so I have been obsessively exploring various aspects of ZFS performance, from large SATA arrays with multiple HBA cards, to testing NVME performance. In my previous testing I was leveraging castoff enterprise servers that were Westmere, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge based...

www.truenas.com

Have had nothing but a good experience. Obviously you can take that with a grain of salt if you want, but lets also not outright dismiss it.

I am using 4 of those cards in production right now as we speak, so I am not asking anyone to do anything I wouldn't do

 

[NickF]

Geez, OP wanted help buying stuff, not help getting scammed on AliExpress. There's plenty to choose from without stepping in that cesspool, e.g. the Supermicro AOC-SLG3-4X4P (edit: external ports only) AOC-SLG3-8E2P: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-8E2P.php

It's not even that much more expensive, once you factor in shipping. Plus, this one does 8x4 on the downstream side. Others exist, google is your friend, check your favorite electronics suppliers, etc. and feel free to run specific models by us for review.

Aoc-Slg3-8e2p for sale | eBay

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Sure, $400 then you need OCuLink breakout cables for U.2 and some sort of caddie if M.2, so all in over $500 on a good day.

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It's kinda hard to argue with the pricing from LinkReal. The AliExpress cards are (most likely) using Broadcom chips, in particular to the one I linked:

https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12351854

 

[Ericloewe]

Supermicro distributors were charging in the low-300s when I checked. It's not the sort of thing that's readily available used yet, so eBay is not my first choice of marketplace.