Searching for 3 PCIe x16 and 1 PCIe X4 motherboard

[GiuseppeChillemi]

Hi,
I am searching for a motherboard with 3PCIe x16 and 1 X4.
I would like to use it as ESXi Whitebox.
Remote management like ILO, lights out is a necessity.
Onboard controller is not important as I will use an IBM1015.
One or 2 Additional legacy PCI would be welcome.

 

[jgreco]

This has nothing to do with FreeNAS. Moving to offtopic.

 

[Ericloewe]

52 lanes of PCI-e? That's going to cost you. Especially if you want to tack on PCI.

You might find something with PLX PCI-e switches or just slots that aren't wired up for their full width, but if you really need that much PCI-e conectivity, you basically need a dual Xeon board.

Expect to need a clumsy solution to handle the PCI cards (PLX PCI-e to PCI bridge plus risers).

 

[jgreco]

52 lanes of PCI-e? That's going to cost you. Especially if you want to tack on PCI.

You might find something with PLX PCI-e switches or just slots that aren't wired up for their full width, but if you really need that much PCI-e conectivity, you basically need a dual Xeon board.

Expect to need a clumsy solution to handle the PCI cards (PLC PCI-e to PCI bridge plus risers).

You're just not going to find the PCI, that crap went out of style 5 years ago (X9DB..?) though the 3x PCIe x16 is doable on the E5-26xx or better. Should be able to get something like an X9DAE with 2 x E5-2670's for about $500. You're not likely to find a 3x PCIe x16 board that ALSO has IPMI/BMC ("iLO" is an HP trademark) because the very idea of the x16 is for GPU's, which is at odds with the function of IPMI.

 

[GiuseppeChillemi]

This has nothing to do with FreeNAS. Moving to offtopic.

I apologize, I forgot to mentiont the goal of the project:

I wish to use freenas on ESXi, and:
Give to it my IBM m1015 controller and HP SAS expander
Use it on a Xcase 24 bays.
Use the PCI slot for a TV tuner and the PCIe slots to 3 Windows VM using the FreeNAS VM as storage
Use Freenas and Plex for DLNA and media streaming
Use Calibre as Book content server on FreeNAS

Regards,
Giuseppe Chillemi

(Having clarified I am on topic, could you please change the status of the message ?)

 

[GiuseppeChillemi]

You're just not going to find the PCI, that crap went out of style 5 years ago (X9DB..?) though the 3x PCIe x16 is doable on the E5-26xx or better. Should be able to get something like an X9DAE with 2 x E5-2670's for about $500. You're not likely to find a 3x PCIe x16 board that ALSO has IPMI/BMC ("iLO" is an HP trademark) because the very idea of the x16 is for GPU's, which is at odds with the function of IPMI.

Hi,
I wish to add 2 GPU to the NAS and glue everything with ESXi. The GPUs will be transfered to 2 VMs and used to play remotely without local output.
Also the PCI Slot will be used to add a TVTUNER.

 

[jgreco]

I apologize, I forgot to mentiont the goal of the project:

I wish to use freenas on ESXi, and:
Give to it my IBM m1015 controller and HP SAS expander
Use it on a Xcase 24 bays.
Use the PCI slot for a TV tuner and the PCIe slots to 3 Windows VM using the FreeNAS VM as storage
Use Freenas and Plex for DLNA and media streaming
Use Calibre as Book content server on FreeNAS

Regards,
Giuseppe Chillemi

(Having clarified I am on topic, could you please change the status of the message ?)

No, still not on-topic (bear in mind I moved it understanding what your goal was). You're looking to build an ESXi system. That you plan to run a VM with FreeNAS inside it doesn't really make it "on topic".

It's not that we mind having interesting hardware conversations. Obviously @Ericloewe and I both do.

Hi,
I wish to add 2 GPU to the NAS and glue everything with ESXi. The GPUs will be transfered to 2 VMs and used to play remotely without local output.
Also the PCI Slot will be used to add a TVTUNER.

Bearing in mind that you'll wind up with a non-server-class system (no ECC, etc) the most reasonable option *might* be to go with something like the ASUS Z170-A. You don't get the IPMI or the PCIe x4 you wanted, but if you only need the two GPU's then you populate the M1015 into an x16. Note that the PCIe slots will all be running with reduced lanes.

If you really need that additional PCIe slot then you may be needing to move on up, maybe something like the ASUS P9D WS, which has the particular benefit of supporting ECC and dual Intel ethernets, which puts it closer to appropriate hardware. Of course since it's 1151 based, the shortage of PCIe lanes is still an issue and by the time the merry-go-round stops you're probably at nothing more than x8/x4/x4.

I'm not aware of anything that's a perfect match to your desires.

 

[Ericloewe]

Also the PCI Slot will be used to add a TVTUNER.

Realistically, you're much better off getting a PCI-e card for that. PCI has been essentially deprecated on modern platforms.

Most motherboards with PCI connectivity these days are meant to replace ancient hardware that still relies on PCI cards for stuff like industrial machines or lab equipment. They're definitely not oriented towards high-end computing.

 

[jgreco]

Realistically, you're much better off getting a PCI-e card for that. PCI has been essentially deprecated on modern platforms.

Most motherboards with PCI connectivity these days are meant to replace ancient hardware that still relies on PCI cards for stuff like industrial machines or lab equipment. They're definitely not oriented towards high-end computing.

Actually if you're going to go there, go all the way and do it right, and get a network based tuner like the SiliconDust HDHomeRun. At one point it made sense for a tuner to be on a PCI card. Now, let it live on the network and be managed by a VM...!

Which reminds me. I keep meaning to go set up something to act as a DVR one of these days. What's hot? I know SageTV is now back, is the gold standard still MythTV?

 

[Ericloewe]

I dunno, the DVR market is nonexistent here. It's not surprising, either, since until the digital switchover a few years back we only had four over the air channels (one of which is contractually forced to carry almost exclusively weird pseudo-intellectual cultural programing). Now we have a fifth, which is the parliament channel. And they're all SD. No joke.

In practice, everyone has cable. Without pressure from the telecomms authority to open the receiver market, everyone is mostly stuck with proprietary locked-down STBs. More recently, some ISPs have improved their no-STB offerings (RF overlay on 1550nm over fiber), but consumer apathy still reigns supreme.

 

[jgreco]

I dunno, the DVR market is nonexistent here. It's not surprising, either, since until the digital switchover a few years back we only had four over the air channels (one of which is contractually forced to carry almost exclusively weird pseudo-intellectual cultural programing). Now we have a fifth, which is the parliament channel. And they're all SD. No joke.

In practice, everyone has cable. Without pressure from the telecomms authority to open the receiver market, everyone is mostly stuck with proprietary locked-down STBs. More recently, some ISPs have improved their no-STB offerings (RF overlay on 1550nm over fiber), but consumer apathy still reigns supreme.

We dropped satellite back in 2010(?) because the economics failed. I had signed us up with DirecTV in ~2000 at $30/month, which religiously went up by four(?) dollars every April 1st(?). So over ten years the cost more than doubled and the quality of the programming had fallen.

At that point, I applied some basic business math to the problem and noticed that we're watching about 24 different shows. If you're paying $80/month for cable or satellite, that's $960/year. Divided by 24 shows, that's $40/show. So if you can, on average, get a season of a show for $40 or less, that could be a win. Plus, you can stop buying new TV at any time and still retain all your existing shows, which is an absolutely awesome feature.

The math is overly simplistic because it doesn't factor in that some shows now split a season over two or more years, and it also doesn't factor in all the content that you might not already have in your library, which could run into the thousands of dollars to backfill in. Six years in, we're still throwing money at that issue now and then, but we get to do it on our terms. And you know what? I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Plus, it now drives everyone in the family batshit crazy to watch cable or commercial TV (for example at a hotel or at a friend's house) because we're used to ad-free, banner-free TV.

I enjoy explaining it to the weenies at the DirecTV signup booths I occasionally see at the local home improvement store:

"Can I ask you a question? Who do you currently have for cable TV?"

"We don't. We provide our own. Years ago we had DirecTV, but the prices went up every year, and the quality of the programming was headed downhill, ...."

You can imagine me doing that in a booming voice...